CHAPTER X.
OLD MAIDS.
Time wore on, and spring matured. The surface of England began to lookpleasant: her fields grew green, her hills fresh, her gardens blooming;but at heart she was no better. Still her poor were wretched, stilltheir employers were harassed. Commerce, in some of its branches, seemedthreatened with paralysis, for the war continued; England's blood wasshed and her wealth lavished--all, it seemed, to attain most inadequateends. Some tidings there were indeed occasionally of successes in thePeninsula, but these came in slowly; long intervals occurred between, inwhich no note was heard but the insolent self-felicitations of Bonaparteon his continued triumphs. Those who suffered from the results of thewar felt this tedious, and, as they thought, hopeless struggle againstwhat their fears or their interests taught them to regard as aninvincible power, most insufferable. They demanded peace on any terms.Men like Yorke and Moore--and there were thousands whom the war placedwhere it placed them, shuddering on the verge of bankruptcy--insisted onpeace with the energy of desperation.
They held meetings, they made speeches, they got up petitions to extortthis boon; on what terms it was made they cared not.
All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish; and taken in bodies,they are intensely so. The British merchant is no exception to thisrule: the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classescertainly think too exclusively of making money; they are too obliviousof every national consideration but that of extending England's--thatis, their own--commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride inhonour, is too dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone wouldtoo often make ignominious submission--not at all from the motivesChrist teaches, but rather from those Mammon instils. During the latewar, the tradesmen of England would have endured buffets from theFrench on the right cheek and on the left; their cloak they would havegiven to Napoleon, and then have politely offered him their coat also,nor would they have withheld their waistcoat if urged; they would haveprayed permission only to retain their one other garment, for the sakeof the purse in its pocket. Not one spark of spirit, not one symptom ofresistance, would they have shown till the hand of the Corsican bandithad grasped that beloved purse; _then_, perhaps, transfigured at onceinto British bulldogs, they would have sprung at the robber's throat,and there they would have fastened, and there hung, inveterate,insatiable, till the treasure had been restored. Tradesmen, when theyspeak against war, always profess to hate it because it is a bloody andbarbarous proceeding. You would think, to hear them talk, that they arepeculiarly civilized--especially gentle and kindly of disposition totheir fellow-men. This is not the case. Many of them are extremelynarrow and cold-hearted; have no good feeling for any class but theirown; are distant, even hostile, to all others; call them useless; seemto question their right to exist; seem to grudge them the very air theybreathe, and to think the circumstance of their eating, drinking, andliving in decent houses quite unjustifiable. They do not know whatothers do in the way of helping, pleasing, or teaching their race; theywill not trouble themselves to inquire. Whoever is not in trade isaccused of eating the bread of idleness, of passing a useless existence.Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shop-keepers!
We have already said that Moore was no self-sacrificing patriot, and wehave also explained what circumstances rendered him specially prone toconfine his attention and efforts to the furtherance of his individualinterest; accordingly, when he felt himself urged a second time to thebrink of ruin, none struggled harder than he against the influenceswhich would have thrust him over. What he _could_ do towards stirringagitation in the north against the war he did, and he instigated otherswhose money and connections gave them more power than he possessed.Sometimes, by flashes, he felt there was little reason in the demandshis party made on Government. When he heard of all Europe threatened byBonaparte, and of all Europe arming to resist him; when he saw Russiamenaced, and beheld Russia rising, incensed and stern, to defend herfrozen soil, her wild provinces of serfs, her dark native despotism,from the tread, the yoke, the tyranny of a foreign victor--he knew thatEngland, a free realm, could not _then_ depute her sons to makeconcessions and propose terms to the unjust, grasping French leader.When news came from time to time of the movements of that MAN thenrepresenting England in the Peninsula, of his advance from success tosuccess--that advance so deliberate but so unswerving, so circumspectbut so certain, so "unhasting" but so "unresting;" when he read LordWellington's own dispatches in the columns of the newspapers, documentswritten by modesty to the dictation of truth--Moore confessed at heartthat a power was with the troops of Britain, of that vigilant, enduring,genuine, unostentatious sort, which must win victory to the side it led,in the end. In the end! But that end, he thought, was yet far off; andmeantime he, Moore, as an individual, would be crushed, his hopes groundto dust. It was himself he had to care for, his hopes he had to pursue;and he would fulfil his destiny.
He fulfilled it so vigorously that ere long he came to a decisiverupture with his old Tory friend the rector. They quarrelled at a publicmeeting, and afterwards exchanged some pungent letters in thenewspapers. Mr. Helstone denounced Moore as a Jacobin, ceased to seehim, would not even speak to him when they met. He intimated also to hisniece, very distinctly, that her communications with Hollow's Cottagemust for the present cease; she must give up taking French lessons. Thelanguage, he observed, was a bad and frivolous one at the best, and mostof the works it boasted were bad and frivolous, highly injurious intheir tendency to weak female minds. He wondered (he remarkedparenthetically) what noodle first made it the fashion to teach womenFrench. Nothing was more improper for them. It was like feeding arickety child on chalk and water gruel. Caroline must give it up, andgive up her cousins too. They were dangerous people.
Mr. Helstone quite expected opposition to this order; he expected tears.Seldom did he trouble himself about Caroline's movements, but a vagueidea possessed him that she was fond of going to Hollow's Cottage; alsohe suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at therectory. The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in ofan evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the earsof an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet theaccommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, andbanging away at a tool shed door in the garden while enough of daylightremained to show that conspicuous mark, keeping the passage andsitting-room doors meantime uncomfortably open for the convenience ofrunning in and out to announce his failures and successes with noisy_brusquerie_--he had observed that under such entertaining circumstancesCaroline had a trick of disappearing, tripping noiselessly upstairs, andremaining invisible till called down to supper. On the other hand, whenRobert Moore was the guest, though he elicited no vivacities from thecat, did nothing to it, indeed, beyond occasionally coaxing it from thestool to his knee, and there letting it purr, climb to his shoulder, andrub its head against his cheek; though there was no ear-splittingcracking off of firearms, no diffusion of sulphurous gunpowder perfume,no noise, no boasting during his stay--that still Caroline sat in theroom, and seemed to find wondrous content in the stitching of Jew-basketpin-cushions and the knitting of missionary-basket socks.
She was very quiet, and Robert paid her little attention, scarcely everaddressing his discourse to her; but Mr. Helstone, not being one ofthose elderly gentlemen who are easily blinded--on the contrary, findinghimself on all occasions extremely wide-awake--had watched them whenthey bade each other good-night. He had just seen their eyes meetonce--only once. Some natures would have taken pleasure in the glancethen surprised, because there was no harm and some delight in it. It wasby no means a glance of mutual intelligence, for mutual love secretsexisted not between them. There was nothing then of craft andconcealment to offend: only Mr. Moore's eyes, looking into Caroline's,felt they were clear and gentle; and Caroline's eyes, encountering Mr.Moore's, confessed they were manly and searching. Each acknowledged thecharm in his or her own way. Moore smiled slightly, and Carolinec
oloured as slightly. Mr. Helstone could, on the spot, have rated themboth. They annoyed him. Why? Impossible to say. If you had asked himwhat Moore merited at that moment, he would have said a "horsewhip;" ifyou had inquired into Caroline's deserts, he would have adjudged her abox on the ear; if you had further demanded the reason of suchchastisements, he would have stormed against flirtation andlove-making, and vowed he would have no such folly going on under hisroof.
These private considerations, combined with political reasons, fixed hisresolution of separating the cousins. He announced his will to Carolineone evening as she was sitting at work near the drawing-room window. Herface was turned towards him, and the light fell full upon it. It hadstruck him a few minutes before that she was looking paler and quieterthan she used to look. It had not escaped him either that Robert Moore'sname had never, for some three weeks past, dropped from her lips; norduring the same space of time had that personage made his appearance atthe rectory. Some suspicion of clandestine meetings haunted his mind.Having but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them. Hethought they needed constant watching. It was in a tone drylysignificant he desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. Heexpected a start, a look of depreciation. The start he saw, but it was avery slight one; no look whatever was directed to him.
"Do you hear me?" he asked.
"Yes, uncle."
"Of course you mean to attend to what I say?"
"Yes, certainly."
"And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin Hortense--nointercourse whatever. I do not approve of the principles of the family.They are Jacobinical."
"Very well," said Caroline quietly. She acquiesced then. There was novexed flushing of the face, no gathering tears; the shadowythoughtfulness which had covered her features ere Mr. Helstone spokeremained undisturbed; she was obedient.
Yes, perfectly; because the mandate coincided with her own previousjudgment; because it was now become pain to her to go to Hollow'sCottage; nothing met her there but disappointment. Hope and love hadquitted that little tenement, for Robert seemed to have deserted itsprecincts. Whenever she asked after him--which she very seldom did,since the mere utterance of his name made her face grow hot--the answerwas, he was from home, or he was quite taken up with business. Hortensefeared he was killing himself by application. He scarcely ever took ameal in the house; he lived in the counting-house.
At church only Caroline had the chance of seeing him, and there sherarely looked at him. It was both too much pain and too much pleasureto look--it excited too much emotion; and that it was all wasted emotionshe had learned well to comprehend.
Once, on a dark, wet Sunday, when there were few people at church, andwhen especially certain ladies were absent, of whose observant facultiesand tomahawk tongues Caroline stood in awe, she had allowed her eye toseek Robert's pew, and to rest awhile on its occupant. He was therealone. Hortense had been kept at home by prudent considerations relativeto the rain and a new spring _chapeau_. During the sermon he sat withfolded arms and eyes cast down, looking very sad and abstracted. Whendepressed, the very hue of his face seemed more dusk than when hesmiled, and to-day cheek and forehead wore their most tintless and soberolive. By instinct Caroline knew, as she examined that cloudedcountenance, that his thoughts were running in no familiar or kindlychannel; that they were far away, not merely from her, but from allwhich she could comprehend, or in which she could sympathize. Nothingthat they had ever talked of together was now in his mind: he was wraptfrom her by interests and responsibilities in which it was deemed suchas she could have no part.
Caroline meditated in her own way on the subject; speculated on hisfeelings, on his life, on his fears, on his fate; mused over the mysteryof "business," tried to comprehend more about it than had ever been toldher--to understand its perplexities, liabilities, duties, exactions;endeavoured to realize the state of mind of a "man of business," toenter into it, feel what he would feel, aspire to what he would aspire.Her earnest wish was to see things as they were, and not to be romantic.By dint of effort she contrived to get a glimpse of the light of truthhere and there, and hoped that scant ray might suffice to guide her.
"Different, indeed," she concluded, "is Robert's mental condition tomine. I think only of him; he has no room, no leisure, to think of me.The feeling called love is and has been for two years the predominantemotion of my heart--always there, always awake, always astir. Quiteother feelings absorb his reflections and govern his faculties. He isrising now, going to leave the church, for service is over. Will he turnhis head towards this pew? No, not once. He has not one look for me.That is hard. A kind glance would have made me happy till to-morrow. Ihave not got it; he would not give it; he is gone. Strange that griefshould now almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failedto greet mine."
That Sunday evening, Mr. Malone coming, as usual, to pass it with hisrector, Caroline withdrew after tea to her chamber. Fanny, knowing herhabits, had lit her a cheerful little fire, as the weather was so gustyand chill. Closeted there, silent and solitary, what could she do butthink? She noiselessly paced to and fro the carpeted floor, her headdrooped, her hands folded. It was irksome to sit; the current ofreflection ran rapidly through her mind; to-night she was mutelyexcited.
Mute was the room, mute the house. The double door of the study muffledthe voices of the gentlemen. The servants were quiet in the kitchen,engaged with books their young mistress had lent them--books which shehad told them were "fit for Sunday reading." And she herself had anotherof the same sort open on the table, but she could not read it. Itstheology was incomprehensible to her, and her own mind was too busy,teeming, wandering, to listen to the language of another mind.
Then, too, her imagination was full of pictures--images of Moore, sceneswhere he and she had been together; winter fireside sketches; a glowinglandscape of a hot summer afternoon passed with him in the bosom ofNunnely Wood; divine vignettes of mild spring or mellow autumn moments,when she had sat at his side in Hollow's Copse, listening to the call ofthe May cuckoo, or sharing the September treasure of nuts and ripeblackberries--a wild dessert which it was her morning's pleasure tocollect in a little basket, and cover with green leaves and freshblossoms, and her afternoon's delight to administer to Moore, berry byberry, and nut by nut, like a bird feeding its fledgling.
Robert's features and form were with her; the sound of his voice wasquite distinct in her ear; his few caresses seemed renewed. But thesejoys, being hollow, were, ere long, crushed in. The pictures faded, thevoice failed, the visionary clasp melted chill from her hand, and wherethe warm seal of lips had made impress on her forehead, it felt now asif a sleety rain-drop had fallen. She returned from an enchanted regionto the real world: for Nunnely Wood in June she saw her narrow chamber;for the songs of birds in alleys she heard the rain on her casement; forthe sigh of the south wind came the sob of the mournful east; and forMoore's manly companionship she had the thin illusion of her own dimshadow on the wall. Turning from the pale phantom which reflectedherself in its outline, and her reverie in the drooped attitude of itsdim head and colourless tresses, she sat down--inaction would suit theframe of mind into which she was now declining--she said to herself, "Ihave to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have goodhealth; half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I tooccupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreadsbetween me and the grave?"
She reflected.
"I shall not be married, it appears," she continued. "I suppose, asRobert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, norlittle children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely onthe duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. Iconsidered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to theordinary destiny, and never troubled myself to seek any other; but now Iperceive plainly I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an oldmaid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else, some richlady. I shall never marry. What was I created for, I
wonder? Where is myplace in the world?"
She mused again.
"Ah! I see," she pursued presently; "that is the question which most oldmaids are puzzled to solve. Other people solve it for them by saying,'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help iswanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrinefor the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of humanbeings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up theirlives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise;they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Isthere not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in thatexistence which is given away to others, for want of something of yourown to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegationof self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weakconcession creates selfishness. The Romish religion especially teachesrenunciation of self, submission to others, and nowhere are found somany grasping tyrants as in the ranks of the Romish priesthood. Eachhuman being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to thehappiness and welfare of all if each knew his allotment, and held to itas tenaciously as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these thatsurge in my mind. Are they right thoughts? I am not certain.
"Well, life is short at the best. Seventy years, they say, pass like avapour, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feetterminates in one bourne--the grave, the little chink in the surface ofthis great globe, the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythedeposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls,decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round afew times more. So much for the body. The soul meantime wings its longflight upward, folds its wings on the brink of the sea of fire andglass, and gazing down through the burning clearness, finds theremirrored the vision of the Christian's triple Godhead--the sovereignFather, the mediating Son, the Creator Spirit. Such words, at least,have been chosen to express what is inexpressible, to describe whatbaffles description. The soul's real hereafter who shall guess?"
Her fire was decayed to its last cinder; Malone had departed; and nowthe study bell rang for prayers.
The next day Caroline had to spend altogether alone, her uncle beinggone to dine with his friend Dr. Boultby, vicar of Whinbury. The wholetime she was talking inwardly in the same strain--looking forwards,asking what she was to do with life. Fanny, as she passed in and out ofthe room occasionally, intent on housemaid errands, perceived that heryoung mistress sat very still. She was always in the same place, alwaysbent industriously over a piece of work. She did not lift her head tospeak to Fanny, as her custom was; and when the latter remarked that theday was fine, and she ought to take a walk, she only said, "It is cold."
"You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline," continued thegirl, approaching her little table.
"I am tired of it, Fanny."
"Then why do you go on with it? Put it down. Read, or do something toamuse you."
"It is solitary in this house, Fanny. Don't you think so?"
"I don't find it so, miss. Me and Eliza are company for one another; butyou are quite too still. You should visit more. Now, be persuaded: goupstairs and dress yourself smart, and go and take tea, in a friendlyway, with Miss Mann or Miss Ainley. I am certain either of those ladieswould be delighted to see you."
"But their houses are dismal: they are both old maids. I am certain oldmaids are a very unhappy race."
"Not they, miss. They can't be unhappy; they take such care ofthemselves. They are all selfish."
"Miss Ainley is not selfish, Fanny. She is always doing good. Howdevotedly kind she was to her step-mother as long as the old lady lived;and now when she is quite alone in the world, without brother or sister,or any one to care for her, how charitable she is to the poor, as far asher means permit! Still nobody thinks much of her, or has pleasure ingoing to see her; and how gentlemen always sneer at her!"
"They shouldn't, miss. I believe she is a good woman. But gentlementhink only of ladies' looks."
"I'll go and see her," exclaimed Caroline, starting up; "and if she asksme to stay to tea, I'll stay. How wrong it is to neglect people becausethey are not pretty, and young, and merry! And I will certainly call tosee Miss Mann too. She may not be amiable, but what has made herunamiable? What has life been to her?"
Fanny helped Miss Helstone to put away her work, and afterwards assistedher to dress.
"_You_'ll not be an old maid, Miss Caroline," she said, as she tied thesash of her brown silk frock, having previously smoothed her soft, full,and shining curls; "there are no signs of an old maid about you."
Caroline looked at the little mirror before her, and she thought therewere some signs. She could see that she was altered within the lastmonth; that the hues of her complexion were paler, her eyes changed--awan shade seemed to circle them; her countenance was dejected--she wasnot, in short, so pretty or so fresh as she used to be. She distantlyhinted this to Fanny, from whom she got no direct answer, only a remarkthat people did vary in their looks, but that at her age a littlefalling away signified nothing; she would soon come round again, and beplumper and rosier than ever. Having given this assurance, Fanny showedsingular zeal in wrapping her up in warm shawls and handkerchiefs, tillCaroline, nearly smothered with the weight, was fain to resist furtheradditions.
She paid her visits--first to Miss Mann, for this was the most difficultpoint. Miss Mann was certainly not quite a lovable person. Till now,Caroline had always unhesitatingly declared she disliked her, and morethan once she had joined her cousin Robert in laughing at some of herpeculiarities. Moore was not habitually given to sarcasm, especially onanything humbler or weaker than himself; but he had once or twicehappened to be in the room when Miss Mann had made a call on his sister,and after listening to her conversation and viewing her features for atime, he had gone out into the garden where his little cousin wastending some of his favourite flowers, and while standing near andwatching her he had amused himself with comparing fair youth, delicateand attractive, with shrivelled eld, livid and loveless, and injestingly repeating to a smiling girl the vinegar discourse of acankered old maid. Once on such an occasion Caroline had said to him,looking up from the luxuriant creeper she was binding to its frame, "Ah!Robert, you do not like old maids. I, too, should come under the lash ofyour sarcasm if I were an old maid."
"You an old maid!" he had replied. "A piquant notion suggested by lipsof that tint and form. I can fancy you, though, at forty, quietlydressed, pale and sunk, but still with that straight nose, whiteforehead, and those soft eyes. I suppose, too, you will keep your voice,which has another 'timbre' than that hard, deep organ of Miss Mann's.Courage, Cary! Even at fifty you will not be repulsive."
"Miss Mann did not make herself, or tune her voice, Robert."
"Nature made her in the mood in which she makes her briars and thorns;whereas for the creation of some women she reserves the May morninghours, when with light and dew she wooes the primrose from the turf andthe lily from the wood-moss."
* * * * *
Ushered into Miss Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her, as shealways found her, surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, andcomfort (after all, is it not a virtue in old maids that solitude rarelymakes them negligent or disorderly?)--no dust on her polished furniture,none on her carpet, fresh flowers in the vase on her table, a brightfire in the grate. She herself sat primly and somewhat grimly-tidy in acushioned rocking-chair, her hands busied with some knitting. This washer favourite work, as it required the least exertion. She scarcely roseas Caroline entered. To avoid excitement was one of Miss Mann's aims inlife. She had been composing herself ever since she came down in themorning, and had just attained a certain lethargic state of tranquillitywhen the visitor's knock at the door startled her, and undid her day'swork. She was scarcely pleased, therefore, to see Miss Helstone. Shereceived her with reserve, bade her be seated with austerity, and whenshe got her placed opposite, she
fixed her with her eye.
This was no ordinary doom--to be fixed with Miss Mann's eye. RobertMoore had undergone it once, and had never forgotten the circumstance.
He considered it quite equal to anything Medusa could do. He professedto doubt whether, since that infliction, his flesh had been quite whatit was before--whether there was not something stony in its texture. Thegaze had had such an effect on him as to drive him promptly from theapartment and house; it had even sent him straightway up to the rectory,where he had appeared in Caroline's presence with a very queer face, andamazed her by demanding a cousinly salute on the spot, to rectify adamage that had been done him.
Certainly Miss Mann had a formidable eye for one of the softer sex. Itwas prominent, and showed a great deal of the white, and looked assteadily, as unwinkingly, at you as if it were a steel ball soldered inher head; and when, while looking, she began to talk in an indescribablydry, monotonous tone--a tone without vibration or inflection--you feltas if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it wasall a figment of fancy, a matter of surface. Miss Mann's goblin grimnessscarcely went deeper than the angel sweetness of hundreds of beauties.She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performedduties in her day from whose severe anguish many a human Peri,gazelle-eyed, silken-tressed, and silver-tongued, would have shrunkappalled. She had passed alone through protracted scenes of suffering,exercised rigid self-denial, made large sacrifices of time, money,health for those who had repaid her only by ingratitude, and now hermain--almost her sole--fault was that she was censorious.
Censorious she certainly was. Caroline had not sat five minutes ere herhostess, still keeping her under the spell of that dread and Gorgongaze, began flaying alive certain of the families in the neighbourhood.She went to work at this business in a singularly cool, deliberatemanner, like some surgeon practising with his scalpel on a lifelesssubject. She made few distinctions; she allowed scarcely any one to begood; she dissected impartially almost all her acquaintance. If herauditress ventured now and then to put in a palliative word she set itaside with a certain disdain. Still, though thus pitiless in moralanatomy, she was no scandal-monger. She never disseminated reallymalignant or dangerous reports. It was not her heart so much as hertemper that was wrong.
Caroline made this discovery for the first time to-day, and movedthereby to regret divers unjust judgments she had more than once passedon the crabbed old maid, she began to talk to her softly, not insympathizing words, but with a sympathizing voice. The loneliness of hercondition struck her visitor in a new light, as did also the characterof her ugliness--a bloodless pallor of complexion, and deeply worn linesof feature. The girl pitied the solitary and afflicted woman; her lookstold what she felt. A sweet countenance is never so sweet as when themoved heart animates it with compassionate tenderness. Miss Mann, seeingsuch a countenance raised to her, was touched in her turn. Sheacknowledged her sense of the interest thus unexpectedly shown in her,who usually met with only coldness and ridicule, by replying to hercandidly. Communicative on her own affairs she usually was not, becauseno one cared to listen to her; but to-day she became so, and herconfidante shed tears as she heard her speak, for she told of cruel,slow-wasting, obstinate sufferings. Well might she be corpse-like; wellmight she look grim, and never smile; well might she wish to avoidexcitement, to gain and retain composure! Caroline, when she knew all,acknowledged that Miss Mann was rather to be admired for fortitude thanblamed for moroseness. Reader! when you behold an aspect for whoseconstant gloom and frown you cannot account, whose unvarying cloudexasperates you by its apparent causelessness, be sure that there is acanker somewhere, and a canker not the less deeply corroding becauseconcealed.
Miss Mann felt that she was understood partly, and wished to beunderstood further; for, however old, plain, humble, desolate, afflictedwe may be, so long as our hearts preserve the feeblest spark of life,they preserve also, shivering near that pale ember, a starved, ghostlylonging for appreciation and affection. To this extenuated spectre,perhaps, a crumb is not thrown once a year, but when ahungered andathirst to famine--when all humanity has forgotten the dying tenant of adecaying house--Divine mercy remembers the mourner, and a shower ofmanna falls for lips that earthly nutriment is to pass no more. Biblicalpromises, heard first in health, but then unheeded, come whispering tothe couch of sickness; it is felt that a pitying God watches what allmankind have forsaken. The tender compassion of Jesus is recalled andrelied on; the faded eye, gazing beyond time, sees a home, a friend, arefuge in eternity.
Miss Mann, drawn on by the still attention of her listener, proceeded toallude to circumstances in her past life. She spoke like one who tellsthe truth--simply, and with a certain reserve; she did not boast, nordid she exaggerate. Caroline found that the old maid had been a mostdevoted daughter and sister, an unwearied watcher by lingeringdeathbeds; that to prolonged and unrelaxing attendance on the sick themalady that now poisoned her own life owed its origin; that to onewretched relative she had been a support and succour in the depths ofself-earned degradation, and that it was still her hand which kept himfrom utter destitution. Miss Helstone stayed the whole evening, omittingto pay her other intended visit; and when she left Miss Mann it was withthe determination to try in future to excuse her faults; never again tomake light of her peculiarities or to laugh at her plainness; and, aboveall things, not to neglect her, but to come once a week, and to offerher, from one human heart at least, the homage of affection and respect.She felt she could now sincerely give her a small tribute of eachfeeling.
Caroline, on her return, told Fanny she was very glad she had gone out,as she felt much better for the visit. The next day she failed not toseek Miss Ainley. This lady was in narrower circumstances than MissMann, and her dwelling was more humble. It was, however, if possible,yet more exquisitely clean, though the decayed gentlewoman could notafford to keep a servant, but waited on herself, and had only theoccasional assistance of a little girl who lived in a cottage near.
Not only was Miss Ainley poorer, but she was even plainer than the otherold maid. In her first youth she must have been ugly; now, at the age offifty, she was _very_ ugly. At first sight, all but peculiarlywell-disciplined minds were apt to turn from her with annoyance, toconceive against her a prejudice, simply on the ground of herunattractive look. Then she was prim in dress and manner; she looked,spoke, and moved the complete old maid.
Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness--for it waskind; but Miss Helstone excused this. She knew something of thebenevolence of the heart which beat under that starched kerchief; allthe neighbourhood--at least all the female neighbourhood--knew somethingof it. No one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively young gentlemenand inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous.
Caroline was soon at home in that tiny parlour. A kind hand took fromher her shawl and bonnet, and installed her in the most comfortable seatnear the fire. The young and the antiquated woman were presently deep inkindly conversation, and soon Caroline became aware of the power a mostserene, unselfish, and benignant mind could exercise over those to whomit was developed. She talked never of herself, always of others. Theirfaults she passed over. Her theme was their wants, which she sought tosupply; their sufferings, which she longed to alleviate. She wasreligious, a professor of religion--what some would call "a saint;" andshe referred to religion often in sanctioned phrase--in phrase whichthose who possess a perception of the ridiculous, without owning thepower of exactly testing and truly judging character, would certainlyhave esteemed a proper subject for satire, a matter for mimicry andlaughter. They would have been hugely mistaken for their pains.Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whethertruth--be it religious or moral truth--speak eloquently and inwell-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence.Let those who cannot nicely, and with certainty, discern the differencebetween the tones of hypocrisy and those of sincerity, never presume tolaugh at all, lest they should have the miserable misfortune to laugh inthe wron
g place, and commit impiety when they think they are achievingwit.
Not from Miss Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, butshe knew much of them nevertheless. Her beneficence was the familiartopic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. Theold maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself toprivation that she might contribute her mite when needful. They were theworks of a Sister of Charity--far more difficult to perform than thoseof a Lady Bountiful. She would watch by any sick-bed; she seemed to fearno disease. She would nurse the poorest whom none else would nurse. Shewas serene, humble, kind, and equable through everything.
For this goodness she got but little reward in this life. Many of thepoor became so accustomed to her services that they hardly thanked herfor them. The rich heard them mentioned with wonder, but were silent,from a sense of shame at the difference between her sacrifices and theirown. Many ladies, however, respected her deeply. They could not help it.One gentleman--one only--gave her his friendship and perfect confidence.This was Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnely. He said, and said truly, thather life came nearer the life of Christ than that of any other humanbeing he had ever met with. You must not think, reader, that illsketching Miss Ainley's character I depict a figment of imagination. No.We seek the originals of such portraits in real life only.
Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. Shefound no high intellect to admire--the old maid was merely sensible--butshe discovered so much goodness, so much usefulness, so much mildness,patience, truth, that she bent her own mind before Miss Ainley's inreverence. What was her love of nature, what was her sense of beauty,what were her more varied and fervent emotions, what was her deeperpower of thought, what her wider capacity to comprehend, compared to thepractical excellence of this good woman? Momently, they seemed onlybeautiful forms of selfish delight; mentally, she trod them under foot.
It is true she still felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainleyhappy could not make her happy. Pure and active as it was, in her heartshe deemed it deeply dreary, because it was so loveless--to her ideas,so forlorn. Yet, doubtless, she reflected, it needed only habit to makeit practicable and agreeable to any one. It was despicable, she felt, topine sentimentally, to cherish secret griefs, vain memories, to beinert, to waste youth in aching languor, to grow old doing nothing.
"I will bestir myself," was her resolution, "and try to be wise if Icannot be good."
She proceeded to make inquiry of Miss Ainley if she could help her inanything. Miss Ainley, glad of an assistant, told her that she could,and indicated some poor families in Briarfield that it was desirable sheshould visit, giving her likewise, at her further request, some work todo for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilledin using the needle for themselves.
Caroline went home, laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swervefrom them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her variousstudies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley mightdirect her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not amoment was to be left for the indulgence of such fevered thoughts as hadpoisoned last Sunday evening.
To do her justice, she executed her plans conscientiously,perseveringly. It was very hard work at first--it was even hard work tothe end--but it helped her to stem and keep down anguish; it forced herto be employed; it forbade her to brood; and gleams of satisfactionchequered her gray life here and there when she found she had done good,imparted pleasure, or allayed suffering.
Yet I must speak truth. These efforts brought her neither health of bodynor continued peace of mind. With them all she wasted, grew more joylessand more wan; with them all her memory kept harping on the name ofRobert Moore; an elegy over the past still rung constantly in her ear; afunereal inward cry haunted and harassed her; the heaviness of a brokenspirit, and of pining and palsying faculties, settled slow on herbuoyant youth. Winter seemed conquering her spring; the mind's soil andits treasures were freezing gradually to barren stagnation.
Shirley Page 10
