WHEN I went to be governess at Mrs Durham’s I was quite young. I had been “out” before, but only as nursery governess. Mine was not a very regular or, perhaps, a very good kind of education. My mother had been a governess before me, and not one of very high pretensions, as governesses are nowadays. I don’t think she ever knew anything herself, except a little music and a little French, which she had forgotten before my time. How my father and she met, and, still more wonderful, how they took to each other, is a thing I never could make out. Perhaps I was most fond of her, but certainly I was most proud of him, and liked to copy his ways, and to believe what my mother often said—that I was a Martindale every inch of me. This, poor soul, she meant as a reproach, but to me it sounded like a compliment. I was very silly and rather cruel, as young people are so often. My father had a great deal of contempt for her, and not much affection; and though I had a great deal of affection, I borrowed unconsciously his contempt, and thought myself justified in treating her as he did. She was wordy and weak in argument, and never knew when to stop. But he—when he had stated what he intended to do—would never answer any of her objections, or indeed take any notice of them, but listened to her with a contemptuous silence. I took to doing the same; and though I know better now, and am sorry I ever could have been so foolish and so unkind, yet the habit remains with me—not to take the trouble to reply to foolish arguments, but to do what I think right without saying anything about it. This habit, I may as well confess, has got me into trouble more than once; but I do not say that I am prepared to give it up, though I know I have taken harm by it, and no good, so far as I am aware.

We were very poor, and I had been a nursery governess and a daily governess when I was little more than a child. When my poor mother died a little money came, and then I got a few lessons to improve me in one or two different accomplishments; and then I took Mrs Durham’s situation. My father was one of the wandering men who live a great deal abroad; and I had learned French and enough German to make a show, in the best way, by practice rather than by book. “French acquired abroad”—that was what was put for me in the advertisement, and this I think was my principal recommendation to Mrs Durham. Her eldest son was at home at the time—a young man just a little older than myself. She was a kind woman, and unsuspicious. She thought George only a boy, and perhaps about me she never thought at all—in connection with him, at least. I used to be encouraged at first to make him talk French, and great was the amusement in the school-room over his pronunciation and his mistakes. They were all very kind when I come to think of it. They were as fearless and trustful with me as if I had belonged to them. And then by degrees I found out that George had fallen in love with me. I think I may say quite certainly that I never was in love with him, but I was a little excited and pleased, as one always is, you know, when that happens for the first time. It is so odd—so pleasant to feel that you have that power. It seems so kind of the man—one thinks so when one is young—and it is amusing and flattering, and a thing which occupies your mind, and gives you something agreeable to think of. I do not say this is the right way of thinking on such a subject, but it is how a great many girls feel, and I was one of them. I had never thought seriously of it at all. It seemed so much more like fun than anything else; and then it is always pleasant to have people fond of you. I liked it; and I am afraid I never thought of what it might come to, and did not take up any lofty ground, but let him talk, and let him follow me about, and steal out after me, and waylay me in the passages. I did this without thinking, and more than half for the amusement of it. I liked him, and I liked the place he took up in my life, and the things he said, without really responding to his feelings at all.

When it was found out, and there was a disturbance in the house about it, I came to my senses all at once, with such a hot flush of pain and shame that I seem to feel it yet. They had been so kind to me, that I had never felt my dependence; but now, all in a moment I found it out. His mother was frightened to death lest he should marry me! She thought me quite beneath him; me—a Martindale all over—a gentleman’s daughter—much better than she was! This roused a perfect tempest in me. It was my pride that was outraged, not my feelings; but that pride was strong enough and warm enough to be called a passion. I did what I could to show his mother that nothing in the world could be more indifferent to me than he was, but she would not be convinced; and at last I determined to do what my father often had done when my mother was unreasonable—to withdraw out of the discussion at once and summarily, without leaving any opportunity for further talk. My father was living then. He was at Spa, which was not very difficult to reach. One evening, after Mrs Durham had been talking to me (George had been sent away, but I was not sent away because they were sorry for me), I stayed in the school-room till they were all at dinner, and then I carried all my things, which I had made up into bundles, down to the hall with my own hands, and got a cab and went off to the railway station. I bought a common box on my way, and packed them all into it. I tell you this to show how determined I was; not even one of the servants knew how I had gone, or anything about me. It was winter, and the Durhams dined at half-past six; so I had time enough to get off by the night train to Dover. I had not a very large wardrobe, you may suppose, but I left nothing behind me but some old things. I was not particular about crushing my dresses for that one night. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the dark sea and dark sky, and great, chill, invisible, open-air world that I seemed to stand alone in, as the steamboat went bounding over those black waves, or ploughing through them, to Ostend. There was a great deal of wind, but the sea had not had time to rise, and there was the exhilaration of a storm without its more disagreeable consequences. The vessel did not roll, but now and then gave a leap, spurning the Channel spray from her bows. Oh how I recollect every particular! You might think a lonely girl in such circumstances—flying from persecution, if you like to put it so—flying from love; with nothing but a very uncertain welcome to look to from a very unsatisfactory father, and no prospect but to face the world again and get her bread somehow—was as sad a figure as could be imagined. But I was not sad. I had a high spirit, and I loved adventure and change. I felt as if the steamboat was me, going bounding on, caring nothing for the sea or the darkness. The wind might catch at us, the water might dash across our sides, the sky might veil itself—who cared? We pushed on, defying them all. A poor governess as good as turned out of my situation because the son of the house had fallen in love with me—a penniless creature without a home, with not a soul to stand by me in all that dark world. And yet I don’t remember anything I ever enjoyed more, than that journey by night.

This will show you—and you may show it to Mary to convince her—how much I cared for George Durham. I suppose he was in love with me—at least what a young man not much over twenty considers love. That is six years ago; and probably he has always had a recollection, all this time, that he was in love with me, and thinks that he ought to have been faithful. I should not wonder if there was a kind of remorse in his mind to find that he had fallen in love with Mary, and cared for me no longer. It is a superstition with some people that, however foolish their first fancy was, they ought to hold by it; but I must say that I think it was very foolish, not to say cruel, of both of them, to make this breach on account of me.

I got another situation after that, and did well enough—as governesses do. I never complained, or thought I had any reason to complain. I taught all I knew—not very much, but enough for most people. As for education, as people talk nowadays—of awakening the minds, and training the dispositions, and re-creating the children, so to speak, intellectually and morally—I never thought of such a thing; and why should I? That is the work of a mother, appointed by God, or of some great person endowed with great genius or influence—not of a young woman between eighteen and five-and-twenty, indifferently trained herself, with quite enough to do to master her own difficulties and keep herself afloat. I was not so impertinent, so presumptuous, or so foolish as to have any such idea. I taught them as well as I could; I tried to make them as fond of books as I was myself—I tried to get them to talk like gentlewomen, and not to be mean or false. I was not their mother, or their priest, but only their teacher. I had no theory then; but after one is thirty, one begins to have theories; and I can see what I meant in my earlier time by the light of what I think now. However, this is not much to the purpose. I was a successful governess on the whole; I got on very well, and I had nothing to find fault with. It is not a very happy life—when you are young, and hear pleasant sounds below-stairs, and have to sit reading by yourself in the school-room; when there is music and dancing perhaps, and merry talk, and you are left alone in that bare place with maps on the walls, and one candle—a girl does not feel happy; though on the whole, perhaps, the school-room is better than to sit in a corner of the drawing-room and be taken no notice of—which is the other alternative. There are a great many difficulties in the position altogether, as I can see now that I am older. When the governess is made exactly like one of the family, the eldest son will go and fall in love with her and bring everybody into trouble. It is hard for the lady of the house as well. However, after George Durham, I was careful, and I never got into difficulty of that kind again. Four years after I left the Durhams I had a bad illness—rheumatic fever. My people were very kind to me, but I was too proud to be a burden on them; and as soon as I could be moved I left and went into lodgings, and was ill there till I had spent all my money; it was only then that I had recourse to the Spicers. Perhaps I ought to confess that, though Mr Spicer is my uncle, I was ashamed of him and disliked him. I have felt angry at my poor mother all my life for having such relations; but of course there they were, and had to be made the best of. My money lasted till I was almost well, but not well enough for another situation. My father had died in the meantime; and only then I sent to the Spicers, and asked if they would take me in for a time. I was a good needlewoman; I knew I could repay them well for keeping me. That is how I went to them. What followed no one could have foreseen. You know how it was.

I cannot talk about my husband—yet. How could I talk about that which was everything to me, which changed my life, which made me another creature? People may love you, and it makes but little difference to you. It is pleasant, no doubt; it softens your lot; it makes things bearable which would not be bearable. I had known that in my life. But to love—that is another thing. That is the true revelation—the lifting up of the veil. It is as different from simply being loved as night is from day. I suppose few women are, as I was, in circumstances to feel this sudden lighting up of existence all of a sudden. Most women have a great deal to love, and know that condition better than the other. They would not make so much fuss about being loved did they not already possess the other gift. But I had never really loved anybody, I suppose. Various people had loved me. I had liked it, and had done what I could to be kind and agreeable to them. Some (women) I had been very fond of. It seems to me now that the world must have been a most curious, cloudy sort of place in my early youth—a dim place, where nothing moved one very much; where daylight was quite sober and ordinary, and nothing out of oneself was exciting. When I saw Mr Peveril first I had no warning of what was coming. I did not feel even interested in him. He seemed too gentle, too soft for my liking. What attracted me was, I think, chiefly the fact that he was the only educated man I ever saw there—the only being, man or woman, who was not of, or like, the Spicers. This was my only feeling towards him for the first two or three times I saw him—but then——.

I am afraid I did not think very much about Mary when we were married. Of course I meant to do my duty by her: that goes without saying. And her resistance and dislike did not make me angry. They rather amused me. It seemed so odd that she should think herself of consequence enough to be so deeply offended. She, a girl, with all her life before her—fifteen—of no present importance to any mortal, though no doubt she would ripen into something after a while. When Mr Peveril distressed himself about what he called her want of respect to me, I used to smile at him. He would have made her love me by force had that been possible—as if her little sullenness, poor child, made any difference! It was quite natural, besides—only foolish, if she could but have seen it. She was a naughty child, and she thought herself a virgin-martyr. I hope it is not wicked of me to be amused by that virgin-martyr look. I know it so well. I have seen it over and over again in all sorts of circumstances. To say a tragedy-queen is nothing. There is a sublime patience, a pathos about your virgin-martyrs, which far outdoes anything else. Poor little Mary! if I had not seen that she was quite happy in her own thoughts, even when she thought herself most miserable, I should have taken more notice of it. I can’t tell what she was always thinking about—whether it was some imaginary lover or romance of her own that she kept weaving for hours together; but it kept her happy anyhow. She was very provoking sometimes—never was there such a spoiled child. She balked me thoroughly in one thing, and would not let me be her governess as well as her stepmother; which was what I wished. How often should I have liked to box her little impertinent ears, and then laugh and kiss her into good-humour! But in that point there was nothing to be done. I had to leave all to time, in which I hoped—without, alas! having the least thought, the least provision, how short my time was to be. You will see that I am not one to linger upon my private feelings. I have said nothing to you about my happiness. I can say nothing about my grief. The beautiful life stopped short—the light went out—an end seemed to come to everything. I cannot say more about it. Everything ended—except one’s pulse, which will go on beating, and the long hours and days that have to be got through somehow, and the bread that has to be eaten in spite of one’s self—and has to be earned too, as if it were worth the while.

I wonder at myself sometimes, and you will wonder, that I did not break down under my grief. It was my first real grief, as that which preceded it had been my first real happiness. I have even envied the people who got ill and who could go to bed, and darken their windows and lie still and let the sword go through and through them in quietness, instead of writhing on it as I did; but that must be nature. My first instinct was to snatch at something, to lay hold upon something, lest I should be carried away by some fiery flood or other. And what I snatched at was Mary. I love Mary. You may think I have not acted as if I did; but that is nothing; and she does not love me. But still I have that distinct feeling for her which I never experienced till her dear, dear father (oh, my God, my God, why is it that my child will never call him so!) showed me the way. I have had a great deal to bear from her; she is not like me; and there are many things I dislike in her. But all that does not matter. And it is not as I loved him—but yet I love her. All I remember about those dark days was that I laid hold upon Mary. She could not escape from me when I seized her so—few, very few, people can. To resist kindness is easy enough, but downright love has a different kind of grasp; you cannot get free of that. It is because there is so much fictitious love in the world that people are not aware of the power of the true.

I secured her—for the time. You may say it did not last very long; but that was not my fault; it was because she too, in her time, woke up from her affection for me, and all the torpor of her youth, and heard the call of love, and got up and left those that did but love her. The time we lived together was a strange dreamy time, between blank despair and a kind of languid happiness. Sometimes I would feel almost happy because of what was coming, and then I would be plunged into that horror of darkness, that shadow of death, which is of all things on earth the most terrible—worse, a thousand times worse, than death itself. I say this with confidence, because I as good as died once. I was so ill that I had floated off into that unconsciousness which would have been death had they left me alone; and it was not unpleasant. Had they left me alone I should have died, therefore I am justified in saying that this was death; and it was not disagreeable—just a soft floating away, a gradual growing dim and shutting out, without any of that sense of desertion and loneliness which one feels must be so strong in the dying. But the shadow of death is very terrible. No one can exaggerate its terror. When it seizes upon the soul, all that surrounds you is lost in one sea of misery. The waves and the billows pass over you. You feel as if you could not endure, could not last through that flood of pain—and yet you do last. The great billow passes over, and there is a calm, and your soul is so fatigued and worn out that it lies exhausted, and a languor of rest, which is almost ease, passes over it. This was how I lived for three months with Mary; until the shock of the other who thrust himself into our life—the stranger, who was no stranger, came.

His first appearance was nothing but an insignificant trouble, a mere annoyance to me,—why should I care? I had not thought of him at all for years; and I never had thought of him much. But still I did not want him there: he annoyed me; he was a kind of constant menace of more annoyance to come. But I don’t know what steps I could have taken. It was a long time before I could realise that he would fall in love with Mary. I rather think it is difficult to believe that a man who has loved you will love some one else. That is—if you are quite indifferent to him; it is so much easier then, to believe in his faithfulness. The idea did not occur to me. I feared a little for Mary once or twice, and tried to warn her; but she was always a dreamy sort of girl, and it was hard to tell when a new influence came over her. She had lived in dreams of one kind or other ever since I knew her; and I knew nothing, really nothing, about what was going on, till that unhappy afternoon when he recognised me, and came in and talked foolishly in Mary’s hearing, about things that had happened so long before. Poor child!—I don’t blame her, for her foolishness was natural enough. She thought I had stolen away her lover, as I had stolen away her father. She would not listen to me, and when she did listen to me she did not believe me; and there on the other hand was he, demanding explanations. Good heavens, what right has a man like that to ask explanations—a man one had never cared for, and would have died of? He worried me so that I could not be civil. What with grief, and what with vexation at the turn things had taken, and disappointment in Mary, and illness in myself, I had no patience with the man, maundering on about things that had happened ages before, that were of no importance to any living being. When he waylaid me on my way to her, keeping me back from her, in her agony of temper and mortification and humiliation, what I could have done to him! I was in a nervous state, I suppose, and easily irritated. I could have struck him when he came out and worried me. And there was Mary turning her face to the wall, shutting out the light, shutting her ears, determined to be miserable. Oh! when I toiled up and down stairs going to her, when I felt ill and knew that nobody cared, when I saw her absorbed in her foolish misery, and him tormenting himself and me about dead nonsense that never had been anything, you may excuse me if I had very little patience. After a night of it I got tired and sick of the whole business. It seemed too hard to be obliged to put up with all this folly on the eve of being ill. And who would care whether I was ill or not, if things went on so?

Then I took my resolution suddenly, as I had done before. It was not with the hope and high spirit that had kept me up when I went off to Ostend that I left Southampton Street, my own house. I was sick and tired, that was all. I could not be troubled to go on. I was worried and impatient and indignant—and then Mary had a friend to take care of her. I went away. I went to an hospital after a while in the same irritated hopeless state, feeling that it did not matter what happened; and there my boy was born. Well! what did it matter? They are for honest, poor women, these hospitals—and Heaven knows I was poor enough, but honest. One cares for one’s self only when one has other people who care. I had nobody. I did not lose heart altogether, because that is not my nature. I could not if I would; but what did I care for what people would think or for what they might say? no more than for the buzzing of the flies. I should never even hear of it—there was nobody to tell me, nobody to pay any attention. I thought most likely I should die; but I did not calculate upon dying, for by that time I knew I had strength to go through a great deal. And so I did. My boy was quite strong and well, and I got quite well and strong too. Often I have thought this showed how little heart I must have; but I could not help it. I got quite strong. I reflected seriously whether I should not try for a nurse’s place, which was very well paid, and where very little was required; but even if I could have parted with my boy, I had no one to trust with the care of him. So instead of doing this, I made shift to live for a whole year upon my forty pounds of income, with a little more which I earned by needlework. When you are a very good needlewoman, you can always earn something. I did very well; I made baby clothes; my eyes were strong, and my health was good, and I had my own baby to comfort me. There is nothing that comforts like a baby. When the child laughs, you laugh too. You laugh to make him laugh; first it is sympathy, then it is delight, till gradually you grow a baby too, and are amused at nothing, and happy for nothing, and live over again, beginning at the very beginning, in the child.

In this way I grew to be so tranquil, so eased in mind, and happy in heart, notwithstanding my loss, which I never forgot, that I was tempted to remain just as I was always; but then it occurred to me that I should lose all that I knew, that I would never be able to teach him, or to get him education, or to rise in the world, as I wanted to do for his sake; therefore it was clear I must do something else. This was what I did: I found out about a situation in a school after a great deal of inquiry. I went to the lady and told her my story; I said I would go to her for almost nothing if I might have my baby and a little maid to take care of him. When she heard of my “French acquired abroad,” my showy bit of German, my music, and how I would make myself as useful as ever she liked, having excellent health and no sort of prejudices about what I did, she closed with me. I had two rooms, and board for myself and the maid and the boy—no more at first—but I managed on that. And then by degrees we improved. She gave me first twenty pounds, then a little more. A baby’s white frock and a widow’s black gown do not cost much. We did very well. I have fifty pounds now the school has increased so much; and I believe I may have a share soon if all goes well. My French goes for a great deal, and even my name and my widow’s cap go for something, and everybody in the school likes to tell the story of the baby. Am I happy, do you say? I never stop to ask myself whether I am happy or not. One must form some idea of change in one’s mind, some thought of a possibility which might make one happier, before one would think of asking one’s self such a question. And as I have no reasonable prospect of ever being happier than I am, I do not think about it. I am not unhappy—of that I am sure.

You talk of bringing Mary and me together again. Would it answer, I wonder? Sentiment is one thing, but practicability is another. Having told you that I loved Mary, I have said all that either woman or man can say. Likings change and alter, but love is for ever. Yet, whether we could live together, whether she could trust me, whether she would understand the past, and feel how little I wished or intended to interfere with her, I cannot tell; unless she could, it would almost be better to leave us as we are. So long as a woman is young, as Mary is, it is doubtful and dangerous, I am afraid, to try any relationships but those that are quite natural. She is with you, you dearest, kind friend, as if she were your own child. You can do her nothing but good; but I am not so very much older than she is. I am older—centuries older—but not to outward appearance; and can you not suppose a state of things in which the last chapter of our lives might be, one way or other, repeated again? I say this not with any sort of vanity, Heaven knows, but with fear and trembling. For I should be happier with her—far happier—but not if she came to me with a single doubt in her mind, a single thought which was uncertain or suspicious. Do not tell her this one difficulty which seems to me to stand in our way, but judge for us both what is best. I want her for myself and for my boy. We belong to each other, and no one else in the world belongs to us. How often I long for her when I am sitting alone! How many things I have in my mind to say to her! But not unless it would be well for her, to whom anything may happen. Nothing that I know of, except through her or my baby, can now happen to me.

I WILL not enter into all the particulars of our discussion after this, for time would fail me. The last part of Mary’s letter, which she said was not to be shown to me, made me angry. I thought it was vanity on her part to be afraid of interfering with me again. “In what way?” I could not but ask, and that sharply; how could the last chapter of our lives be repeated? Mrs Tufnell only smoothed my hair and soothed me, and called me “dear” and “darling,” but would give no explanation. “What does she mean?” I asked. “Oh, she means, my love—probably she means nothing. It is just a way of talking that people fall into,” said my old lady. I knew this was said simply to quiet me, but on the whole perhaps I preferred it to anything more definite; and, after a time, I allowed myself to be persuaded to pay my stepmother a visit. What a strange journey into the past it seemed! and yet actually we went far away from the scene of the past, into a place so new and unknown to me, that it could awaken no associations. We drove in the comfortable old fly, with the old sleek horse and the old fat man, which was as good as Mrs Tufnell’s private carriage. She did not keep a carriage of her own, but I am sure this fly, in which she drove every day of her life except when she was ill, cost her more than a carriage would have done. She was very apologetic about it always. “I could not undertake the responsibility of a carriage,” she would say; “horses are always getting ill, and your coachman drinks, or he gets into trouble with the maids, or something. Old Groombridge and his fly suit me quite well. No, he is not an old rogue. I have to pay him, of course, for all his trouble, and for the loss of customers, and so forth. You know, Mary, he always suits himself to my convenience at whatever sacrifice——”

This was her idea, and nothing would convince her otherwise. So we drove in Groombridge’s old fly—which was one of the most expensive vehicles in town—out Hampstead way, but past all the houses, past everything, till we came to new houses again, and skeleton roads and villas growing up like mushrooms, in one of those long straggling arms that London puts out into the country. I had got excited so often thinking that we must be quite close upon the place, that at last I ceased to be excited, and felt as if we had set out upon a hopeless circle, and were going to wind in and out and round and round, till we worked back to the point from which we started. How dreary they look, those new places—roads newly laid out, breaking in upon the fields, which somehow look so superior, so desecrated, and vulgarised by those new muddy lines with the unnecessary kerbstones; and then all the half-built houses, each one uglier than the other, with their bow-windows, all made by the gross (I suppose), and their thin little walls that the wind whistles through, and even their monotonous attempt at irregularity. A steady, solid row which is very ugly and nothing more, is endurable. I was saying this, when suddenly the fly made a sharp turn, and immediately the villas and the kerbstones became invisible. We had got within a mossy wall, through a large old-fashioned gate. There was an avenue, not very long nor very grand, but still an avenue, with odd old trees all gnarled and mossed over, and I suppose in a very bad condition, but still old, and trees—trees which our grandfathers might have walked under. The house was an old red-brick house, very dark red, and covered with little brown and yellow lichens. It was neat, but yet one could see it was in want of repair, and looked like a poor lady in a faded gown and mended lace by the side of the fine shop-people in silk and satin. It was a winter day—a very still and bright one. The shadows of all the leafless trees made a network upon the brown gravel path. The old house seemed to be basking, warming itself in the sun. There were a great many twinkling windows, but not a creature to be seen except one little child on the white step of the deep doorway. There was a porch, and probably his nurse was there, but the little fellow was standing out in the sun, cracking a little whip he had, with his hair shining in the bright light, and his little face like an apple-blossom. He was shouting out some baby nonsense at the top of his voice. He did not care for us, nor for anyone. He was the monarch of all—quite alone in his kingdom, independent of everybody.

“Who do you think that is, Mary?” said Mrs Tufnell, taking my hand suddenly, as I looked out laughing and amused by him. Good heavens! I had never once thought. I fell back into my corner and began to cry, I cannot tell why. Of course I knew at once whom it must be.

And then she came, not in the least altered, kissing me just as if we had parted yesterday. But she was agitated, though she tried not to show it. She took the little boy and brought him to me, and thrust him into my arms without a word, and her lip quivered, and for some minutes she could not say anything. The meeting was hard altogether. When the thing that sundered you is too far off to be talked about, and when everybody counsels you to avoid explanations and go on again as if nothing had happened, it is very hard; you may succeed in uniting the old strands and twisting them together once more, but it is perhaps more likely that you will fail. We went into Mary’s new home, and saw the lady who was the head of the school. It was holiday time—the Christmas holidays—and they were alone. This lady was middle-aged, older than Mary, but not so old as Mrs Tufnell. She was an unmarried woman, and I could at once understand what Mary had said, that her very name and her widow’s cap told for something in the place. But what was most evident of all was that little Jack was the sovereign of Grove House. Whatever anybody might do or say, he was supreme. Miss Robinson was fond of his mother, and “appreciated” her, as she told us; but little Jack was the monarch, and did what he pleased.

Our visit was, as people say, quite successful. It went off perfectly well—we kissed when we met and when we parted—we had a great deal to say to each other of what had passed since we met—and there was little Jack to make acquaintance with, and a great many of his wonderful adventures to be told of. Mrs Tufnell came away with the thought that it had been a great success, and that henceforward nothing more was wanted—that Mary and I would be one again.

But Mary and I felt differently. I did, at least, and I am sure so did she. You cannot mend a rent so easily. Such a rent—a rent that had lasted more than five years—how can it be drawn together again by any hasty needle and thread like a thing done yesterday? We parted friends, with promises to meet again; but with hearts, oh! so much more apart from each other than they had been an hour before! An hour before we met I had all sorts of vague hopes in my mind—vague feelings that she would understand me, that I should understand her—vague yearnings towards the old union which was almost perfect. Did you ever see the great glass screen they have in some houses to shield you from the heat of the fire? You can see the cheerful blaze through it, but you feel nothing. Something of the kind was between Mary and me. We saw through it as well as ever, and seemed, to enjoy the pleasant warmth; but no other sensation followed, only the chill of a disappointment. I felt that she was now nothing, nothing to me; and I—I cannot tell how I seemed to her. We had the old habit suddenly brought to life and put on again, but none of the old meaning. We were like mummers trying to make ourselves out to be heroines of the past, but knowing we were not and never could be what we appeared. I was very silent during our drive home I did not know what to say to my dear old lady. She looked very fragile with her pretty rose-cheeks, lying back in the corner of the fly; she was fatigued, and in the daylight I suddenly woke up to see that she did look very fragile. I had not believed in it before. And how could I vex her by telling her of my disappointment? I could not do it; she was pleased and happy; she held my hand, and nodded to me and said: “Now you see you are not so much alone as you thought you were. Now you see you have friends who belong to you.” How could I have had the heart to say otherwise—to say I had found out that we were separated for ever, Mary and I?

That evening, however, after tea, she began to talk to me very seriously. We were sitting over the fire—she on her favourite sofa, I on a low chair near her. The firelight kept dancing about, lighting up the room fitfully. It was a large room. We had some candles on the mantel-piece, which shone, reflected in the great mirror, as if from some dim, deep chamber opening off this one; but it was really the firelight that lighted the room. I had been singing to her, and I half thought she had been asleep, when suddenly she roused up all at once, and sat upright in her little prim way.

“I want to speak to you, Mary,” she said; and then, after a pause—“You think I meant nothing but love and kindness when I took you to see Mrs Peveril to-day; but I am a scheming, wicked old woman, Mary. I had more than that in my mind.”

I was a little, but only a little, startled by this: I knew her way. I looked up at her, smiling. “You are so designing,” I said; “I might have known there was something underneath. You are going to ask them to spend the rest of their holidays here?”

“That if you like,” she said brightly, encouraged, I could see, by my tone; “but more than that, Mary; more than that.”

I was not curious. I looked with an indolent amusement at the shining of the firelight and the reflection in the mirror of the flame of the candles, which shone out of its surface without seeming to move the dark ruddy gloom beyond. A glass is always an inscrutable, wonderful thing, like an opening into the unseen: it was especially so that night.

“Mary,” Mrs Tufnell resumed, with a voice that faltered, I could not tell why; “do you remember when I first spoke to you of Mrs Peveril—when I was ill?—and what I said?”

“Yes,” I answered, with sudden alarm, looking up at her. “You don’t feel ill now?”

“No, but I have got a shake,” she said. “When a woman at my time of life is ill, though it may seem to pass quite away, it always leaves a something. I shall never be as strong as I have been, my dear child. I feel I have got a shake. My life has come to be like the late leaves on the top of a tree. They may last through many gales, but the first gust may blow them off. I cannot feel sure for a day.”

I went close up to her in my fright, and knelt down by the sofa, and put my arms round her. “Do not speak so,” I said; “you could not leave me? What could I do without you? I am not an orphan as long as I have you. You cannot have the heart——”

“Oh, Mary! hush; don’t overwhelm me. It was of that I wanted to speak. I shall live as long as I can, for your sake. But, dear, old people cannot stay always, however much they may be wanted. I have been thinking of it a great deal, and there is a proposal I have to make to you—with Mrs Peveril’s consent, Mary. You must listen to all I have to say.”

“Oh, you have consulted Mrs Peveril!” said I; and I got up, feeling my heart grow chill and sore, and went back to my seat to hear what was to be said to me. In the depths of my heart I must have been jealous of her still. It came all back upon me like a flood. My dear old lady gave me a grieved look, but she did not stop to explain. She went quickly on with what she had to say:—

“Grove House is a nice old-fashioned house, and cheap, and they have a good list of scholars; and Miss Robinson would be glad to retire, and would not ask very much for the furniture and things; and Mrs Peveril is so much liked by everybody. I have always set apart as much as I thought was right of my little property, intending it for you, Mary——”

“Don’t!” I cried, in a voice so shrill and sharp that it startled even myself who spoke.

“It is not very much,” she went on, “but it is all I can give away, and my whole heart has been set upon doing something for you with this money that would make you independent. My dear Mary, I am half afraid you don’t like the thought, you are so silent. I had thought of buying Grove House for Mrs Peveril and you.”

“For Mrs Peveril and me!”

“Yes—don’t you like the idea, Mary?—don’t you like the idea? I thought it was something that would please you so much. You have always said you liked teaching, and it would be a living for you, dear, and a home when I am gone. I have so wished to make these arrangements for you, Mary——”

“Is it all settled?” I said.

“Nothing could be settled without your consent. All that I want is your good. I could not leave you, could I, at your age, without anyone to stand by you, without a home to go to, without a friend——”

Thus she apologised to me for those kind, tender plans of hers; and I sat like a clod, feeling that I could not reply. I was dull and heavy and miserable; not grateful, yet feeling how grateful I ought to be; understanding her, yet not owning even to myself that I understood her. It was not a very great destiny that was thus allotted to me, but that was not what I was thinking. My mind did not revolt against the idea of being the mistress of a school; which was a natural lot enough. To tell the truth, I cannot quite say what it was that gave me so miserable a feeling. Here was my life marked out for me; there was never to be any change in it; no alteration for the brighter or better occurred to this dear old woman who loved me. She wanted to make sure I should have daily bread and a roof to shelter me, and some sort of companionship. How right she was! How good and how kind! and yet, oh, how dreary, how unutterably blank and hopeless seemed the prospect! I felt this with a dull fighting and struggle of the two things in me—wanting to please her by looking pleased, feeling how good she was, and how kind, how just, how suitable was the arrangement. I felt all this in a kind of way, and then I felt the struggle not to be wildly angry, not to burst out and ask her how she could think of condemning me so—for my life?

She was grieved and disappointed at the way I received her proposal, but she was so good that she took no notice, but kissed me, and said nothing should be done or thought of against my consent. For my part my heart was so heavy and dull that I could not even thank her for her kindness; but I hung about her when she went to bed, and held her fast in a speechless way that she understood, I think, though I said nothing. She cried; she looked at me with her kind old eyes full of tears. “Oh, Mary,” she said, “don’t break my heart! If I could live for ever and go on always taking care of you, don’t you think I would do it, for your sake and your father’s too? But I cannot. One must die when one’s time comes, however much one may be wanted: and I must provide for that.”

“Oh, why can’t I provide for it?” I cried. “Why can’t I die too? That would be the best way.”

And then she was angry—half angry—as much as it was in her nature to be. And presently I found myself alone, and had to sit down and think it over, and make up my mind to it, as one has so often to do in this life. I had to teach myself to see how good it was. And I did. I made up my mind to it. What was there else in heaven or earth—as I could not die with my only friend, or compel her to live, what was there else that I could do?

CHAPTER IX

NEXT morning when I woke, the impression on my mind was, that Mrs Tufnell must have died in the night. I cannot tell why I thought so, but I woke with such a horror in my mind, that I threw a shawl over my shoulders and rushed to her door to ask how she was, before I could take breath. She was not up; but smiled at me from her bed, where she lay with all the pictures and the portraits of her friends about her, the centre of a silent company. “I am quite well—better than usual,” she said; but I think she knew the meaning of my terror, and felt that after all that had been said it was natural I should be afraid. This perhaps threw just a little cloud upon her serenity too, during the morning, for however calmly one may think of dying, I suppose it must startle one to see that others are thinking of it. I suppose so—it seems natural. She was very grave, thoughtful, and somewhat silent during the forenoon; and when I went and sat down by her, and asked her to forgive me, and said I was ready to do whatever she thought best, she took me into her arms and cried and kissed me. “Oh, that it should be necessary to change!” she said. “I do not feel as if I could face the change—but, Mary, for your good——”

It was about noon as we thus sat talking it over. It comforted me to see that she liked it as little as I did; that she would rather have kept me with her to the last moment of her life. But then what should I have done?—this was what she thought of. We were talking it all over very seriously, with more pain than either of us would show. It was a chilly winter morning. The room was bright, to be sure, with a good fire burning, and all the comforts that so many poor people are without; but there was a chill that went to one’s heart—the chill of the grave for her, which she thought near; and the chill of the outside world, from which she had sheltered me so long, for me. I remember the look of that morning—there was a black frost outside which bound all the dry street, and seemed to hold the naked trees in the square so fast that they dared not rustle, though an icy wind was blowing through them. There were traces still on the windows, notwithstanding the fire, of the frosty network of the night. The sun had begun to shine as it approached noon, but even the sun was white and cold, and seemed rather to point out how chilly the world was, than to warm it. After we had got through all our explanations and said all that was to be said, and arranged that Mary was to be invited to the Square with her child to spend a week of the holidays and arrange everything, we still kept sitting together holding each other’s hands, not saying much. I could not pretend that I liked it even to please her, and she did not like it, though she thought it right; but all the same it was settled, and there was nothing more to say.

It was all settled by twelve o’clock, fixed and decided with that double certainty which is given by pain. If we had liked it we should not have felt half so sure. At half-past twelve the mid-day post came in, and I was still sitting by my dear old lady, holding her hand, feeling my heart sink lower and lower every moment, thinking how I should have to leave her when she wanted me most—when Mrs Tufnell’s maid came in with the letters. She gave some to her mistress, and she gave one to me. I do not think I recognised the writing at first. But I got few letters, and it gave me a little thrill of agitation, I could not quite tell why. It was a foreign letter, with a number of unintelligible postmarks. I got up and went to the window, partly because my heart began to beat very loud, and partly to leave Mrs Tufnell at liberty to read her letters. I recollect looking out unconsciously and seeing the dried-up, dusty, frosty look of everything, the ice-wind sweeping the dust round the corners, the bare shivering trees—with a momentary thrill of sensation that my life was like that, dried-up, frost-bound, for ever and ever. And then, with my fingers trembling and my heart beating, and a consciousness of something coming, I could not tell what, I opened the envelope and found—— This was what I found; without any preface or introduction—without anything to soften the difference between what was before my eyes and what was going to be.

There was no beginning to the letter; there were a good many blots in it, as if it had been written with a hand which was not very steady. There was not even a date until the end. He who had written it had been as much agitated as she who read it; and she who read it did so as in a dream, not knowing where she was standing, feeling the world and the white curtains and the frosty square to be going round and round with her, making a buzzing in her ears and a thumping against her breast.

What a plunge into a new world—into an old world—into a world not realised, not possible, and yet so strange in its fascination, so bewildering! Was it a dream—or could it be true?

“Mary!” cried some one calling me; “Mary, what is the matter? Have you bad news, my dear? Mary! Good gracious, the child will faint! Mary, don’t you hear me?”

“Oh, hush, hush!” I cried, not knowing what I said. “Hark! listen! is that him at the door?”

It was not him just then; and after a little while the curtains stopped going round, and the floor and the Square and everything about grew solid and steady, and I came to myself. To myself, yes—but not to the same self as had been sitting so sadly holding my old lady’s hand. What a change all in a moment! If I had not been so happy, I should have been ashamed to think that a man’s letter could all in a moment make such a change in a woman’s life. It is demoralising to the last degree—it comes in the way of all the proper efforts of education and independent thought, and everything that is most necessary and elevating. If in a moment, without any virtue of yours, without any exertion of yours, you are to have your existence all altered for you—the greyness turned into brightness, the labour into ease, the poverty into wealth—how is it to be supposed that you can be trained aright? It is demoralising: but it is very pleasant. Oh, the change in one half-hour!

But I should find it very difficult to explain to anyone how it was that I behaved like a rational creature at this moment, and did not take a bad turn and torture him and myself with objections. It was not wisdom on my part; I think it was the absolute suddenness of the whole transaction. Had he left me more time to think, or prepared me for his reception, my pride and my delicacy would have come in, and probably I should have thrown away both his happiness and my own. But fortunately he arrived that very afternoon, before the first excitement was over, and hearing that Miss Peveril was at home, and that the servants had not been forbidden to admit him, walked upstairs when I was not thinking, and took possession of me as if there had been no doubt on the subject. Mrs Tufnell was begging me to write to him at the very moment. I had shown her my letter, and she was full of excitement about it. “Be an honest girl, Mary,” she was saying: “a girl should not worry a man like that: you ought to be frank and open, and send him a word to meet him when he comes home. Say you are as fond of him as he is of you——”

“No, I could not—I could not,” I was beginning to say; when suddenly something overshadowed us, and a big, ringing voice said behind me, “How could she? Let us be reasonable.” Reasonable! After that there was no more to say.

But if it had not all passed like a dream; if he had not been so sudden; if he had taken more time and more, care—the chances are, I know, that I should have behaved like a fool, and hesitated and questioned, and been proud and been foolish. As it was, I had to be honest and happy—there was no time for anything else.

This was of course the ending of the whole matter. I have often wondered whether, had my dear old lady been burdened with the anxiety of her charge of me, she would have died. As it is, she has not died. She lives with us often now, and we with her. On my wedding day she talked of departing in peace; but so far from departing in peace, she has been stronger ever since, and has a complexion any girl of twenty might envy. When I look back to Southampton Street and to Russell Square, where I was so unhappy, they all grow delightful and beautiful to me. It was very bad, no doubt (I suppose), while it lasted, but how I smile now at all my dolours! The delightful fact that they are over makes them pleasant. “That is how it will be, Mary,” my dearest old lady says, “with all our sorrows, when we die and get safely out of them. We shall smile—I know it—and wonder how we could have made such a fuss over those momentary woes.” This is a serious way of ending a story, which after all has turned out merely a love-story, a thing I never contemplated when I began to confide my early miseries to you. How miserable I was! and how it all makes me smile now!

As for Mary—the other Mary—we carried out that arrangement for her which had been proposed for me. We bought Grove House for her. I do not know what we could have done better. I never see that she is dull or weary of her life. What languors she may have she keeps from common view. Little Jack has grown a great boy, and she is very happy in him. But she does not give herself up to him, like so many mothers. “I must keep my own life,” she said to me once, when I wanted her to give up, to live quietly at home and devote herself to my little brother alone. “He will go out into the world after a while,” she went on; “he must, he has to make his way—and I, what should I do then? follow him or stay at home all alone?—No! I must keep my own life.” And so she does. Happiness? I cannot tell if she has happiness: so many people get on without that—though some of us, I thank God humbly on my knees, have it without deserving it—without having done anything for it. Mary, I believe, never takes time to ask herself how about that. She said so once; she is not unhappy, and never will be; she has her life.