Anna Peake

“ The railroad passed under the road which led to Brentnor, close by the station, which was nearly a mile from the market-place of Trowchester, and this distance he resolved upon walking, leaving his bag to be sent up to the town. We all know how likely we are to fall into reverie when we are not in the least hurried; when we have for the moment no dominant feeling; when we are walking—as Robert Leslie was—in a quiet, country road, the twilight almost gone, the stars flashing out at wide intervals, and shadows, deep and soft, settling on the surrounding landscape. ”

“ Every farthing I have ever owed shall be paid; Wortleby’s debt first of all. Wortleby is living, I suppose? Those sort of men never die. Wortleby might have laid the finger of the law upon me, but he didn’t, and why? Because I was the grandson of a peer, and his aristocratic tendencies made him merciful. Poor Wortleby! he wouldn’t touch my bank-notes now if he knew all the trades I have driven to earn them.”
Tom sat listening with a sinking heart. To this man, who spoke as if he were making a hard bargain with a harder man than himself, Letitia Nevil had given up the best years of her life. ”

“ Leslie, looking at him coldly.
“I intend to do so—in Trowchester,” replied Mr. Wareham, his face growing white. “You have won from me the only woman I ever loved. Guard yourself from the tongues of the fools who have hitherto looked up to you. Hide yourself from scoffing eyes, from your mother’s reproaches, from your friends’ sneers. It may be a poor revenge, and it has been long in coming, but it will be some satisfaction to me to see your position, when it is known in your small world that your wife is the daughter of a returned convict.” ”

“ I wonder she was not married long ago.”
“I don’t think she will ever marry,” said Tom, gravely; “she may still consider herself bound to you.”
“She wrote to me several times after I left England,” said Nugent. “Long, tiresome letters, full of good advice; but a man who has roughed it as I have done, can’t sit down with a woman like Letitia Nevil in his house. Her voice would be like a church bell, saying come and be at peace and rest, and all that sort of thing, and my soul would be fretted to death by it. One can’t stand a reproachful face always by one; besides, she must be turned thirty.” ”

“ Was it likely she cared so very much for Robert Leslie? Would he not shut himself up in his coldness and reserve, if he imagined there was the slightest wavering in her duty? Wareham knew that he was morbidly sensitive on many points, and had seen him quail before a gossiping tongue. He had a plan, and if that plan succeeded, Trowchester would no longer hold him. No matter. There was his brother’s home in Sydney, where he would be welcome: there was a London practice which he could have at little or no sacrifice. His one object attained, the world was all before him to begin again. ”

“ In his long solitary walks across the common, and by the side of the little river that mirrored the hard wintry boughs which overhung it; in the evenings when, pile the logs on as he might, and draw the curtains across his windows as closely as he would, he yet felt himself a homeless man for want of a face that should turn to his, Tom’s thoughts ran ever on what Miss Letitia did, what Miss Letitia thought, what Miss Letitia said. ”

“ By noon the guests, bidden and unbidden, began to make their appearance. It was impossible for Tom, naturally sanguine as he was, not to feel his spirits rise at the sight of the troops of children pouring in, all prepared for enjoyment of his contriving, and half crazy in the anticipation of it. The little pony carriages, laden with the clergymen of the surrounding parishes, their wives and their children in fabulous numbers, came slowly along the road. Mrs. Wortleby and her seven daughters arrived from Chanleigh, as happy in their rare holiday as the smallest child in the village. ”

“ Since his boyhood, when he had loved his sister with an enthusiastic affection which a beautiful woman often inspires in a younger relative, he had never cared for any human being as he cared for Miss Letitia. It was months before he owned it to himself; before he felt something like disappointment when he watched her face, and saw no change in its expression when he came or went. ”

“ If Milly’s greeting was more shy and nervous than usual, her mother-in-law atoned for it with a grim suavity which was not always the characteristic of her manner. Mrs. Leslie had one of those natures which never feel antipathies to those with whom they are brought in contact, and who are equally far from yielding to the attractions which are recognised by others. It might form a matter of speculation as to how far such people are independent of the troubles incident to a livelier sympathy, or how, in avoiding such chances, they debar themselves from some of the purest pleasures of humanity. ”

“ O happy vigorous age of youth! with all its shyness and grievous self-consciousness, we shall never feel again the elasticity of muscle and spirit with which the cricketers fought for fame,—and an electro-plated drinking cup. Many of us, like Tom’s older parishioners, must content ourselves with a tranquil pipe, and a seat on the distant bench, willing to witness the exertions of others, and to rejoice in their success. ”

“ The cricketers were preparing for their share in the programme of the day. If Tom had not been so preoccupied, he would have seen with satisfaction that an old school-fellow named Thorpe, who had a good living in the neighbourhood, and wanted a wife, and whom he had introduced to Mrs. Wortleby and her daughters, was talking eagerly to kind-hearted Jane Wortleby: she rarely found a cavalier on such occasions—the prospect of so numerous a body of sisters-in-law serving as a scarecrow to all matrimonial intentions, to say nothing of the ordinary civilities of life. ”

“ When I came back she was dead, with her face turned towards the door, as if she was watching for me still.”
“If George Nugent is alive I will bring him back to you.” Tom was haunted by his own words, as he felt the chances of fulfilling his promise growing less and less. Nugent was to a certain extent brutalised; but what of that? The faithful affection that had held out for so many years would overlook his faults. He was surely guilty of disloyalty; but women pardon such sins every day. All Tom could do was to ask him to see her. ”

“ Early in life he had married the daughter of a farmer, for the sake of a little hoard of money, which served to buy the business of the solicitor to whom he had been articled, and to secure the best connection in the county. This object attained, he never professed to care whether Mrs. Wortleby lived or died. She bore him seven daughters: like herself, neither pretty nor remarkably ugly; ordinary in ability as in person. As they grew to womanhood, Mr. Wortleby would sit and gaze at them, his hand supporting his chin, almost savagely. ”

“ Often, as she sat through the winter days in a dreary lodging, denying herself a fire, and making a cup of tea at least twice a week do duty for dinner, she would dream of a future when his talents should be matured, and he should enter the ministry as his father had done before him. And that future was realised, though not in the way she intended; for Robert Leslie entered the Established Church, and left behind him many prejudices which had clung to his parents. She had kept her son’s house for five years when his acquaintance began with Milly Lane. ”

“ She turned down one of the narrow streets that led to the suburbs, and knocked at the door of a small old-fashioned house with a projecting upper storey. An elderly woman who opened the door shook her head sadly as she looked at Milly and led the way up-stairs, where, on her bed, a woman still young, and with the remains of a delicate and refined beauty on her features, lay dying of a painful illness which had so far yielded in the mortal struggle that a short interval of comparative peace had been granted to her last hours. “Something,” said physicians, “had worn Mrs. Lane out.” ”

“ While the shadows are lengthening on the grass, it is wonderful to hear “God save the Queen” sung slowly, majestically, and greatly out of tune. The Beauchamp people give three cheers for their rector. He stands bareheaded in the purple light, and thanks them for their good will, and asks them all to come again: and the day is done.
No letter. The suspense of another night would have been intolerable. Tom walked over to Chanleigh, where he arrived just as the Rose and Crown was closing, and found that a person answering George Nugent’s description had left for London early in the evening. ”

“ There have been some few fortunate people in the world, who have been able to gather up the tangled skeins of the destinies they marred, and have woven them afresh. Mr. Leslie was doing this; thinking how Milly’s should be made a brighter life; thinking, that gratefully as he had always acknowledged his mother’s sacrifices in his youth, they formed no claim for a certain degree of tyranny which she had since exercised in his household; thinking how much happier Milly would be away from the dull house in Trowchester ”

“ Wortleby said, that Mr. Parkins, the grocer of Chanleigh, had made her an offer of marriage on becoming acquainted with the fact. How this had ever come to be a matter of public gossip had never clearly transpired. Mr. Parkins, a liberally-disposed man, giving credit for many an ounce of tea and rasher of bacon which he never expected to get paid for, had learnt to look on Miss Letitia as the perfection of womanly grace and sweetness. ”

“ How often in moments of strong excitement it has seemed as if dumb animals, our dogs or our horses, have sympathised more kindly with us than our fellow creatures! Leslie was breathless with eagerness as he came within hail of the fly, and the mare could with difficulty be held in. He shouted to the driver to stop, but his voice was disregarded, and in another moment he was abreast of the vehicle. ”

“ Wareham went out to Australia, having married the daughter of a farmer a few days before his departure,—a kind-hearted, cherry-cheeked girl, who had long hopelessly admired him in secret, and who accepted gratefully the small amount of affection he proffered. And if the Trowchester people repeated every story but the right one concerning them all, what did it signify? We are mistaken, if we think a wonder ever lasts out the nine days which the old saying allots to it. ”

“ To influence a man so far as to induce him to give up getting drunk more than two or three times a-year was to go far towards saving soul and body also. All this Tom had done: but a woman had done more. “Miss Letitia,” as she was called,—and Tom had acquired the habit of addressing her in the same fashion,—had passed nearly sixteen years in acts of mercy and charity. ”

“ Out into the sunshine again, where the village band has begun to play a country dance, in which young and old, rich and poor, are to join; when Mrs. Wortleby dances with the best bowler, and Miss Letitia with the conquering plough-boy, and Mr. Thorpe, contrary to all etiquette on such occasions, with Jane. It lasts an hour; for every awkward partner has to be put right; the shy ones have to be encouraged; the noisy ones to be kept in order; every big brown hand has to be seized; every tiny hot one to be raised aloft ”

“ A clever writer has declared that there is an out-of-the-way corner in every man’s mind where Superstition, like a slovenly housemaid, sweeps up all sorts of bits and scraps; and there is, undoubtedly, a little green sward in every man’s heart, to the last day of his existence, sometimes parched up for lack of moisture, sometimes scorched by the breath of passion, but always ready to spring up in brightness and freshness, give it but some revivifying influence. ”

“ Six years have passed since Tom’s May-day feast, the results of which have tended to make the Beauchamp corner of the world a happier one. Mr. Thorpe has married Jane Wortleby, and she has never ceased from her kindly endeavours to promote the welfare of her sisters. Three of them she has already disposed of in matrimony, and she has strong hopes and cheering prospects for the rest. Tom has lost none of his interest in the parish. By his side runs a bright-eyed boy, with his small hand always locked in that of his father, to whom he is companion and playmate during the greater part of the day. ”

“ Lane, from the beginning of Robert Leslie’s acquaintance with Milly, had been obnoxious in her eyes. She was not a member of Mr. Leslie’s congregation. She was undeniably poor; and there was aggravation of injuries in the fact that there was nothing tangible in her manner, either to Mr. Leslie or the rest of the small Trowchester world, to which she could reasonably object. No one had accused her of match-making for her daughter, and yet half-a-dozen mothers hated her as if she had entrapped Mr. Leslie into the marriage. But all women judge each other harshly ”

“ Tom said truly that children good, bad, or indifferent were always an object of interest to him. He had been watching poor little Jemmy Bates limping painfully by his side, and somewhat to the boy’s astonishment he took him up in his arms and carried him along. The distance was soon accomplished. Tom deposited his burden in his mother’s cottage, and was overwhelmed with her thanks. Miss Letitia having pointed out to him the nearest way to the rectory, went on her way, and another half-mile brought him to his journey’s end. ”