Mrs. J. H. Riddell

“ Miss Hope solaced herself with a chocolate cream at this point. As some people take snuff, so Arthur Dudley’s aunt took chocolate. Apparently it stimulated her thoughts, for she said:
“You are an original, if ever there were one.”
“Do you think I do not mean what I say?” asked Heather, uncertain what the observation implied. “Do you think I do not love my husband’s brothers and sisters? Do you imagine any woman ever found such brothers and sisters before—such bright, willing helpers—such unselfish, loving, cheerful boys and girls?” ”

“ Miss Hope did not immediately answer. She sat looking in the sad, lovely face before her, till at last she arrived at a perfect conviction of the truth conveyed in Heather’s words. In all her life before she had never met a woman who possessed no power either to lead or drive, to coax, to flatter, to delude or to bully a husband; and, although she saw Arthur did not appreciate Heather, she had not dreamed of his wife having not the slightest influence over him. ”

“ London is the place,” sighed Arthur Dudley.
“To be sure it is, for man, woman, and child,” replied Mr. Black. “It is the place to make money, and to spend it when you have made it. What good has a man of his life who resides continually in the country? I often wonder, Dudley, you don’t come up to town for a few months in every year.” ”

“ Out in the battle-field, where the city streets are full of eager soldiers; out where the fray is fiercest, the fire strongest; out where life is not a tranquil dream, but a mad struggle; where men go to their long rest not rusted, but worn; where the night’s slumber is short, and the day’s labour long; out where as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the face of a man his friend;—there is the only place for energies to be aroused and genius developed, for profitable work to be accomplished, for life’s best lessons to be learned. ”

“ With Heather no man quarrelled, and no woman either. She was not a good hater; she had never sounded the depths of a great sorrow, nor of a great passion. Like many women who marry very young, even love had come to her mildly. The disease taken in youth, is never so fierce as that which attacks the patient in maturity; as is the strength, so is the day ”

“ What do you think I started in the world with? A plain commercial education, a mother and a lame sister to keep, and twenty pounds. I never served my time; I never had the chance of learning a business like Raidsford; I was always dragged back by having those two poor useless women to keep; and yet, still, see what I have done!”
“But you began early?” suggested Arthur.
“If I had not begun early, I should have begun late,” was the reply.
“And then I am tied to this place.”
“No, you are not,” was the reply. “But you are like all men possessed of a small income—afraid of losing it. ”

“ Nevertheless, he shared with his brothers and sisters the produce of his fields, the fat of his pastures, and for two years more they roamed wild about Berrie Down—a troop of hardy young colts, unbroken, untrained, uneducated, uncared-for.
The most enthusiastic American could have desired no more complete democracy than the household at “The Hollow,” where, as is usual in all democracies, the classes governed in other communities, were rulers of the place.
At their own sweet wills, the servants went and came; by fits and starts the labourers hedged and ditched, and ploughed and sowed. ”

“ You can fancy how Berrie Down Lane must look under all these aspects; you know hereafter you could sketch the place from memory, when you come to recall its sweet tranquillity amidst the din and bustle of that great Babylon where your lot is cast.
The nearest railway-station, Palinsbridge, is eight miles distant; the nearest town, South Kemms, four; the nearest village, Fifield, more than two; so that, although, as the crow flies, Berrie Down Hollow is not actually above thirty miles from London, it might be a hundred or two in point of accessibility. ”

“ You can imagine now how the place looks in every season; when the holly berries shine red and warm and glossy in the hedgerow; when their branches, clad with polished green leaves, are torn down to welcome Christmas in hall, and church, and cottage; when the birds begin to build; when children part the boughs of the privet and the hawthorn in order to look for the thrush and the linnet’s nest; when the hyacinths come with the sweet mid-spring; when the dog-roses, perishable as beautiful, open to the sun; when the May bursts into flower, and the honeysuckle perfumes the air ”

“ The lawn at Berrie Down is studded with fine old timber. Through the air pigeons are wheeling, on the ridge-tiles they are cooing; two or three dogs are lying basking in the sun; at one of the open windows of the drawing-room a cat is seated, gravely surveying the landscape, and perhaps at the same time prospectively viewing supper, or retrospectively thinking of her latest depredations in the dairy. There is a great peace in the scene—a peace which it requires a person to have been out in the hurry and turmoil of the world fully to comprehend. ”

“ Never was there such a girl for a walk, Alick Dudley thought, as Bessie Ormson. If she went out in the early morning, before the sun had risen high enough to have much power, Bessie would stop to look at the cobwebs glittering with dew-drops, at 128the drooping blades of wet grass, at the tears on the leaves of the dog-roses. ”

“ Ribbons and laces, deemed useless before her arrival, and cast aside, as tossed and torn, reappeared after her advent in forms that delighted the hearts of Arthur Dudley’s sisters.
She was “good for everything,” the boys declared. Pretty and coquettish herself, she liked to see other girls pretty and coquettish too; and during her visit the Misses Dudley went about with wild flowers in their hair, with dainty bouquets in their belts, with dresses guiltless of a crease, “making much of themselves,” as Bessie phrased it. ”

“ But, under the shelter of his own trees, what can 15Squire Dudley need with strength beyond that wherewith nature has provided him? It is for men to have their way to make that bone and muscle, an iron will, a ready wit are needful; and all the fields you have surveyed, all the broad meadows, all the rich pastures came to him, not because of the strength of his own right hand, or because of the capacity of his own brain, but simply because his father had owned Berrie Down Hollow before him, and left it to his eldest son. ”

“ After all, it is not when the sunlight is streaming over the landscape that the scene appeals most to our hearts; it is the shadow lying across the hillside, the cloud darkling on the water, the shades of evening creeping stealthily down upon the bay, which gives that mournful, melancholy pathetic look to the face of Nature, that touches us like a minor chord in music, like the sound of a plaintive melody, and awakens in our souls a powerful though often almost unconscious response. ”

“ Stewart, who loved Scotland and her purple mountains; ‘she will grow up like the heather, perhaps—strong, hardy, a wild flower, worth a hundred of your garden rarities. Call her Heather, and I will remember her name to her advantage.’ So she was christened Heather,” went on Mrs. Travers, “and she lived and grew up as you see, while the two other daughters drooped and died. Unhappily, soon after her birth, Mr. Bell quarrelled with her godfather, who has since utterly ignored Heather’s existence. It is a pretty name for a girl; don’t you think so, Mr. Dudley?” ”

“ The years came and stood before her then—the years during which she had loved and laboured in vain, in which she had spent her strength for nought, in which she had been happy and unsuspecting, in which she had never been other than vaguely conscious of a want in which, though her life had always lacked the principal ingredient all lives require before they can be pronounced happy, she had yet believed herself so—believed that hers was a lot to be desired. ”

“ The brand new palace to which Arthur Dudley took such grievous exception, was a matter of necessity rather than choice. If Mr. Raidsford could have purchased Berrie Down Hollow, Moorlands House would never have been erected. As it was, the rich man had found it impossible, with all his wealth, to purchase an old residence in the situation he desired. As a rule, people who have desirable properties like to keep them. Once in a dozen years or so, there is “just the place” a man wants put up for sale; but so surely as this happens, that man has not the means to make it his own. ”

“ Matrimonially, luck had not been against him. If the chances of marriage be but as one eel to a bagful of snakes, many a man, who thrust his hands into that lottery after Arthur Dudley, must have had cause to lament his evil fortune. ”

“ Even the two smallest of the band, a boy and girl, twins, only seven years of age, were, so the Rector of Fifield assured Arthur, going headlong to destruction. Robbing birds’-nests, pelting ducks, stealing fruit, trampling down the ripe grain, climbing trees, wading in the brook, setting terriers on cats, chasing sheep, jeering at the passers-by, these children, the good man declared, in all such occupations were not alone. ”

“ I should like to be as ugly as Joan Harcourt, and as good. It must be nice to honour one’s parents, let them be as disagreeable as they will, and to love one’s neighbour, even though she keep a parrot, 111and lets her girls hammer at a piano placed against the party-wall, and is altogether as great a nuisance as Mrs. Riccarde, who lives next door to us. Oh, Alick, how lovely and peaceful the country looks in the moonlight! Is not that the house at Kemms Park I see, shining white among the trees? ”

“ Ormson, Bessie, and the younger Dudleys, Miss Hope’s dislike was returned with ample interest—honestly paid in kind.
But not here did the dislikes end. With all her heart Mrs. Black wished her sister, Mrs. Ormson, at the antipodes; while with all Mrs. Ormson’s heart she wished, not merely Mrs. Black, but also her own husband, Mr. Ormson, at New Zealand. If the gods had known much about human nature—which, judging from results, we may conclude they do not—they would have mated Mr. Black with Mrs. Ormson, Mr. Ormson with Mrs. Black. ”

“ How badly off Heather thought mankind must have been for wives, when two of the sex considered Mrs. Ormson a desirable helpmeet, she did not deem it needful to state. One virtue of Arthur Dudley’s wife was, that she knew when to hold her tongue,—an incalculable advantage in a woman, when such silence does not arise from indifference or stupidity: 176Heather was neither indifferent nor stupid, but she possessed that one great gift of discretion, without which, as Solomon says (and we may safely consider him an authority) , “beauty is to a woman but as a jewel in a swine’s snout.” ”

“ Dudley’s answer, after a pause.
“I do not think there is much to understand,” said Bessie; but her heart gave a great leap as she spoke, for she knew she was telling a truthful woman a falsehood.
“I only meant that you strike me as being a little odd at times,” remarked Heather, gently.
“Not more odd than you strike me as being,” 69was the reply. Then, noticing that her companion seemed surprised, she went on, “Cannot you comprehend? won’t you comprehend that to a girl brought up as I have been, a woman such as you are is an enigma, a wonder, a never-ending, always beginning puzzle?” ”

“ The thoughts of youth are generally as unformed as the features of childhood; and thus, though Alick was conscious of some curious enigma perplexing him, he yet would have been surprised had any one placed the puzzle he was considering before his mental vision, perfect in form and clothed with words.
At length it was all over—the sermon, the service, the reverie—and, with a sense of relief, the lad opened the pew door, and stood in the aisle while his companion passed out. ”

“ I am very fond of you, Heather Dudley.”
“You are very kind, Miss Hope.”
“You are not in a mood to think so at this moment,” said Arthur’s aunt; “but wait a little. I have known your husband longer than you have; I am slightly better acquainted with the world, and the men and women in it, than you are; and I want to tell you, that if Arthur and Mr. Black are much together, my nephew will make ducks and drakes of Berrie Down, and you and he and the children won’t have sixpence a year.” ”

“ With all her sarcasm and frivolity, the girl’s human sympathy was intense; and, perhaps, when the secret of most popularity is exhausted, it will be found only to exist in the fact that the man or the woman popular can enter into and understand the moods and feelings of other men and women.
It was so with Bessie, at all events. She loved Berrie Down Hollow with a love almost amounting to passion. To her, that place was the realization of peace, happiness, home, beauty, contentment ”

“ On an income of a few hundreds a year, which had to be dragged out of the land, it is scarcely needful to say, Mr. Dudley, of Berrie Down, could not “do things” in the same style as Mr. Black, of Stanley Crescent, who reckoned his returns loosely by thousands.
From cellar to garret, the house in Stanley Crescent proclaimed the existence either of unlimited means, or unlimited credit.
From the hall to the farthest bedchamber, Berrie Down Hollow told its tale of shortness of money and of utter honesty. ”

“ And Bessie, who was not above flirting, even with a lad of eighteen, when it suited her purpose to do so, drew Alick from the dining-room across the hall, into the drawing-room, and so out on to the long terrace-like walk which overlooked the Hollow, and all the pleasant country stretching away towards the west.
“I did not want the cherries in the least,” she began, putting her hand within Alick’s arm, and speaking in her usual don’t-careish tone; “I did not want the cherries, but I wanted to get away from mamma—she does so worry me, that I say things to her I feel sorry for afterwards. ”

“ The understanding mind and the skilful hand are not necessarily sent into the world together. The power of appreciating things lovely and beautiful is often divorced from the capacity to create or portray the lovely and the beautiful, or, rather, is not always mated with such capacity; and, although Bessie Ormson possessed no creative or imitative genius, she was yet endowed with 129that diviner genius—the ability to luxuriate in the thousand works of the great Creator. ”

“ It was so wonderful a revelation, in fact, that she could not help remarking one day to Miss Hope:—
“How very fond Mr. Harcourt must be of Bessie!”
“Yes,” answered that lady, who was surveying the pair through her eye-glass,—“he seems to like her well enough; more than she is worth, in my opinion. He is fonder of her than she is of him. She is only marrying him for a home, my dear.”
169“For a home!” repeated Heather, in amazement. ”