Mrs. Oliphant

“ Never in Ned's life had he experienced anything like this before; the delicious thrill of visionary terror made the actual pleasantness of the warm corner he sat in all the pleasanter; he had thought himself past the age to have stories told to him; but nothing like Norah's visions had ever come in his way. No happiness, however, is perfect in this world. The dark avenue would come across him by moments with a thrill of terror. But the old woman could not sit and spin, that was certain, in the dark, windy, lonely avenue; there would be no mirror there to reflect his passing figure ”

“ Norah gave a little start as he approached, and blushed. 'It is the hero,' she said to herself. He looked as if he had just walked out of a novel with every sign of his character legibly set forth. But though it may be very well to gibe at beautiful dark eyes and handsome features, it is difficult to remain unmoved by their influence. Norah owned with that sudden flush of colour a certain curiosity, to say the least of it. Mr Burton frowned, and so did his son and daughter simultaneously, as if by touching of a spring. ”

“ I marry—is it likely?' said Ned.
'Very likely—if you ask Lady Florizel. Papa would not ask you to go into the business, or anything. Oh, I know! He does not say much about his plans, but he cannot hide a great deal from me. But you spoil it all, Ned,' said Clara severely. 'You put everything wrong, and make your own people your enemies. Instead of seeing how nice and how sweet and how charming the right young lady is, you go and throw yourself away on Norah Drummond—who leaves you in the lurch the moment she sees some one else better worth her pains.'
'And who might that be?' asked Ned. ”

“ A stormy night with a full moon is perhaps the most dramatic spectacle in nature. The world was flooded with light as Ned, a dark speck in all that whiteness, came out into the open lawns amid which his father's house stood. The wind was driving the clouds across the clear blue at such a desperate pace as might become the pursued and terrified stragglers of a great army; and the army itself, piled up in dark confused masses in the north, loomed behind the house of Dura, which was inundated by the white radiance. ”

“ The child would grow up; in a very few years she would be a woman; she would marry, in all likelihood, and go away, and belong to them no more; and Helen would be left to bear her lot alone. She would be left in the middle of her days to carry her burden as she might, deserted by every love that had once belonged to her. What a lot would that be!—worse, even, than his own, who, amid all his pains, had two hearts devoted to him never to be disjoined from him but by death. Poor Stephen, you would have supposed, was himself in the lowest depths of human suffering and solitude ”

“ The rich man had never enjoyed the commotion he made so much as he did now when he could see at the Gatehouse those faces looking out. There was scarcely an evening but Miss Jane or her mother would stand up to see him, gazing with unconscious worship at this representative of wealth and strength, and that practical power which sways the world; while Norah would clamber up on a chair behind the blinds at the other end, and look out with her big brown eyes full of serious observation. ”

“ He would not have to put himself into velvet and silk stockings and show himself in the drawing-room at home, that was a comfort. But what unknown mazes of conversation, what awful abysses of self-betrayal might there be before him here! Norah came in first, which at once frightened and relieved him. And the room was pretty—the old homely neutral-tinted room, with the lively gleam of firelight lighting it up, and all the darkness made rosy in the corners, which was so different from the drawing room at the great house, with its gilding and grandeur, its masses of flowers and floods of light. ”

“ A less human-hearted man in Stephen Haldane's position would no doubt have pronounced it happy for Helen that she was thus preserved from vanity and vain-glory. But he had learned to feel for all the deprivations of life. This was what he was really thinking, but not what he was supposed to think. Miss Jane gave a glance of her eye at him from her sewing, half-indignant, half-sorrowful. She had fancied something of the sort often, she said to herself. Stephen, poor Stephen! who could never have a wife, or any other love different from her own. ”

“ The solid splendid white arm, laden with bracelets, which leaned on her partner's shoulder, was a beauty not possessed by any of the slight girls whose mothers were watching her as she moved past them. Clara's arm would have made two of Norah's. Her size and fulness and colour dazzled everybody. She was a full-blown Rubens beauty, of the class which has superseded the gentler, pensive, unobtrusive heroine in these days. 'I don't pretend to say anything but what I think,' said Mr Burton, 'and I do feel that that is a girl to be proud of. ”

“ And I cannot help thinking you might love me so easily, if you would, Norah, you are so used to me—if you only would!'
Norah was very sympathetic, and his emotion moved her much. She cast down her eyes; she could not bear to look at him, and she nearly cried.
'Oh, Ned,' she said, 'I do love you. I am very fond of you; but how can I tell if it is in that way? How can you tell? We are just like brother and sister. We have never known anybody else all our lives.'
'I have,' said Ned, 'I have known hundreds. And there is no girl in all the world but one, and that is you. ”

“ She had felt she was on her own responsibility when dancing with Ned and Charlie; with, indeed, a little share of responsibility on account of her partners too. But Mr Rivers danced beautifully, and Norah felt like a cloud, like a leaf lightly carried by the breeze. She was carried along without any trouble to herself. When they had stopped, instead of feeling out of breath, she stopped only from courtesy's sake, to let the others go on.
'How well you dance, Mr Rivers!' she cried. 'I never liked a waltz so much before. The boys are so different. One never feels sure where one is going. ”

“ It seemed to bring the youth, who was all thrilling with natural romance, within that charmed inner circle of emotion and passion which is, though it is seldom visible, the centre and heart of life.
But Helen bore a very different aspect when she waited to receive Mrs Burton's call from that which she bore at the door of St Mary's Road, confronting Golden. Her flush of colour and glow of energy and vehemence were gone. She was seated, pale and silent, by the table near the window, with her dead white cap encircling her face, and some needlework in her hand. ”

“ Everything looked like a dream except Norah; but Norah was real. As for the child, there was in her heart a lively thrill of pleasure at sight of all this novelty which she could not quite subdue. She had no veil of crape over her eyes, and the red houses all lichened over, the glimpses of fields and trees, the rural aspect of the road, the vision of the common in the distance, all filled her with a suppressed delight. It was wrong, Norah knew ”

“ A girl's first ball! What words more full of ecstasy could be breathed in this dull world! A vague, overwhelming vision of delight before she goes into it—all brightness, and poetry, and music, and flowers, and kind, admiring faces; everything converging towards herself as a centre, not with any selfish sense of exclusive enjoyment, but sweetly, spontaneously, as to the natural queen. A hundred unexpected, inexpressible emotions go to make up this image of paradise. There is the first glow and triumph of power which is at once a surprise to her and a joy. ”

“ But how can I help it?' said Norah, growing a woman again. 'If you were like me, Dr Maurice—if you felt your mamma had only you—if you knew there was nobody else to stand by her, nobody to help her, and you so little! I am obliged to think; I cannot help myself. When I grow up, I shall have so much to do; and how can I know whether people are on our side or against us, except by looking at their eyes?'
'Norah, my little Norah!' cried the man pitifully, 'don't leave your innocence for such fancies as these. Your mother has friends to think for her and you—many friends ”

“ She is very, very handsome, Miss Jane. You never were fond of Clara; that is why you don't see it. It would be the very thing!' cried Norah, clapping her hands. 'She is not one of the girls that would go and make him vain, falling in love with him. She will keep him in his right place; she will not let him be the hero in the novel. The only thing is, I am a little disappointed—though it is very foolish and stupid; for of course all that is over long ago, and Clara is like my sister; and if Mr Burton was wicked, I hope he has repented. ”

“ We never can have a big boy, I suppose? I must be content with other girls' brothers. I shall never have one of my very own.'
'The less you have to do with other girls' brothers the better, Norah,' said Helen, beguiled into a smile.
'I do not care for them, I am sure,' said Norah, with dignity; 'though I don't dislike gentlemen, mamma—quite old gentlemen, like Dr Maurice and Mr Haldane, are very nice. And I should like to have had—Mr Rivers, for instance—for a big brother. I rather think, too, I like Ned Burton better than Clara. It is more natural to hear a boy talk of ponies and things. ”

“ I tell you what, though, Haldane,' he added hastily, after a pause, 'I'd like to adopt Norah Drummond. That is what I should like to do. I'd be very good to her; she should have everything she could set her face to. To start a strange child from the beginning, even if it were one's own, is always like putting into a lottery. A baby is no better than a speculation. How do you know what it may turn out? whereas a creature like Norah——Ah, that is what I should like, to adopt such a child as that!'
'To adopt—Norah?' Stephen grew pale. ”

“ She was a 'rosebud set about with wilful thorns;' she would not agree with him, nor yield in argument; she was not a shadowless beauty all in broad blaze of sunshine and complacency, like Clara; there were clouds and shadows about her, and a veil of soft mystery, spontaneous movements of fancy, wayward digression out of one thing into another. Mrs Drummond, who was the spectator at the banquet, grew alarmed. She tried to separate them, to lead Norah away among the other people. ”

“ She is the Una whose look can tame the lion; she is the princess before whose glance the whole world yields; and yet at the same time, being its queen, is she not the world's sweet handmaid, to scatter flowers in its path, and dance and sing to make it glad? All these thoughts are in the girl's mind, especially if she be a fanciful girl—though, perhaps, she does not find words to express any of them ”

“ I suppose it must be really; for if there is anything in the world that belongs to you, of course it is your mother. I think mamma is beautiful: even in her black silk, made square, and not so fresh as it once was, she was the most beautiful in the room—I don't mean pretty, like us girls. And if I could have put her into black velvet instead, with lovely lace, like Mrs Burton's, and the Marchioness's diamonds—oh!' cried Norah, expanding in her proud imagination, 'she would have been like a queen!'
'Oh, Norah, Norah!' cried Mrs Haldane, shaking her head.
'And so she would,' said Stephen. ”

“ Why should you? If I were a sensitive plant I might have some cause. I am little, I am friendless, I am very poor; I have nothing in the world but mamma. But for you to set up to have feelings, Ned! you, a boy! that can go where you like, and do what you like, and have heaps of money, and everybody bowing down before you! It is because you have nothing really to vex you, that you are obliged to invent things. Oh, you wicked, ungrateful boy, to pretend that you are unhappy! Look at Mr Stephen, and look at mamma!'
'But, Norah,' said Ned hurriedly; 'Norah dear! ”

“ It is not easy to bear the seeming prosperity of the wicked. He had taken from Helen all, except Norah, that made life worth having, and he himself had appeared to her full of jovial talk and laughter, going to visit at Dura, evidently a favoured guest. The difficulty was one which David felt even more deeply, and has argued with himself upon in many a strain which religion has made familiar to us as the air we breathe. In the Psalms it is never said that it is wrong to chafe at the prosperity of evil-doers, but only that that prosperity is short-lived, and that ruin is coming. ”

“ He is a boy, and can go anywhere. I am sure, mamma, we would have gone to make them feel a little at home. Where is the Gatehouse? What is that place over there? Why there are shops—a draper's and a confectioner's—and a library! I am very glad there is a library. Mamma, I think I shall like it; is that the common far away yonder? Do you remember any of the people? I should like to know some girls if you will let me. There is little Clara, of course, who is my cousin. Do you think we shall live here always, mamma?'
Norah did not ask nor, indeed, look for any answer to this string of questions. ”

“ And so many people in Helen's state of mind read novels—people who fly into the world of fiction as a frightened child flies into a lighted room, to escape the ghosts that are in the dark passages and echoing chambers—that it is strange so little provision is made for them, and that the love-story keeps uppermost in spite of all. ”

“ Boys are not to be trusted for waltzing; they are too energetic—too much determined to have everything their own way.'
'Oh, the boys! they are chiefly Ned and—Charlie Dalton. They are the ones I always dance with,' said Norah. 'And oh, by-the-bye, I was engaged to Charlie for this dance.'
'How clever of me to carry you off before Mr Charlie came!' said the hero. 'But it is his own fault if he was not up in time.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Norah, with a blush. 'The fact is—he did not ask me; I asked him. I never was at a ball before, and I don't know many people, and of course I wanted to dance. ”

“ I should have said she was too little for so many flounces, if she had consulted me.'
'That is the mistake girls always make,' said the Marchioness, 'especially girls who are not in society. They follow the fashion without ever thinking whether it suits them or not.'
'But, under correction, I think it did suit her,' said Mr Rivers. 'Do not let us call them flounces—call them clouds, or lines of soft white mist. I am not sufficiently learned in chiffons to speak.'
'Oh, but you are delightful on chiffons!' said Lady Florizel. 'Men always are when they know just a little. ”

“ You don't know any of us, Mr Rivers, and you oughtn't to look as if you had found us out. How could you find out all about us, who have known each other from babies, in one night?'
'I beg your pardon,' he said, with an immediate change of tone. 'It is one of the bad habits of society that nobody can depend on another, and everybody likes to grin at his neighbours. Forgive me; I forgot I was in a purer air.'
'Oh, it was not that,' said Norah, a little confused. He seemed to say things (she thought) which meant nothing, as if there was a great deal in them. ”