Mrs. Oliphant

“ Sometimes I would be seized with a fit of inquiry, and would pester papa with a torrent of questions; but at other times I fell back into my dreams, and would be making some splendid expedition as Lady Mary all the time, while I hung, always a little behind him, on his arm, leaving him as undisturbed as, generally, he left me. I think of this calm of indifference now, when I look back upon it, with very odd feelings. Is it that one does not care so long as one has those whom one loves all to one’s self? ”

“ Milly sat down vacantly in a big chair, too far off the lamp to continue her book.
“I beg your pardon, Miss,” said the soft-voiced waiter: “will you have the dinner up, or wait till the gentleman comes?”
“O, Grace!” said Milly, startled, appealing to her sister.
“Of course, we will wait for papa,” said Grace, turning round from the window.
When the man went away poor little Milly, overtired and depressed, fell a-crying. “Oh, how strange it is! Oh, how lonely it is!” she cried. “I feel as if there was nobody alive—nobody that knew us.” ”

“ Mrs Underwood’s countenance fell more and more. She looked haggard in the sudden severity of the conflict set up within her. “I—thinking of myself?” she said, almost weeping. But the accusation was too terrible to be met with mere tears, which are fit only for lesser matters. She gazed at her sister with large round eyes full of wretchedness. No crime in the world was so dreadful to her as this of thinking of one’s self; it is the thing of all others which cuts a virtuous Englishwoman to the heart. “For Geoff’s good, you know, you know, Anna,” she cried, “I would submit to anything. ”

“ The old life comes round me as my thoughts go back to it, the afternoon sounds in the street—vulgar sounds, but softened by summer air as much as if they had been the sweetest; the drowsy tinkle of the muffin-man’s bell, the prolonged cry of “water-cre-e-e-sses!” the sound of children’s voices and dogs barking, and distant wheels that always ground out an accompaniment; and myself in the window, poor Mr Peveril the clergyman’s daughter, to my own knowledge Lady Mary, and a very great, small person. ”

“ Mrs Stephens laughed. “I can’t tell you how it is, Mary, but so it is,” she said; “and by and by, when you are older, you will have somebody whom you will be happier with than you ever were with your papa. That is the best of being young. When my Sophy married, it was very hard upon me to see her happier with her husband than she had been with her mother, and to know that all that sort of thing was over for me, and that I must be content with my worsted-work. But you will have a happiness of your own by and by, when you are older; so you must not grudge it so much to your poor papa. ”

“ And without living at all splendidly, or with any ostentation of wealth, it was recognised that they were to be reckoned among the best people. They lived that kind of life which to many people appears, or did once appear, an ideal existence—a life of domestic comfort, of homely wealth, and family companionship: in which Cowper’s picture of the close-drawn curtains, the blazing fire, the hissing tea-urn was realised continually, with all the warm family adoration and mutual knowledge, and also, perhaps, something of the narrowness and sense of superior virtue which that ideal implies. ”

“ If the money was to be lost, Mrs Underwood felt in herself the power of enduring everything. To be housemaid and valet to Geoff would be, in its way, a kind of blessedness; it would knit the domestic ties closer. She would have more of her boy if they lived in a smaller space, in a poorer way; and with that happiness before her, what did she care for poverty? But her sister’s suggestion brought in an entirely different circle of ideas. She saw herself dropping apart from Geoff’s life altogether. ”

“ The virtuous dulness, the gentle talk, is seldom enlivened by any dramatic interest going on under the surface. Now and then, indeed, a mild love affair will give a little excitement to the circle round the tea-table: but this is the utmost stretch to which the imagination can reach as connected with that mild entertainment. And among all the pretty suburban houses, surrounding London with endless circles of comfort and brightness, there could not have been found a more attractive group than that which occupied Miss Anna’s pretty sitting-room in Grove Road. ”

“ That is, she lay among her pillows in profoundest comfort, with the firelight making the room bright, and candles burning in dainty Dresden candlesticks at her bedside, and one or two favourite books within reach, and turned everything over in her active mind, until she had decided what course to pursue. Not one detail of all the luxury round her would Miss Anna part with without a struggle. She was determined to fight for her fortune to the very last; but if there was any better way than mere brutal fighting, her mind was ready to grasp it and weigh all its possibilities. ”

“ But Geoffrey shook his head.
“You have nobody else to look after your interests. I am your next friend,” he said. “Don’t you know that is how we do in English law? Those who are too young or too helpless to plead for themselves plead by their next friend. And that is the most fit office for me.”
“Then that makes England a little like what we thought it: not like the cruel, cruel place,” cried Grace, “that it has been to Milly and me.” ”

“ CHAPTER II MR YORKE went out in the quickly fading spring afternoon with an air of seriousness and resolution, which, indeed, had been upon his countenance all day; but which was not much like the expression of a holiday visitor. He had a long drive out to the northern outskirts of London, across those miles on miles of insignificant streets which are almost more imposing in their shabby dreariness than the more important portions of the greatest of cities. ”

“ It is not all a woman thinks of to marry any fool that turns up, and to become the mother of fools. Go away to your son, Mary. That was your ambition: as it is your folly now, to believe in every deception, and allow yourself to be led by the nose. I think your protégé had better withdraw too, now that I have seen him. He has not a feature of poor Leonard Crosthwaite,” she added, eyeing him steadfastly. ”

“ Mrs Underwood had fallen into tears and broken exclamations. She was incapable of any connected words. “Oh Geoff—my boy—all I have—all I have in the world!” and “a sea voyage—a sea voyage to America,” was all she said.
Miss Anna got up to her feet, and struck her stick emphatically upon the floor. “Listen, Mary! I have said your son was soft, and a dawdle like yourself. I retract. He’s a clever fellow, and sees the rights of a matter when it’s put before him. There, Geoff! go, and you have my blessing. I’ll give you a hundred pounds, too, if you want it, that you may have a pleasant trip. ”

“ Milly’s hand was held out too, though more timidly. She did not say anything, but she looked a great deal more than Grace had said, he thought. He had risen too in a tremulous state of excitement and generous enthusiasm. It was only his left hand that he had to give to the younger sister, but even in that fact there seemed to both of them something special—a closer approach.
“I do not know what to say,” he said, “dear, brave, generous girls! To have you will be worth a great deal more than the money. We are friends for ever, whatever may come of it.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Why, he had always had me!
“When you are older,” he went on nervously, “you will feel what a dreadful thing the want of companionship is. You have been a good child, Mary, and done all you could for me. I should not have been able to live without you; but when a man has been used to a companion of—of his own standing, it is a great change to him to fall back upon a child.”{20}
I grew angrier and angrier; I could scarcely tell why. A feeling of disappointment, of heart-sinking, of fury, came over me. I had never made much fuss about adoring my father, and so forth ”

“ A compromise? no! I will have no compromise,” cried Miss Anna, striking her stick upon the floor.
“And we reject it too,” cried Grace—“we will have nothing, nothing! we settled upon all that before we came here. If we had not decided so, we should never have come.”
“Let it go to a jury if you like,” said Miss Anna, paying no attention to this. “I am not afraid. I take the risk of sentiment. Yes, of course, they are a pack of sentimental fools: two pretty girls in deep mourning will get anything out of a British jury. Still I’ll risk it. ”

“ It is not necessary that we should stay in your room, Aunt Anna, if you dislike it; but I wish these ladies to remain till my mother sees them——”
“Your mother, who always believes everything that is said to her! Let there be an end to this folly at once, Geoff; go and get a cab.”
“Aunt Anna, there had better be no struggle between us—yet. What I ask is very simple—that they should see my mother.”
“Do you want to see his mother?” she said, suddenly turning upon the astonished girls. ”

“ Here the girls, being so weeping-ripe, again lost their self-control altogether. Milly began to sob audibly, throwing herself upon her sister’s shoulder, and the tears dropped heavily one by one from Grace’s eyes. She put one arm round poor Milly, and turned, with a tremulous smile through her tears, to the stranger.
“Thank you for being so kind,” she said. “You are very kind; but we are not quite so miserable as perhaps you think. We have got our mother too. We are waiting till she tells us what to do.” ”

“ Papa was not a man to go by a false name. Oh, no, no; he was true in everything. There must still be some mistake.”
Miss Anna, who had turned her chair away, turned round again at this. “I told you,” she said; “this young fellow wants to prove you to be the daughters of an impostor or a madman. Of course, your father was not a man to go by a false name. Nobody would do that who was, as you say, a respectable person, a man thought well of in his own place. You know better than to think so. Of course: that is exactly what I said.”
But this support sent Grace instantly into opposition. ”

“ Milly was not able to stand. She leaned her weight upon her sister; her pretty hair fell about her face, all wild and distorted with crying. She wanted to get down again to the floor to kneel at the doctor’s feet. “He could do something still if he were to try. Oh, Gracie, Gracie! think of us two miserable girls, and mamma, and all the children. He could do something if he were to try.”
“Milly! we have got to stand by him—to keep up his heart——”
“I cannot stand—I cannot stand, I think I will die. Oh, doctor, doctor! do something, find out something! ”

“ It was left to me expressly by dear papa. Of course, he made sure you would marry; and me a widow with one dear child, it was so natural that he should leave it to me. It will be all we shall have,” she added with a sigh, “if this dreadful thing comes true.”
“It will never come true if you play your cards well, Mary. You have got it all in your hands,” Miss Anna said, “and it will be a fine thought for you that you have saved your family: though you never thought a great deal of your own powers—I will do you that justice.”
Mrs Underwood shook her head. ”

“ The decision finally was for Westminster. As for these young people, they did not know the difference between St Paul’s and the Abbey. They were both old, reverend, glorious structures to Grace and Milly; but what it might be that made the difference between them they did not know. One meant Poets’ Corner, the other that about the mighty Seaman. They had never seen a Gothic cathedral in their lives.
And perhaps it is not ignorance so profound as this that is qualified to see and understand what is best. The girls read the names on the monuments with a kind of silent ecstasy of wonder. ”

“ 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. ”