Rosa Nouchette Carey

“ You are very generous, Fay; you do not speak of Margaret—ah, I thought so,” as her head drooped against his shoulder—“she is in your mind, but you will not venture to speak of her.”
“I am so afraid you must regret her, Hugh.”
And Hugh, with a shade of sadness on his fine face, answered, slowly:
“If I regret her, it is as I regret my lost youth. She belongs to my old life; now I only reverence and cherish her memory. Darling, we must understand each other very clearly on this point, for all our unhappiness springs from that. We must have no secrets, no reservations in our future life ”

“ Lady Maltravers is frivolous, if you like—a mild edition of the renowned Mrs. Skewton, thinks of nothing but diamonds, and settlements, and all the vanities for which your worldly woman sells her soul. It is a great wonder that, with such an example before her eyes, Miss Selby is not as bad herself; but she is a wonderfully sensible girl, and never talks that sort of nonsense; why, she goes to early service, and looks after some poor people: not that she ever mentions these facts, for she is not a goody-goody sort at all.”
“Oh, no, she has too much go in her,” returned Fay, calmly. ”

“ Well, Fay thought about it all when she went to bed; she had got used to her big shadowy room by this time; she lay wide awake watching the fire-light flicker and dance on the walls; how odd that people who loved each other so much should misunderstand each other so strangely; of course Crystal loved this grand-looking Raby, and yet of her own accord she was hiding from him; and Fay thrilled with pity and affectionate sympathy, as she pondered over the sad story. She tried to tell Hugh when he returned the next day, but he was too busy or else unwilling to listen to her. ”

“ Hugh’s heart beat faster as he looked at her. He had not admired her much in the old days, and yet how beautiful she was. Either his taste had changed or these sad months had altered her; but a fairer and a sweeter face he owned to himself that he had never seen, and all his man’s heart went out to her in in a deep and pitiful love. Just then there was a crackling in the bushes and Nero growled, and Fay, looking up startled, saw her husband standing opposite to her.
In life there are often strange meetings and partings; moments that seem to hold the condensed joy or pain of years. ”

“ Crystal acknowledges hers with bitter tears and most true penitence, but she will not be forgiven. ‘Let me expiate my sin a little longer,’ that is all she says.”
“Yes, I know,” whispered Fern, “she is always telling me that she does not deserve to be happy; is that true, mother?”
“My child, do any of us deserve it? Happiness is a free gift like the sunshine that rises alike ‘on the evil and the good.’ Do you remember your father’s dying words?—‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins;’ ah, it is all forgiven up there—in heaven one has a Father;” and with trembling lips Nea turned away. ”

“ If there be one thing I hate, it is to outstay my welcome. I should be afraid of boring you both if I stayed much longer. Well, what now?” breaking off in some surprise.
“Ah, Erle!” exclaimed Fay, sorrowfully, the smiles and the dimples disappearing in a moment, “you are surely not going away yet. What shall I do without you?” continued the poor child. “Who will ride and drive and skate with me when you are gone?”
“Why, your husband, to be sure,” returned Erle, lightly; but he was watching her as he spoke. “You have not forgotten your husband, you naughty woman.” ”

“ The girl nearly broke her heart when Percy left them. She grew thin and pale and large-eyed, as girls will when they are fretting and growing at the same time. Nea’s motherly heart was touched with compassion for her child. She wished, if possible, to suffer alone; if it were in her power she would prevent the faintest shadow touching that bright young life.
So she spoke to her in her calm, sensible way, for Nea was always gentle with her children, and Fern was very dear to her—she had her father’s eyes, and Maurice’s pure upright nature seemed transmitted to his young daughter. ”

“ It was not bed-time yet, she said, but she would like to be quiet with her baby for a little. And when nurse had gone to have a chat with Janet, she tottered from the couch, and knelt down beside it, and laid her helpless arms about her baby’s neck, and wetted the white robe with her tears.
“It is all over, baby,” she moaned; “he does not care for you or for me either—he only wants Margaret; but you must love your mother, baby, and grow up and comfort her, for she has no one but you to love her in the whole wide world.” ”

“ Yellow sunshine, green turf, the buoyancy of salt spray in the air; some one, trailing a white gown unheeded in the sandy dust, pauses a moment under the flickering elms to admire the scene.
She is a tall, grave woman, with serious eyes and dead-brown hair, the shade of withered leaves in autumn, with a sad beautiful face.
It is the face of one who has suffered and been patient; who has loved much and will love on to the end; who, from the depths of a noble, selfless nature, looks out upon the world with mild eyes of charity; a woman, yet a girl in years, whom one termed his pearl among women. ”

“ We did not mean to listen, Raby; but it was not safe to move away from the trees.”
“You heard what she said, Margaret—her ideal. Heaven bless her sweet innocence; she is as much a child as ever. Do I look like any woman’s ideal now, Margaret. I always think of those lines in ‘Aurora Leigh,’ when I imagine myself
“‘A mere bare blind stone in the blaze of day,
A man, upon the outside of the earth,
As dark as ten feet under, in the grave,—
Why that seemed hard.’
And yet, she really said it; her ideal. Ah, well! A woman’s pity sometimes makes her mad. What do you say, Maggie?” ”

“ Her glance had fallen on Maurice, still sitting motionless with his hands before his eyes—Maurice her husband; yes, there he sat, the man whom her own willfulness had dragged to the brink of ruin, whose faith and honor she had tempted, whose honest purpose she had shaken and destroyed, who was so crushed with remorse for his own weakness that he dared not look her in the face; and as she gazed at him, Nea’s whole heart yearned with generous pity over the man who had brought her to poverty, but whom she loved and would love to her life’s end. ”

“ Oh, I know well there is no harm in him; every one would call him a good fellow; he is clever, he has plenty of pluck, he has gentlemanly feelings, and he worships Margaret. But in my opinion the wife should not be superior to the husband; if there must be weakness, it should be on the other side.” And here Raby sighed and gave himself up to melancholy and more personal broodings, and he thought how strange and baffling were the perversities of human nature, and how hearts cleaved to each other—in spite of a hundred faults and blemishes—as Margaret’s cleaved to Hugh Redmond. ”

“ He had never felt more wretched in his life. She had not reproached him, but all the color and life had gone out of her face. She had spoken so mildly, so gently to him. Would she forgive him, and would everything be as though this had never happened? “Oh, Erle, will you not wish me good-bye?” and then for a moment the poor girl felt as though her heart were breaking. Was she nothing to him after all?
At her words Erle quickly retraced his steps. “Forgive me, Eva,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes; “I am not myself, you know; all this takes it out of a man.” ”

“ Raby had not answered his sister’s reproachful speech, but he had taken her hand and pressed it, as though asking her pardon.
“I wish you thought better of Hugh,” she said softly, as she felt his caressing gesture; and Raby smiled again.
“I do think well of him. Who am I that I should judge my fellows? But I have not seen the man yet who is worthy of my Margaret. Come, is not that a lover-like speech; Hugh himself might have said it. But here we are at home; I can smell the roses in the porch; they are a sweet welcome to a blind man, are they not, Madge?” ”

“ Margaret started, and the proud indignant color rose to her face; but she restrained herself.
“May I ask your reason, Sir Wilfred?”
“I have a very good, sufficient reason,” returned the old man, sadly; “Hugh is my only son.”
“I do not understand—”
“Perhaps not, and it is my painful task to enlighten you, Miss Ferrers,” hesitating a little, “I do not wonder at my son’s choice, now I see you; I am quite sure that you are all he represents you to be; that in all respects you are fitted to be the wife of a wealthier man than Hugh. ”

“ She had made a cowslip ball for him once, and he had tossed it right into the middle of the great elms, where the rooks had their nest; and once she had harnessed him with daisy chains and driven him up and down the bowling-green, while her father laughed at them from the terrace—what a merry little child she used to be—and Hugh Redmond had been a splendid playfellow; but as she moved beside him down the graveled walk leading to the cottage her shyness increased, and she could not bring herself to recall these old memories; indeed, Hugh could not get her to look at him again. ”

“ Hugh is so kind-hearted, he hates to make any one uncomfortable. I will not try to find out any more by myself; I will be good and patient until he gets well.”
“That is spoken like a brave wife,” replied Margaret, with a faint smile. “By one who loves her husband more than herself.”
“As I love Hugh,” was the soft response; “dear Miss Ferrers, I must go now; the ponies will be growing restless, and I am a long way from home.” ”

“ It was on a hot thundery July afternoon that Sir Hugh entered Redmond Hall, weary and heated and dusty, and thoroughly ashamed of himself.
There are some men who hate to be reminded of their own shortcomings—who are too proud and impatient to endure self-humiliation, and who would rather go through fire and water than own themselves in the wrong. Sir Hugh was one of these. Despite his moral weakness, he was a Redmond all over, and had a spice of the arrogance that had belonged to them in the old feudal days, when they had ruled their vassals most tyrannically. ”

“ Trafford hesitated; she hardly liked to disturb Fern’s mind, and yet she wished to put her on her guard.
“You see, Fern,” she answered, with assumed lightness, “we are poor people—very poor people; we have to work for our bread, and to be content with simple fare; but my young cousin Erle is rich—he will be his uncle’s heir one day, and, no doubt, he will marry some rich, handsome girl. All the world is before him; he has only to look round him and choose, like the prince in a fairy story. You may be sure there is some gay young princess waiting for him somewhere. Are you cold, my darling?” ”

“ Yes, she was not too young to suffer; she and Raby had not done full justice to her. The childish face had lost its baby roundness; the beautiful eyes were dim with weeping; the strained white look of endurance that one sees on older faces was on hers: and, with a sudden impulse that she could not control, Margaret stooped and kissed her. “Oh, I am so sorry for you, what you must have suffered,” she said, in a voice that seemed full of tears.
Fay responded to the caress most warmly. “Oh, you are always so kind; one feels you understand without telling. ”

“ Fern had a vague sense that the room was brighter when Erle was there looking at her with those kindly glances. She never owned to herself that he was her prince, and that she had found favor in his eyes. She was far too humble for that; but she knew the days were somehow glorified and transfigured when she had seen him, and Erle knew that no face was so lovely to him as this girl’s face, no voice half so sweet in his ears, and yet people were beginning to connect his name with Miss Selby, Lady Maltravers’ beautiful niece. ”

“ One grows a little stony—a little colorless. There are flushes perhaps, a weight and oppression of unshed tears, and a falter of questions never answered; but it is not until afterward that full consciousness comes, that one knows that the concentrated essence of bitterness or pleasure has been experienced, the memory of which will last to our dying days. It was so with Fay when she looked up from her mossy log and saw Hugh with his fair-bearded face standing under the dark larches. ”

“ The avenue itself looked like the glade of some enchanted forest, with snow and icicles pendent from every bough; while above stretched the pure blue winter’s sky, blue-gray, shadowless, tenderly indicative of softness without warmth and color without radiance.
Fay in her dark ruby dress looked almost as brilliant as the morning itself as she sat by the fire talking to her husband’s cousin Erle Huntingdon, who had come down to while away an idle week or two at the old Hall. ”

“ Oh, Raby, let me go, do not forgive me; I have been your curse, and Margaret’s, too!”
“Then come back and be our blessing; come back in your beauty and youth to be eyes to the blind man, and to be his darling and delight. Crystal, I am wiser now—I shall make no more mistakes; indeed, I always loved you, dear; poor Mona was no more to me than any other woman.” ”

“ Heron still shook her head at intervals, for all the household knew that Margaret Ferrers, the sister of the blind vicar of Sandycliffe, was to have come to the Hall as its mistress; and the housekeeper’s faithful eyes had already noticed the cloud on her master’s brow.
“‘Marry in haste and repent at leisure,’ that is what many a man has done to his cost,” she soliloquized, as she bustled about her comfortable room. “Well, she is a bonny child, and he’s bound to make her happy; she will be like a bit of sunshine in the old Hall if he does not damp her cheerfulness with his gloomy moods.” ”

“ Power was very unlike the bright-faced young lover of her youth. He was a gray-haired man in the prime of middle-age, with grave manners, and a quiet thoughtful face—very reticent and undemonstrative; but Evelyn did well when she married him, for he made his wife a happy woman.
“Evelyn is absurdly proud of Hedley,” Lady Maltravers would say; “but then he spoils her, and gives her her way in everything.” Every one thought it was a pity that they had no children; but Evelyn never owned that she had a wish ungratified. She contented herself with lavishing her affection on Erle’s two boys. ”