Bryda

“ And who is to walk with me to church? Dear me! how inconsiderate you are! I suppose you think a gentlewoman like me can take Mrs Symes' arm?'
Bryda thought nothing about it, but left the room to tell Mr Barrett she would be ready at the hour he was pleased to name.
'It must be early—say eight o'clock, Miss Palmer;' and he added, looking anxiously into her face, 'don't fret, or we shall have you ill next,' and taking Bryda's little thin hand in his the doctor felt her pulse. 'You are weak as a fly,' he said. 'Give up here and go home. We will talk more of it to-morrow. ”

“ Instead of taking any notice of these remarks, Bryda asked,—
'Where's grandfather?'
[Pg 33] 'At his business, of course. Another lamb is dead, and another ewe past hope. Everything is gone crooked. The last brood of chicks are dying fast as they can. It's all along with Goody Fenton's evil eye. I said so when she sat in the porch Lady-day. I told you you was feeding a bad old woman, and I was right.'
Bryda gave a little incredulous laugh. ”

“ I do not envy you, sir; it is always better to be the injured than the injurer. Permit me to pass, sir, as I must lose no time.'
The door opened at this moment, and an old man-servant came shuffling in, a tray in his hand, loaded with a silver goblet of spiced wine and a few wheaten cakes. He eyed Bryda curiously, and placing the tray on a small table covered with dust, he put a chair before it, and was retiring, when Bryda seized the moment for escape. ”

“ She could scarcely believe the apprentice taking his meals with the footboy in the dingy kitchen at Dowry Square could be one with the young man who walked by her side in his holiday attire.
All the latent romance in Bryda's nature was stirred by the history which her companion told her of the old parchments, used forsooth as covers of books, or cut up into thread papers, and yet of priceless value—a value which he alone had discovered. ”

“ That night, when Betty was quietly sleeping in the white-curtained tent-bed which the sisters shared, Bryda went to the lattice and opened it gently, and looked out into the calm of the summer night. The old-fashioned garden below sent up from its bushes of lavender and rosemary, and sweet-scented thyme and wallflower, a dewy fragrance. A honeysuckle just coming into full flower clasped the mullion of the old stone framework by the lattice with clinging tendrils. ”

“ Mrs Lambert became more and more dependent on Bryda. She was an utterly selfish old lady, and selfish people have a strange power of getting all they want out of those who minister to their particular weaknesses and foster their self-love and self-indulgence. Bryda was allowed to go home for two days at Christmas, having first made the puddings, and pastry for the mince pies, and cut the citron and orange peel into the prescribed portions for the rum punch which would be brewed for the Christmas supper. ”

“ Sometimes Bryda could not leave Mrs Lambert, sometimes she had promised to take a dish of tea with one or other of the friends of the old lady who frequented her parlour, and praised the girl, who was, as they said, so notable and obliging, and who was really quite the young gentlewoman though country bred and born in a farmhouse. ”

“ Betty sent for me—she is in great distress—can you tell me?'
'I am come instead of your sister,' Mr Bayfield said, and pitying Bryda's face of alarm, he said, 'Nothing is [Pg 144] wrong. I am only come here to claim your promise. Easter has come and is nearly gone. I am prepared to bury the very remembrance of the debt. I am prepared to leave your grandfather a free man for the rest of his life, and give him a written pledge of this, if you will consent to be mine.'
Bryda started back. The helplessness of her position came over her. ”

“ As Bryda obeyed and followed Mr Lambert into the room he shut the door.
'Mr Bayfield was here yesterday, as you may be aware.'
'I knew he was in Bristol, sir,' Bryda said, her voice faltering.
'Well, he has consented to await your decision before proceeding to recover the debt which your grandfather is unable to pay.'
'My decision, sir,' Bryda said, with some dignity, 'is made, and can never be altered.'
'Well, well, Bayfield is not the only man who has been taken at first sight with a pretty face. He says, if you will marry him, he will let your grandfather go scot-free. ”

“ Jack's eyes fed on her with a hungry longing to possess her. He saw visions of future Christmastides, when he should be a prosperous silversmith and live in one of the houses in the College Green, as his uncle did, with Bryda its mistress, with all she liked best about her—plenty of books, and music, and everything she asked for. Lost in the contemplation of that halcyon time, Jack forgot the present, and was only awoke to it by the old man's exclamation of wonder as Mr Bayfield laid the gifts of which he spoke on the table. ”

“ Bryda might be said to be self-educated. Her schooling had been of the narrow type afforded by a 'decayed gentlewoman' in a neighbouring large village, who had undertaken to instruct her pupils in reading, writing, and arithmetic, with fine needlework and the rudiments of French.
These rudiments seldom advanced beyond the auxiliary verbs and the pronouns, but Miss Darcy still kept school at Pensford, and spoke with pride of her late talented pupil Miss Palmer. ”

“ To this simple-hearted young man whom Nature had designed for a farmer, but whose ambitious mother had willed that he should [Pg 31] be a silversmith and jeweller, in the fond hope that he might succeed his childless uncle in his Bristol business, Bryda was an idol at whose shrine he worshipped, and whose smile sent him on his way rejoicing, while her frown, or a sharp word from her, made him miserable, and conscious that he was too dull and stupid and clumsy ever to win her as his wife.
Jack's education had been of the scantiest. ”

“ In our future interviews it grew fainter and ever fainter. I love you, madam, and if you will promise to be my wife I swear I will never press that old man again for the money. I will work honestly to redeem the neglect of the past, at my poor home, and I swear further I will see you its fair mistress ere another year is out.
[Pg 100] 'Nay, sir,' Bryda said, gathering up all her strength, 'nay, sir, do not swear what is impossible to perform. Not even to save those I love from penury will I accept your proposal.'
'Another suitor is more favoured, I presume. ”

“ She will cheer you when Hans has gone away and her father is all day in the Forest."
"Yes," said Elsie, "she is indeed a gift from God; and you, Frida, must teach her, as you taught her parents and Anna, the 'way of life.' And O Frida, thou must go down to the Dorf, for all the people there are so eager to see thee once more. And now that thou hast grown a young lady, they all wonder if thou still beest like the woodland child, and wilt care about the like of them, or if perchance thou hast forgotten them." ”

“ There came a look of infinite tenderness on the fierce swarthy face of Bryde McBride.
"And afterwards, my brave lass?"
"Ah, then, I could not let you go. Jesu aid me . . . you are mine from the beginning; it is not right that you love that other. Be kind to me, Bryde, let me whisper—je t'adore, always I love you—thus," she cried, and kissed him wildly in a kind of madness. "I think," said she, "when I am standing with Hugh to be married, I think I will run to you," and then—
"Take me home now," all brokenly she spoke, "my brave night is finished." ”

“ Frida made one little turn toward her bower behind the cliff, where the many sweet words spoken drew her to this last of hope. All was silent. There was no one Now was the time to go home at last.
Suddenly she felt a heavy drag upon her velvet skirt. Ancient Lear had escaped from the chain she had put on him, and, more trusty than mankind, was come to keep his faith with her.
“You fine old dog, it is too late! The clock has struck. The tide has turned. There is no one left to care for me; and I have ruined everyone. Good-by, you only true one!” ”

“ So Brydon, before him, took him in; with every fact of him now, in the higher light, hard and acute—his planted stillness, his vivid truth, his grizzled bent head and white masking hands, his queer actuality of evening-dress, of dangling double eye-glass, of gleaming silk lappet and white linen, of pearl button and gold watch-guard and polished shoe. No portrait by a great modern master could have presented him with more intensity, thrust him out of his frame with more art, as if there had been "treatment," of the consummate sort, in his every shade and salience. ”

“ Brydon was to know afterwards, was to recall and make out, the particular thing he had believed during the rest of his descent. He saw, in its great grey glimmering margin, the central vagueness diminish, and he felt it to be taking the very form toward which, for so many days, the passion of his curiosity had yearned. It gloomed, it loomed, it was something, it was somebody, the prodigy of a personal presence.
Rigid and conscious, spectral yet human, a man of his own substance and stature waited there to measure himself with his power to dismay. ”

“ Mistress Helen was thinking that Bryde would never have Margaret, because of a fault that was none of his making, and that would leave two lonely ones; and maybe, too, she was thinking that she herself would never be having Bryde (for another reason) , and that would make three lonely ones. As for being all in the family—well, if she could not be having Bryde, she could be having his cousin, and I'm thinking that not the half of an acre of land was even in her mind at all. But it would not do to be telling that to a man that would just have left his trysted wife. ”

“ So, past many a briered rock, and dingle buff with littered fern, green holly copse where lurked the woodcock, and arcades of zigzag oak, Frida kept her bridal robe from spot, or rent, or blemish. Passing all these little pleadings of the life she had always loved, at last she turned the craggy corner into the ledge of the windy cliff.
Now below her there was nothing but repose from shallow thought; rest from all the little troubles she had made so much of; deep, eternal satisfaction in the arms of something vast. ”

“ And the Laird gave Bryde a good word that day in my hearing.
"You will not be minding that tale, my lad," said he, with his hand on Bryde's shoulder. "We will whiles be a little careless in the marrying, our folk," said he, "but the blood is strong enough, and we hold together."
But for all that I kent that there would be something strange about Dan's son since he rose from his bed, and I think that Margaret kent it too, for I would be seeing a wistful look in her eyes when no one would be near her. ”

“ FRIDA, as time went on, was growing hardy and strong in the bracing Forest air. Every kindness was lavished on her, and the child-spirit had asserted itself, and though often tears would fill her eyes as something or other reminded her vividly of the past, yet her merry laughter was often heard as she played with Hans in the woods. Yet through all her glee there was at times a seriousness of mind remarkable in one so young, also a power of observation as regarded others not often noticeable in one of her years. ”

“ He too has left us. Ach! it is plain no one cares for the poor wood-cutters and charcoal-burners who live in the Forest, and some grand English gentleman will be getting our woodland child for a wife, and she will return to us no more."
But Frida only laughed at these lamentations. "Why, what nonsense you speak!" she said. "It is only for a little while that I am going away. I hope to come back in about three months. And many of you can now read the Bible for yourselves. And as to the grand gentleman, that is all fancy; I want no grand gentleman for a husband. ”

“ The baron now began to take a narrow, perhaps a natural, view of all the things around him. In all the world there was for him no sign or semblance of any being whose desires or strictest rights could be thought of more than once when set against his daughter's. This, of course, was very bad for Frida's own improvement. It could not make her selfish yet, but it really made her wayward. The very best girls ever seen are sure to have their failings; and Frida, though one of the very best, was not above all nature. People made too much of this, when she could no more defend herself. ”

“ A fierce temptation assailed Fred Brydon. He must not delay—every minute was precious—to save Evelyn, his wife, was surely more his duty than to set lost travellers on their way again. Besides, he told himself, it was not a fiercely cold night—there was no great danger of any person freezing to death; and even so, were not some things more vital than saving people from death, which must come sooner or later? Then down the wind came the cry again—a frightened cry—he could hear the words—"Help! help! for God's sake!" Something in Fred Brydon's heart responded to that appeal. ”

“ On hearing this Frida rose, and said if Lady Stanford would allow her, she would go and remain all night with the old woman, who she felt sure must have been her mother's nurse. She often, she said, watched a night by dying beds in the Black Forest, and had comforted some on their death-beds by reading to them portions of God's Word.
The Stanfords could not refuse her request; and when Lady Stanford had herself filled a basket with provisions for Frida herself and little Maggie, the girl set off, accompanied by Sir Richard, who went with her to the door of the cottage. ”