Miss Denison

“ Honor knits her brows and frowns away like anything, and Miss Denison's voice is several degrees more severe than usual. Oh, I assure you we look tragic when we really are working! I should like to know, now, what use it is your going to Sandhurst," she continues severely, "when you never so much as open a book at home? Ah! you are a lazy fellow, Hugh; and I don't believe you will ever pass all your exams. If you ever do get into the army (which I very much doubt) it will be by the backdoor, I verily believe."
"Why, what do you know about the backdoor, Molly?" ”

“ The old woman, writhing nervously under the clasp of Miss Denison’s hand, evidently cast about in her mind for a means of getting free while committing herself as little as possible. The reluctant words which at last came out were not very well chosen, however.
“I’ll tell ye this, then,” she croaked, in a broken whisper, peering round with her sunken eyes as if to be sure the treasonable communication [Pg 19] she was making was not overheard by the person concerned. “Yon gentleman, as ye call him, is not fit company for young ladies. ”

“ Every morning Buntingford would motor up to town, spend some strenuous hours in demobilization work at the Admiralty, returning in the evening to receive Cynthia's report of the day. Miss Denison, the boy's teacher, who had been trained in one of the London Special Schools, was a little round-faced lady with spectacles, apparently without any emotions, but really filled with that educator's passion which in so many women of our day fills the place of motherhood. ”

“ Denison, who was still grumbling at her step-daughter’s non-appearance, would go indoors, and give her a chance of enveloping her father in a warm hug, and of snatching a stolen interview with him unknown to the ruling powers.
In a few moments, to the girl’s great delight, Mrs. Denison said, impatiently, “Well, I can’t stand here in the snow, just because your daughter chooses to insult me by absenting herself when I am expected.”
“My dear, my dear,” expostulated papa’s mild tones, “Olivia is the best creature in the world. She wouldn’t think of insulting you or anybody. ”

“ Olivia Denison was indeed an unchallenged beauty, and had occupied that proud position almost ever since, twenty years ago, she had been pronounced to be “a lovely baby.” She was tall—of that cruel height which forces short admirers, on pain of looking ridiculous, to keep their distance; of figure rather massive than slender, with a fair skin, a fresh color, dark hair, blue eyes, and a winning expression of energy and honesty which gave to the whole face its greatest charm. For the moment, however, the rose color had left her cheeks, too, and her lips were drawn tightly together. ”

“ Miss Denison and her parents were staying at Pau. I was in the same hotel and I met them. I knew nothing then of their position and wealth and all that, for I had not been long in London. I loved her, and a great hope came into my life. One begins to weary after a while of toiling just to make money for oneself. For a few days all seemed changed, the whole world was new and bright to me. Suddenly I got an intimation from the father of the lady that my calls were no longer acceptable. I could not imagine the reason. I asked for an interview to explain matters, and he refused it. ”

“ Olivia Denison’s outburst against the Vicarage folk and their treatment of Vernon Brander seemed to overwhelm the latter with consternation. He stood before the impulsive girl as if benumbed by her vehemence; and it was not until her restless movements and bending head showed that she felt uncomfortable and ashamed of [Pg 114] herself that he tried to speak and to reassure her. For it was evident that she thought her boldness had deeply offended him.
“You do them injustice, Miss Denison. Though I know it’s only through your kind feeling for me. There is nothing my brother would not do for me ”

“ Denison, after ten years of his second marriage, was by no means so absorbed by marital devotion as to ignore the descent he had made in taking for his second wife a woman scarcely refined enough to have been maid to his first. Being a man of affectionate temperament, fond of home, and sensitively grateful for kindness real or supposed, it was natural that in his keen sorrow at his first wife’s death, he should fall a prey to the first woman, near at hand, who should find it worth her while to capture him. This, in the natural course of things, proved to be his daughter’s governess. ”

“ Doris seizes on the letter, and Honor's hands being floury, opens it and reads it to her, Jane having retired into the scullery with her missive.
Miss Denison's letter is like herself—kindness throughout. Not one little incident with which they have acquainted her is forgotten, and the whole letter conveys with it such an air of her affectionate manner that it almost seems to the girls as if she were standing there and speaking to them in person. She sends good news about the recovery of her fiancé ”

“ Her sister is worse again, so mother let her go home to see her. Now let us have these chestnuts if we're going to. Pull your chairs up to the fire again and let us be cosy. Good gracious, what an untidy rug you've made! What would Miss Denison say if she saw it? Dick, my boy, you will have to mend your manners before she returns, or she will be looking every hour of the day in that quiet way of hers which speaks such volumes. ”

“ A burst of applause greets Honor as she steps down from the footstool upon which Molly has previously handed her with much ceremony. No one, however, seems any nearer settling the author than before.
"Most annoying, to be sure," says Miss Denison, tapping the fender impatiently with her foot; "I do dislike to be baffled like this. I'll tell you what, we will send down and ask your father to let us have both Byron and Shelley from the study. After all I think it must be one of those two—anyway, we will search until we do find it. Now, who will be my ambassador?" ”

“ Denison had said nothing of this to his wife, although a horrible agitation had taken possession of him, when, upon leaving the house he had told the coachman to drive at full speed to the banking house.
The guests were all assembled. The clergyman was waiting, but still there was no sign of Mr. Denison. An uneasy whisper, an ever-increasing impatience, could be noticed. Mrs. Denison's thin face took on a feverish red. Elmore's father was just about to telephone down town, when, at last the carriage rolled up to the door. ”

“ Denison always had ready for herself on the irritating subject of Olivia’s beauty was that her own flaccid paleness made the girl’s bright coloring look “vulgar.” She had made her entrance in an aggressive mood; every word the unfortunate man had uttered had increased her prejudice against him, and had seemed specially designed for her annoyance. ”

“ That this young gallant, Malcolm of Dunarden,
With all her virtues, loves not Alice Denison,
And loves another.
MARIAN.
Rather say, hath loved.
PROVOST.
I'll not unsay my words. His heart is with her,
Low as she lies: and she who won his heart
From such a maid as Alice Denison,
Will keep it too, ev'n in her shroud. No, no!
We've spread our vaunting sails against the wind,
And cannot reach our port but with such peril
As will o'ermatch the vantage.
MARIAN.
Say not so.
Time will make all things as we wish to have them. ”

“ Being at heart a man of peace, and unable to retain displeasure with any one for long, Mr. Denison had subsided into an uneasy and conscience-pricked silence on the subject, when Olivia’s footsteps, bounding through the hall with the agility of youth and high spirits, startled both husband and wife. ”

“ Denison’s hard voice then struck upon their ears.
[Pg 95]
“Really, Edward, you’re not going to allow yourself to be talked over in that way, I hope. Surely you and I are the best judges as to who are, and who are not fit acquaintances for our children. And when the wife of the vicar of the parish herself warns me that such and such a man is a criminal of a sort not fit to be admitted into a decent house, I don’t think any one can dispute that we have authority for what we do.”
“The wife of the vicar! Mrs. Brander!” exclaimed Olivia in bewilderment. ”

“ Denison, heartily. “I’ll take care that he shall never——”
The vicar’s wife interrupted her, laying a persuasive, but not feeble, hand on the arm of the excited lady.
“You will take care never to hint a word of this to him, or to any one,” she said, in a low, but exceedingly authoritative, tone. “You remember your promise. Without any measure so strong as that, [Pg 89] we women always know how to give an acquaintance who is in any way undesirable not too much cold shoulder, but just cold shoulder enough.” ”

“ Denison perceived an opening for a suggestion which his wife, of late, had been constantly urging him to make. Not being quite sure how his daughter would take it, he hurried it out in a shamefaced manner without looking at her.
“Since you don’t get on very well together, I wonder you don’t take the chance of getting a nice home of your own; you know you could if you like.”
“What; by wearing little Freddie Williams for ever on my watch chain?” cried Olivia, turning off the suggestion as a joke to avoid paining her father by expressing the disgust she felt. ”

“ Of course this was the last straw, and Denison was asked to resign. But as Mrs Aubrey Denison wrote and said she should like to forgive him for his disgraceful conduct before he went away, he sent the Scotch foreman of the Trumpet-Call to explain to her that the catch-line of an auctioneer's advertisement had been 'dropped' on the same galley as the mortuary notice, and overlooked when the forme was locked. And so, after a tender farewell to little Susie Sum Fat, and with her kisses still warm upon his lips, Denison went out into the world again to look for a ship. ”

“ Denison felt that no such men and women as appear in many of the novels of the Realistic Romances exist in Canada. In his opinion, the substance of these novels is puerile and vain invention. He, therefore, decided to present to the Canadian public real men and women as they really live, move and have their being in Canada—even if they are, as indeed they are, sordid and vulgarized men and women. Denison’s plays, then, are a Protest; they are also a Satire. What the dramatist is protesting against is not the life that he presents in his plays. ”

“ And whatever is best about me my Olivia has certainly inherited. But whoever my child marries, it must be for her own good; not for mine.”
Simple, selfish Mr. Denison thought there was something rather praiseworthy in this declaration. Fred listened shrewdly.
“It must be much worse to be badly off, or—or not to be exactly flourishing, when one has a family to care for and provide for,” he suggested.
Mr. Denison seized his hand.
“My dear lad, that’s just it,” said he, almost earnestly and in all sincerity. “A man on a farm by himself must be in heaven. ”

“ Still, although three-and-twenty years have passed since then, Denison often wishes he could live those seven months in Leassé over again, and let this, his latter-day respectability, go hang; because to men like him respectability means tradesmen's bills, and a deranged liver, and a feeling that he will die on a bed with his boots off, and be pawed about by shabby ghouls smelling of gin. ”

“ The Indiana made the low-lying atoll at last and lay-to outside. Those on board could see the trader's house close to, but instead of being surrounded by a swarm of eager and excited natives there was not one to be seen. Nor could they even see a canoe coming off. Denison pointed this out to the captain. Although of an evidently savage and morose temperament he was always pleasant enough to Denison in his capacity of supercargo, and inquired of him if he thought the trader had been killed.
“No,” Denison said, “I don't think the people here would ever kill Martin; but something is wrong. ”

“ Olivia Denison was not by any means a fanciful girl. She had been brought up by a step-mother—a mode of education little likely to produce an unwholesome forcing of the sentimental tendencies. She was besides too athletic and vigorously healthy to be prone to superstitious or morbid imaginings. ”

“ Denison is associated with Petersfield, the homely cosiness of whose interior, often seen during its occupancy by him, lighted up by a rousing hospitable fire of great logs, piled high in one of the usual capacious and lofty fire-places of the time, made an indelible impression on the boyish fancy. The venerable Mrs. Sophia Denison, too, Mr. Denison's better half, was in like manner associated in our memory with the cheery interior of the ancient Petersfield farm-house—a fine old English matron and mother, of the antique, strongly-marked, vigorous, sterling type. ”

“ Oh, there is something so like the refinement of cruelty in these stern events which hold us apart, that I feel at times like questioning the laws that imposed such fearful restrictions. We are one in all the essentials of marriage, Mrs. Denison. Why are we thus sternly held apart?"
"It is one of the necessities of our fallen nature," Mrs. Denison replied, in her calm, yet earnest voice, "that spiritual virtues can only have birth in pain. We rise into the higher regions of heavenly purity only after the fires have tried us. Some natures, as you know, demand a severer discipline than others. ”