บทที่ บทที่ 4 · Miss Marchmont

. Miss Marchmont

MISS MARCHMONT.

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s

departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never

more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been

absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to

return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no

harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying

nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight

years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still

as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to

heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great

many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that

fashion; why not I with the rest?

Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a

cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes

indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I

must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck

at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of

contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the

rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure

on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour

nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;

we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy

tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In

fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.

As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.

Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost

sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way

of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes

for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for

her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock

undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original

amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a

profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were

understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of

dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I

was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion

were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands

besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,

sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me

some task I could undertake.

Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome

residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,

and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her

drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss

Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being

very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a

furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long

affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a

maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was

about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for

me, with the idea that I might supply this person’s place. She made the

proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.

“It will not be an easy life;” said she candidly, “for I require a good

deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,

contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear

tolerable.”

I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued inwardly;

but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live here, in

this close room, the watcher of suffering—sometimes, perhaps, the butt

of temper—through all that was to come of my youth; while all that was

gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully! My heart sunk one

moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself to _realise_ evils,

I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_, and consequently to exaggerate

them.

“My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking,” I

observed.

“That is my own scruple,” said she; “for you look a worn-out creature.”

So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,

hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The

blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life’s

sources.

“What else have you in view—anything?”

“Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something.”

“So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and

if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be

left open to you for three months.”

This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was

speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the

necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time

she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I,

for my part, had learned from the manner in which she bore this attack,

that she was a firm, patient woman (patient under physical pain, though

sometimes perhaps excitable under long mental canker); and she, from

the good-will with which I succoured her, discovered that she could

influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent for me the next

day; for five or six successive days she claimed my company. Closer

acquaintance, while it developed both faults and eccentricities,

opened, at the same time, a view of a character I could respect. Stern

and even morose as she sometimes was, I could wait on her and sit

beside her with that calm which always blesses us when we are sensible

that our manners, presence, contact, please and soothe the persons we

serve. Even when she scolded me—which she did, now and then, very

tartly—it was in such a way as did not humiliate, and left no sting; it

was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter, than a harsh

mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture, indeed, she could not, though

she could occasionally storm. Moreover, a vein of reason ever ran

through her passion: she was logical even when fierce. Ere long a

growing sense of attachment began to present the thought of staying

with her as companion in quite a new light; in another week I had

agreed to remain.

Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my

mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty—her pain, my

suffering—her relief, my hope—her anger, my punishment—her regard, my

reward. I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an

ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick

chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became

narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I

demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than the

tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the

originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues, I

will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her

feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these things I

clung to her.

For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if

for twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But

another decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into action.

I must be goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little morsel of

human affection, which I prized as if it were a solid pearl, must melt

in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone. My small

adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented conscience. I

had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies

by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains. Fate would

not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction this shrinking sloth

and cowardly indolence.

One February night—I remember it well—there came a voice near Miss

Marchmont’s house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps, only

by one. After a calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring. I had

put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The wind was

wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night deepened,

it took a new tone—an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to the

ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled in every

gust.

“Oh, hush! hush!” I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and

making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching

cry. I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation

had forced on me a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the

course of my life, events had taught me that these strange accents in

the storm—this restless, hopeless cry—denote a coming state of the

atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I believed, were

often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting east

wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied,

too, I had noticed—but was not philosopher enough to know whether there

was any connection between the circumstances—that we often at the same

time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of the world;

of rivers suddenly rushing above their banks; and of strange high tides

flowing furiously in on low sea-coasts. “Our globe,” I had said to

myself, “seems at such periods torn and disordered; the feeble amongst

us wither in her distempered breath, rushing hot from steaming

volcanoes.”

I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.

About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The

fire, which had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air

change, and become keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and

saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost.

Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,

lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual

earnestness.

“Is it a fine night?” she asked.

I replied in the affirmative.

“I thought so,” she said; “for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I

feel young to-night,” she continued: “young, light-hearted, and happy.

What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to

enjoy health? It would be a miracle!”

“And these are not the days of miracles,” I thought to myself, and

wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation to

the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and personages,

with singular vividness.

“I love Memory to-night,” she said: “I prize her as my best friend. She

is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my heart,

in warm and beautiful life, realities—not mere empty ideas, but what

were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed, dissolved,

mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours, the thoughts,

the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life—its only love—almost

its only affection; for I am not a particularly good woman: I am not

amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and concentrated; and these

feelings had their object; which, in its single self, was dear to me,

as to the majority of men and women, are all the unnumbered points on

which they dissipate their regard. While I loved, and while I was

loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious year I can

recall—how bright it comes back to me! What a living spring—what a

warm, glad summer—what soft moonlight, silvering the autumn

evenings—what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and

frost-hoar fields of that year’s winter! Through that year my heart

lived with Frank’s heart. O my noble Frank—my faithful Frank—my _good_

Frank! so much better than myself—his standard in all things so much

higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered as I did

in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a far

better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it

was such a love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than it

gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me now ask, just at this

moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,—let me reflect why it was

taken from me? For what crime was I condemned, after twelve months of

bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?

“I do not know,” she continued after a pause: “I cannot—_cannot_ see

the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I never

tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at this

moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank. I never

believed it till now.”

“He is dead, then?” I inquired in a low voice.

“My dear girl,” she said, “one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and

decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would

come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see that

moment—I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over which

the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up the

white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing on my

silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a glass. I

see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and cold, over

the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my grounds. I

wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. The

flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet; the moon was

mounting high, but she was still visible from the lattice; the clock

neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but once or twice he had

been delayed so long.

“Would he for once fail me? No—not even for once; and now he was

coming—and coming fast—to atone for lost time. ‘Frank! you furious

rider,’ I said inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his

approaching gallop, ‘you shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it

is _my_ neck you are putting in peril; for whatever is yours is, in a

dearer and tenderer sense, mine.’ There he was: I saw him; but I think

tears were in my eyes, my sight was so confused. I saw the horse; I

heard it stamp—I saw at least a mass; I heard a clamour. _Was_ it a

horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing, strangely dark,

the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight before me? or

how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul?

“I could only run out. A great animal—truly, Frank’s black horse—stood

trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held it, Frank, as

I thought.

“‘What is the matter?’ I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by

saying sharply, ‘Go into the house, madam.’ And then calling to another

servant, who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by some

instinct, ‘Ruth, take missis into the house directly.’ But I was

kneeling down in the snow, beside something that lay there—something

that I had seen dragged along the ground—something that sighed, that

groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew it to me. He was not dead;

he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; I refused to be

ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected enough, not

only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had begun

by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people

struck by God’s hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and

when he had done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He had

strength to fold me in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he

heard me as I prayed over him very softly; he felt me as I tenderly and

fondly comforted him.

“‘Maria,’ he said, ‘I am dying in Paradise.’ He spent his last breath

in faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my

Frank was with God.

“And that,” she went on, “happened thirty years ago. I have suffered

since. I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft,

amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil

spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a

woe-struck and selfish woman.”

“You have done much good,” I said; for she was noted for her liberal

almsgiving.

“I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage

affliction. What of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I

think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind, to

prepare myself for reunion with Frank. You see I still think of Frank

more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the

creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least

blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. What do you

think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me.”

This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she

thought I _had_ answered it.

“Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not

always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it

be, and try to render happy that of others. Should we not? Well,

to-morrow I will begin by trying to make you happy. I will endeavour to

do something for you, Lucy: something that will benefit you when I am

dead. My head aches now with talking too much; still I am happy. Go to

bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit up; or rather how late I,

in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no more anxiety for

me; I feel I shall rest well.”

She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a

closet within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her doom

must at last have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning she

was found without life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed. Her

previous excitement of spirits and change of mood had been the prelude

of a fit; one stroke sufficed to sever the thread of an existence so

long fretted by affliction.