"And do the hours slip
fast or slow,
And are ye sad or gay?
And is your heart with
your liege lord, lady,
Or is it far away?
"The lady raised her calm,
proud head,
Though her tears fell
one by one:
’Life counts not
hours by joys or pangs,
But just by duties done.
"And when I lie in the
green kirk-yard,
With the mould upon
my breast,
Say not that “She
did well or ill,”
Only, “She did
her best."’"
A day or two after this, Christian,
returning from her daily walk, which was now brief
enough, and never beyond the college precincts, met
a strange face at the Lodge door-that is,
a face not exactly strange; she seemed to have seen
it before, but could not recollect how or where.
Then she recalled it as that of a young daily governess,
her predecessor at the Fergusons’, who had left
them “to better herself,” as she said-and
decidedly to the bettering of her pupils.
Miss Susan Bennett-as Christian
had soon discovered, both pupils and parents being
very loquacious on the subject-was one of
those governesses whom one meets in hopeless numbers
among the middle-class families-girls,
daughters of clerks or petty shopkeepers, above domestic
service, and ashamed or afraid of any other occupation,
which, indeed, is only too difficult to be found, whereby
half-educated or not particularly clever young women
may earn their bread. They therefore take to
teaching as “genteel,” and as being rather
an elevation than not from the class in which they
were born. Obliged to work, though they would
probably rather be idle, they consider governessing
the easiest kind of work, and use it only as a means
to an end which, if they have pretty faces and tolerable
manners, is-human nature being weak, and
life only too hard, poor girls!-most probably
matrimony.
But governesses, pursuing their calling
on this principle, are the dead-weight which drags
down their whole class. Half educated, lazy,
unconscientious, with neither the working faculty of
a common servant, nor the tastes and feelings of a
lady, they do harm wherever they go; they neither
win respect nor deserve it; and the best thing that
could befall them would be to be swept down, by hundreds,
a step lower in the scale of society-made
to use their hands instead of their heads, or, at
any rate, to learn themselves instead of attempting
to teach others.
Christian-who, though chiefly
self-taught, except in music, was a well-educated
woman, and a most conscientious teacher-had
been caused a world of trouble in undoing what her
predecessor had done; and in the few times that the
little Fergusons had met in the street their former
instructress, who was a very good-looking and showy
girl, she had not been too favorably impressed with
Miss Bennett. But when she saw her coming out
of the Lodge door, rather shabbier than beforetime,
the March wind whistling through her thin, tawdry
shawl, and making her pretty face look pinched and
blue, Mrs. Grey, contrasting the comforts of her own
life with that of the poor governess, felt compassionately
towards her so much so, that, though wondering what
could possibly be her business at the Lodge, she assumed
the mistress’s kindly part, and bowed to her
in passing which Miss Bennett was in too great a hurry
either to notice or return.
“Has that lady been calling
here?” she asked of Phillis, whom she met bringing
in Oliver from his afternoon walk.
“Lady!” repeated Phillis,
scornfully, “she’s only the governess.”
“The governess!”
“Lor! didn’t you know
it, ma’am? And she coming to Miss Letitia
every day for this week past!” and Phillis gleamed
all over with malicious satisfaction that her mistress
did not know it, and might naturally feel annoyed
and offended thereat.
Annoyed Mrs. Grey certainly was, but
she was not readily offended. Her feeling was
more that of extreme vexation at the introduction here
of the very last person whom she would desire to see
Letitia’s governess, and a vague wonder as to
how much Dr. Grey knew about the matter. Of
course, engrossed as she was with the charge of Arthur,
it was quite possible that, to save her trouble, he
and his sisters might have arranged it all.
Only she wished she had been told-merely
told about it.
Any little pain, however, died out
when, on entering the drawing-room, she caught the
warm delight of Arthur’s eyes, turning to her
as eagerly as if she had been absent from him a week
instead of half an hour.
“Oh, mother, I am so tired!
Here have I been lying on this sofa, and Titia and
somebody else-a great, big, red-checked
woman-Titia says she isn’t a lady,
and I must not call her so-have been strum-strumming
on your pretty piano, and laughing and whispering between
whiles. They bother me so. Please don’t
let them come again.”
Christian promised to try and modify things a little.
But she must come and practice here,
Arthur. She is Miss Bennett- Titia’s
governess.
“Governess-a nice
governess! Why, she hardly teaches her a bit.
They were chattering the whole time; and I heard them
plan to meet in Walnut-tree Court at five o’clock
every evening, and go for a walk with a gentleman-a
kind gentleman, who would give Titia as many sweet
things as ever she could eat.”
Mrs. Grey stood aghast. This
was the sort of thing that had gone on-or
would have gone on if not discovered-with
the little Fergusons.
“Are you sure of this, Arthur?
If so, I must ring for Phillis at once.”
“Oh don’t-please
don’t. Phillis will on’y fly into
a passion and beat her-poor Titia!
I’m very sorry I told of her. I wouldn’t
be a sneak if I could help it.”
“My dear boy!” said Christian,
fondly. “Well, I will not speak about it
just yet, and certainly not to Phillis. Lie here
till I see if Titia is still in the nursery.
It is just five o’clock.”
Yes, there the little damsel was,
sitting as prim as possible over a book, looking the
picture of industry and innocence.
“Miss Bennett has left for the
day, has she not, Titia? You are not going out
with her, or going out again at all?”
“No,” said Titia, with her head bent down.
It was always Christian’s belief-and
practice-that to accuse a child, unproved,
of telling a lie, was next to suggesting that lies
should be told. She always took truth for granted
until she had unequivocal evidence to the contrary.
“Very well,” she said,
kindly. “Is that a nice book you have?
’Arabian Nights?’ Then sit and read
it quietly till you go to bed. Good-night, my
dear.”
She kissed her, which was always a
slight effort; it was hard work loving Titia, who
was so cold and prim, and unchildlike, with so little
responsiveness in her nature.
“I hope all is safe for today,”
thought Christian, anxiously, and determined to speak
to Titia’s father the first opportunity.
He was dining in hall today, and afterward they were
to go to the long-delayed entertainment at the vice
chancellor’s, which was to inaugurate her entrance
into Avonsbridge society.
Miss Gascoigne was full of it; and
during all the time that the three ladies were dining
together, she talked incessantly, so that, even had
she wished, Mrs. Grey could not have got in a single
word of inquiry concerning Miss Bennett. She
however, judged it best to wait quietly till the cloth
was removed and Barker vanished.
Christian was not what is termed a
“transparent” character; that is, she
could “keep herself to herself,” as the
phrase is, better than most people. It was partly
from habit, having lived so long in what was worse
than loneliness, under circumstances when she was obliged
to maintain the utmost and most cautious silence upon
every thing, and partly because her own strong nature
prevented the necessity of letting her mind and feelings
bubble over on all occasions and to every body, as
is the manner of weaker but yet very amiable women.
But, on the other hand, though she could keep a secret
sacredly, rigidly-so rigidly as to prevent
people’s even guessing that there was a secret
to be kept, she disliked unnecessary mysteries and
small deceptions exceedingly. She saw no use
and no good in them. They seemed to her only
the petty follies of petty minds. She had no
patience with them, and would take no trouble about
them.
So, as soon as the ladies were alone,
she said to Miss Gascoigne outright, without showing
either hesitation or annoyance.
“I met Miss Bennett in the hall
to-day. Why did you not tell me that you and
Aunt Maria had chosen a governess for Letitia?”
Sometimes nothing puzzles very clever
people so much as a piece of direct simplicity.
Aunt Henrietta actually blushed.
“Chosen a governess? Well,
so we did! We were obliged to do it. And
you were so much occupied with Arthur. Indeed,
I must say,” recovering herself from the defensive
into the offensive position, “that the way you
made yourself a perfect slave to that child, to the
neglect of all your other duties, was-”
“Never mind that now, please.
Just tell me about Miss Bennett. When did she
come, and how did you hear of her?”
She spoke quite gently, in mere inquiry;
she was so anxious neither to give nor to take offense,
if it could possibly be avoided. She bore always
in mind a sentence her husband had once quoted-and,
though a clergyman, he did not often quote the Bible,
he only lived it: “As much as in you lieth,
live peaceably with all men.” But she sometimes
wondered, with a kind of sad satire, whether the same
could ever, under any circumstances, be done with
all women.
Alas! not with these, or rather this
woman, Aunt Maria being merely the adjective of that
very determined substantive, Aunt Henrietta.
She braced herself to the battle immediately.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Grey; but I
cannot see what right you have to question me, or
I to answer. Am I not capable of the management
of my own sister’s children, who have been under
my care ever since she died, and in whom I never supposed
you would take the slightest interest?”
This after her charge of Arthur-when
she had nursed the child back to life again, and knew
that he still depended upon her for everything in
life! But, knowing it was so, the secret truth
was enough to sustain her under any heap of falsehoods-opposing
falsehoods, too, directly contradicting one another;
but Miss Gascoigne never paused to consider that.
Lax-tongued people seldom do.
“I will not question the point
of my interest in the children. If I can not
prove it in other ways than words, the latter would
be very useless. All I wish to say is, that
I should like to have been consulted before any thing
was decided as to a governess, and I am afraid Miss
Bennett is not exactly the person I should have chosen.”
“Indeed! And pray, why
not, may I ask? She is a most respectable person-a
person who knows her place. I am sure the deference
with which she treats me, the attention with which
she listens to all my suggestions, have given me the
utmost confidence in the young woman; all the more,
because, I repeat, she knows her place. She is
content to be a governess; she never pretends to be
a lady.”
The insult was so pointed, so plain,
that it could not be passed over.
Christian rose from her seat.
“Miss Gascoigne, seeing that I am here at the
head of my husband’s table, I must request you
to be a little more guarded in your conversation.
I, too, have been a governess, but it never occurred
to me that I was otherwise than a lady.”
There was a dead silence, during which
poor Aunt Maria cast imploring looks at Aunt Henrietta,
who perhaps felt that she had gone too far, for she
muttered some vague apology about “different
people being different in their ways.”
“Exactly so and what I meant
to observe was, that my chief reason for doubting
Miss Bennett’s fitness to instruct Titia is what
you yourself allow. If she is ‘not a lady,’
how can you expect her to make a lady of our little
girl?”
“Our little girl?”
“Yes, our” the choking
tears came as far as Christian’s throat, and
then were swallowed down again. “My little
girl, if you will; for she is mine-my husband’s
daughter and I wish to see her grow up every thing
that his daughter ought to be. I say again, I
ought to have been consulted in the choice of her
governess.”
She stopped for, accidentally looking
out of the window, where the lengthened spring twilight
still lingered in the cloisters, she fancied she saw
creeping from pillar to pillar a child’s figure;
could it possibly be Titia’s? Yes, it
certainly was Titia herself, stealing through two sides
of the quad-rectangle and under the archway that led
to Walnut-tree Court.
Without saying a word to the aunts-for
she would not have accused any body, a child, or even
a servant, upon anything short of absolute proof-Christian
went up to her from the window of which she could
see into Walnut-tree Court. There, walking round
and round, in the solitude which at this hour was
customary in most colleges, she distinguished, dim
as the light was, three figures-a man, a
woman, and a child; in all probability. Miss
Bennett, her lover, and Titia, whom, with a mixture
of cunning and shortsightedness, she had induced to
play propriety, in case any discovery should be made.
Still, the light was too faint to
make their identity sure; and to send a servant after
them on mere suspicion would only bring trouble upon
poor little Titia, besides disgracing, in the last
manner in which any generous woman would wish to disgrace
another woman, the poor friendless governess, who,
after all, might only be taking an honest evening
walk with her own honest lover, as every young woman
has a perfect right to do.
“And love is so sweet, and life
so bitter! I’ll not be hard upon her, poor
girl!” thought Christian, with a faint sigh.
“Whatever is done I will do myself and then
it can injure nobody.”
So she put on shawl and bonnet, and
was just slipping out at the hall door, rather thankful
that Barker was absent from his post, when she met
Titia creeping stealthily in, not at the front door,
but at the glass door, which led to the garden behind;
to which garden there was only one other entrance,
a little door leading into Walnut-tree Court, and of
this door Barker usually kept the key. Now, however,
it hung from the little girl’s hand, the poor
frightened creature, who, the minute she saw her step-mother,
tried to run away up stairs.
“Titia, come back! Tell
me where you have been, without Phillis or any body,
and when I desired you not to go out again.”
“It was only to-to fetch a crocus
for Atty.”
“Where is the crocus?”
“I-dropped it.”
“And this key. What did you want with
the key?”
“I-I don’t know.”
The lie failed, if they were lies;
but perhaps they might have been partly true; the
child hung her head and began to whimper. She
was not quite hardened, then.
“Come here to me,” said
Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to the glass
door, so that what light there was could shine upon
her face; “let me look if you have been telling
me the truth. Don’t be afraid; if you
have I will not punish you. I will not be hard
upon you in any case, if you will only speak the truth.
Titia, a little girl like you has no business to
be creeping in and out of her papa’s house like
a thief. Tell at once where have you been, and
who was with you?”
The child burst out crying.
“I daren’t tell, or Phillis will beat me.
She said she would if I stirred an inch from the
nursery, while she went down to have tea with cook
and Barker. And I thought I might just run for
ten minutes to see Miss Bennett, who wanted me so.”
“You were with Miss Bennett, then? Any
body else?”
“Only a gentleman,” said
Letitia, hanging her head and blushing with that painful
precocity of consciousness so sad to see in a little
girl.
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. Miss
Bennett didn’t tell me. She only said he
was a friend of hers, who liked little girls, and
that if I could come and have a walk with them, without
telling Phillis or any body, she would let me off
all the hardest of my French lessons. And so-and
so-Oh, hide me, there’s papa at the
hall door, and Aunt Henrietta coming out of the dining-room.
And Aunt Henrietta never believes what I say, even
if I tell her the truth. Oh, let me run-let
me run.”
The child’s terror was so uncontrollable
that there was nothing for it but to yield; and she
fled.
“Titia! Titia!”
called out her father. “Christian, what
is the matter? What was my little girl crying
for?”
There was no avoiding the domestic
catastrophe, even had Christian wished to avoid it,
which she did not. She felt it was a case in
which concealment was impossible-wrong.
Dr. Grey ought to be told, and Miss Gascoigne likewise.
“Your little girl has been very
naughty, papa; but others have been more to blame
than she. Come with me-will you come
too, Aunt Henrietta?-and I will tell you
all about it.”
She did so, as briefly as she could,
and in telling it she discovered one fact-which
she passed over, and yet it made her glad-that
Dr. Grey, like herself, had been kept wholly in the
dark about the engagement of Miss Bennett as governess.
“I meant to have told you today,
though, after I had given her sufficient trial,”
said Miss Gascoigne, sullenly; “I had with her
the best of recommendations, and I do not believe
one word of all this story-that is,”
waking up to the full meaning of what she was saying,
“not without the most conclusive evidence.”
“Evidence,” repeated Dr.
Grey. “You have my wife’s word, and
my daughter’s.”
“Your daughter is the most arrant little liar
I ever knew!”
The poor father shrank back.
Perhaps he knew, by sad experience, that Aunt Henrietta’s
condemnation was not altogether without foundation.
His look expressed such unutterable pain that Christian
came forward and spoke out strongly, almost angrily.
“It is fear that makes a liar,
even as harshness and injustice create deceit and
underhandedness. Love a child and trust it, and
if it does wrong, punish it neither cruelly nor unfairly,
and it will never tell falsehoods. Titia will
not-she shall not, as long as I am alive
to keep her to the truth.”
Dr. Grey looked fondly at his wile’s
young, glowing face and even Miss Gascoigne, the hard,
worldly woman, viewing all things in her narrow, worldly
way, was silenced for the time. Then she began
again, pouring out a torrent of explanations and self-exculpations,
which soon resolved themselves into the simple question,
What was to be done? There-she ended.
“Don’t ask me to do any
thing. I will not. I wash my hands of the
whole matter. If the story be true, and Miss Bennett
can be guilty of conduct so indecorous, it would never
do for me to be mixed up in such an improper proceeding
and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should find
myself in a very unpleasant position. So, Mrs.
Grey, since you have interfered in this matter, you
must carry it out on your own responsibility.
If you have taken a grudge against Miss Bennett-which
I did not expect, considering your own antecedents-you
must just do as you like concerning her. But,
bless me! how the evening is slipping by. Come,
Maria, I shall hardly have time to dress for the vice
chancellor’s.”
So saying, Miss Gascoigne swept away,
her silk skirts flowing behind her. Aunt Maria
followed with one pathetic glance at “dear Arnold;”
and the husband and wife were left alone.
Dr. Grey threw himself into his arm-chair,
and there came across his face the weary look, which
Christian had of late learned to notice, indicating
that he was no more a young man, and that his life
had been longer in trials than even in years.
“My dear, I wish you women-kind
could settle these domestic troubles among yourselves.
We men have so many outside worries to contend with.
It is rather hard.”
It was hard. Christian reproached
herself almost as if she had been the primary cause
of this, the first complaint she had ever heard him
make, and which he seemed immediately to regret having
allowed to escape him.
“I don’t mean, my dear
wife, that you should not have told me this; indeed,
it was impossible to keep it from me. It all
springs from Aunt Henrietta. I wish she-But
she is Aunt Henrietta, and we must just make the best
of her, as I have done for nearly twenty years.”
“And why did you?” rose
irrepressibly to Christian’s lips. The
sense of wild resistance to injustice and wrong, so
strong in youth, was still not beaten down.
It roused in her something very like fierceness-these
gentle creatures can be fierce sometimes-to
see a good man like Dr. Grey trodden down and domineered
over by this narrow-minded, bad-tempered woman.
“I often wonder at your patience, and at all
you forgive.”
“Seventy times seven,”
was the quick answer. And Christian became silenced
and grave. “Still,” he added, smiling,
“a sin against one’s self does not include
a sin against another. The next time Henrietta
speaks as she spoke to you just now, she and I will
have a very serious quarrel.”
“Oh no, no! Not for my
sake. I had rather die than bring dissension
into this house.”
“My poor child, people can not
die so easily. They have to live on and endure.
But what were we talking about; for I forget:
I believe I do forget things sometimes;” and
he passed his hand over his forehead. “I
am not so young as you, my dear; and, though my life
has looked smooth enough outside; there has been a
good deal of trouble in it. In truth,”-he
added, “I have had some vexatious things perplexing
me today, which must excuse my being so dull and disagreeable.”
“Disagreeable!” echoed
Christian, with a little forced sort of laugh, adding,
in a strange, soft shyness, “I wish you would
tell me what those vexatious things were. I
know I am young, and foolish enough too; still, if
I could help you-”
“Help me!” He looked
at her eagerly, then shook his head and sighed.
“No, my child, you can not help me. It
is other people’s business, which I am afraid
I have no right to tell even to you. It is only
that a person has come back to Avonsbridge, who, if
I could suppose I had an enemy in the world-But
here I am telling you.”
“Never mind, you shall tell
me no more,” said Christian, cheerily, “especially
as I do not believe that in the wide world you could
have an enemy. And now give me your opinion
as to this matter of Miss Bennett?”
“First, what is yours?”
Christian pondered a little.
“It seems to me that the only thing is for
me to speak to her myself, quite openly and plainly,
when she comes tomorrow.”
“And then dismiss her?”
“I fear so.”
“For having a lover?” said Dr. Grey, with
an amused twinkle in his eye.
“Not exactly, but for telling
Titia about it, and making use of the child for her
own selfish needs. Do you consider me hard?
Well, it is because I know what this ends in.
Miss Gascoigne does not see it, but I do. She
only thinks of ‘propriety.’ I think
of something far deeper-a girl’s
first notions about those sort of things. It
is cruel to meddle with them before their time-to
take the bloom off the peach and the scent off the
rose; to put worldliness instead of innocence, and
conceited folly instead of simple, solemn, awful love.
I would rather die, even now-you will
think I am always ready for dying-but I
would rather die than live to think and feel about
love like some women-ay, and not bad women
either, whom I have known.”
Mrs. Grey had gone on, hardly considering
what she was saying or to what it referred, till she
was startled to feel fixed upon her her husband’s
earnest eyes.
“You need not be afraid,”
said he smiling. “Christian, shall I tell
you a little secret? Do you know why I loved
you? Because you are unlike all other women-because
you bring hack to me the dreams of my youth.
And here,” suddenly rising, as if he feared
he had said too much, “we must put dreams aside,
and arguments likewise, for Aunt Henrietta will never
forgive us if we are late at this terrible evening
party.”