CHAPTER IV.

HUMILIATION.

Again the weeks and the months went on, bringing round the autumn season of another year. For in real life--and this is very much of a true history--time passes imperceptibly when there are no special events to mark its progress. Seasons succeed each other, leaving little record behind them.

It was a monotonous life at best--that of the Raynors'. It seemed to be spent in a quiet, constant endeavour to exist; a patient, perpetual struggling to make both ends meet: to remain under the humble roof of Laurel Cottage, and not to have to turn from it; to contrive that their garments should be decent, something like gentlepeople's, not ragged and shabby.

But for Edina they would never have done it. Even though they had her fifty pounds a-year, without her presence they would never have got on. She managed and worked, and had ever a cheerful word for them all. When their spirits failed, especially Mrs. Raynor's, and the onward way looked unusually dark and dreary, it was Edina who talked of a bright day-star to arise in the distance, of the silver lining that is sure to be in every cloud. But for Edina they might almost have lost faith in Heaven.

The one most altered of all was Charles. Altered in looks, bearing, manner; above all, in spirit. All his pride had flown; all his self-importance had disappeared as a summer mist before the sun: disappeared for ever. Had the discipline he was subjected to been transient, lasting for a few weeks, let us say, or even months, its impressions might have worn away with renewed prosperity, had such set in again, leaving no lasting trace for good. But when this sort of depressing mortification continues for years, the lesson it implants in the mind is generally permanent. Day by day, every day of his life, and every hour in the day, Charles was subjected to the humiliations (as he looked upon them, and to him they were indeed such) that attend the position of a working clerk. He who had been reared in the habits and ideas of a gentleman, had believed himself the undoubted heir to Eagles' Nest, found himself reduced by fate to this subordinate capacity, ordered about by the articled clerks, and regarded as an individual not at all to be ranked with them. He was at their beck and call, and obliged to be so; he had to submit to them as his superiors, not only his superiors in the office, but his superiors socially; above all, he had to submit to their off-hand tones, which always implied, unwittingly, perhaps, to themselves, but all too apparent to Charles, a consciousness of the distinction that existed between them.

How galling it all was to Charles Raynor, the reader may imagine; but it can never be described. At first it was all but unbearable. Over and over again he thought he must run away from it, and escape to a land where these distinctions do not exist. He might dig for gold in California; he might clear a settlement for himself in the back-woods of America: and the life in either place would be as paradise compared with this one at Prestleigh and Preen's. Nothing but the broad fact that the wages he earned were absolutely necessary to his mother's and the family's support, detained him. To give that aid was his imperative duty before God: for had it not been through him and his carelessness that they were reduced to this terrible extremity? So Charles Raynor, helped on by the ever-ready counsel of Edina, _endured_ his troubles, put up with his humiliation, and bore onwards with the best resolution he could call up. Who knew, who could ever know, _how much_ of this wonderful change was really due to Edina?

And, as the time went on, he grew to feel the troubles somewhat less keenly: habit reconciles us in a degree to the worst of things, no matter what that worst may be. But he had learnt a lesson that would last him his whole life. Never again could he become the arrogant young fellow who thought the world was made for his especial delectation. He had gained experience; he had found his level; he saw what existence was worth, and that those who would be happy in it must first learn and perform their duties in it. His very nature had changed. Self-sufficiency, selfish indifference, had given place to modesty, to a subdued thoughtfulness of habit, to an earnest sense of other's needs as well as his own. Frank Raynor, with all his sunny-heartedness and geniality, could not be more ready with a helping hand, than was Charles. He could give nothing in money, but he could in kind. No other discipline, perhaps, would have had this effect upon Charles Raynor. It had made a man of him, and, if a subdued, a good one. And so, he went on, reconciled in a degree to the changed life after his two years' spell at it, and looking forward to no better prospect in the future. Prospect of every sort seemed so hopeless.

A little fresh care had come upon them this autumn, in the return of Alice. Changes had taken place in the school at Richmond, and her services were no longer required. Edina borrowed the advertisement sheet of the _Times_ every morning, and caused Alice to write to any notice that appeared likely to suit her. As yet--a fortnight had gone on--nothing had come of it.

"No one seems to want a governess," remarked Alice one Monday morning, as they rose from breakfast, and Charles was brushing his hat to depart. "I suppose there are too many of us."

"By one half," assented Edina. "The field is too crowded. Some lady in this neighbourhood recently advertised for a governess for her daughters, directing the answers to be addressed to Jones's library, where we get these papers. Mr. Jones told me that the first day's post brought more than a hundred letters."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Alice.

"The lady engaged one of the applicants," continued Edina, "and then discovered that she was the daughter of a small shopkeeper at Camberwell. That put her out of conceit of governesses, and she has sent her children to school."

"I should not like to be hard, I'm sure, or to speak against any class of people," interposed Mrs. Raynor, in her meek, deprecating voice; "but I do think that some of the young women who came forward as governesses would do much better as servants. These inferior persons are helping to jostle the gentlewomen out of the governess field--as Edina calls it."

"Will they jostle me out of it?" cried Alice, looking up in alarm. "Oh, Charley, I wish you could hear of something for me!--you go out into the world, you know."

Charles, saying good-bye and kissing his mother, went off with a smile at the words: he was thinking how very unlikely it was that he should hear of anything. Governesses did not come within the radius of Prestleigh and Preen's. Nevertheless, it was singular that Charles did hear of a vacant situation that self-same day, and heard it in the office.

In the course of the afternoon the head-clerk had despatched Charles to Mr. Preen's room with a message. He was about to deliver it when Mr. Preen waved his hand to him to wait: a friend who had been sitting with him had risen to leave.

"When shall we see Mrs. Preen to spend her promised day with us?" asked the gentleman, as he was shaking hands. "My wife has been expecting her all the week."

"I don't know," was the reply. "The little girls' governess has left; and, as they don't much like going back to the nursery to the younger children, Mrs. Preen has them with her."

"The governess left, has she?" was the answering remark. "I fancied you thought great things of her."

"So we did. She suited extremely well. But she was summoned home last week in consequence of her mother's serious illness, and now sends us word that she will not be able to leave home again."

"Well, you will easily find a successor, Preen."

"Two or three ladies have already applied, but Mrs. Preen did not care for them. She will have to advertise, I suppose."

Charles drank in the words. He delivered the message, and took Mr. Stroud the answer, his head full of Alice. If she could only obtain the situation! Mrs. Preen seemed a nice woman, and the two little girls were nice: he had seen them occasionally at the office. Alice would be sure to be happy there.

Sitting down to his desk, he went on with his writing, making one or two mistakes, and drawing down upon him the wrath of Mr. Stroud. But his mind was far away, deliberating whether he might, or could, do anything.

Speak to Mr. Preen? He hardly liked to do it: the copying-clerks kept at a respectful distance. And yet, why should he not speak? It seemed to be his only chance. Then came a thought that made Charley's face burn like fire: would _his_ sister be deemed worthy of the post? Well, he could only make the trial.

Just before the time of leaving for the night, Charles went to Mr. Preen's room, knocked at the door, and was told to enter. Mr. Preen was standing in front of his desk, in the act of locking it, and a gentleman sat close before the almost-extinguished fire in the large easy-chair which had been old Mr. Callard's. Charles could see nothing but the back of his head, for the high, well-stuffed chair hid all the rest of him. He had a newspaper in his hand, and was reading it by the light of a solitary gas-burner; the other having been put out. To see this stranger here took Charles aback.

"What is it?" questioned Mr. Preen.

Charles hesitated. "I had thought you were alone, sir."

"All the same. Say what you want."

"I have taken the liberty of coming to speak to you on a private matter, sir; but----" There he stopped.

"What is it?" repeated Mr. Preen.

"When I was in this room to-day, sir, I heard you say that your little girls were in want of a governess."

"Well?"

"What I am about to say may seem nothing but presumption--but my sister is seeking just such a situation. If you--if Mrs. Preen--would only see her!"

"Your sister?" returned the lawyer; with, Charles thought, chilling surprise. It damped him: made him feel sensitively small.

"Oh, pray do not judge of my sister by me, sir!--I mean by the position I occupy here," cried Charles, all his prearranged speeches forgotten, and speaking straight from his wounded feelings, his full heart. "You only know me as a young man working for his daily bread, and very poor. But indeed we are gentlepeople: not only by birth and education, but in mind and habits. I was copying a deed to-day: the lease of a farm on the estate of Eagles' Nest. Do you know it, sir?"

"Know what?" asked Mr. Preen. "That you were copying the deed, or the estate?"

"Eagles' Nest."

"I know it only from being solicitor to its owner. As my predecessor, Mr. Callard, was before me."

"That estate was ours, sir. When Mr. George Atkinson came into possession of it he turned us out. It had come to my father from his sister, Mrs. Atkinson, and we lived in it for a year, never dreaming it possible that it could be wrested from us. But at the year's-end a later will came to light: my aunt had left Eagles' Nest to Mr. George Atkinson, passing my father over."

Charles stopped to gather breath and firmness. The remembrance of his father, and of their subsequent misfortunes and privations, almost unnerved him. Mr. Preen listened in evident surprise.

"But--was your father Major Raynor, of Eagles' Nest?"

"Yes, sir."

"You never mentioned it."

"To what end?" returned Charles; while the stranger took a momentary glance over his shoulder at him, and then bent over his newspaper again, as though the matter and the young clerk were no concern of his. "Now that my position in life has so much altered, I would rather let people think I was born a copying-clerk, than that I was heir to Eagles' Nest."

"It sounds like a romance," cried Mr. Preen.

"For us it has been, and is, only too stern reality. But I do not wish to trouble you with these affairs, sir; and I should not have presumed to allude to them, but for wishing to prove to you that Alice is superior to what you might imagine her to be as my sister. She is a very excellent governess indeed, accomplished, and a thorough lady."

"And you say she is in want of a situation?"

"Yes, sir. She has been for two years teacher in a school at Richmond. If Mrs. Preen would but consent to give her a trial, I know she would prove worthy. I do not say so merely to get her the post," he continued, earnestly, "but because I really believe she could and would faithfully fulfil its duties. I would not otherwise urge it: for we have learnt not to press ourselves forward at the expense of other people's interests, whatever the need."

"Well, Raynor: I cannot say anything myself about this matter; it is Mrs. Preen's business and not mine," spoke the lawyer, upon whom Charles's story and Charles's manner had made an impression. "If your sister likes to call and see Mrs. Preen she can do so."

"Oh, thank you; thank you very much, sir," said Charles. "I am sure you will like Alice."

"Stay; not so fast"--for Charley was leaving the room in eager haste. "Do you know where my house is?"

"To be sure I do, sir--in Bayswater. I have been up there with messages for you."

"So that's young Raynor!" cried the gentleman at the fire, turning as Charles went out, and taking a look at him.

"It is young Raynor, one of our copying-clerks," acquiesced Mr. Preen. "But I never knew he was one of the Raynors who were connected with Eagles' Nest."

"Is he steady?--hardworking?"

"Quite so, I think. He keeps his hours punctually, and does his work well. He has been here nearly two years."

"Is not upstart and lazy?"

Mr. Preen laughed. "He has no opportunity of being either. I fancy he and his family have to live in a very humble, reduced sort of way. If they were the Raynors of Eagles' Nest--and of course they were, or he would not say so--they must have been finding the world pretty hard of late."

"So much the better," remarked the stranger. "By what I have heard, they needed to find it so."

"He has to make no end of shifts, for want of means. At first the clerks made fun of him; but they left it off: he took it so helplessly and patiently. His clothes are often threadbare; he walks to and fro, instead of riding as the others do, though I fancy it is close upon three miles. I don't believe he has a proper dinner one day out of the six."

The stranger nodded complacently: as if the information gave him intense satisfaction.

"I wish I could persuade you to come home and dine with me," resumed Mr. Preen, as he concluded his preparations for departure.

"I am not well enough to do so. I am fit for nothing to-night but bed. Will one of your people call a cab for me? Oh, here's Prestleigh."

As Charles had gone out, dashing along the passage from his interview, he nearly dashed against Mr. Prestleigh, who was coming up, some papers in hand.

"Take care, Raynor! What are you in such a hurry about? Is Mr. George Atkinson gone?"

"Who, sir?" asked Charles, struck with the name.

"Mr. George Atkinson. Is he still with Mr. Preen?"

"Some gentleman is with him, sir. He is sitting over the fire.

"The same, no doubt. He is a great invalid just now."

Charles felt his face flush all over. So, it was the owner of Eagles' Nest before whom he had spoken. What a singular coincidence! The only time that a word had escaped his lips in regard to their fallen fortunes, _he_ must be present and hear it! And Charley felt inclined to wish he had lost his tongue first. All the world might have been welcome to hear it, rather than George Atkinson.

The way home was generally long and weary, but this evening Charles found it light enough: he seemed to tread upon air. His thoughts were filled with Alice, and with the hope he was carrying to her. Never for a moment did he doubt she would be successful. He already saw her in imagination installed at Mrs. Preen's.

Edina went to Bayswater with Alice in the morning. A handsome house, well appointed. Mrs. Preen, interested in what she had heard from her husband, received them graciously. She liked them at first sight. Though very plain in dress, she saw that they were gentlewomen.

"It cannot be that I am speaking to Mrs. Raynor?" she cried, puzzled at Edina's youthful look.

Edina set her right: she was _Miss_ Raynor. "The result of possessing no cards," thought Edina. "I never had more than fifty printed in my life, and most of those got discoloured with years. Mrs. Raynor is not strong enough to walk as far as this," she said aloud.

"But surely you did not walk?" cried Mrs. Preen.

"Yes, for walking costs nothing," replied Edina with a smile.

"The Raynors, if I have been rightly informed, have experienced a reverse of fortune."

"A reverse that is rarely experienced," avowed Edina. "From wealth and luxury they have been plunged into trouble and poverty. If you, madam, are what, from this short interview, I judge you to be, the avowal will not tell against our application."

"Not in the least," said Mrs. Preen, cordially, for she was a warm-hearted, sensible woman. "We do not expect young ladies who are rich to go out as governesses."

The result was that Alice was engaged, and they were asked to stay luncheon. Alice played, and her playing was approved of; she sang one short song, and that was approved of also. Mrs. Preen was really taken with hor. She was to have thirty guineas a-year to begin with, and to enter the day after the morrow.

"I can buy mamma a new black silk, by-and-by, with all that money," said Alice, impulsively, with a flushed, happy face. And though Mrs. Preen laughed at the remark, she liked her all the better for it: it was so naïve and genuine.

"Oh my dear child, I am sure God is helping you!" breathed Mrs. Raynor, when they got back home and told her the news.

On the afternoon appointed, Thursday, Alice went to take up her abode at Mrs. Preen's, accompanied, as before, by Edina. Poverty makes us acquainted with habits before unknown, and necessity, it is said, is a hard taskmaster; nevertheless, it was deemed well that Alice should not walk alone in the streets of London. Edina left her in safety, and saw for a moment her pupils--two nice little girls of eight and ten years old.

Alice was taking off her bonnet in the chamber assigned her when Mrs. Preen entered it.

"We shall have a few friends with us this evening, Miss Raynor," she said. "It may give you a little pleasure to come to the drawing-room and join them."

"Oh, thank you," said Alice, her face beaming at the unexpected, and, with her, very rare treat. "If I can--if my boxes arrive. They were sent off this morning by the carrier."

The boxes arrived. Poor Alice might have looked almost as well had they been delayed, for her one best dress was an old black silk. Prettily made for evening wear, it is true; but its white lace and ribbon trimmings could not conceal the fact that the silk itself was worn and shabby.

The few friends consisted of at least thirty people, most of them in gay evening dress. Mrs. Preen introduced her to a young lady, a Miss Knox, who was chatty and pleasant, and told her many of the names of those present. But after a while Miss Knox went away into the next room, leaving Alice alone.

She felt something like a fish out of water. Other people moved about here and there talking with this acquaintance and laughing with that; but Alice, conscious of being only the governess, did not like to do so. She was standing near one of the open windows, within shade of the curtains that were being swayed about by the draught, turning her gaze sometimes upon the rooms, sometimes to the road below.

Suddenly, her whole conscious being seemed struck as by a blow. Her pulses stopped, her heart felt faint, every vestige of colour forsook her cheeks. Walking slowly across the room, within a yard of her, came William Stane.

Not until he was close up did he see her standing there. A moment's hesitation, during which he seemed to be as surprised as she, and then he held out his hand.

"It is Miss Raynor, I think?"

"Yes," replied Alice, her hand meeting his, and the hot crimson flushing her cheek again. How well he was looking! Better, far better looking than he used to be. And he was of more importance in the world, for he had risen into note as a pleader, young at the Bar though he was, and his name was often on the lips of men. His presence brought back to Alice the old Elysian days at Eagles' Nest, and her heart ached.

"Are Sir Philip and Lady Stane quite well?" she asked, in sheer need of saying something; for the silence was embarrassing.

"My mother is well; my father is very poorly indeed. He is a confirmed invalid now."

His tone was frigid. Alice felt it painfully. She stood there before him in the blaze of light, all too conscious of her shabby dress, her subdued manner, all her other disadvantages. Not far off sat a young lady in rich white silk and lace, diamond bracelets gleaming on her arms. Times had indeed changed!

"Are any of your family here to-night, Miss Raynor? I do not see them."

"No; oh no;--I am only the governess here," replied poor Alice, making the confession in bitter pain. And he might hear it in her voice.

"Oh--the governess," he assented, quite unmoved. "I hope Mrs. Raynor is well."

"Not very well, thank you."

Mr. Stane moved away. She saw him several times after that in different parts of the room; but he did not come near her again.

And that, the first night that Alice spent at her new home, was passed in the same cruel pain, her pillow wet with tears. Pain, not so much for the life of ease she had once enjoyed, the one of labour she had entered upon, not so much in regret for the changed position she held in the world, as for the loss of the love of William Stane.