Part 6

Of course, these tricks did not bear being repeated. Moreover, I could perceive Louisa Hope was thinking—“All this may not be too childish for _you_, but it is for _me_.” So I said—“Now then, Louisa, write something on a piece of paper, and take care I do not see what you write.” She looked surprised, but immediately complied. “Fold it up very small,” said I. “Hold it to the right,—what are you afraid of? Stretch your arm straight out, it won’t hurt you! Now to the left. Now towards the ceiling. Now towards the floor. Now put it _on_ the floor, and place on it a candlestick, a box, or _anything_ that will completely cover it.” All this took up some time; and she became a little excited, while the younger ones were intensely interested.

“Nay,” said I, “stand upon it, so as completely to cover it. I will tell you what is on the paper all the same.”

“What?” said she, with her eyes very wide open. After a moment’s silence, I coolly said, “_You_ are upon it.” On which ensued shouts of laughter from the little ones; while she, springing away from the paper, cried—“Is _that_ all?” but could not help laughing too.

I had one more trick for her in store. I took six pieces of paper, placed three of them on the back of my hand, and then, as a preliminary, blew them away with an air of great mystery—informing my audience, at the same time, that they were going to see something they did not expect. Then, placing the other three pieces in my hand, I said—

“Which of these three pieces do you desire shall remain on my hand, when I blow on them?” The children drew round. Louisa looked keenly at me, and then, with decision, selected her piece. I immediately placed my forefinger on it, and blew the others away; while the children laughed and clapped their hands; and Louisa exclaimed, with anger at herself for having been deceived into expecting anything better—“Oh, Mrs. Cheerlove, anybody could do that!”

Sponge-cakes and roast apples concluded the evening.

* * * * *

Two dozen rosy little country children and more came to my door this morning, with their little nosegays of cowslips, primroses, blue-bells, and cuckoo-flowers, tied at the top of small peeled wands, chanting their artless rhyme of

“Please to remember the first of May, For ’tis the ladies’ garland-day;”

which Mr. Sidney thinks a variation from

“For ’tis _Our Lady’s_ garland-day.”

However that may be, who can refrain from giving halfpence and biscuits to the pretty little rogues? The white-headed milkman is carrying quite a beau-pot of garden and hothouse flowers, on the inverted lid of his milk-pail, from house to house, this afternoon, hoping for a sixpence or shilling here and there, which may meetly be granted to his grey hairs and laborious life. For, in hot afternoons, along the shadeless road, and long before dawn, on inhospitable winter mornings, in face of hail, snow, rain, or ice, this old man punctually fulfils his vocation, which none should heedlessly call light. He is one of our country worthies. Another is the postman, who brings our letters at six in the morning, and calls for those we wish to post at seven in the evening; a stalwart, Robinson Crusoe-like looking man, with cheery voice and intrepid mien, who wears a brigand-like high-crowned hat, enormously thick boots, and a leathern belt, and padlocked bag. I know his swift, steady tramp from afar, and like to hear his blithe “good-night” to Phillis.

This man’s name is Love. Phillis did not know him or his name when she first came here, and finding such a formidable-looking personage at the door about dusk, asked him somewhat bluntly—“Who are you?”—“Love,” said he, with equal curtness. “Nonsense!” said Phillis. On which he burst out laughing, and assured her it was his true-born surname, and that he had no other, except that which was given him by his godfathers and godmothers. Whereupon Phillis, as she averred afterwards, was ready to bite her tongue off for speaking such a foolish word, and for a long time she hated to answer the door to him; but gradually they have become cronies (I believe he is equally civil to all the servants along the road), and she even sometimes asks after his wife.

* * * * *

Emily Prout came to me this morning, all smiles, to show me Harry’s first letter. I could not help observing how much older she looked in mourning; sorrow and fore-thought have laid their fingers on her young brow; while her manners are remarkably lady-like and self-possessed. Harry, after warm-hearted inquiries for all at home, went on to say that his first lodging was horrid—its evils were beyond description. However, in the course of a few days, he had called on Mrs. and Miss Welsh, who, to his surprise, had received him as kindly as if he had been the son of an old friend. It was very encouraging. And they had invited him to tea that very evening, and everything was as snug and cosy as at dear Mrs. Cheerlove’s; and Mrs. Welsh quite pitied him about his lodging, and said she knew a very much better one, _and cheaper_, in her own street; and he had already moved into it, and was as comfortable as possible. The few inconveniences that _might_ be named, he would not; they would do him good:

“Lives of great men all remind us, We may make our lives sublime!”

which he meant to do. And Miss Welsh was a delightful companion, and had promised (“to take him” scratched out) he should take her to the National Gallery, British Museum, and all the gratis sights, little by little, till he had seen them all. And he was always to go to church with them, morning and evening (“which you know will save the expense of tipping the pew opener, and be more sociable too.”) And Mr. and Mrs. Whitgrave, also, were very nice people. He had found an Italian patriot there, who spoke of unhappy Orsini; and had known that glorious Garibaldi, and related how Madame Garibaldi swam across a river, holding on by her horse’s tail. And he did not mind the office life at all; he had so many pleasant things to think of. James and Ned and he should see one another sometimes. James had a tail coat, and did not look bad.

Poor, good, brave boy! For there _was_ bravery in thus meeting insurmountable evils in a great, untried world. I loved him for dwelling so on the cheerful side; and a tear started into my eye, when Emily, in her affectionate way, kissed me, and said, “All _this_, dear Mrs. Cheerlove, is owing to _you_.”

* * * * *

“_Il se répand quelquefois de faux bruits._” And the corollary ought to be, “Do not help to spread them.” Small country towns are proverbially rife with false reports, often to the serious detriment of their subjects, even when the reports themselves are not ill-natured.

I have known so many groundless reports heedlessly spread, that my custom is to say, “Oh! indeed,” and let the matter drop, unless there should be anything of a noxious tendency in it; and then I not only forbear to pass it on, but endeavour to make the reporter admit at least the possibility that it may be untrue or exaggerated. This may sometimes lessen the rapidity and virulence with which it spreads; at any rate, I have been found a non-conductor, and my house “no thoroughfare.” When Mrs. Brett asked me mysteriously if I had heard the dreadful news that Mr. Hope was going out of his mind, I not only replied in the negative, but gave my reasons for supposing it untrue: and so it has proved. Again, when Miss Secker told me that the Holdsworths were such adepts in table-turning, that the tables flew about the room like mad, _especially after unbelievers_, I plainly told her I must hear it confirmed by more than one credible witness before I could believe it; and some weeks afterwards I had an opportunity of quietly inquiring about it of Mrs. Holdsworth’s aunt, who assured me it was all nonsense, and that a mere Christmas waggery had been distorted into a scandal, greatly to the annoyance of Mr. and Mrs. Holdsworth. That report, too, of old Mrs. Ball’s sudden death, and their holding a glass over her mouth to see if she breathed, actually had not a shadow of foundation, and would never have been traced, had not some one accidentally opened a letter that was intended for somebody else.

This morning, Miss Burt told me what I should be very sorry to hear, were I assured of its truth, although I have no personal acquaintance with the parties. But though Mr. and Mrs. Ringwood may have had some little differences, I cannot think that they will separate. His companionable qualities are such, that they lead him too much into society; and, as the editor of a somewhat influential local paper, he has a certain literary reputation. This may (though it need not) make him less domestic and more dissatisfied with cold mutton at home than one could wish, especially if the cold meat be accompanied with cold looks, and the only tart is a tart reply. Nor is it impossible that Mrs. Ringwood may be a bit of a worry, and revenge herself for lonely evenings by morning confidences of how she is used, and what she has suffered. I think she looks a little querulous and self-conceited. But this report I believe to be idle.

* * * * *

Mrs. Pevensey has again taken me a drive. This time, it was through the town, along the north road, and all round Hutchley Heath, which looked lovely. As we passed Mrs. Prout’s, it was melancholy to see the sale going on:—old stair-carpets hanging out of the windows, shabby-looking chairs and glasses on the door-step and in the hall, with business-like brokers looking at them in a disparaging way. The surgeon, who has purchased the business, has been glad to take the house, but not the furniture; so Mrs. Prout is selling off all she does not want, and removing the rest into No. 2, Constantine Terrace, where everything is so fresh and clean, that Mrs. Pevensey thinks she will find herself far more comfortably situated than in her large, old house.

“Well,” said Mrs. Pevensey, smiling, “we are going to have a great loss in our family. We are going to lose Mademoiselle Foularde!”

“Indeed!” said I.

“Yes; she is going to leave us at Midsummer, and settle in Germany. She is engaged to be married to a Professor Bautte.”

“Professor of what?”

“Gymnastics.—I knew you would smile; but you _would_ ask.”

“Oh, I only smiled because I was surprised. I concluded he was a professor of metaphysics, at least; or something prodigiously learned, that I did not understand.”

“Gymnastics are safer than German metaphysics. The one can but break your neck, the other may turn your head.”

“So you will have to look out again.”

“Yes, but at my leisure. I think of taking all the children to the sea-side for the holidays; and as the younger ones are rather beyond the nurse, and require to be kept a little in order, I have been thinking of offering to take Emily Prout with us, if she would undertake their charge.”

“Dear me! what a very nice thing!”

“You do not think she would object to it, then?”

“Oh no! I am persuaded she would like it exceedingly. She is so very anxious not to be burthensome to her mother! And she is much more womanly than she was. Her manners are so quiet and pleasant, that I feel sure you will like her.”

“Well, it may be that if I found her enough of a governess for Rosaline and Flora, we may make a permanent engagement; but I shall prefer seeing what is in her first, which I can very well do during the holidays. She is very young, I believe.”

“Barely seventeen. Too young for Arbell.”

“Oh, I am not thinking of Arbell. Arbell is getting on very well at present; the chief danger is of her doing too much. She is growing fast, and I shall not be sorry to slacken her lessons a little for some months. If I find I can leave the children quite comfortably with Miss Prout, at Hardsand, Mr. Pevensey and I shall probably take Arbell with us on a tour of some extent. It will open her mind, and give her something to remember with pleasure, all the rest of her life.”

“It will, indeed, be a great treat to her; and it is such an advantage to young people to see new and interesting places with their parents. Is she sorry Mademoiselle is going away?”

“Not sorry; but she behaves to her very pleasantly, and is busy in my room, at every spare moment, working a present for her. Arbell is very clever at her needle.”

“That is a good thing, for every woman ought to be so, whatever her condition. How it beguiled the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots! Queen Caroline, the wife of George II., used to do great quantities of knotting. And think how Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and Madame Royale, used to mend their own clothes and those of the poor king, in the tower of the Temple. No doubt it, in some measure, diverted their thoughts from their sad fate. The tranquillizing effect of needle-work is what our impulsive, excitable sex cannot be too grateful for.”

“My mother knew an old Scotch countess,” said Mrs. Pevensey, “who, in her latter days, used often to exclaim, piteously, ‘Oh, that I could sew!’”

After a pause she resumed:—“I have sometimes puzzled myself about the much-vexed question, ‘Should we try to do good in the world at large, before we have done all the good that needs to be done at home?’ There is a great cry got up against Mrs. Jellaby, and other pseudo-representatives of a class whose sympathies are widely engaged; and so much has been said about ‘charity beginning at home, and charity that ends there,’ that one gets rather perplexed. The Bishop of Oxford has, I think, lately settled the question. He said, ‘Our Saviour foresaw and provided against it, by dispersing His disciples far and wide, while yet much remained to be done in Jerusalem.’ Here is a guide, then, for us: we may do all the good we can, far and wide, even though we should be disappointed nearer home, or even _in_ our homes, of doing all the good we _wish_.”

After this, we fell into a very interesting conversation, which I only hope was as profitable to her as I felt it to be to me. I have been stupid and sluggish of late, but this interchange of thought, feeling, and experience quite roused me.

Christian and Hopeful were approaching the end of their journey when they came to the drowsy land called the Enchanted Ground; and the way they kept themselves awake was, by conversing freely on their past experiences of God’s mercies and providences.

* * * * *

This morning, I have had rather a painful little adventure.

Though the wind was southerly, and the clouds portended rain, yet Phillis was sure it would blow off. In fact, she had set her mind upon certain cleaning, which I believe she preferred doing in my absence; and as I took a hopeful view of the weather, I went to the week-day morning service at church.

On returning, as usual, in the rear of the little congregation, I was slowly drawling along Church Row, and thinking what a pity it was that such good houses should be so falling out of repair, when down came the rain very heavily. I had just passed Mrs. Ringwood’s, and noticed that the parlour-blind wanted mending, and that Mrs. Ringwood, with a baby in her arms, was idly looking over it. I began to spread my shawl more completely over me, and was putting up my umbrella, when some one from behind called, “Mrs. Cheerlove! Mrs. Cheerlove!”

The boy stopped the donkey, and said, “There’s Mrs. Ringwood a calling of you.”

I looked round, and saw her, without her baby, standing on her door-step, with her light curling hair blowing in the wind, while she eagerly looked after me.

“Do come in, ma’am,” cried she, with great good-nature, and colouring as she spoke. “It is raining quite fast! I am sure you ought not to be out in it.”

The boy, at the same moment, took the matter into his own hands, by turning the donkey round, so that I was before her door the next minute.

“I don’t think it will come to much,” said I, bowing and smiling. “I’m extremely obliged to you. _Pray_ don’t come into the rain.”

“Oh, it won’t hurt me,” said she, now at my side, “and it _will_ hurt you. Do come in till it is over.”

It was very good-natured of her. I made no more resistance, but alighted as quickly as my infirmities would permit, and entered the house just as the rain became a violent shower.

I was turning round to speak to the boy, when I saw him drive off, at a good deal quicker pace than he drove _me_; and Mrs. Ringwood said, laughing, “I told him to come for you when the shower was over; otherwise, the chair would have been quite wet, and unfit for your use.”

So I followed her into the parlour, where she had put the baby down on a sofa, in order that she might run out to me.

“It was very lucky,” said she, “that I was looking over the blind.”

My heart smote me for having called her, even to myself, idle; and I thanked her very gratefully for her kindness. She answered with a smile, and then left me for a moment or two alone with the baby. It was a long while since I had been alone with a baby; I looked at it with interest, and amused myself by making it smile.

A casual glance round the room disappointed my expectations of its comforts and capabilities. It was smaller than I should have supposed it, and inelegantly contrived. No fitting up could have concealed this; but the fitting up was not very good. The carpet was showy and shabby, and did not harmonize with the paper. The room wanted papering and painting; but the window-curtains were conspicuously new, and made the rest of the furniture look still more worn. On the table lay _Punch_ and the _Athenæum_, and a smart cap in the process of making.

Mrs. Ringwood came back, looking rather discomfited. “Dear me,” said she, “I can’t find my keys—Oh, here they are!” And carrying them off, and her cap at the same time, she presently returned with a glass of wine and a biscuit, saying, “You really must take this.”

In vain I assured her I was a water-drinker; I saw I should hurt her if I declined, and therefore took the glass, and put it to my lips, though I knew it would do me no good.

“I don’t know what I should do without a glass of wine sometimes,” said she. “I hope baby has not been troublesome.”

“O no! What a nice little fellow he is! How old is he?”

So then ensued some baby-talk, which seemed to make us much better acquainted.

“He must be a great resource to you,” said I.

“Well, children are plagues as well as pleasures, sometimes,” said Mrs. Ringwood. “I often think people who have no families have no idea of what mothers go through.”

“That is true enough, I dare say,” said I. “But the maternal instinct is implanted to make us insensible to those troubles—or, at least, indifferent to them.”

“Oh, nobody can be indifferent to them, Mrs. Cheerlove! Duty is duty, and pleasure is pleasure; but they don’t amount to the same thing, for all that.”

This was said with an asperity which seemed to place us miles apart again. The next moment she added, “At least, time was—when I was very young, you know, and fresh married—when I believe I really did think them one and the same thing.” She gave a little laugh, to hide a tear.

“I don’t know how it may be with you,” said I, twining the baby’s little fingers round mine, “but I think in most people’s lives there are times when, all at once, they seem to break down under their burthens, and to need a friendly arm to set them up again.”

“Some have not that friendly arm,” said she, her mouth twitching. “I only wish I had. Oh my goodness, Mrs. Cheerlove!”—suddenly becoming familiar and voluble—“you’ve no idea what a life mine is! These four walls, if they had tongues, could tell strange stories!”

“Ah! what walls could not?” said I, hastening from particulars to generals. “We were not sent into this world to be happy——”

“Well, _I_ think we _were_,” interrupted she; “and yours must be a strange, gloomy religion if it makes you think otherwise.”

“At any rate, we cannot depend on being happy,” said I, “as long as our happiness is founded on anything in this world.”

“Ah! there I agree with you,” said she, sighing profoundly; “there’s no trusting to anything, or any one, whether servant, friend, or husband—you find them all out at last.”

She fixed her eyes on mine.

“My lot,” said I, “was, I know, a favoured one; but I never found out anything of Mr. Cheerlove, but that he was a great deal better and wiser than myself.”

She raised her eyebrows a little.

“Some think that all men are superior to all women,” said she, rocking the baby to and fro, “but I can’t subscribe to that opinion. I think we have our rights and our feelings as well as our duties; and our rights and our feelings have some little claim to attention. When a man makes invidious remarks—”

“Or a woman either,” said I, laughing a little.

“—Which are felt to be meant for personal application,” pursued she, “one’s spirit rises.”

“Certainly, it is best to speak out,” said I, “or else be silent.”

“Oh, let them speak out! If it’s in them, I’d rather it came out of them. I detest your innuendoes!”

“However,” said I, “we can never make the crooked tree straight. We must take people as we find them.”

“Or _leave_ them!” said she. Then, suddenly pausing, she pressed me, quite in an altered tone, to take a little more wine. “You have scarcely tasted it—perhaps you prefer some other sort.”

“Oh no, thank you. The fact is, I have so long been a water-drinker, that even a little sip makes my mouth feel all on fire.”

“Ah! then that can’t be pleasant, I’m sure,” said she, cordially. “I won’t press you to have any more. I only wish I knew what you _would_ like.”

“I like looking at you and your baby,” said I, smiling.

“Do you think him like me?”

“Yes.”

“Ah! you said that, I fear, to please me. I own I laid myself out for it. But now, tell me, Mrs. Cheerlove, don’t you think that we have pleasing things said rather too often to us before marriage, and too seldom afterwards?”

“Yes, I think that is sometimes the case.”

“Oh, and how it depresses one, not to know if you please!—nay, to be pretty sure you don’t! I’m sure, I could do anything, almost, to give satisfaction—take down a bed, lift a box!—”

“You would be like the French crossing the Alps when the trumpet sounded.”

“Just so; I lose all sense of fatigue and crossness.”

“Can’t you hear a _mental_ trumpet?”

“What?”

“Something _within_, that shall cheer you along your path.”

“Ah! I fear I can’t.”

And the poor little woman, gushing into grief, told me, the acquaintance of an hour, such a tale of woe, that my tears flowed with hers. She was comforted by my sympathy, and said, clasping her hands—

“Oh that I could see my path clear!”

“I think you will,” said I, though my hope was not very sanguine.

“Sometimes I think I’ll write to mamma. I sit down and write her such long letters, and after all, don’t send them.”

“Excellent!” said I.

She looked surprised.

“Your plan is excellent,” I pursued. “By pouring out your griefs to your dearest and earliest friend, you relieve your own mind; and, by not sending your letter, you give no pain to hers.”

“But it is merely from irresolution,” said she.

“Never mind what it is from. The plan is excellent. Continue to write to her—write often—pour out your whole heart—and then put the letter carefully away till the next day; enjoy the comfort of finding what a strong case you made out—and, having done so, burn it!”

“Are you joking?” said she.

“No, as serious as possible. It is no joking matter.”

“Well, I thought you were too kind to do so. And, dear me! I feel a great deal better for this talk. Things don’t look so dark; and yet they have not in the least altered.”

“Only a different hue is thrown over them. That makes all the difference sometimes;—and answers as well as if the things _were_ altered; as long as we can make the hue last.”