The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

I almost trembled for this cool scrutinizing of my father’s motives and opinions, which he never revealed to any one – yet I too listened with interest for the answer. No answer came. My father spoke hurriedly and with irritation; but he did not reply.

“I presume you will permit us some little exercise of our own will as to the person whom we admit into our family,” he said; “but enough of this. Do you advise me to tell Hester, or to dispose of the affair on my own responsibility?”

Mr. Osborne seemed bent upon provoking my father’s slumbering resentment.

“Well,” he said with a pause of much consideration, “had the boy proposed to you, the answer would have lain with you of course – but I think it quite possible that some time or other in her life, Hester might remember that her old home in all its revenues, and, I have no doubt, a very worthy and generous youth along with them, had been laid at her feet, and her father, on his own responsibility, threw them away.”

“Osborne!” cried my father – I almost expected he would command him away, and bid him never more enter our house. I am sure I felt that I never could address him with ordinary civility again – but instead of that, after a moment’s pause, my father resumed, in vehement tones certainly, but not in tones of anger at the speaker. “Generous! and you think I would give my daughter to one who sought her from a generous impulse; you forget my life and you forget me.”

How my heart throbbed and resounded in its quick and painful beating! – I cannot tell how strangely I felt the possibility that I myself might one day or other realize in my own person the misfortune of my father’s life. Yes, Mr. Osborne was right thus far, I had not been thinking of nothing while I sat in the sunshine working at my embroidery. I had already seen dimly through the golden mists the hero, the prince, the red cross knight. I had already seen myself worshipped with the pure devotedness of chivalry. I had already, like a true girl and woman, imagined all manner of glories and honors won for me by my true knight, and prized because they made him nobler, and not because they exalted me. Yes! I had been dreaming innocent, beautiful, unworldly dreams – when lo! there fell upon me a vision of my cousin Edgar, and his generous impulse. I clenched my hands upon my little plant in a passion of indignation. The words stung me to the heart.

“Well – I am not astonished that you regard it in this light,” said Mr. Osborne, “but you must confess, at the same time, Southcote, that there is a more common sense way of looking at it. The boy is a good boy, and feels that he has been the means of injuring his cousin – what more natural than that the two branches of the family should unite their claims in this most satisfactory way – what is your objection to it? A punctilio? Come, don’t talk of it to Hester yet – let’s have a fight, old friend. I flatter myself you were none the worse in the old days of arguing out the matter with Frank Osborne. Now, then, for your arguments. Heigho! Howard, my boy, do you recollect the last time?”

There was so long a pause that I could not help stealing forward to look what was the reason. My father’s face was as black as night, and he stood opposite his friend in a rigid fixed attitude, vacantly looking at him – then he turned suddenly on his heel, “Excuse me – I am faint – I will return to you instantly,” he said, as he hurried in. Mr. Osborne shrugged his shoulders, gazed after him, shrugged again, began to whistle, and then suddenly turning round found himself face to face with me.

For the first moment I think I was the least disconcerted – for I was very angry and indignant beyond measure; but, as his face gradually brightened into its usual expression of shrewdness and good-humored sarcasm, my own courage fell. I had been eavesdropping, finding out my father’s secrets without his knowledge – playing a very shabby part – I who piqued myself upon my sense of honor.

“So!” said Mr. Osborne, “your father is right, young lady. I see I did not understand Hester; pray what may you be doing here?”

And I, who had intended to denounce his paltry views, and to pour out the full tide of my indignation upon him for thwarting and chafing my father – I was ready to cry with vexation and mortified pride. “I did not intend to listen – I was only here by chance – and, at first, I thought you knew I was here,” said I, making a pause between each sentence, swallowing down my ire and my humiliation. After all I had heard, to have to excuse myself to him!

“Well, your father’s run away,” said Mr. Osborne; “suppose we finish the argument, Hester. It is your concern after all; but I suppose such a thing as a sweetheart, or the dim possibility of being wooed and married never entered your guileless thoughts at all?”

I did not answer him – my girlish pride was on fire, and my cheeks burnt, but I could find nothing sufficiently annihilating to reply to Mr. Osborne.

We heard the noise of an opened door just then, and of a footstep in the passage which led to the garden. Mr. Osborne glanced hastily round him, and then bent forward to me.

“Hester, attend to me. You are very young, and have had a wild education; try, if you can think before you permit your father to decide on this. Do you mark me? I know this boy – he is a better boy than you are, and he has a fantastic fancy for you, as great as you could desire. Hester, here’s your father. I’ll keep your secret, and do you think of what I say.”

My father joined us immediately. If it surprised him to find me there, he took no notice of it, and I was glad to pick up my embroidery and hurry away. I was impressed with an uncomfortable necessity for thinking about it, from what Mr. Osborne had said, and I went to my own room to recollect myself. I could not deny either that I was a little excited and agitated about this new appearance of Edgar Southcote. It did not soften my heart to him, but it awoke my curiosity, and it made a step in my life. I said to myself with a beating heart – a heart disturbed with wonder, with anger, with surprise, and something like affright, that I was no longer a girl, but a woman now, standing upon the threshold of my life. I was sixteen. I thought I was rapidly maturing and growing old, for in this old house of ours, so quiet and withdrawn from common company, the days were peopled with fancies and imaginary scenes, and I did not know how very, very young and girlish were my secret conceptions of life and of the world.

Life! Here was my father, a man in whom I could see no blemish – what was his existence? Such as it was, he lived it in his library, among his books; talking with me now and then, and coming forth to take a long silent solitary walk, or a stroll in the garden in the evening, once or twice a week. Was this all? yes! and I said within myself in reverent explanation of it, that his life had been blighted and cast down by one wrong that always gnawed at his heart; he had married for love; but my mother had married him for pity. Was not this enough to account for the sombre shade in which he lived and walked? I said yes, yes! in eager youthful enthusiasm – yes, this was surely enough to decide for good or evil the whole tenor of a life.

And then there was Alice! Nothing in this house or about it, not even the sunshine, cheered my heart like the smile of Alice; yet she was not merry, and had little to be merry for. Alice was like one who had come out of a desert, leaving all her loves and treasures there behind her – she had lost everything, everything but her life – what had she to live for? I shuddered while I said so; for without Alice how dreary would my days be; and then I paused to recollect that on the borders of this grand and momentous existence, where my father had failed in his own enterprise for happiness, and in which Alice had lost all she loved, my own feet were standing now.

This was what I thought on the subject which Mr. Osborne recommended to my consideration; when I thought again of Edgar, it was with a renewed flush of anger and mortification. My cousin pitied me, who dreamed of inspiring some true knight with the loftiest ambitions, and rewarding him sufficiently with a smile. I was to be subjected to the humiliating proposals which Edgar Southcote’s “generous impulse” suggested to him! These were unfortunate words – how often they have clamored in my ear, and haunted me since then.

I did not go into the garden again that day; not even when it was twilight, and the dews were culling out the odors, and the murmur of hushed sounds and distant voices from the quiet town charmed the dim air into an enchanted calm. In my new-born consciousness, I walked up and down the dim close, at the other side of the house, where there were no windows overlooking the high walls and its glistening ivy. I would be no Proserpine among the flowers, to any foolish boy who dared spy upon my retirement from the college windows. Proserpine! if Mr. Osborne had known I heard him, he never would have called me by that name, nor supposed that any gownsman of Corpus could ever interest me! I had a great contempt for my next neighbors in my girlish loftiness and maturity. I could not have been more insulted than by such an insinuation as this.

And then I went to the drawing-room, and stationed myself at my usual place in the window; the long room was nearly dark, though the pale half-light streamed through it from window to window, and it was strange to look across the whole length of the room to the ivy leaves faintly quivering on the wall at the other side. My father and Mr. Osborne, who had dined with us, were walking in the garden, talking earnestly, and with some indignation I watched them, wondering if they still talked of me. Then there came out, one by one, these lights in the windows, some of them looking faint and steady like true students’ lamps, some suspiciously bright as though there was merry-making within. It pleased me to watch them, as window after window brightened on the night. I scorned the inmates; but I did not scorn these neighborly and kindly lights.

My father came in very soon, and Mr. Osborne called me to say good-night; I went down to him where he stood at the door, and he held my hand a moment, and looked into my face. “Now, Hester, good night – think of what I said,” he repeated. These words induced me to return very quickly upstairs, where my father had gone, following Alice with the lamp. When she had placed it on the table and left the room, I went to my father and stood beside him, till he lifted his eyes from the book. He looked at me with a kind loving look, as if he had pleasure in seeing me – a look not very usual to my father – and took my hand as he always used to do, when I stood at his knee, to ask anything of him as a child, and said, “Well, Hester?” I was full of excitement and resolution, and came to my subject at once, without remembering that I might be blamed for what I had to say first. “I was in the greenhouse, papa, when you were talking there with Mr. Osborne to-day,” I said, firmly – and then I paused with a sudden recollection that this was not quite consistent either with my father’s code of honor or my own.

“I did not intend to listen – it was very wrong – but I could not conceal it from you, now it is done,” I proceeded hurriedly, “and I have come to say, papa, that I heard what you told Mr. Osborne about Edgar Southcote. I wonder how he dares presume upon us so; I think a true gentleman would be sorry to let us see that he was able to be generous to us; and I hope you will write to him at once, papa, and if it is necessary to say anything from me, let it be that I hope there never will be any communication between us, nor any need for me to tell him what I think in plain words.”

My father continued to smile upon me, holding my hand, but without speaking – then he said, still with a smile – “This is a very enigmatical message, Hester – I am afraid I must make it plainer; for this young man, your cousin, has not dared nor presumed so much as you seem to think, my love; I am to tell him that we cannot entertain any proposal for an alliance between the rival branches of the house of Southcote, that we beg his overtures may not be repeated, and though sensible of the great honor he does us, we must beg to decline any further correspondence on the subject – is that what you mean, Hester? I think that is about as much as we are entitled to say.”

I was scarcely pleased at the playful manner in which my father now treated a matter which he evidently had not looked on in a playful light a few hours ago; but, at the same time, his tone made me ashamed of my own vehemence, and I assented hastily. He still held my hand, and his face became quite grave – he seemed to see that I was surprised, and wanted explanation of what he had said.

“I am afraid we are thinking of this young man with a little bitterness, Hester,” said my father, raising his lofty head, “which is not very creditable to us, I fear, my love; – that he has claimed and won what is justly his own, can be no wrong or offence to us. It is rather my part to thank him that he has set me right, than to imply that he has injured me. This last is by no means a dignified assumption, Hester, and it is more or less implied in every harsh judgment we give against your cousin – whereas he is simply indifferent to us, and in rejecting this proposal, I do it with civility, you perceive, just as I would any proposal which was distasteful, from whomsoever it came.”

This speech of my father’s impressed me very greatly; I left him holding my head erect, yet feeling humbled. Yes, I had been very bitter in my heart against Edgar Southcote – I had felt resentment against him, strong and violent, as the supplanter of my father; but it was mean to dislike him on such a ground – it was what Alice called “a poor pride;” yet I confess, it was somewhat difficult to rise, in anything but words, to the altitude of the other pride, and say “he is quite indifferent to me – he has done me no wrong – it is not possible that I can have any grudge against my cousin.”

It was thus that I returned to my window-seat; when I placed myself in my favorite corner, I looped up the curtain, so that I could look in as well as out. The room was dim with that summer dimness which only the evening firelight drives away, and the mild light of the lamp shone softly in the middle of the silent apartment, throwing every piece of furniture near in shadows on the carpet, and leaving all the corners in a faint half-shade of darkness. The point of light in the room was my father’s high white forehead, looking like marble with that illumination on it, and contrasting so strangely with his black hair. I looked at him as I might have looked at a picture. On one of his thin white fingers he had a ring, a very fine diamond in a slender circle of gold, which flashed and shone in the light as he raised his hand, now and then, to turn a leaf – behind him and around him there was shadow and darkness, but the light had gathered on his face, and shone there like a star to me, as I lay within the curtain looking out into the stillness: and on my other hand was the soft gloom of a summer night lying close with its downy plumes upon the trees, and the soft pale skies with a faint star in them here and there, and the lights in the college windows glowing upon youth and untried strength like mine. Rest and calm, and the mild oblivion of the night enclosed us like the arms of angels, but did not silence the swell of the rising tide in my heart.

THE FOURTH DAY

IT was winter again, a gloomy November day, ungenial and cold. The rain was beating on the dark buildings of the college, and saturating the dreary greensward in our garden, till it sunk under the foot like a treacherous bog. There was not a leaf on the trees, and the ivy on the high wall of the close at the other side, glistened and fluttered under the rain. There was nothing very cheerful to be seen out of doors. I was alone in our drawing-room, and it was still early, and nothing had occurred to break the morning torpor of this unbrightened day. I was sitting at the table, working with great assiduity, with scraps of my materials lying round me on every side. My occupation was not a very serious one, though I pursued it with devotion. I was only dressing a doll for a little girl, who was niece to Alice, and named after me; but as it did not consist with my ambitious desires to have a doll of my dressing arrayed like a doll which could be bought by any one, I was attiring this one in elaborate historical costume, like a lady of the age of Elizabeth, or even – so stiff and so grand was she – like that grim and glorious sovereign herself.

The fire burned with a deep red glow, so full that it warmed and reddened the very color of the room; and though it was a very subdued and gloomy light which came through the rain, from those heavy leaden skies, there was a warmth and comfort in the stillness here, which was rather increased than diminished by the dreary prospect without. It was very still – the great old clock ticking on the stair, the rain pattering upon the gravel and on the broad flag-stones at the kitchen door below, the faint rustle of the ivy leaves upon the wall, and sometimes the footsteps of Alice, or of Mary, as they went up and down about their household work, were all the sounds I could hear; and as the excitement of my enterprise subsided, and my occupation itself was almost done, I began to be restless in the extreme quietness. It is true, I was very well used to it, and made up to myself largely by dreams and by visions; but I am not sure that I was much of a dreamer by nature. I had a strong spirit of action and adventure stirring within me. I was moved by the swiftest and most uncontrollable impulses, and had such a yearning upon me to do something now and then, that there was about the house a score of things begun, which it was impossible I could ever finish, and which, indeed, I never tried to finish, except under a momentary inspiration. If any one had tried to direct me, I might have applied to better purpose my superfluous energy – but no one did – so I wasted it in wild fancies, and turbulent attempts at doing something, and sometimes got so restless with the pressure of my own active thoughts and unemployed faculties, that I could rest nowhere, but wandered about as perverse and unreasonable as it was possible for a lonely girl to be, and generally ended by quarrelling with Alice, and finding myself to be in the wrong, and miserable to my heart’s content.

This stillness! it began to get intolerable now – to sit and look at these ivy leaves, and at the rain soaking into the spongy grass – to feel the warm full glow of the fire actually make me sleepy in the vacancy of my life – I started up in high disdain, and threw down the doll which caricatured Queen Elizabeth. I wanted something to do – something to do – I was sixteen and a half, high spirited, warm tempered, a Southcote! and I had nothing better to do with my youth and my strength, than to fall asleep over the fire, before it was noon in the day! I rushed down stairs immediately, with one of my sudden impulses to make some sort of attack upon Alice. I would have been glad to think that it was somebody’s fault that my life was of so little use; and I ran along the passage leading to the kitchen with an impatient step; on the same floor was my father’s study, and a little odd parlor where we now and then sat; but I did not disturb my father with my perverse thoughts.

The kitchen was not very large, but looked so cheerful, that it always reminded me of Alice. The walls of the ground floor of the house were founded on some tiers of massy stonework, and I suppose that gave it a look of warmth and stability – and in the side of the room, which was of this same old masonry almost to the roof, there was a little high window with an arched top, which threw a strange stream of sunlight into the room, and constantly annoyed Alice, in the summer, by putting out her fire. There was no sun to put out anybody’s fire to-day, but the rain beat against the panes instead, and the high straggling head of a withered hollyhock nodded at the window-sill, with the dreariest impertinence. In the breadth of the kitchen, however, looking out on the garden, was a broad low lattice, quite uncurtained, which gave the fullest light of which the day was capable to this cheerful apartment; and at the great table which stood by it, Alice was standing making some delicate cakes, in the manufacture of which she excelled. I came up to her hastily, and threw myself upon the wooden chair beside her. I was full of those endless metaphysical inquiries which youth – and especially youth that has nothing to do, abounds in – what was life for – what was it – what was the good of me, my particular self, and for what purpose did I come into the world? Before now, I had poured my questionings into the ears of Alice, but Alice was very little moved by them, I am constrained to say.

“Have you done, Miss Hester?” said Alice, for I had taken her into my counsels to discuss the momentous question of the doll’s costume, and of what period it was to be.

“Oh, yes! I am done,” said I; “only think, Alice, nothing better to do all this morning than dress a doll; and now I have nothing at all to do.”

“Dear Miss Hester, you never can want plenty of things to amuse you,” said Alice; “don’t speak to me so – it’s unkind to your papa.”

“I don’t want things to amuse me,” said I, “I want something to do, Alice. What is the use of me – it is very well for you – you are always busy – but I want to know what’s the good of me!”

“You must not say that, dear! don’t now,” said Alice, “you’re but a child – you’re only coming to your life – ”

“I don’t think life is much better, Alice,” said I. “Mr. Osborne and my father dispute for hours about passages in Greek books; are books life? I don’t think there’s any satisfaction in them, more than in dressing a doll.”

“You did not think so on Tuesday night, my dear,” said Alice quietly, “when the light was in your window half through the night, and I know you were sitting up reading one.”

“Ah! but that was a novel,” I cried, starting up, “that is the very thing! May I send Mary to the library? I will have one to-day.”

So I ran up stairs to make a list of certain desirable volumes, and sent off Mary forthwith; then I returned to the table, where Alice made her cakes, and to my wooden chair.

“No, there is no satisfaction in them,” said I, “even a novel has an end, Alice; but do you think that reading pages of printed paper is all that people need to care for – do you think that is life?”

“Life is not one thing, but a many things, Miss Hester,” said Alice. “Dear, you’re a-coming to it now.”

“What am I coming to – only to breakfast, and dinner, and supper, over and over again, Alice,” said I. “I don’t think it was so at Cottiswoode, but it is so here, I know – then you have to work all day to cook for us, and we have to eat what you cook – and that is our life.”

“Don’t speak so, Miss Hester,” entreated Alice once more, “it is not a poor woman like me that can tell you what life is; there were ten years or more in my life that were full of great things happening to me; but little happened to me before or after – you would think it was not worth my while living after these years.”

I confessed to my thought. “Yes, Alice! I am afraid I did think so; though I would be a very desolate girl, I am sure, without you.”

It seemed to move her a little, this that I said. Her cheeks reddened, and she paused in her work.

“If you were older, you would know better,” said Alice. “After the last of them were gone, it was a dreary, dreary time. I rose to do my work, Miss Hester, and laid me down to sleep and forget what a lonesome woman I was. What was it you said this morning about the new day cheering you, and the fresh spirit you had when you woke, howsoever you had been at night? I know what that is – but after my troubles, when I opened my eyes, and saw the daylight, it made me sick – I used to turn my face to the wall, and wish and wish that I might sleep on, and never wake to think about what had befallen me; but still I lived, and still I lived, and the breakfast and the dinner and the common ways were what God had appointed me. If I said life was trouble and sorrow, would you like it better than when its only comfort was quiet, and reading books as it is with you?”

“But it was not all trouble and sorrow, Alice, in these ten years?”