The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“Are you very busy, Mary?” said Miss Saville. “Now do you think, if Alice had not come to school, and been taught her duty, she would have sat there so quietly helping her mother. I don’t believe anything of the kind.”

“Thank you all the same, Ma’am, it done her a deal of good gwoing to school,” said Mary, with a submissive, yet resolute courtesy, “but she always was a good child.”

“I don’t say she’s a good child now – she’s doing no more than her duty,” said Miss Saville, with a peremptory little nod; “there’s nothing worse for children than to praise them to their faces. There’s that boy of yours, not half an hour ago, if I had not been at hand, he might have broken his neck, clambering into the cart on the edge of the common. I am sure, how these children escape with their lives, with nobody to look after them, is a constant wonder to me.”

“Providence is always a-minding after them,” said Mary, “poor folks’ children is not like rich folks; and my boy can take a knock as well as another – I’m not afraid.”

“Well, now I have something to tell you of,” said Miss Saville.

“Since Mrs. Southcote has come home, she wishes to do good to you all like a Christian lady; and I’m going to take a house, or have one built here at Cottisbourne, and live in it myself, and take care of the old people who are helpless, and a burden on their families. Mrs. Southcote, and other good ladies, will come to help me, and the old folks shall be well taken care of, and have comfortable rooms and beds, and be a burden to nobody. What do you say to that, Granny? Mary has plenty to do with her own family, and I dare say doesn’t always get much time to mind you, and you’d be off her hands, and make her easier in her mind, for I’m sure you know very well how much she’s got to do.”

A shrill hoohoo of feeble, yet vehement sobbing interrupted this speech. “I’m a poor old soul,” said the hysterical voice of Granny; “but I toiled for her and her children, when I had some strength left, and I do what I can in my old days – God help me! My poor bit o’ bread and my tater – a baby ‘ud eat as much as me. Lord help us! you don’t go for to say my own child would grudge me that?”

“Folks had best not meddle with other folks’ business,” said Mary, with an angry glance towards Miss Saville. “You mind your knitting, mother, and don’t mind what strangers say. You ladies is hard-hearted, that’s the truth – though you mean kind – begging your pardon, Ma’am,” she said, with a curtsey to me; “but I work cheerful for my mother – I kneaw I do. I no more grudge her nor I grudge little Polly, by the fire. She’s been a good mother to me, and never spared her trouble; and ne’er a one of the childer but would want their supper sooner than miss Granny from the corner. And for all so feeble as she is, there’s a deal of life in her,” said Mary, once more putting up to her eyes the corner of her apron. “She’ll tell the little uns’ doins, it’s wonderful to hear – and talks out o’ the Bible of Sundays, that the parson himself might be the better – and knits at her stocking all the week through. They kneaws little that says my mother’s a burden. Alice ‘ud break her heart if she hadn’t Granny to do for, every day.”

“Well! I must say I think it very ungrateful of you,” said Miss Saville, “when I undertake she should be well taken care of, and Mrs. Southcote would come to see her almost every day. You’re a thankless set of people in Cottisbourne. You do not know when people try to do you good. There’s old Sally – ”

“You don’t name my mother with old Sally there?” cried Mary, with indignation. “You wouldn’t put the likes of her under a good roof! I won’t have you speak, Ma’am – I won’t indeed. My mother and old Sally! in one house!”

“I think it possible,” said Miss Saville, with a little asperity, “that God might choose to take even old Sally to Heaven. She’s a naughty old woman – a cross, miserable old creature – and what she’d do there, if she was as she is, I can’t tell. But God has never said, so far as I know, ‘Old Sally shan’t come to Heaven.’”

This rebuke cast poor Mary into silence. She continued in a tremulous, half-defiant, half-convinced state for a few minutes, and then wiped her eyes again, and answered in a low tone:

“I wouldn’t be unneighborly, nor uncharitable neither – and God knows the heart – but my mother and old Sally wouldn’t agree, no ways – and I’d work my fingers to the bone sooner than let Granny go.”

“You must take your own way, of course,” said Miss Saville. “I only wanted to befriend you, my good woman. No – I’m not offended, and I don’t suppose Mrs. Southcote is either. What we propose is real kindness both to Granny and you – but, oh no! don’t fear – there are plenty who would be glad of it.”

Mary turned to me with a troubled glance; she thought that perhaps her balked benefactor was angry with her too.

“Is there anything Granny would like – or you, Mary? Could I help you?” said I. “Is there anything I could do myself for you?”

Mary made a very humble, reverential curtsey.

“You’re only too good, Ma’am,” said Mary. “There’s always a many things wanted in a small family. I’d be thankful of work, Miss, if you could trust it to me, and do my best to please – and Alice is very handy, and does plain hemming and seaming beautiful. Show the lady your work, Alice. If there were any plain things, Ma’am, to do – ”

“But, Mary, I am sure you have too much to do already. I would rather help you to do what you have, than give you more work,” said I.

Mary looked up at me with a startled glance, and then with a smile.

“Bless your kind heart, lady! work’s nat’ral to me – pleasure is for the rich, and labor’s for the poor, and I’m content, I’d sooner sit working than go pleasuring; but it’s another thing with the likes of you.”

Miss Saville was already at the door, and somewhat impatient of this delay, so I hurried after her, arranging with Mary that she was to come that afternoon to Alice at Cottiswoode. When we got out of the house, Miss Saville took me to task immediately.

“You don’t understand the people, my dear,” said Miss Saville. “Mary was very right about the work: it’s far better to give employment than to give charity – and that’s not to save your purse, but to keep up their honest feelings. They’re independent when they’re working for themselves, and they’re bred up to work all their life; and for you to speak of going to help them, it would only make them uneasy, and be unsuitable for you.”

“But I wish to help them – and giving work to Mary does not stand in the place of working myself,” said I, with a little petulance.

“Oh, of course, if you want to do it for pleasure that’s quite a different thing – but I really don’t understand that,” said Miss Saville, abruptly.

“I do not wish it for pleasure,” said I, growing almost angry; but I did not choose to explain myself to her, and it was a good thing that she should confess that she did not understand me.

We visited a number of poor houses after this, but I found nothing encouraging in any of them. There were one or two old people found, who were quite willing to be received into Miss Saville’s asylum – they were all poor stupid old rustics, all helpless with some infirmity, but I did not find that there was anything heroic now in the prospect of waiting upon and serving them. It was not courage nor daring, nor any high and lofty quality which would be required for such an undertaking, but patience – patience, pity, and indeed a certain degree of insensibility, qualities which I neither had nor coveted. I was much discontented with my day’s experience – I was known and recognised latterly wherever we went, and though I had no recollection of the majority of the claimants of my former acquaintance, I was very ready to give them money, and did so to the great annoyance of Miss Saville. As we threaded our way through the muddy turnings, she lectured me on the evils of indiscriminate almsgiving, while I, for my part, painfully pondered what I had to do with these people, or what I could do for them. Though I had read a good deal, and thought a little, I was still very ignorant. I had a vague idea, even now in my disappointment, when I found I could not do what I wanted, that I ought to do something – that these people belonged to us, and had a right to attention at our hands. But I could not lift these cottages and place them in better order. I could not arrange those encumbered and narrow bits of path. Could I do nothing but give them money? I was much discomfited, puzzled, and distressed. Miss Saville plodded along methodically in her thick boots, perceiving what she had to do, and doing it as everyday work should be done – but there was no room here for martyrdom – and I could not tell what to do.

THE EIGHTH DAY

VISITORS! I did not know how to receive them; and not only visitors but relatives of my own – of my mother’s – her only remaining kindred. I went down with a flutter at my heart to see my unknown kin. He was with them, Alice told me, and I composed myself as well as I could before I entered the room; for by this time we had grown to a dull uncommunicating antagonism, and his presence stimulated me to command myself. It was past Christmas now, and we had spent more than two months in this system of mutual torment. We had been once or twice asked out, and we had gone and behaved ourselves so as not to betray the full extent of the breach between us; but we asked no one to our house – a house in which dwelt such a skeleton; and nobody can fancy how intolerable this dreary tête-a-tête, in which each of us watched the other, and no one spoke save the few necessary formalities of the table, became every day. Yet how every day we began in the same course, never seeking to separate – keeping together as pertinaciously as a couple of lovers, and with the strangest fascination in this silent contest. To look back upon this time is like a nightmare to me. I feel the heavy stifling shadow, the suppressed feverish excitement, the constant expectation and strain of self control when I think of it. I wonder one of us was not crazed by this prolonged ordeal; I think a few days of it would make me frantic now.

I stood for a moment at the door listening to their voices before I entered – they were cordial, sincere voices, pleasant to hear, and in spite of myself I brightened at the kindly sounds. There were three of them – father, mother, and daughter – and when I entered the room, the first thing I saw was a pretty sweet girlish face, very much like the portrait which Mr. Osborne gave me of my mother, looking up all smiles and dimples at my husband’s. I cannot tell how it happened, but for the moment it struck me what a much more pleasant home this Cottiswoode would have been, had that sunny face presided over it – and what a dull sullen heavy countenance in comparison was that clouded and unhappy face which glanced back at me as I glanced at the mirror. I wondered what he thought on the subject, or if it had crossed his fancy; but I had no time to pursue the question, for suddenly I was overwhelmed in the shawl and embrace of a large kind smiling woman, the mother of this girl.

She held me by the hands after the first salutation, and looked at my mourning dress and my pale cheeks, and said, “poor dear!” She was herself very gay in an ample matronly finery, with satin skirts, and a great rich shawl, with a width and a warmth in her embrace, and a soft faint perfume about her which were quite new to me. Her fingers were soft, large, and pink and delicate; her touch was a positive pleasure. There are some people who make you conscious of your own appearance by the strange contrast which you feel it bears to theirs. Mrs. Ennerdale was one of those; I felt how cloudy, how dull, how unreal it was, living on imaginary rights and wrongs, and throwing my life away, when I felt myself within the warm pressure of these kindly human arms.

Mr. Ennerdale was a Squire like other Squires, a hearty comfortable country gentleman, with nothing much to distinguish him from his class – he shook hands with me very warmly, and looked still more closely in my face than his wife had done. “You’re a little like your mother, Mrs. Southcote,” he said in a disappointed tone, as he let me go. I might have been when I was happy; but I certainly was not now.

And then Flora came to me, shyly but frankly – holding my hand with a lingering light clasp, as if she expected a warmer salutation from her new found cousin. She was a year younger than I, very pretty, very fresh and sweet like a half-blown rose. She took her place upon a low chair close by me, and kept her sweet blue eyes on my face when I spoke, and looked at me with great interest and respectfulness. Poor young innocent Flora! —she did not wonder that I looked ill, or question what was the matter with me. She was not skilled, nor could discriminate between unhappiness and grief.

It was not jealousy that crossed my mind, nor anything approaching to it. I only could not help fancying to myself how different everything would have been had she been mistress of Cottiswoode – how bright the house – how happy the master. It was a pleasure to look at the innocent sweet face. I admired her as only women can admire each other. I was not shy of looking at her as a man might have been. I had a pure pleasure in the sweet bloom of her cheek, the pretty turn and rounding of its outline. I had a great love of beauty by nature, but I had seen few beautiful people. Many a time the sweet complexion of Alice, and her comely bright face, had charmed me unawares, and I was a great deal more delighted with Flora now.

Mrs. Ennerdale took me aside, after a few minutes, to talk to me after a matronly and confidential fashion, for I was not well, and did not look well. But her kindness and her sympathy confused me, and I was glad to come back to my old place. Flora followed me with her eyes as I followed her – my sad clouded looks woke Flora’s young tender heart to respect and affectionate wistfulness. I don’t think she ventured to talk much to me, standing apart as I did, to her young fancy, upon my eminence of grief, but she looked up with such an earnest regard in my face, that I was more soothed than by words. When Mrs. Ennerdale began to settle her plumage, and to express her hope to see us soon, a sudden idea seized upon me. I took no time to think of it, but acted on my impulse in a moment. I suddenly became energetic, and begged that Flora might stay a few days with me. Flora looked up with an eager seconding look, and said, “I should be so glad,” in her youthful whispering tone. The papa and mamma took counsel together, and my husband started slightly and looked with a momentary wonder in my face; but I suppose he had almost ceased to wonder at anything I could do.

“Well, I am sure you must have need of company, my dear,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Ennerdale, “and Flora is a good girl too, but must I send her things, or how shall we do? We thought of asking Mr. Southcote and yourself to come to Ennerdale, but I never dreamt of you keeping Flora. Well, dear, well, you shall have her, and I’ll see about sending her things; and, Flora, love, try if you cannot get your poor dear cousin to look cheerful, and recollect exercise,” said the experienced matron, turning aside to whisper to me, “remember, dear, it is of the greatest consequence, walk every day – be sure, every day.”

There was some delay consequent on my request and the new arrangements, but in less than half an hour the elder pair drove off, and left Flora with me. I took her up-stairs with a genuine thrill of pleasure – I think the first I had felt since I entered the house, to show her her room, and help her to take off her cloak. “But come out first, do, and have a walk,” said Flora. “Mamma says you ought to go out; and it is so pleasant to feel the wind in your face. It nearly blew me away this morning – do come!”

“Are you not tired?” said I.

“Tired! – oh no! I am a country girl,” said Flora, with a low sweet laugh, as pretty and youthful as her face, “and when the boys are at home, they never let me rest. I always take a long time to settle down after the holidays. Dear Mrs. Southcote! I hope I will not be too noisy, nor too much of a hoyden for you – for you are not well I am sure.”

“Oh, yes! I am well,” I said, half displeased at this interpretation of the moody face which looked so black and clouded beside Flora’s. “Will you wait for me, Miss Ennerdale, while I get ready?”

“Don’t call me Miss Ennerdale, please don’t,” entreated the girl; “papa says we are as good as first cousins, for his father was your mamma’s uncle, and his mother was her aunt. Do you not know, Mrs. Southcote? your grandpapa and mine were brothers, and they married two sisters – that is how it is – and we are as good as first cousins – and I think, you know, that we ought to call each other – at least, that you ought to call me by my own name.”

“Very well, we will make a bargain,” said I; “do you know my name, Flora?”

“Oh yes! very well – it is Hester,” said Flora, with a blush and a little shyness. “I have no other cousins on papa’s side – and I always liked so much to hear of you.”

“Why?”

“Because – I can’t tell, I am sure!” said Flora, laughing. “I always could see my other cousins, but never you – and so few people knew you; and do you know,” she added quietly, lowering her tone, and drawing near to me, with that innocent pathos and mystery which young girls love, “I think my father, when he was young, was very fond of your mamma.”

“Strange! he, too! everybody must have loved her,” I said to myself, wonderingly.

“Yes, he says he never saw any one like her,” said Flora, with her sweet girlish seriousness, and perfect sincerity.

“Did no one ever say you were like me?” I asked.

Her face flushed in a moment with a bright rosy color.

“Oh, dear Mrs. Southcote! do you think so? I should be so proud.”