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William Dean Howells - "The Landlord at Lion's Head, Complete"

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Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)




'At least,' she said, 'you had better come to breakfast with us, and
hear what my sister says--Salome always knows what is best.'

He soon found himself in the snug parlour, where the small round
breakfast-table, drawn close to Miss Faithfull's fireside chair, had
a sort of doll's-house air of cheerful comfort, with the tiny plates,
tea-cups, and the miniature loaf, and the complicated spider-legs,
among which it was not easy to dispose of his own length of limb.

The meal passed in anxious consultation. There might be no danger,
but the disorder was severe and increasing. James's health had long
been suffering from harass of mind, want of exercise, and unwholesome
diet; and the blow of the previous day had brought things to a
crisis. There he lay, perfectly unmanageable, permitting neither aid
nor consolation, unable to endure the sight of any one, and too much
stupefied by illness to perceive the impracticability of his wild
scheme of seeking employment in London.

Miss Faithfull pronounced that either Mercy or Lord Fitzjocelyn must
go and fetch Mrs. James Frost home.

'I was only thinking how long we could keep her away,' said Louis.
'Pray don't be shocked, dear Miss Mercy, but I thought I could nurse
poor Jem much better alone than with another dead weight on our
hands.'

'They would neither of them thank you,' said Miss Faithfull,
laughing. 'Depend upon it, she will know best how to deal with him.'

'Well, you see more of their household than I do, but I have never
dared to think of her! Do you remember the words, 'if thou hast run
with the footmen and they have wearied thee--''

'There are some people who can run with the horsemen better than with
the footmen,' said Miss Salome. 'You know we are very fond of young
Mrs. Frost. We cannot forget her sweetness when she lived in this
house, and she has always been most kind and friendly. I do believe
that to display the most admirable qualities, she only needs to be
roused.'

'To live in the house with Jem, and Jem's three babies, and yet want
rousing!'

'I have thought,' said Salome, diffidently, 'that he was only too
gentle with her.'

'Do you know how very severe you are growing, Miss Faithfull?' said
Louis, looking her in the face, in the gravity of amusement.

'I mean,' said Miss Faithfull, blushing, 'though of course I do not
know, that I have fancied it might be better for both if he could
have gone to the root of the matter, and set fairly before her the
prime duties requisite in the mistress of such a family. He may have
done so.'

'I think not,' said Louis; 'it would be awkward when a woman fancied
she embraced poverty voluntarily for his sake. Poverty! It was
riches compared with their present condition. Isabel on 150 pounds a-
year! It may well make poor Jem ill to think about it! I only
wonder it is not a brain-fever!'

'Lord Fitzjocelyn regrets that brain-fever,' said Miss Faithfull.

'Probably my ideas on the subject are derived from the prevalence of
the complaint in light literature,' said Louis, smiling. 'It would
be more dignified, and suit Isabel better. Poor Isabel! I hope I
have done her injustice. She behaved gloriously at the barricades,
and has a great soul after all; but I had begun to think heroines not
calculated for moderate circumstances. May they do better in no
circumstances at all! Heighho! how a heavy heart makes one talk
nonsense! So I am to fetch the poor thing home, Miss Faithfull.'

This was determined on, whether with or without James's consent; Miss
Mercy undertaking that she and Martha would help Charlotte, and
dispose of the children in the House Beautiful; and she went back
with Louis to fetch them, when little Catharine was found peeping
through the bars of her prison-gate at the top of the nursery-stairs,
shouting lustily for papa. She graciously accepted her godfather as
a substitute, and was carried by him to her kind neighbour's house,
already a supplementary home. As to her father, Louis found him more
refractory than ever. His only greeting was, 'Why are not you gone
home?' He scorned Mr. Walby's prescriptions, and made such confident
assertions that he should be off to London in the evening, that
Fitzjocelyn almost reverted to the brain-fever theory, and did not
venture to hint his intention to any one but Charlotte, telling her
that he should now almost think her justified in locking the doors.

Sending information to his father, he started for Estminster, very
disconsolate, and full of self-reproach for the hasty proceedings
which had borne such bitter fruits. The man and the situation had
been an injustice to each other; a sensitive irritable person was the
very last to be fit for a position requiring unusual judgment and
temper, where his energy had preyed upon itself. His being placed
there had been the work of Louis's own impetuous scorn of the wisdom
of elder and graver heads. Such regrets derived additional poignancy
from the impossibility of conferring direct assistance upon James,
and from the degree of justice in the hard measure which had been
dealt to him, would make it for ever difficult to recommend him, and
yet the devising future schemes for his welfare was the refuge which
Louis's mind most willingly sought from the present perplexity of the
communication in store for poor Isabel.

As he put out his head at the Estminster station, a familiar voice
shouted, 'Hollo! Fitzjocelyn, how jolly! Have you got James there?
I told Isabel it would be no use; but when she did not get a letter
this morning, she would have it that he was coming, and got me to
walk up with her.'

'Where is she?' asked Louis, as he jumped out and shook hands with
Walter.

'Walking up and down the esplanade. She would not come into the
station, so I said I would run up to satisfy her. I don't know what
she will say to you for not being Frost.'

'Do you mean that she is anxious!'

'It is the correct thing, isn't it, when wives get away from their
husbands, and have not the fragment of a letter for twenty-four whole
hours? But what do you mean, Fitzjocelyn?' asked the boy, suddenly
sobering. 'Is anything really the matter?'

'Yes, Walter,' said Louis; 'we must tell your sister as best we can.
James is ill, and I am come for her.'

Walter was silent for a few minutes, then drew a sigh, saying, 'Poor
Isabel, I wish it had not been! These were the only comfortable
holidays I have had since she chose to marry.'

Isabel here came in sight, quickening her pace as she first saw that
her brother had a companion, but slackening in disappointment when
she perceived that it was not her husband; then, the next moment
hurrying on, and as she met them, exclaiming, 'Tell me at once!
What is it?'

'Nothing serious,' said Louis. 'The children are all well, but I
left James very uncomfortable, though with nothing worse than a fit
of jaundice.'

The inexperienced Isabel hardly knew whether this were not as
formidable as even the cherished brain-fever, and becoming very pale,
she said, 'I am ready at once--Walter will let mamma know.'

'There will be no train for two hours,' said Louis. 'You will have
plenty of time to prepare.'

'You should have telegraphed,' said Isabel, 'I could have come by the
first train.'

Trembling, she grasped Walter's arm, and began hastening home,
impatient to be doing something. 'I knew something was wrong,' she
exclaimed; 'I ought to have gone home yesterday, when there was no
letter.'

'Indeed, there--was nothing the matter yesterday, at least, with his
health,' said Louis. 'You are alarming yourself far too much--'

'To be sure, Isabel,' chimed in Walter. 'A fellow at my tutor's had
it, and did nothing but wind silkworm's silk all the time. We shall
have James yet to spend Christmas with us. Everybody laughs at the
jaundice, though Fitzjocelyn does look so lugubrious that he had
almost frightened _me_.'

'Is this true?' said Isabel, looking from one to the other, as if she
had been frightened in vain.

'Quite true, Isabel,' said Walter. 'Never mind Fitzjocelyn's long
face; I wouldn't go if I were you! Don't spoil the holidays.'

'I must go, Walter dear,' said Isabel, 'but I do not think Lord
Fitzjocelyn would play with my fears. Either he is very ill, or
something else is wrong.'

'You have guessed it, Isabel,' said Louis. 'This illness is partly
the effect of distress of mind.'

'That horrid meeting of trustees!' cried Isabel. 'I am sure they
have been impertinent.'

'They objected to some of his doings; he answered by threatening to
resign, and I am sorry to say that the opposition set prevailed to
have his resignation accepted.'

'A very good thing too,' cried Sir Walter. 'I always thought that
school a shabby concern. To be under a lot of butchers and bakers,
and nothing but cads among the boys! He ought to be heartily glad to
be rid of the crew.'

Isabel's indignation was checked by a sort of melancholy amusement at
her brother's view, but Louis doubted whether she realized the weight
of her own words as she answered--'Unfortunately, Walter, it is
nearly all we have to live upon.'

'So much the better,' continued Walter. 'I'll tell you--you shall
all go to Thornton Conway, and I'll come and spend my holidays there,
instead of kicking my heels at these stupid places. I shan't mind
your babies a bit, and Frost may call himself my tutor if he likes.
I don't care if you take me away from Eton.'

'A kind scheme, Walter,' said Isabel, 'but wanting in two important
points, mamma's consent and James's.'

'Oh, I'll take care of mamma!'

'I'm afraid I can't promise the same as to James.'

'Ah! I see. Delaford was quite right when he said Mr. Frost was a
gentleman who never knew what was for his own advantage.'

As they arrived at the house, Isabel desired to know how soon she
must be ready, and went upstairs. Walter detained his cousin--'I
say, Fitzjocelyn, have they really got nothing to live on?'

'No more than will keep them from absolute want.'

'I shall take them home,' said Walter, with much satisfaction.
'I shall write to tell James that there is nothing else to be done.
I cannot do without Isabel, and I'll make my mother consent.'

Fitzjocelyn was glad to be freed from the boy on any terms, and to
see him go off to write his letter.

Walter was at least sincere and warm-hearted in his selfishness, and
so more agreeable than his mother, whom Louis found much distressed,
under the secret conviction that something might be expected of her.
'Poor Isabel! I wish she could come to me; but so many of them--and
we without a settled home. If there were no children--but London
houses are so small; and, indeed, it would be no true kindness to let
them live in our style for a little while. They must run to expenses
in dress; it would be much more economical at home, and I could send
Walter to them if he is very troublesome.'

'Thank you,' said Louis. 'I think James will be able to ride out the
storm independently.'

'I know that would be his wish. And I think I heard that Mr. Dynevor
objected to the school. That might be one obstacle removed.'

Lady Conway comforted herself by flourishing on into predictions that
all would now be right, and that poor dear Isabel would soon be a
much richer woman than herself; while Louis listened to the castle-
building, not thinking it worth while to make useless counter-
prophecies.

The sisters were upstairs, assisting Isabel, and they all came down
together. The girls were crying; but Isabel's dark, soft eyes, and
noble head, had an air of calm, resolute elevation, which drove all
Louis's misgivings away, and which seemed quite beyond and above the
region of Lady Conway's caresses and affectionate speeches. Walter
and Virginia came up to the station, and parted with their sister
with fondness that was much mure refreshing, Walter reiterating that
his was the only plan.

'Now, Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, when they were shut into a coupe,
'tell me what you said about distress of mind. It has haunted me
whether you used those words.'

'Could you doubt his distress at such a state of affairs?'

'I thought there could be no distress of mind where the suffering is
for the truth.'

'Ah! if he could quite feel it so!'

'What do you mean? There has been a cabal against James from the
first to make him lay aside his principles, and I cannot regret his
refusal to submit to improper dictation, at whatever cost to myself.'

'I am afraid he better knows than you do what that cost is likely to
be.'

'Does he think I cannot bear poverty?' exclaimed Isabel.

'He had not said so--' began Louis; 'but--'

'You both think me a poor, helpless creature,' said Isabel, her eyes
kindling as they had done in the midst of danger. 'I can do better
than you think. I may be able myself to do something towards our
maintenance.'

He could not help answering, in the tone that gave courtesy to almost
any words, 'I am afraid it does not answer for the wife to be the
bread-winner.'

'Then you doubt my writing being worth anything?' she asked, in a
hurt tone of humility. 'Tell me candidly, for it would be the
greatest kindness;' and her eye unconsciously sought the bag where
lay Sir Hubert, whom all this time her imagination was exalting, as
the hero who would free them from their distresses.

'Worth much pleasure to me, to the world at large,' said Louis; 'but-
-you told me to speak plainly--to your home, would any remuneration
be worth your own personal care?'

Isabel coloured, but did not speak.

Louis ventured another sentence--'It is a delicate subject, but you
must know better than I how far James would be likely to bear that
another, even you, should work for his livelihood.'

When Isabel spoke again, it was to ask further particulars; and when
he had told all, she found solace in exclaiming at the folly and
injustice of James's enemies, until the sense of fairness obliged him
to say, 'I wish the right and the wrong ever were fairly divided in
this world; and yet perhaps it is best as it is: the grain of right
on either side may save the sin from being a presumptuous one.'

'It would be hard to find the one grain of right on the part of the
Ramsbotham cabal.'

'Perhaps you would not think so, if you were a boy's mother.'

'Oh!' cried Isabel, with tears in her eyes, 'if he thought he had
been too hasty, he always made such reparation that only cowards
could help being touched. I'm sure they deserved it, and much more.'

'No doubt,' said Louis; 'but, alas! if all had their deserts--'

'Then you really think he was too severe?'

'I think his constitutional character was hardly fit for so trying a
post, and that his family and school troubles reacted upon each
other.'

'You mean Clara's conduct; and dear grandmamma--oh! if she could but
have stayed with us! If you could have seen how haggard and grieved
he came home from Cheveleigh! I do not think he has been quite the
same ever since.'

'And No. 5 has never been the same,' said Louis.

'Tell me,' said Isabel, suddenly, 'are we very poor indeed?'

'I fear so, Isabel. Till James can find some employment, I fear
there is a stern struggle with poverty before you.'

'Does that mean living as the Faithfulls do?'

'Yes, I think your means will be nearly the same as theirs.'

'Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, after a long pause, 'I see what you have
been implying all this time, and I have been feeling it too. I have
been absorbed in my own pursuits, and not paid attention enough to
details of management, and so I have helped to fret and vex my
husband. You all think my habits an additional evil in this trial.'

'James has never said a word of the kind,' cried Louis.

'I know he has not; but I ought to have opened my eyes to it long
ago, and I thank you for helping me. There--will you take that
manuscript, and keep it out of my way? It has been a great tempter
to me. It is finished now, and it might bring in something. But I
can have only one thought now--how to make James happier and more at
ease.'

'Then, Isabel, I don't think your misfortunes will be misfortunes.'

'To suffer for right principles should give strength for anything,'
said Isabel. 'Think what many better women than I have had to
endure, when they have had to be ashamed of their husband, not proud
of him! Now, I do hope and trust that God will help us, and carry us
and the children through with it!'

Louis felt that in this frame she was truly fit to cheer and sustain
James. How she might endure the actual struggle with penury, he
dared not imagine; at present he could only be carried along by her
lofty composure.

James still lay on his tossed, uncomfortable bed in the evening
twilight. The long, lonely hours, when he imagined Louis to have
taken him at his word and gone home, had given him a miserable sense
of desertion, and as increasing sensations of illness took from him
the hopes of moving on that day, he became distracted at the thought
of the anxiety his silence would cause Isabel, and, after vainly
attempting to write, had been lying with the door open, watching for
some approaching step.

There was the familiar sound of a soft, gliding step on the stairs,
then a pause, and the sweet soft voice, 'My poor James, how sadly
uncomfortable you are!'

'My dear!' he cried, hastily raising himself, 'who has been
frightening you?'

'No one, Fitzjocelyn was so kind as to come for me.'

'Ah! I wished you to have been spared this unpleasant business.'

'Do you think I could bear to stay away! Oh, James! have I been too
useless and helpless for you even to be glad to see me?'

'It was for your own sake,' he murmured, pressing her hand. 'Has
Fitzjocelyn told you?'

'Yes,' said Isabel, looking up, as she sat beside him. 'Never mind,
James. It is better to suffer wrong than to do it. I do not fear
but that, if we strive to do our duty, God will help us, and make it
turn out for the best for our children and ourselves.'

He grasped her hand in intense emotion.

'I know you are anxious about me,' added Isabel. 'My ways have been
too self-indulgent for you to think I can bear hardness. I made too
many professions at first; I will make no more now, but only tell you
that I trust to do my utmost, and not shrink from my duties. And
now, not a word more about it till you are better.'




CHAPTER XV.



SWEET USES OF ADVERSITY.



One furnace many times the good and bad will hold;
But what consumes the chaff will only cleanse the gold.
R. C. TRENCH.


During the succeeding days, James had little will or power to
consider his affairs; and Isabel, while attending on him, had time to
think over her plans. Happily, they had not a debt. Mrs. Frost had
so entirely impressed her grandson's mind with her own invariable
rule of paying her way, that it had been one of his grounds for pride
that he had never owed anything to any man.

They were thus free to choose their own course, but Lord Ormersfield
urged their remaining at Northwold for the present. He saw Mr.
Calcott, who had been exceedingly concerned at the turn affairs had
taken, and very far from wishing to depose James, though thinking
that he needed an exhortation to take heed to his ways. It had been
an improper reprimand, improperly received; but the Earl and the
Squire agreed that nothing but morbid fancy could conjure up
disgrace, such as need prevent James Frost from remaining in his own
house until he could obtain employment, provided he and his wife had
the resolution to contract their style of living under the eye of
their neighbours.

This gave neither of them a moment's uneasiness. It was not the
direction of their pride; and even before James's aching head was
troubled with deliberation, Isabel had discussed her plan with the
Miss Faithfulls. She would imagine herself in a colony, and be
troubled with no more scruples about the conventional tasks of a lady
than if she were in the back-woods.

They would shut up some of the rooms, take one servant of all-work,
and Isabel would be nursery-maid herself. 'We may do quite as well
as the carpenter's wife,' she said; 'she has more children and less
income, and yet always seems to me the richest person whom I know.'

James groaned, and turned his face away. He could not forbid it, for
even Isabel's exertion must be permitted rather than the dishonour of
living beyond their means; and he consoled himself with thinking that
when the deadening inertness of his illness should leave him, he
should see some means of finding employment for himself, which would
save her from toil and exertion, and, in the meantime, with all his
keen self-reproach, it was a blessed thing to have been brought back
to his enthusiastic admiration for her, all discontents and drawbacks
utterly forgotten in her assiduous affection and gallant
cheerfulness.

Lord Ormersfield had readily acceded to his son's wish to bring the
party to spend Christmas at Ormersfield, as soon as James could be
moved. During their visit the changes were to be made, and before
setting out Isabel had to speak to the servants. Charlotte's
alacrity and usefulness had made her doubly esteemed during her
master's illness; and when he heard how she was to be disposed of,
he seemed much vexed. He said that she was a legacy from his
grandmother, and too innocent and pretty to be cast about among
strange servants in all the places where the Conways visited; and
that he would not have consented to the transfer, but that, under
their present circumstances, it was impossible to keep her. If any
evil came to her, it would be another miserable effect of his own
temper.

Isabel thought he exaggerated the dangers, and she spoke brightly to
Charlotte about fixing the day of her going to Estminster, so as to
be put into the ways of the place before her predecessor departed.
The tears at once came into Charlotte's eyes, and she answered, 'If
you please, ma'am, I should be very sorry to leave, unless I did not
give satisfaction.'

'That is far from being the reason, Charlotte; but we cannot keep so
good a servant--Mr. Frost has given up--'

'I have been put out of the school,' said James, from his sofa, in
his stern sense of truth. 'We must live on as little as possible,
and therefore must part with you, Charlotte, though from no fault of
yours. You must look on us as your friends, and in any difficulty
apply to us; for, as Mrs. Frost says, we look on you as a charge from
my grandmother.'

Charlotte escaped to hide her tears; and when, a few minutes after,
the Ormersfield carriage arrived, and nurses and babies were packed
in, and her master walked feebly and languidly down stairs, and her
mistress turned round to say, kindly, 'You will let me know,
Charlotte?' she just articulated, 'Thank you, ma'am, I will write.'

Mr. Frost's words had not been news to Charlotte. His affairs had
been already pretty well understood and discussed, and the hard,
rude, grasping comments of the vulgar cook--nay, even of the genteel
nurse--had been so many wounds to the little maiden, bred up by Jane
in the simplicity of feudal reverence and affection for all that bore
the name of Frost Dynevor.

Her mistress left to the tender mercies of some servant such as
these, some one who might only care for her own ease and profit, and
not once think of who and what she had been! The little children
knocked about by some careless girl! Never, never! All the doubts
and scruples about putting her own weak head and vain heart in the
way of being made faithless to Tom revived, reinforced by her strong
and generous affection. A romantic purpose suddenly occurred to her,
flushing her cheek and brightening her eye. In that one impulse,
scrubbing, washing dishes, short lilac sleeves were either forgotten,
or acquired a positive glory, and while the cook was issuing her
invitations for a jollification and gossip at the expense of Mr. and
Mrs. Frost, Charlotte sat in her attic, amid Jane's verbenas, which
she had cherished there ever since their expulsion from the kitchen,
and wrote and cried, and left off, to read over, and feel satisfied
at, the felicity of her phrases, and the sentiment of her project.


'Dear and Honoured Madam,--Pardon the liberty I am taking but I am
sure that you and my reverend and redoubted master would not
willingly have inflicted so much pain as yesterday on a poor young
female which was brought up from an orphan child by my dear late
lamented mistress and owes everything to her and would never realize
the touching lines of the sublime poet

Deserted in his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed.

As to higher wages and a situation offering superior advantages such
as might prove attractive to other minds it has none to me. My turn
is for fidelity in obscurity and dear and honoured lady I am a poor
unprotected girl which has read in many volumes of the dangers of
going forth into the snares of a wealthy and powerful family and begs
you not to deprive her of the shelter of the peaceful roof which has
been her haven and has been the seen of the joys and sorrows of her
career. Dear lady pardon the liberty that I have taken but it would
brake my heart to leave you and master and the dear children
espeshilly in the present winter of adversity which I have hands to
help in to the best of my poor abilities. Dear and honoured lady I
have often been idle but I will be so no more I love the dear little
ladies with all my heart and I can cook and act in any capacity and
wages is no object I will not take none nor beer neither--and the
parlour tea-leaves will be sufficient. Dear and honoured master and
mistress forgive the liberty a poor girl has taken and lend a
favourable ear to my request for if you persist in parting with me I
know I shall not survive it.
'Your humble and faithful Servant,
'CHARLOTTE ARNOLD.'

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