Mulock_A_Brave_Lady.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
THE PROLOGUE.
In most, nay, I think in all lives, is some
epoch which, looking back upon, we can per-
ceive has been the turning-point of our exist-
ence a moment when the imagination first
wakes up, the feelings deepen, and vague, gen-
eral impressions settle into principles and con-
victions ; when, in short, our bias for good or
ill is permanently given. We may not recog-
nize this at the time, but we do afterward, say-
ing to ourselves, either with thankfulness or re-
gret, "But for such and such a thing, or such
and such a person, I should not have been what
lam."
This crisis befell me, Winifred Weston, when
I was just entering my sixteenth year. It was
not " falling in love," as in most cases it is and
rightly, for love is, or ought to be, the strongest
thing on earth ; but it was equivalent to it, and
upon me and the moulding of my character it
had precisely the same effect. Nay, in a sense
I did really fall in love, but it was a very harm-
less phase of the passion ; for I was a common-
place damsel of sixteen, and the object of my
intense admiration nay, my adoring affection
was an old lady of seventy.
A young girl in love with an old woman!
What a ridiculous form of the emotion, or sen-
timent ! Not so ridiculous, my good friends,
as at first appears ; and by no means so uncom-
mon as you suppose. I have known several
cases of it besides my own : cases in which a
great difference in years and character drew
out, to a remarkable degree, that ideal worship
and passionate devotedness which is at the root
of all true love, first love especially. Laugh as
you will, there is always a spice of nobleness in
the boy who falls in love with his "grandmo-
ther ;" and I have often thought that one of
the extenuating circumstances in the life of
that selfish, pleasure-loving, modern heathen,
Goethe, was the fact that in his old age he was
so adored by a " child."
Nor does the character of the feeling alter
when it is only a woman's toward a woman. I
have loved a man, thank God, having found a
man worth loving ; but he well knows that for
a long time he ranked second in my affections
to a woman to this woman, for whom my at-
tachment had all the intensity of love itself.
She was, as I have said, quite old, even at
the time when I first beheld her, which hap-
pened to be at church. Our pews were along-
side of one another, for I sat in the rector's,
and she in the one beyond. I was the new
curate's daughter, and she was "the lady of
the hall" Brierley Hall, the oldest and finest
place in the neighborhood. She entered alone.
Many of the fine families of the parish always
had a footman to carry their prayer-books, but
she carried her own ; walked alone, stately and
slow, up the aisle, and took her seat in a corner
of the large musty pew, the cushions and linings
of which, once a rich crimson cloth, had faded
with the sunshine of indefinite summers. They
contrasted strongly with the black of her gar-
ments ^black, but not sombre ; her gown being
of rich glittering silk, though she still wore a
sort of widow's cap over her smooth, soft, white
hair.
I knew who she was. Though my father
and I had only been a week at Brierley, she
was of sufficient importance there for us to have
already heard about her at least as much as
the village generally knew. I had been told I
should be sure to see her in church, the only
place where she ever was seen in public ; and
she had been described to me so minutely that
my excited curiosity could not fail to recognize
her at once.
Even had it been otherwise, I think the re-
sult would have been all the same. It was
to be, and it was ; and I could not help it. I,
the poor curate's daughter, motherless, roman-
tic, solitary, brought up in the strictest seclu-
sion, fell in love, desperately and determinedly,
with this beautiful old lady Lady de Bougain-
ville.
It was such a remarkable name too, and so
exactly suited to her appearance. Let me de-
scribe her if I can.
She had "high" features, as they are called
that is, her nose was aquiline, and the out-
line of her cheek and chin sharply and clearly
cut; likewise her mouth, which, though deli-
cate, had much decision in it. It was a sad
and firm rather than a sweet mouth ; or per-*
haps it seemed as if it had been meant to be
sweet, but the experience of life had hardened
it. Nevertheless, the old softness could and
did at times return; I saw it afterward, not
then. Sadness also was the characteristic of
her eyes sadness, or at any rate pensiveness.
They put me in mind of the sea after a storm,
when the waves have calmed down, and the
surface has grown smooth, or even broken out
again into little necessary ripples: but you
A #-* C^ ^^
8
^\'l\A BRATli tADY.
know all the while there must be, somewhere
or other, many a broken spar floating about ;
many a castaway treasure beaten against the
beach ; many a dead carcass of ancient grief
rising up from the depths below. Such did rise
and I fancied I could see them in the dark
eyes of this my beautiful lady the most beau-
tiful, I still think, that I ever beheld, though
she was a septuagenarian.
Even now, as I vainly try to describe her, I
feel my old infatuation return the delight with
which I watched every curve of her features
pale, colorless features as un-English and pe-
culiar as her eyes ; and admired every fold in
her dress quite unlike any lady's dress I had
ever seen. Her toilet was complete in all its
details, as befitted both herself and her station.
She was chauss^e et ganUe (the French best ex-
presses what I mean ; we English merely put on
gloves and shoes) to perfection ; and she had
little hands and little feet remarkably so for
such a tall woman. She lost no inch of her
height, and she carried her head like one who
has never lowered it in shame or sycophancy
before mortal man. " Aristocratic" undoubt-
edly would have been the adjective applied to
her; but used in its right sense, as belonging to
"the best" of the earth. There was nothing
haughty about her, or repellent, or scornful if
these qualities are supposed to constitute aris-
tocracy.
Her eyes and complexion, as I have said,
were very un-English, and when she began to
say the responses, it was with a slight, a very
slight accent French, I thought ; but in no-
thing else was she foreign. Her dress was the
ordinary dress of an English .widow, from whose
weeds Time has melted away the obnoxious
pomposity of crape, and allowed a faint mix-
ture of white and gray with the black. But it
was black still no bugles no trimmings no
ornamental fripperies, which alw4ys seem such
a mockery of mourning. Her costume was per-
fectly plain, perfectly simple, yet exceedingly
rich ; as was justifiable in a lady whose wealth
was, people said, very great, and who had not
a creature to inherit it after her.
For Lady de Borfgainville was that sad sight,
a widowed wife a mother left childless. In
her solitary old age she kept her forlorn state
in- that huge house, which, many years ago,
her husband, Sir Edward de Bougainville, had
bought, rebuilt, lived in for a short time, and
then died. Before then, by a succession of fatal-
ities, her six children had died also. Thence-
/orward she, too, was as good as dead, socially
speaking, to the little world of Brierley. She
did not quit the Hall. She kept it up extern-
ally much as before that is, none of the
rooms were closed, and there was a sufficient
establishment of servants. But she lived in it
quite alone never visited any where, nor in-
vited any body to visit her. So she passed her
days, and had passed them our gossiping
landlady told me for twenty years and more,
the wonder and curiosity of the neighborhood
this poor, lonely, wealthy woman the envied,
pitied, much revered, much criticised Lady de
Bougainville.
Those who revered her were the poor, to
whom she was unlimitedly charitable : those
who criticised her were the rich, the county
families with whom she had long ceased to as-
sociate, and the new-comers whom she never
sought to visit at all. These were naturally
indignant that Brierley Hall should be shut up
from them that no dinner-parties should be
given in the fine old dining-room where
Charles II. was said to have taken a royal re-
fection after hunting in the chase which sur-
rounded the property. The younger genera-
tion likewise felt aggrieved that on such a beau-
tiful lawn there should be no archery parties
(croquet then was not), and no hope whatever
of a ball in the tapestry-chamber, concerning
which there were rumors without end ; for none
of the present generation had ever seen it.
Once things had been very different. While
Sir Edward was rebuilding the Hall he inhabit-
ed a house near, and lived in a style suitable to
his fortune, while his wife and family mingled
in all the best society of the neighborhood.
They were exceedingly popular, being a large
merry family handsome to look at, full of life
and strength. Their father was less liked, being
" rather queer," people said, somewhat unsocial,
and always fancying himself a great invalid.
But their mother shared in all their youthful
enjoyments, and herself shone upon society
like a star. Vanished top, almost as suddenly ;
for after a certain grand ball a house-warming
which Sir Edward gave and the splendors of
which the elder generation in the village re-
membered still, the master of Brierley Hall fell
really ill of some mysterious ailment. " Some-
thing amiss here, folk said," observed my in-
formant, tapping her forehead ; and after lin-
gering, unseen by any body, for many months,
died, and was buried in Brierley church-yard.
His monument, in plain white marble, without
any of the fulsomeness common to epitaphs,
was over his widow's head every Sunday as
she sat in the Hall pew.
There, too, was a second tablet, equally
simple in form and inscription, recording the
names, ages, and dates of death of her six
children. They had every one perished, some
abroad, some at home, within a compai-atively
short space of time dying off, as some fami-
lies do die off, when all the probabilities seem
in favor of their continuing to remote genera-
tions a prosperous, healthy, and honorable race.
When I read the list of names on the white
tablet, and glanced thence at the mother's face,
I no longer wondered at its sad expression, or
at those " peculiarities" people called them
which had made her the talk of the village,
until it grew weary of talking, and let her alone.
Af first, in the early years of her desolation,
her neighbors had made many attempts, some
from curiosity, some from pure kindness, to
break through her determined seclusion; but
A BRAVE LADY.
9
they failed. She was neither uncourteous nor
ungrateful, but there was about her a silent re-
pelling of all sympathy, which frightened the
curious and wore out the patience of even the
kindest-hearted of these intruders. She let
them see, plainly enough, that their visits were
an intrusion, and that it was her intention to
reappear in society no more.
She never did. Except at church on Sun-
days, or driving out along the most unfrequent-
ed roads, in her handsome old-fashioned car-
riage, no one saw her beyond the limits of her
own grounds. She was as little known as the
Dalai Lama, and regarded with almost equal
awe. Her smallest deeds were noticed, hei'
lightest saying recorded, and her very name
uttered respectfully, as if she were a different
person to the rest of the world.
She was. As I sat gazing at her during the
whole of church-time, I felt that I never had
seen, never should see, any body like Lady de
Bougainville.
It so happened that hitherto I had known
very few women that is, gentlewomen partly
because in the far-away parish where Ave had
lived till we came here, there were only farm-
houses, except the great house, which my father
never let me enter. A certain sad prejudice
he had which I will no further allude to ex-
cept to say that, though I was motherless, my
"mother was not dead made him altogether
avoid female society. He had brought me up
entirely himself, and more like a boy than a
girl : in my heart I wished I was a boy, and
rather despised my own sex, until I saw Lady
de Bougainville.
She, with her noble beauty, not weak, but
strong; with her unmistakable motherly air,
not the feeble fondness which is little better
than an animal instinct, but that large protect-
ing tenderness which makes one ready to de-
fend as well as cherish ahe's offspring : she
seemed to me a real woman a real mother.
And all her children were dead !
I did not presume to pity her, but my heart
was drawn toward her by something deeper
than the fascination of the eye. The fancy of
sixteen can take a pretty long Queen Mab's
gallop in two hours : by the time service was
over I seemed to have been " in love" with her
for years.
She walked down the aisle a little before
rather than after t'le rest of the congregation,
quitting the church among not the genteel but
the poor people, who courtesied to her and were
acknowledged by her as she passed, but she
made and received no other recognition. Alone
as she came she departed, and alone she as-
cended her carriage one of those chariots sway-
ing about on springs, such as were in fashion
thirty years ago, with hammer-cloth in front and
. dickey behind. Her footman handed her in,
and shut the door upon her with a sharp click,
and an air as solemnly indifferent as that of the
imdertaker who closes a coffin-lid upon some
highly respectable corpse whose friends have
quitted the house as I hear in fashionable
houses they always do ; and her coachman then
drove her off, the sole occupant of this hand-
some carriage, as slowly as if he were driving a
hearse.
After all there was something pathetically
funereal in this state, and I should have hated
it, and turned away from it, had I not been
so fascinated by Lady de Bougainville herself.
She burst upon my dull life craving for any-
thing new as an interest so vivid that it was
an actual revelation. I went home, to think
about her all day, to dream of her at night ; I
drew her profile how perfect it was, even
though it was an old woman's face ! among
the sums on my slate, and along the margins
of my Latin exercise-book. I kept my mind
always on the qui vive, and my ears painfully
open, to catch any floating information concern-
ing her; but I was as shy of putting direct
questions about her as if I had been a young
man and she my first love. Do not laugh at
me, you who read this ; it is such a good thing
to be '* in love" with any body. When we grow
older we love in a quieter and more rational
way; but even then we regard tenderly our
early idolatries.
It seemed a long week till the next Sunday,
and then I saw her again. Henceforward, from
Sunday to Sunday, I lived in a suppressed sus-
pense and longing sure to be satisfied theti ;
for, fair weather or foul, Lady de Bougainville
was always in her place at church. Only upon
Sundays was my fancy "with gazing fed ;" but
it fattened so rapidly upon that viaigre diet that
I went through all the preliminary stages of a
real love-fever. Most girls haVe it, or some-
thing like it, and it rather does good than harm,
especially if the object is, as in my case, only a
woman. Poor little lamb that she was silly
Winny Weston ! I look back at her now as if
she were some other person, and not myself;
seeing all her faults, and all her good points,
too ; and I beg it to be distinctly understood
that I am not the least ashamed of her, or of
her "first love," either.
That my idol should ever cast a thought to-
ward me was an idea that never entered even
my vivid imagination. She cast a glance occa-
sionally that is, she looked over my head to
the opposite wall, but I never supposed she saw
me. However, this was of no consequence so
long as I could see her, and speculate upon her,
weaving long histories of which she was the her-
oine ; histories over which I afterward smiled
to think how far they were from the truth.
Then, having exhausted the past, I turned to
the future, and amused myself with conjuring
up endless probabilities and fortuitous circum-
stances which might cause Lady de Bougain-
ville and myself to meet, or enable me to do
some heroic action for her, with or without her
knowledge it did not matter much. Some-
times I pictured her horses starting off, and
myself, little Winny Weston, catching hold of
their bridles and preventing a serious accident ;,
10
A BRAVE LADY.
^i.^
or some night there might arise a sudden gleam
of fire among the trees whence peeped the chim-
neys of Brierley Hall, which I often watched from
ray bedroom window in the moonlight ; and I pic-
tured myself giving the alarm, and rushing to the
spot just in time to save the house and rescue its
aged mistress. Perhaps, after some such epi-
sode, she would just notice my existence, or, if
I did any thing very grand, would hold out her
hand and say in the same clear voice which
every Sunday besought mercy upon " us miser-
able sinners, "as if she could be a miserable sin-
ner! " Thank you, Winifred Weston." Sup-
pose I actually saved her life who knows ? she
might do even more open her arms to my mo-
therless but yearning heart, and whisper, "Win-
ifred, be henceforth my child.!"
All this was very silly and very melodramatic ;
yet it was better for me than many of the follies
that one's teens are heir to better than dancing
and flirting into womanhood, buoyed up by the
frothy admiration of raw young-manhood. It
taught me to love, rather than to crave for being
loved : and it taught me if only through my
imagination two other things which I think
the present generation rather loses sight of
heroism and patience.
That Lady de Bougainville herself was capa-
ble of both I felt sure, from her very face. The
better I knew it the more it fascinated me. It
was an ideal face nay, there was something in
it absolutely historical, like one of those old por-
traits which you are convinced have a story be-
longing to them ; or to which you may affix any
story you please. Calm as it was, it was nei-
ther a stony nor impassive face. Often, when
something in my father's sermon attracted her
he preached very good and original sermons
sometimes she would brighten up, and fix upon
him her dark eyes keen and clear as if they
were tw^enty-five years old instead of seventy.
But ordinarily she sat with them cast down;
not in laziness, or pride, or scorn, but as if they
were tired tired of looking out upon the world
for so many years. When lifted they had often
a wistful and abstracted expression, as if she
were living in times and places far away. As
she said to me, months after, when I ventured
to ask her what she did with herself that is,
when her daily work was done " My dear, I
dream. I have nothing to do but to dream."
What first put it into her mind to notice me
ave even now not the slightest idea. I sup-
pose it was nothing but the impulse of her own
kind heart : when, missing me from my seat at
church, she inquired about me, and who I was :
finally, hearing I was ill of that most unpoet-
ical complaint, the measles she did as she was
in the habit of doing to almost every sick per-
son in the village, sent daily to inquire and to
offer gifts. Only these gifts came at first rath-
er from the gardens and vineries than the kitch-
en of Brierley Hall ; until, some little bird hav-
ing perhaps whispered to her that a poor curate
often feeds not quite so well as a prosperous
artisan, there appeared gradually jellies, soups.
and other nourishing aliments. When I learned
from whence they came, I banqueted upon them
as if they were the ambrosia of the earth.
But they did not cure me ; and I had been
fully five weeks absent from church when one
Monday morning oh, that blessed Monday!
there came a little note to my father a note
on delicate-colored paper, with a small black
seal, in a handwriting diminutive, upright, firm
more like foreign than English caligraphy.
I have it still :
" Lady de Bougainville presents her compliments to
the Rev. Henry Weston, and would esteem it a pleas-
ure if he would trust his daughter to her for a week's
visit. Brierley Hall was always considered a healthy
place, and Lady de Bougainville has seen many sad
instances of long ill-health, which a slight change of
air at flrst might have cured. She will take the utmost
care of the child" [/lerc "the child" tvas crossed out,
and "Miss Weston" iTiserted]" if Mr. Weston will con-
sent to part with her. A carriage shall fetch her at
any hour to-day or to-morrow, so as to avoid all fa-
tigue."
Most wonderful ! The letter dropped from
my trembling hands. Aladdin, Fortunatus,
Cinderella all those lucky youths and maiden,
befriended by fairies and good genii were not
more intoxicatingly happy than I.
"Father, you will let me go !" I cried. " Not
to-day, perhaps" (for it was a natural weak-
ness I suddenly remembered the state of my
wardrobe ; a condition not surprising in a poor
curate's motherless daughter) ; " but to-mor-
row ? You will send back word that I shall be
ready by let me see by noon to-morrow ?"
I always had every thing pretty much my
own way; so it was soon arranged that I should
pay this the first visit I had ever paid from
home alone.
Young people who have many friends, and
are always interchanging visits, can have no
idea of the state of excitement I was in. It
seemed to rouse me out of invalidism at once.
To go any where to any body, would have
been charming ; bjit to Brierley Hall ! it was
ecstasy ! To live under the same roof as my
beautiful old lady to see her every day in or-
dinary life to be kindly noticed by her to be
able to render her various small services, such
as a young person can so easily pay to an elder
one : the cup of my felicity was full. It was
worth being ill twenty times over. I thought
I think still, and, while laughing at myself,
it is with tears in my eyes that the measles
was a special interposition of Providence. Not
in any worldly point of view. In spite of all
my landlady's respectful and mysterious con-
gratulations, I could see no special advantage
likely to accrue to me from the visit ; but I ac-
cepted it as a present delight ; about which,
and my own deservings of it, I did not specu-
late at all. In fact, I took going to the Hall as
naturally as I suppose I shall one day take go-
ing to heaven ; and it felt not unlike it.
My clothes were at first a serious weight on
my mind ; they were so few, so poor, and as,
alas ! I only now seemed to discover so un-
tidy. When I thought of Lady de Bougain-
villa, her silks, velvets, and furs, the richness
A BRAVE LADY.
11
of which was almost forgotten in their exquisite
neatness and appropriateness, my heart failed
me. Well, she was rich and I was poor ; but
still that need not make such a vital difference.
Effen poor folk can contrive to keep their gar-
ments clean and whole. I must try to turn
over a new leaf from this day forward.
So I mended and arranged, folded and pack-
ed, wishing faintly that I could put some wo-
manly orderliness into my too boyish ways ; and
this practical occupation kept my head steadily
balanced, and leveled a little the heights and
depths of excitement, the alternations of eager
expectation and shyness almost amounting to
fear, which came upon me. Yet the whole of
the day I was in a fever of delight. I tried to
hide it, lest my father should think I was glad
to leave him, this first time in my life that I
ever had left him. But it was not that at all ;
it was no carelessness to old ties, only the dawn-
ing instinct for new ones the same instinct
which prompts the young bird to creep to the
edge of even the warmest and safest nest, and
peer over into the unknown world beyond. It
may be a cold world a dangerous, fatal world,
wherein, many a day yet, we may wander about
shivering, and long regretfully for the nest left
behind. But for all that we can not staj^ in the
nest : God gives us wings, and when they grow
we must use them; whatever it costs us, we
must learn to fly.
Nevertheless, when I had bidden my father
good-by as solemn a good-by as if I had been
bound to the Antipodes and sat alone in the
Hall carriage, my heart failed me a little. Lux-
ury was so new to me ; I was half frightened
by it. Yet was I not well-born ? Had not my
forefathers driven about in carriages quite as
grand as this one ? Besides, in my still feeble
health, the easy equipage, rolling lazily and
smoothly along, gave me rather a pleasurable
sensation. After the first minute or two I be-
gan to believe in the reality of my felicity ; and
Aladdin as he rubbed his lamp, Cinderella as
she leaned back in her pumpkin chariot, were
not more full of happy hope than I.
As we drove through the village, and people
stared at the Hall equipage passing at an un-
wonted hour, I first sat bolt upright in it, with
a conscious pleasure that every body should
see me there ; then I scorned myself for the
mean vanity. It was better to hide my happi-
ness in the deep of my heart, and the darkest
corner of the carriage : so I leaned back, saying
to myself in proud delight, "Nobody knows
nobody knows." For it seemed to me that the
whole world, if they did know it, would envy me,
thus going on a visit to Lady de Bougainville.
We reached the lodge-gates. I had often
peeped through them at the mysterious region
beyond, where the fine red-brick mansion glim-
mered through the green of the long elm-
avenue ; and the trees which dotted the park
cast their shadows on the smooth turf making
a picture which sometimes reminded me of the
garden of the Hesperides.
Now, however, the gates flew open, and a
very commonplace gardener's wife admitted us
into the enchanted ground. It was such ^it
always will be such to me. As the carriage
rolled slowly between those two lines of patri-
archal elms, just dressing themselves anew in
the soft green of early spring, I felt that the
modern villas starting up around us so fatally
fast, snug and smug, four-square, Portland-
cemented, with newly -painted palisades, and
araucarias and deodaras stuck here and there
in the fresh-made lawn, were no more to com-
pare with Brierley Hall than were their occu-
pants, fat and well-to-do gentlemen, highly-
dressed and highly-respectable ladies, with my
Lady de Bougainville.
Could that be herself standing at the door?
No, of course not ; how could I have imagined
such a condescension ?
Nevertheless, it was a friendly-smiling and
pleasant person a lady's maid, but not the eld-
erly Abigail one might have expected. Cu-
riously enough, the domestics at Brierley Hall
were, except one, all young servants.
" My lady says. Miss, that I am to take you
straight to your bedroom, and see that you lie
down and rest there till dinner-time six
o'clock. You shall have a cup of tea directly."
I often fancy people know not half the mys-
teries of personal influence ; and how curiously
they themselves are reflected in their servants.
This young woman who was as civil as if I had
been the Honorable Winifred Weston, come on
a visit with my own maid and a heap of luggage
took from me my small portmanteau, led the
way across a wide hall, of which in my bewilder-
ed nervousness I only saw a glimmer of painted
glass, green marble pillars, and polished oaken
floors, up a beautiful staircase, and into a wann,
fire-lit bedroom.
We all have our ideals, and this will be my
ideal bedchamber to the end of my days. It
was not large, at least not too large to feel cozy ;
and it was made still smaller by a subdivision :
an arch, supported on Corinthian pillars, behind
which was the bed and all the toilet apparatus,
making a clear distinction between the sleeping
and the social half of the room. In the latter,
collected snugly round the hearth, were a sofa,
a table, writing materials, books ; a little en-
campment, on which the fire blazed welcomely
this chilly, gray, spring day. Above it, insert-
ed into the wainscoted wall, was a curious oil-
painting, half length, life-sized, of some old
saint. From the unkempt hair and beard, the
leathern girdle, and the robe of camel's hair, I
concluded it was John the Baptist. A strange
fancy to have him there, gazing with wan face,
and gleaming, reproachful eyes that seemed
ever crying " Repent ye," upon the luxuries
of the room.
It appeared luxurious to me, for I had never
beheld one any thing equal to it. I was half
amused, half annoyed, to see how many neces-
saries of civilized life I had hitherto done with-
out ; toilet appliances of mysterious kind ; end-
12
A BRAVE LADY.
less drawers, closets, and shelves in which to
stow away my poor property ; mirrors and hand-
glasses, reflecting every where my humble per-
son, gaunt with the awkwardness of my age,
ill-dressed, unlovely. Then the bed, which was
of foreign make, with a graceful canopy, rich
'damask hangings, and a counterpane of quilted
silk. How could I ever go to sleep in it ?
At first, I own, my novel position quite fright-
ened me. But when I had drank my tea, un-
packed myself declining assistance through
sheer shame and arranged my garments as
carefully and as widely as I could upon their
numerous receptacles, after having taxed my
mother-wit to the utmost in discovering the
uses of all these things, so as not to be disgraced
in the eyes of house-maid or lady's-maid, then
I took heart of grace. I said to myself, " Win-
ny Weston, you are a fool. All these things
are mere externalities. They could not make
you a lady, if you were not one ; and, if you
are, the lack of them will not unmake you.
Pluck up your courage, and do the best you
can."
So I curled myself up comfortably on the
sofa, and lay gazing at the delicious fire. Ah,
that luxury, the permanent bedroom fire! I
had never been allowed it yet ; it never would
have occurred to me to have it, except in case
of illness ; but here it was apparently the cus-
tom of the house, and any one of a solitary,
shy nature can best appreciate the intense com-
fort, the delicious peace, of being able to shut
one's door upon all the world, and warm one's
soul and body thoroughly at one's own particu-
lar bedroom fire.
Lady de Bougainville had done a kind thing
in leaving me to myself until dinner-time. But
to "lie down and rest," according to her orders,
which the maid had given with an air as if no-
body ever was expected to gainsay any thing
the mistress said was impossible ; rest is for a
later period of life than mine. In an hour I
had exhausted all the delights of fireside medi-
tation, all the interest of my room, including the
views from my two windows, and was dying
with curiosity to penetrate further.
I opened the door and peeped out, as timid-
ly as a young mouse on her travels. All was
silent, as silent as Tennyson's Sleeping Palace.
Why should I not creep down stairs, just to ex-
amine the staircase and hall ?
I delight in a fine wide staircase ; it is the
lungs of a house. I am sure people who plan
grand reception-rooms with narrow ascents
thereto, must have rather narrow minds. The
planner of this had not. As I looked over the
balustrade of carved oak carved as beautifully
as Grinling Gibbons could have done it and
then upward to the circular ceiling, over which
flying Cupids were hanging wreaths, and down-
ward ta the broad, polished stairs, winding step
after step in smooth dignified progression I
thought of the lovely ladies passing up and
down it with their sweeping trains their high
head-dresses, like that in my great-grandmo-
ther's portrait escorted by gentlemen such
gentlemen as was Sir Charles Grandison. And
I thought then I fear I think now that these
were far finer specimens of humanity, inside
and outside, than the young men and women
whom I shall meet at the next dinner-party I
go to, or have to see flirting with my sons and
daughters when old enough at the next ball.
Descending, I gazed left and right across
the hall, which ran right through the centre of
the house from door to door. Great windows
lit it at either end, large panes of stained glass,
forming shapes not unlike crosses one scarlet
and blue, the sacred colors, such as old painters
always gave to their Madonnas the other violet
and green. Supporting the hall in the middle
were double pillars of scagliola marble ; its walls
were of some soft gray papering, with Pompeian
figures grouped here and there ; and across the
wide space of its dark oak floor ran rivers of
carpeting, cutting it up a little, but just enough
to make it safe. Only French feet can glide
across those slippery plains of polished wood,
beautiful as they are. Mine failed me more
than once; and in the perfect silence and soli-
tude I felt not altogether comfortable, yet de-
liciously, ecstatically happy.
Th^re is a belief among modern psychologists
one of whom has lately developed jt in a nov-
el that we are none of us wholly individual or
original beings, but made up of our countless an-
tecedents of whose natures, combined or con-
flicting, we partake, and often feel them strug-
gling within us. As if we were not ourselves
at all, but somebody else some far-back pro-
genitor whose soul was new-bom into our in-
fant body, to work us weal or woe, and in-
fluence us more or less throughout life a creed
not more impossible or ridiculous than many
other scientific theories.
As I stood for the first time in this house,
gradually it seemed to become familiar and nat-
ural. Large and fine as it was, it was a house,
not a baronial residence. In it I felt myself a
mere drop of water, but it was water conscious
of rising to its level. The soul of my great-
grandmother seemed to enter into me ; and I
thought in my silly, childish heart, that if I
only had a train I could sweep up the beautiful
staircase with as grand an air as she. Ay, and
enjoy it too. So absorbed was I in my foolish
dream that I drew myself up to my full height,
and shook out my scanty cotton frock, trying
to imagine myself one of those ladies, like what
my great -grandmother must have been my
beautiful great-grandmother, whose miniature,
with the rose in her hair, I knew so well.
At that luckless moment I heard an outer door
open and in walked Lady de Bougainville.
I knew it was she, though she looked, of
course, in her home dress and garden wraps,
different from what she looked in church. But
she was one of those people who seem to make
their costume instead of their costume making
them,
be the same.
WINIFEER WESTON AND LADY DE BOUGAINVILLE.
I half hoped her eye would not discover me,
but I was mistaken. She came forward at once.
*'Is that you, my little visitor?" and she put
out her hand her old soft hand, the softest, I
think, I ever felt, though it was withered and
thin, so that the jeweled rings hung loosely on
every finger " I thought you were safe resting
in your room. What have you been doing?
Where were you going ?"
Sweet as her voice was sweet as when ut-
tering the responses in church there was in it
the tone of the mistress and mother, accustomed
all her life to be answered and obeyed.
I answered at once though in a hot agony
of confusion, which makes me even now pity
myself to remember "I was not going any
where, my lady."
She smiled. "Don't say *my lady;' the
servants only do that. If you call me 'ma'am'
as I was taught to say to my elders when I
was a girl it will do quite well."
"Yes, ma'am."
" And what shall I call you ? Miss Weston,
or simply Winifred ?"
"Winifred, please, ma'am nothing but Wini-
fred ?" cried I, my delight suddenly making me
bold. Then I shrank back into myself with a
wild collapse of shame.
She took no notice of it, except just to pat
me on the shoulder, saying, " Very well, Wini-
fred :" and then began asking a courteous ques-
tion or two about my father. So my heart,
which had at first beat in my bosom like a lit-
tle steam-engine, slowly quieted itself down,
and I recovered sufficiently to be able to look
up in my hostess's face, to hear and answer in-
telligently, and even to take in the minutiae of
her dress and appearance.
What a picture of an old lady she was ! If
all old ladies did but know the wisdom of rec-
ognizing the time when a woman should cease
following fashion's changes, except in a very
modified form, and institute, so far as she can,
a permanent costume ! Lady de Bougainville's
was charming. Not exactly old-fashioned;
neither of this year, nor that year, nor the
year before, but suited to all years, and looking
well at all seasons. It was excessively simple,
consisting only of a black silk gown, without
trimmings of any sort, but the material was so
rich and good that none were required. It fit-
ted her figure which was slender and straight,
14
A BRAVE LADY.
even at seventy years of age ; and she was so
upright that walking behind her you might have
taken her for a woman of thirty. At throat and
wrists she had a sort of frill, made of fine cam-
bric and Valenciennes lace. Over her widow's
cap was drawn a garden-hood or capuchon, such
as Frenchwomen wear. A French shawl, of fine
soft black merino, fell round her in comfortable
folds. Indeed, there was something about her
toilet essentially French. We had happened
to live three months in that country my father
and I just before we came to Brierley, so I was
able to detect this fact ; and also a small soupgon
of an accent which developed itself more the
more she spoke, and gave her speech, as a slight
foreign accent always gives to otherwise correct
English, a certain pretty individuality.
As she stood before me, and talked to me,
in her ordinary home dress, and upon ordinary
subjects, but looking none the less stately and
beautiful than she had done in church for Sun-
day after Sunday, I felt as bewildered and en-
rapt as would a poor little nun who suddenly
sees the Virgin Mary or St. Catherine step down
from her niche and become everyday woman-
hood.
When I had grown a little less afraid of her,
and had succeeded in answering all her ques-
tions very harmless, commonplace questions,
about my father's health and my own, but
given with a kind of tender graciousness, and
an earnestness over the replies, which great peo-
ple do not always show to little people she put
to me a second inquiry, or rather a repetition
of the first, which frightened me as much as
ever.
For I felt it must be answered, and truly,
even if untruth had occurred to me as one way
of getting out of the difficulty which it did not.
Lying usually springs from cowardice ; and,
girl as I was, I had never yet been afraid
of any mortal soul. So when Lady de Bou-
gainville asked, with a covert smile, what I was
doing when she caught sight of me, I confessed,
silly as I knew the confession must make me ap-
pear :
" I was trying to walk up stairs as if I had a
train. I wanted to fancy myself my great-
grandmother."
"And who was your great-grandmother?"
asked she, laughing a little, but not in the
way I had expected and feared.
"A very beautiful woman, I believe, and
very rich."
*'Ah!" drawing back at once, "I thought
your family was poor ?"
" So it is now, but it was not always." And
I explained to her one or two traditions of the
departed glory of the Westons, on which my
imagination had always hung with great de-
light. To which she listened without com-
ment, and apparently without being affected
with them in any way ; then asked :
" And your great-grandmother?"
"She was," I repeated, "a very beautiful
woman ; and she lived in a house which I sup-
pose must have been much like yours. I was
wondering how she felt in it."
" Indeed. Then, Winifred, would you have
liked to be your great-grandmother ?"
I stopped to consider, for I could not bear to
speak inaccurately, even at random, " For
some things I should, ma'am; not for all."
" Why not for all ?"
" I have heard she was not a very happy wo-
man."
"Few women ever are very happy," said,
with a slight sigh, which amazed me as much
as her words, Lady de Bougainville.
Of course I did not presume to reply ; and
immediately afterward she changed the subject
entirely, and began to speak to me about my
own health, and the arrangements she had made
for me in her house, with a view to my deriving
as much benefit from the change as possible.
Her questions, suggestions, and advices were
all extreinely practical and minute, even to the
most motherly degree. I did not know what
motherhood was then the tie, both ways, from
child to mother and from mother to child, was
to me a perfect blank ; but I had sense enough
to have guessed instinctively, even had I not
known the fact, that she who thus spoke to me
had been the mother of many children ; and
that the heart once opened, in a way that only
motherhood does open it, nothing afterward
could altogether close. Her very eyes, as they
rested upon me, had a pensive tenderness in
them, as if beyond my face they saw another.
Some women have that expression whenever
they look at a child ; it reminds them either of
the dead or the lost or, perhaps as sadly, of
the never born.
I answered obediently my hostess's questions,
though they surprised me a little. I mean, it
was puzzling to find out that my idol was
not too ideal to condescend to such ordinary
things; in fact, was much more of a mortal
woman than I expected. She appeared to me
now not so much a medieval saint as a wise,
sensible mother of a family, something like
that most sensible and capable woman in the
Proverbs, whose portrait, transmitted to us from
distant ages, proves that the Hebrews at least
had some notion of what a woman ought to be,
and did not accept as their notion of feminine
perfection a charming, amiable, beautiful fool !
Looking closer at Lady de Bougainville, it
was easy to detect under all her refinement an
amount of strength which circumstances might
drive into actual hardness; while against her
high, pure, lofty nature might be laid the charge
which inferior natures often do lay, that she
could not understand them, and had no pity for
them. Maybe so ! In her clear, bright, hon-
est eyes lurked the possibility of that cutting
contempt for all things weak, and base, and
double-faced which a mean person would find
difficult to meet ; and the delicate line of her
lips could settle into a mouth firm enough to
shame all cowards a mouth like my pet her-
oine, Catherine Seyton's, when she put her
A BRAVE LADY.
ir
slender right arm as a bar through the bolts of
the door, to protect those who needed her pro-
tection. Lady de Bougainville, I was sure,
would have done the same any day.
I was not old enough fully to take in her char-
acter then, and I greatly fear that in many things
1 write about her now I am giving not so much
my impressions of the time as my observations
and convictions of a later period ; but, child as
I was, I could appreciate that force of nature
which was able to deny as well as bestow, to
blame as much as to praise.
She blamed me unequivocally for having dis-
obeyed her orders and quitted my room, and
would not listen for a moment to my excuses,
which in their earnest honesty seemed to amuse
as well as please her that I was longing to go
all over her beautiful house, the biggest and
most beautiful I had ever seen in my life.
" Indeed. Youis must have been a quiet
life, then, child. What sort of home did you
live in ?"
^'In no home at all," I said, mournfully,
" only in furnished lodgings. And oh, if you
did but know what it is to spend month after
month, year after year, in furnished lodgings !"
She smiled. " Then you have never been
any thing but poor, my dear ? Is it so ?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"That is right, that is honest. Poverty is
no shame ; the shame is for those who think it
80, or fear to acknowledge it. Still it is a hard
thing to bear sometimes."
" Indeed I have found it so," cried I, warmed
up by this unexpected sympathy. " I don't like
it at all, but I bear it."
Lady de Bougainville laid her hand, her deli-
cate dear old hand, upon my head. "Poor
little thing," she murmured: ^^pauvre petite."
But the minute she had let fall the latter words
she turned away from me. I did not know till
long afterward that she had been in the habit
of speaking French to her children.
Presently she addressed me with a sudden
and quite uncalled-for asperity of tone.
" So you are poor, Winifred, and you would
like to be rich. Do not deny it. I hate pre-
varication I despise shams. Say outright,
you foolish child, that you wish you were in my
place, and lived at the Hall perhaps even were
mistress of it, as I am, and have been these
many years. . What a fortunate, happy woman
I must be!"
There was a keen sarcasm in her voice which
actually startled me ; but immediately she be-
came conscious that she was speaking in a way
quite unsuitable for a child to hear, and quite
incomprehensible to most children. Only I
think that we who have spent our childhood
either with grown people or quite alone, get a
certain precocity of intuition, sharper and more
accurate than is supposed. I should have been
acute enough at guessing much concerning Lady
de Bougainville had I not been frightened by
her witch -like faculty of divining what was
passing in my own mind. For I was painfully
conscious of having done exactly as she said,
and broken the tenth commandment over and
over again that morning.
"Do not blush so," she went on. "You
have done nothing very heinous, child, even if
you have wished to step into my shoes, or to
inherit my fortune and estate. I should con-
sider such a fancy neither wicked nor unnatural
at your age. Only if it really happened I should
be very sorry for you."
"Sorry!"
Her hand, firmer in its grasp than I could
have thought possible to such soft fingers, was
pressed on my shoulder; and her dark eyes,
no longer wild, but piercing, penetrated down
to the very depths of mine. "Now, child, pay
attention to me for a minute, that we may be-
gin our acquaintance on a sure footing. You
are nothing to me, and I am nothing to you,
except that I was sorry for you, as seventy is
sorry for sixteen. But I see you are of a very
imaginative temperament, as full of romantic
notions as any girl of sixteen can be, and I know
Avhat that is I was sixteen myself once. But
I warn you, Winifred, build no castles in Spain
at Brierley Hall. Do not fancy, because I in-
vited you here to nurse you well again, and send
you back home fit to battle with life, as is your
lot, that I have taken a mysterious interest in
you, and intend to adopt you, and make you my
heiress."
" Ma'am ! Lady de Bougainville !"
She had been sitting on one of the hall chairs,
and I on the staircase in front of her ; but now
I started up, and looked her full in the face.
Child as I was, my indignation made me a wo-
man for the moment a woman, and her equal.
I did not condescend even to rebut her accusa-
tion ; I stood a minute, feeling myself grow hot
and hotter, to the very roots of my hair, and
then I darted away, and rushed violently up
stairs.
"Winifred, child, where are you running
to?"
" To fetch my bonnet. I am going home."
But in the effort of speech I broke down,
and before I reached my room door I had only
strength to totter in and bury my head in the
sofa cushions in a paroxysm of tears.
How long they lasted I do not know, but my
first consciousness was a kind, cool hand on
my head, and a soft voice calling me by my
name. Lady de Bougainville was standing
over me, looking grave and grieved, but not
displeased at all. Nor amused, as many per-
sons would have been, at this passion of al-
most ludicrous anger in a young girl, little
more than a child. She held out her hand,
smiling.
" I was mistaken, I see. Do not take it so
seriously to heart. May not an old woman
talk nonsense if she likes ?"
" It was nonsense then ? You did not real-
ly think I came here with such ideas in my
head ? You do not suppose me capable of such
meanness ? I don't say," continued I, for in all
16
A BRAVE LADY.
my wrath I was still candid ; "I don't say that
I should not like to be as rich as you I should ;
and I have thought so many a time this day.
But I never wanted your riches. Keep them
yourself! For me, I despise them."
"So do I," she said, with an air of gentle-
ness, even sadness, which to me was then whol-
ly unaccountable.
She added no other word, but stood by me,
firmly holding my hand, and looking down on
me with a curious mixture of interest and com-
passion, until my sobs abated. But the result
of the storm of indignation into which I had
throAvn myself was, as might be expected for
one just recovering from severe illness, any
thing but satisfactory. I fell into a sort of
hysterical state, which soon made me quite in-
capable of going down stairs, or even of stirring
from my sofa. My hostess tended me there,
fetching no servant, but taking all the trouble
of me upon herself for two or three hours of
which I remember little, except that she seemed
to be quite another person than my precon-
ceived idea of her. She soothed me, she scold-
ed me, she made me take food and medicine ;
finally she put me to bed like a baby, and sat
beside me, reading or pretending to read, till I
fell asleep. I did not wake till broad daylight
next morning.
It was a delicious waking like dawn after a
thunder-storm. My window faced the east,
and the early sun looked in ; while, without,
the birds sang their cheerful songs with the
especial loudness that one hears on a spring
morning. I felt tired, and not quite myself,
but scarcely ill. In truth, I hated to be ill, or
to be kept in bed one minute longer than nec-
essary. So before any one could restrain me
I had leaped out, and was already up and
dressed when a knock came to my door. It
was the maid, entering with my breakfast.
I was a little disappointed that it was only
the maid, but I got a message, at all events.
" My lady wishes to know if you are better,
Miss ? and, if you are, she will not disturb you
till noon. She herself is always busy of a
morning."
Was it out of consideration for me and my
shyness, or had my tender, motherly nurse of
the night before changed back into my idol of
the church pew my noble, stately, reserved,
and unapproachable Lady de Bougainville ? I
could not tell, but I accepted my lot, whatever
it was. I implicitly obeyed her ; and, though
the imprisonment was dreadful, I did not stir
from my room until the cuckoo-clock on the
chimney-piece oh, how I love a cuckoo-clock !
had struck twelve. Then out I darted, to
snatch, eager and happy, at the delights that
lay before me.
Not quite happy though, for it struck me that
I had made a goose of myself the previous
evening; but still this little episode, so un-
comfortable and so unexpected, had had one'
good result it had broken down the barrier
between my idol and me, had taken away my
dread of her, and put a certain sympathy be-
tween us, in spite of the alarming difference of
our years. How or why I did not know, not
till long afterward ; but I felt it was so. Still,
when once again I descended the stairs not
making such a little fool of myself as hereto-
fore, but walking sagely and rationally, like a
respectable young lady and saw, as yester-
day, that tall black figure entering in from the
garden door, -my heart beat a little with the old
throb half pleasure, half awe, but wholly love.
I wonder if any man ever loved the sight of me
as I did that of this lovely old woman !
She advanced with her smiling welcome,
formal a little, but always smiling. I came
afterward to know what a better welcome was,
to have her arms round my neck, and her kiss
on my cheek ; but I like to remember the ear-
lier welcomes just the simple hand-shake, and
the kindly inquiry, written ^t once on lips and
eyes. Some people say "How do you do?"
and never wait to hear ^he answer, v/hich you
can omit altogether, if you choose they will
never miss it. But she always looked as if
she liked to hear as if she really was inter-
ested in learning how you were and what you
were doing as if the large sympathy which
even seventy years had neither narrowed nor
dulled took an interest in every minute thing
you could tell her, and cared for your fortunes
as if they had been her own.
After an inquiry or two, Avhich she saw rath-
er shamed and confused me, she ceased speak-
ing of the little episode of last night, and took
up the thread of our acquaintance precisely
where we had left it yesterday.
*' You were wanting to see my house ; shall
I show it you now ? There will be quite time
before luncheon,"
*' Will it not tire you too much ?" For I no-
ticed that she looked extremely pale, and the
dark circles under her eyes were deeper, as if
she had been awake all night.
"Are you tired, Winifred?"
" Oh no, thank you, ma'am."
" Then never mind me. When I was young
I used to be told I was a Spartan," added she,
smiling ; " and I try to be something of a Spar-
tan still, in spite of my age. I could never en-
dure to sink into the invalid or doting old wo-'
man. I hope I shall manage to die like that
grand old philosopher who in his last moment
started up from his arm-chair and said 'he
would die standing.'"
She would, I thought, as I looked at her, so
erect still, with her feet planted firmly, and her
eyes flashing bright.
I said, with a conceited sense of my own eru-
dition, that there was something very fine in dy-
ing, like Macbeth, "with harness on one's back."
Lady de Bougainville looked amused.
"You read Shakspeare, I see?"
"Oh, I read everything."
" Everything is a large word. Now, I have
read very little in my life. I am not at all an
educated person."
A BBAVE LADY.
17
I stared in utter amazement.
"It is quite true, my dear; or rather, for
educated I should have said ' learned' or ' cul-
tivated.' "We get our education in many other
ways besides reading books. But come, you
will be more interested in my house than in me."
"Are you not very fond of your house,
ma'am ?"
"Perhaps I am. I like to have things suit-
able and beautiful about me. Pretty things
were always good company to me : now they
are the only company I have."
Then it was quite true that she received no
one ; that I was the sole guest who had been
admitted into these precincts for years! I
could hardly credit my own good fortune.
And when I went with her, from room to
room, talking familiarly, and hearing her talk
which was the greatest treat of all I was
almost bewildered with my happiness.
Her home seemed so completely a portion
of herself, that in telling of her I can not help
telling of it likewise, and should like to de-
scribe it minutely.
It was a house such as was used to be built
by the landed gentry a century or two ago,
just when the type of Elizabethan houses po-
etical, but not too comfortable was merging
into that of modern convenience : convenience
degenerating into luxury. It was not Gothic
at all had no queer corners its general plan
being four-square; the four reception-rooms
making the outside angles, with the large cen-
tral hall between. Some people might say it
was not a picturesque house, but it was what
I call an honest house ; in which every thing
feels real, substantial, and sound; well built,
well ventilated; with high ceilings and airy
passages, giving one breathing room and walk-
ing room; plenty of windofvs to see out of,
and snug recesses to creep into; warm solid
walls, and wide hospitable fire-places : in short,
a house containing every requisite for a home
and a family a large, merry, happy house-
hold contented in itself, and on good terms
with the world outside. And in it Lady de
Bougainville lived all alone. ^
She took me from room to room, explaining
the plan of the whole house, and showing me
the ground-floor apartments; drawing-room,
dining-room, morning-room, library. All were
in perfect order: even the fires laid in the
grates, ready to be kindled in a moment, to
welcome a large family or a houseful of guests.
And then we went slowly up the beautiful stair-
case, and she pointed out the exquisite oak
carvings, the painted panels, and highly-deco-
rated ceilings ; telling me how they had been
found covered up with plaster, whitewash, and
other barbarisms of the last century; what
pains she had taken to disinter them, and re-
store them to their original state. In describ-
ing, she regarded them with a curious tender-
ness like one who has grown fond of inani-
mate objects probably from having long had
onlv inanimate objects to love.
B
I ventured no questions: but I must have
looked them, for once, turning suddenly to me,
she said :
"I dare say you think this a large house for
one old woman to live in large and gloomy
and empty. But it does not feel empty to me.
When one has lived seventy years, one is sure
to have, whether alone or not, plenty of com-
panions ; and it depends much upon one's self
whether they are pleasant company or not. I
am quite content with mine. No, I did not
mean ghosts" (seeing, doubtless, a shade of
slight apprehension on my face, for, like all im-
aginative, solitary children, I had suffered hor-
ribly from supernatural fears). " I assure you,
Winifred, my house is not haunted ; I have no
ghosts ; at least, none that you will see. Be-
sides, you are too much of a woman to have a
child's sillinesses. How old did you say you
were? I forget,"
I told her, sixteen.
" I was married the day I was sixteen."
Then for fifty-four years she must have been
Lady de Bougainville. I longed to inquire fur-
ther ; to find out what her maiden name was,
what her husband had been like, and how they
fell in love with one another. They must have
been such young lovers, for I had discovered,
by arithmetical calculations from the date on
his monument, that he was only about five years
older than she. How I longed to hear it this
love-story of half a century ago; interesting
and delicious as all love-stories are to girls of
my age, eager to go the way their mothers and
grandmothers went, only believing that with
themselves the great drama of life would be
played out in a far higher manner : as it never
has been played before,
I craved for even a word or two concerning
the past to fall from those lips what sweet lips
they must have been when, at only sixteen, they
repeated the marriage vows ! but none did fall.
The love-story never came. And, kind as she
was, there was something about my hostess
which at once excited and repressed curiosity.
What she chose to reveal of her own accord
was one thing; but to attempt to extract it
from her was quite another. You felt that at
the first daring question she would wither you
with her cold rebuke, or in her calm and ut-
terly impassive courtesy speak of something
else, as if she had never heard you. The proof-
armor of perfect politeness, as smooth and glit-
tering as steel, and as invulnerable, was hers to
a degree that I never saw in any other woman.
Though from the very beginning of our ac-
quaintance, either from some instinctive sym-
pathy, or from the natural tendency of old age
to go back upon its past, especially to the young,
with whom it can both reveal and conceal as
much as it chooses, Lady de Bougainville often
let fall fragments of her most private history,
which an ingenious fancy could easily put to-
gether and fit in, so as to arrive at the truth of
things a much deeper truth than she was aware
of having betrayed still, in all my relations to-
18
A BRAVE LADY.
ward her I never dared to ask her a direct ques-
tion. She would have repelled and resented it
immediately.
So, even on this first day, I had the sense to
be content with learning no more than she con-
descended to tell me : in fact, I did little else
than follow her about the house, and listen while
she talked.
Her conversation at once charmed and puz-
zled me. It was more "like a book," as the
phrase is, than any person's I had ever met ;
yet it sounded neither stilted nor affected. It
was merely that, from long isolation, she ex-
pressed herself more as people write or think
than as they talk. This, not because she was
very learned I believe she was quite correct in
saying she had never been a highly-educated
woman the cleverness in her was not acquired,
but original; just as her exquisite refinement
was not taught, but inborn. Yet these two
facts made her society so interesting. ' Con-
versing with her and with everyday people was
as different as passing from Shakspeare to the
daily newspaper.
It was impossible that such an influence
should not affect a girl of my age and dispo-
sition suddenly, decisively, overwhelmingly.
I still recall, with an intoxication of delight,
that soft spring morning, that sunny spring
afternoon for, luncheon over, we went wan-
dering about the house again when I followed
her like a dog from room to room, growing
every hour more fascinated, and attaching my-
self to her with that dog-like faithfulness which
some one (whom I need not now refer to, but
who knows me pretty well by this time) says is
a part of my nature. Well, well, never mind !
It might be better, and it might be worse for
me and for others that I have this quality. I
do not think it was the worse, at any rate, for
her my dear Lady de Bougainville.
I fancy she rather liked having even a dog-
like creature tracking her steps, and looking
up in her face she had been alone so long.
Old as she was, and sad as her life must have
been, by nature she was certainly a cheerful-
minded person. There was still a curious vi-
tality and elasticity about her, as if in her heart
she liked being happy, and seeing other people
the same.
She especially enjoyed my admiration of the
tapestry-room, a large salon the French would
call it ; and the word dropped out of her own
lips unawares, convincing me more and more
of what I did not d.re to inquire her French
extraction. She told me when she first came
to Brierley Hall which had been bought from
the Crown, to whom the estate had fallen due,
after two centuries of wasteful possession by the
heirs of some valiant soldier, to whom a grate-
ful monarch had originally presented it this
room was covered with the commonest paper-
ing, until some lucky hole made her discover
underneath what looked like tapestry. Further
search laid bare six beautiful pieces of work, in
perfect preservation, let into the wall like pic-
tures : just as they hung there now, in the soft
faded coloring which gives to old tapestry a look
at once so beautiful, and tender, and ghostly ;
as if one saw hovering over every stitch the
shadow of the long-dead fingers that sewed It.
"How glad you must have been," I said,
"when you tore down the horrid papering and
found out all this ! "
" Yes, I was very glad. I liked all old
things. Besides," she went on, "the tapestry
is fine in itself; Vandyck even might have de-
signed it. Possibly one of his pupils did : it
seems about that period. See how well they
are drawn, these knights and ladies, kings and
queens, foresters and their falcons, horsemen
with their steeds. Such a whirl as it is, such
numerous figures, so lifelike, and so good I"
"And what does it all mean, ma'am?"
"Nobody knows; we have never been able
to make out. In some things it might answer
to the story of Columbus. Here is a man like
him coming before a king and queen Ferdi-
nand and Isabella; they are sitting crowned,
you see ; and then this looks like his meeting
with them afterward, laden with the riches of
the New World. But all is mere guess-work ;
we have no data to go upon. We used to guess
endlessly about our new tapestry the first year,
then we accepted it as it was, and guessed no
more. But think " and she stood gazing
dreamily at these faint-colored, shadowy, life-
size figured, which seemed to make the wall
alive " think of all the years it took the artist
to design, the seamstresses to complete that tap-
estry, and how their very names are forgotten
nay, we can not even find out what their
handiwork meant to portray ! They and it are
alike ghosts, as we all shall be soon. 'Man
goeth about like a shadow, and disquieteth
himself in vain.' "
"Yes," I said, and with the " priggishness"
of youth, being conceited over my knowledge
of my Bible, I added the remainder of the text :
" 'he heapeth up riches, and can not tell who
shall gather them.' "
The moment I had uttered the words I felt
that I had made a mistake more than a mis-
take, it was%n actual cruelty; one of those
chance stabs that we sometimes give to the peo-
ple we love best, and are most tender over;
which afterward we would give the world to re-
call : and, though it was done most harmlessly,
and in pure ignorance, grieve over and feel as
guilty about as if we had committed an actual
crime.
I saw I had somehow unawares struck Lady
de Bougainville to the very heart. Not that
she showed it much ; she did not speak no, I
forget, I think she did speak, making some
commonplace remark about my familiarity with
Scripture; but there came a gray shadow all
over her face, the features quivered visibly, she
turned away, and suddenly sat down in the
broad window-sill, clasping her arms together
on her lap, and looking out at the view ; then
beyond the view, up to the rosy floating clouds
A BRAVE LADY.
19
of the spring sunset, until gradually its beauty
seemed to soothe her and take away her pain.
By-and-by I ventured to ask, chiefly to break
the silence, whether she ever sat in this room.
It was a very large room, with six windows,
and a good view from each ; but its size and
ghostliness and the dim figures on the walls
would make it rather "eerie" to sit in, espe-
cially of evenings.
" Do you think so, child ? I do not. I often
stay here, quite alone, until bedtime. "Would
you like to see my bedroom ? Perhaps you will
think that a more 'eerie' place still."
It certainly was. As large fully as the tap-
estry-room, out of which you passed into it by
a short flight of stairs. It was divided in the
centre by pillars, between which hung heavy
curtains, which at pleasure could be made com-
pletely to hide the bed. And such a bed ! a
catafalque rather raised on a dais, and ascend-
ed by steps. To enter it would have been like
going to bed in Westminster Abbey, and wak-
ing up in it one would have felt as if one were
a dead hero lying in state.
What an awful place ! I asked timidly if
she really slept in that room, and quite alone ?
"Oh yes," she answered. "The servants
inhabit a different part of the house. Once
when I was ill, this winter, my maid wanted to
sleep in a corner there ; she is a good girl, and
vety fond of me, but I would not let her. I
prefer being quite alone. Seventy," she added,
smiling, "is not nearly so fearful of solitude as
sixteen."
"And you are really not afraid, ma'am?"
"What should I be afraid of? my own com-
pany, or the company of those ghosts I spoke
of? which are very gentle ghosts, and will nev-
er come to you, child," and once more she laid
her hand upon my head. I think she rather
liked my curls; she said they were "pretty
curls." " Child, when you are as old as I am
you will have found out that, after all, we must
learn to be content with loneliness. For, more
or less, we live alone, and assuredly we shall
die alone. Who will go with us on that last,
last journey ? Which of our dear ones have we
been able to go with ? We can but take them
in our arms to the awful shore, see them slip
anchor and sail away whither? We know
not."
"But," I whispered, "God knows."
Lady de Bougainville started, as if my sim-
ple words had cast a sudden light into her mind.
" Yes, you are right," she said, " it is good for
US always to remember that : we can not at first,
but sometimes we do afterward. So" turning
her eyes on that great catafalque of a bed with
its massive draperies and nodding plumes "I
lie down every night and rise up every morning
quite content; thinking, with equal content,
that I shall some day lie down there to rise up
no more."
I was awed. Not exactly frightened : there
was nothing to alarm one in that soft, measured
voice, talking composedly of things we do not
usually talk about, and which to young people
seem always so startling but I was awed. I
had never thought much about death ; had nev-
er come face to face with it. It was still to me
the mysterious secret of the universe, rather
beautiful than terrible. My imagination played
with it often enough, but my heart had never
experienced it not like hers.
Finding nothing to say that seemed worth
saying, I went round the room ; examining the
pictures which hung upon its walls. They
seemed all portraits of different sizes and sorts,
from crayon sketches and black silhouettes to
full-length oil-paintings of young people of
different ages, from childhood to manhood and
womanhood. They had the interest which at-
taches to all portraits, bad, good, or indifferent,
more than to many grander pictures; and I
stood and looked at them, wondering who they
were, but not daring to inquire, until she solved
my difficulty by saying, as we went out of the
room,
"These are my children." Not "these were,''
but "these are."" Her six dead children.
And their father ?
I did not ask about him, and there was cer-
tainly no portrait in the room which could pos-
sibly have been Sir Edward de Bougainville.
Once or twice in showing me the house she had
cursorily mentioned his name, "Sir Edward
bought this," or "Sir Edward preferred that,"
but it was always as " Sir Edward," never as
"my husband" that fond name which many
widows always use, as if tenaciously anxious
that death itself should not loosen one link of
the precious tie.
Lady de Bougainville retired to dress for din-
ner, and I had to do the same. Hurrying over
my toilet, and eager to re-examine the house
at every available minute, I came ignorantly
into the only room where we had not penetrated
the dining-room and there saw, lit up by
the blazing fire, the only picture there a large
portrait in oils.
"Who is that?" I took courage presently to
ask of the man-servant who was laying the
table, with glittering plate and deUcate glass
more beautiful than any I had ever seen.
"It's Sir Edward, Miss my lady's hus- '
band."
"Oh, of course!" I said, trying to look un-
concerned, and speedily quitting the room, for
I was a little afraid of that most respectable
footman.
But, in truth, I never was more astonished
than at this discovery. First, the portrait was
in clerical robes ; and, though I ought to have '
known it, I certainly did not know that a " Sir"
could be also a " Reverend. " Then it was such
a common face good-looking, perhaps, in so
far as abundant whiskers, great eye8 rosy
cheeks, and a large nose constitute handsome-
ness; but there was nothing in it nothing
whatever! Neither thought, feeling, nor in-
tellect were likely ever to have existed under
those big bones, covered with comfortable flesh
20
A BRAVE LADY.
and blood. Perhaps this was partly the artist's
fault. He must have been a commonplace
artist, from the stiff, formal attitude in which
he had placed his sitter at a table, with an
open book before him and a crimson curtain
behind. But Titian himself would have strug-
gled vainly to impart interest to that round fore-
head, long weak chin, and rabbit mouth, with
its good-natured, self-complacent smile.
I contrasted the portrait mentally with the
living face of Lady de Bougainville her sharp-
ly-cut yet mobile features, her firm close lips,
her brilliant eyes. Could it be possible that
this man was her husband ? Had I, with the
imaginative faculty of youth, constructed a ro-
mance which never existed ? Had her life been,
to say the least, a great mistake at any rate,
so far as concerned her marriage ? How could
she marry a man like that ! I know not wheth-
er I most pitied or may Heaven forgive me my
momentary harsh judgment, given with the rash
reaction peculiar to young people ! condemned
her.
'''^^'Yes, I was hard; to the living and to the
dead likewise. The portrait may not have been
like the original : I have seen many a good face
so villainously reproduced by an inferior artist
that you would hardly recognize your best friend.
But, granting that he was handsome which
from after and circumstantial evidence I am
pretty sure of still. Sir Edward de Bougain-
ville could never have had either a very clever
or very pleasant face. Not even in his youth,
when the portrait was painted. It was a pres-
entation portrait, in a heavy gilt frame, which
bore the motto, "From an admiring Congrega-
tion," of some church in Dublin.
Then, had Sir Edward been an Irishman?
It was decidedly an Irish face not of the broad
and flat-nosed, but the dark and good-featured
type. De Bougainville was not at all an Irish
name ; but I knew there had been a consider-
able influx of French families into Ireland after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. How I
longed to ask questions ! but it was impossible.
At dinner my hostess sat with her back to
the portrait ; I directly opposite to it and her.
The candelabra glimmered between us how I
love the delicate, pure light of wax-candles !
glimmered on her softly-tinted old face, set off"
by the white muslin of her widow's cap, and
the rich lace at her throat and on her bosom ;
upon her shining black silk dress, and her nu-
merous rings. As I have said, her appearance
was essentially aristocratic, but she had come
to that time of life when only a noble soul will
make it so : when the most beautiful woman in
the world, if she have only beauty to recom-
mend her, fades into commonplace plainness ;
and neither birth nor breeding will supply the
want of what includes and outshines them both
the lamp burning inaide the lovely house ; and
so making it lovely even to its latest moment of
decay.
This was exactly what I saw in her, and did
not see in Sir Edward de Bougainville. The
portrait quite haunted me. I wondered how
she could sit underneath it day after day ;
whether she liked or disliked to look at it, or
whether during long years she had grown so
used to it that she scarcely saw it at all. And
yet, as we rose to retire, those big staring eyes
of the dead man seemed to follow her out of the
room, as if to inquire, " Have you forgotten me ?" .
Had she ? Can a woman, after ever so sad|
a wedded life, ever so long a widowhood, quite
forget the husband of her youth, the father of
her children ? There are circumstances when
she might do so other circumstances when I
almost think she ought. Nevertheless, I doubt
if she ever can. This, without any sentimental
belief in never-dying love for love can be killed
outright ; and when its life has fled, better
that its corpse should be buried out of sight:
let there be no ridiculous shams kept up, but
let a silence complete as that of the grave fall
between even child and parent, husband and
wife. Still, as to forgetting? Men may; I
can not tell: but we women never forget.
Lady de Bougainville took my arm a mere
kindliness, as she required no support, and was
much taller than I and we went out of the
dining-room through the hall, where, in spite
of the lamp, the moonlight lay visibly on the
scagliola pillars, clear and cold. I could not
help shivering. She noticed it, and immedi-
ately gave orders that, instead of the drawing-
room, we should go and sit in the cedar parlor.
"It will be warmer and more cheerful for
you, Winifred ; and, besides, I like my cedar
parlor ; it reminds me of my friend, Miss Har-
riett Byron. You have read 'Sir Charles
Grandison ?' "
I had, and burst into enthusiasm over the
" man of men," doubting if there are such men
nowadays.
" No, nor ever were," said, with a sharp ring
in her voice, Lady de Bougainville.
Then, showing me the wainscoting of cedar-
wood, she told me how it also had been dis-
covered, like the tapestry and the oak carvings,
when Brierley Hall was put under repair, which
had occupied a whole year and more after the
house was bought.
"Why did you buy it, if it was so dilapi-
dated ?" I asked.
"Because we wanted something old, yet
something that Avould make into a family seat
the root of a numerous race. And we re-
quired a large house ; there were so many of
us then. Now "
She stopped. Accustomed as she had grown
to the past, with much of its pain deadened by^
the merciful anassthesia of time and old age,
still, talking to me, a stranger, seemed to revive
it a little. As she stood by the fire, the light
shining on her rings a heap of emeralds and
diamonds, almost concealing the wedding-ring,
now a mere thread of gold I could see how
she twisted her fingers together, and clasped
and unclasped her hands ; physical actions im-
plying sharp mental pain.
A BRAVE LADY.
21
But she said nothing, and after we had had
our coffee delicious French cafe-au-lait^ served
in the most exquisite Sevres china she took
up a book, and giving me another, we both sat
reading quietly, almost without speaking an-
other syllable, until my bedtime.
When I went to bed early, by her command
she touched my cheeks, French fashion, with
her lips. Many will laugh at the confession
but that kiss seemed to thrill me all through
with a felicity as deep and intense as that of a
young knight, who, having won his spurs, re-
ceives for the first time the benediction and
salutation of his beloved.
When I entered my room it was bright with
fire-light and the glow of scarlet curtains. I
reveled in its novel luxuries as if I had been
accustomed to them all my days. They grat-
ified my taste, my imagination, my senses
shall I say my soul ? Yes, a part of one's soul
does take pleasure, and has a right to take
pleasure, in material comfort and beauty. I
had greatly enjoyed wandering over that hand-
some house, dining at the well-appointed table,
spending the evening in the pretty cedar par-
lor. Now, when I retired into my own cham-
ber, into the innermost chamber of my own
heart, how fared it with me ?
Let me tell the truth. I sat a while, wrapped
in purely sensuous satisfaction. Then I thought
of my poor father, sitting in his cold study, hav-
ing none of these luxuries, nor caring for them.
An ugly house to him was the same as a pretty
one a blank street-wall as a lovely view. Pleas-
ant things were altogether wasted upon him ;
nay, he despised them, and would have despised
me, I knew, had he seen in me any tendency
alas! an hereditary tendency to luxury and
selfish extravagance. Yet I had it, or I feared
so sometimes ; but perhaps the very fear en-
abled me to keep it under wholesome control.
It sometimes is so. The most strictly truthful
person I ever knew said to me once, "I believe
I was born a liar, till I found out that lying ran
in our blood, and that cured me."
My cure came in a different way, but not im-
mediately. I well recall the bitterness with
which, this night, I sat comparing my bedroom
in Brierley Hall with the wretched attic which
I tried so hard to make tolerably pretty, and
could not. Was I destined always to live thus
struggling vainly against natural tastes, which
Providence did not choose to gratify? Were they
therefore wrong ? Was it any blame to Lady de
Bougainville that, in spite of her saying if 1
were as rich as she, "she should be very sorry
for me," she should be at this minute ascend-
ing her beautiful staircase to her stately bed-
room I heard her shut its door and laying
down her lovely hair upon those laced pillows,
as she must have done all her life ? She had
doubtless been born to all these pleasant nec-
essaries ; I, if I wanted them, must earn them.
Were they wrong in themselves, or only wrong
when attained at the sacrifice of higher and
better things? Does a blessing, which, freely
bestowed by Heaven, may be as freely and right-
eously enjoyed, become a sin when, being de-
nied, it is so madly craved after as to corrupt
our whole nature ?
WmnVKD'S THOUQHTS.
A BRAVE LADY.
I was sitting thus, trying to solve in my fool-
ish, childish mind all the puzzles of the uni-
verse, with the gaunt, grim, reproachful face
of John the Baptist looking down on me from
overhead, when a slight knock came to my
door three little knocks indeed. My nerves
had been wound up to such a pitch of excite-
ment that I forgot the simple solution of the
mystery that Lady de Bougainville's room
had only a small ante-chamber between it and
mine ; and when the door opened, and a tall
figure in a dressing-gown of gray flannel, not
unlike a monk or a nun, stood there, I screamed
with superstitious terror.
"Foolish child!" was all she said, and ex-
plained that she had seen the light shining un-
der my dpor, and that girls of sixteen ought to
have their " beauty-sleep" for a full hour be-
fore midnight. And then she asked me what
I was doing.
"Nothing, only thinking."
" What were you thinking about ?"
From the very first, when she put any ques-
tion in that way, I never thought of answering
by the slightest prevarication nothing but the
direct, entire truth. Nobody could, to her.
"I was thinking about earning a fortune;
such a fortune as yours."
She started, as if some one had touched her
with a cold dead hand. " What do you know
of my fortune or of me ?"
*' Nothing," I eagerly answered, only adding
that I wished I was as rich as she was, or could
in any way get riches with many other ex-
travagant expressions for I had worked my-
self up into a most excited state, and hardly
knew what I was saying.
Lady de Bougainville must have seen this,
for, instead of sending me at once to bed, she
sat down beside me and took my hand.
*'And so you would like to earn a fortune,
as I earned mine, and to enjoy it, as I enjoyed
mine? Poor child!" She sat thoughtful a
little, then suddenly said, "I do not like even
a child to deceive herself. Shall I tell you a
story?"
I expected it would have been the story of
her life ; but no, it was only a little fable of a
shepherd who, elevated from his sheepfolds to
be vizier to a caliph, was accused of appropri-
ating his master's treasures, and hiding them
in a wooden box which he always kept beside
him. At last, spurred on by the vizier's ene-
mies, the caliph insisted on seeing the contents
of the box, and came with all his courtiers to wit-
ness its opening. It contained only a ragged
woolen coat, shepherd's sandals, and a crook.
*' Now, Winifred, would you like to play the
caliph and the envious courtiers? Will you
come and look at my hidden treasure ?"
She led the way into her bedroom, where
the fire-light shone on masses of damask dra-
pery, and mirrors which at each step repro-
duced our figures. How noble and stately hers
was, even in the gray dressing-gown ! At the
foot of the bed, quite hidden by a velvet cush-
ion which covered it, lay one of those old-fash-
ioned hair-trunks which were in use about half
a century ago. She unlocked it, and therein
was what think you ?
A gown of white dimity, or what had been
white, but was now yellow with lying by, three
little girls' frocks of commonest lilac print, two
pairs of boys' shoes very much worn, and, patch- '
ed all over with the utmost neatness, a pair of
threadbare boy's trowsers.
This was all. I looked into the box, as I
might have looked into a coffin, but I said not
a word : her face warned me I had better not.
Silently she locked up the trunk again ; then,
with a tender carefulness, as if she were wrap-
ping up a baby, laid the cushions over it, and,
taking my hand, led me back to my room.
" Now go to bed and to sleep, Winifred ; but
cease dreaming about a fortune, and envy me
mine no more."
CHAPTER I.
THE STORY.
I AM going back in my history of Lady de'
Bougainville nearly fifty years.
But before taking it up at that far-away jxe-
riod, so long before I knew her, and continuing '^
it down to the time when I did know her
where I have just now let it drop let me say
a few words.
To give the actual full details of any human
life is simply impossible. History can not do
it, nor biography, nor yet autobiography ; for,
even if we wished, we could not tell the exact
truth about ourselves. Paradoxical as it may
sound, I have often thought that the nearest
approximation to absolute truth is fiction ; be-
cause the novelist presents, not so much literal
facts, which can be twisted and distorted to al-
most any shape, as the one underlying verity
of human nature. Thus Lady de Bougainville's
story, as I have gradually gathered it from her-
self and others, afterward putting together all
the data which came into my hands, is given
by me probably as near reality as any one not
gifted with clairvoyance could give it. I be-
lieve I have put " the facts of the case" with as
much veracity as most historians. Nor am I
bolder in discriminating motives and judging
actions than many historians, nay, than we all
often assume to be, just as if we were omnipres-
ent and omniscient, toward our poor fellow-
worms.
But still, any one with common-sense and
common perception, studying human nature,
must see that certain effects must follow cer-
tain causes, and produce certain final results,
as sure as that the daylight follows the sun.
Therefore when we writers make a story, and
our readers speculate about it, and "wonder
how it will end," we rather smile at them. We
know that if it is true to human life it can end
but in one way subject to various modifica-
tions, but still only in one way. Granting such
A BRAVE LADY.
and such premises, the result must follow, in-
exorable as fate.
And so in course of years I arrived at Lady
de Bougainville's history as accurately as if she
herself had written it down : nay, more so, for
upon various points of it her tongue was, and
ever would have been, firmly sealed, while upon
other points circumstances and her own pecul-
iar character made her incompetent to form a
judgment. But it was easy enough to form my
own, less from what she related than by what
she unwittingly betrayed, still more by what I
learned though not till after she was gone by
the one only person who had known her in her
youth, the old Irishwoman, Bridget Halloran,
who then lived a peaceful life of busy idleness
in Lady de Bougainville's house, and afterward
ended her days as an honored inmate in mine.
Bridget, as soon as she knew me and grew
fond of me, had no reserves ; but her mistress
had many. Never once did she sit down to re-
late to me her " history" people do not do that
in real life and yet she was forever letting fall
facts and incidents which, put together, made
a complete and continuous autobiography. Her
mind, ever dwelling on the past, and indifferent
to,- or oblivious of, the present, had acquired a
vividness and minuteness of recollection that
was quite remarkable. I never questioned her :
that was impossible. At the slightest indica-
tion of impertinent curiosity she would draw in
\ her horns, or retire at once into her shell like
any hermit crab, and it was difficult to lure her
out again. But generally, by simply listening
while she talked, and putting this and that to-
gether by the light of what I knew of her char-
acter, I arrived at a vei'y fair estimate of the
total facts, and the motives which produced
them.
Upon these foundations I have built my
story. It is no truer and no falser than our
reproductions of human nature in history, bi-
ography, and romance usually are, and as such
I leave it. The relation harms no one. And
it will be something if I can snatch out of the
common oblivion of women's lives I mean wo-
men who die the last of their race, " and leave
the world no pattern" the strange, checkered
life of my dear Lady Bougainville.
And SO; to begin :
More than half a century ago the Rev. Ed-
ward Scanlan came to be curate of the parish
in the small West of England town of Dltchley
St. Mary's, commonly called Ditchley only.
At that time the Establishment especially
as it existed in the provinces was in a very
different condition from what it is at present.
" Orthodoxy" meant each clergyman doing that
which was right in his own eyes, as to rubric,
doctrine, or clerical government ; that is, with-
in certain limits of sleepy decorum and settled
common usage. Beyond the pale of the Church
there existed a vague dread of the Pope on one
Bide, and Dissent on the other; and people
had a general consciousness that the Establish-
ment alone was really " respectable" to belong
to ; but within its boundary all went smoothly
enough. Low-Church, High-Church, Broad-
Church, were terms unknown. There was not
sufficient earnestness to create schism. One
only section of new thinkers had risen up, orig-
inating with young Mr. Simeon of Cambridge,
who either called themselves, or were called,
"Evangelicals," and spoke much about "the
gospel," which the more ardent of them fan-
cied that they and they alone had received,
and were commissioned to preach. This made
them a little obnoxious to their old-fashioned
brethren ; but still they were undoubtedly a set
of very earnest, sincere, and hard-working cler-
gymen, whose influence in the English, and more
particularly the Irish Church, was beginning to
be clearly felt ; only it did not extend to such
remote parishes as that of Ditchley.
The Ditchley rector was a clergyman of the
old school entirely. When still a young man
he was presented to the living through family
influence, and had fulfilled its duties decently,
if rather grudgingly, his natural bias being in
a contrary direction, and his natural disposi-
tion being from this or some other reason cor-
respondingly soured. He was a man of edu-
cation and taste; had traveled much on the
Continent when he was only a younger broth-
er, and before it was expected that he would
have dropped in, as he did, late in life, for the
whole accumulation of the family property
alas ! rather too late ; for by that time Henry
Oldham was a confirmed old bachelor.
Since then he had crept on peacefully to sep-
tuagenarianism, the last of his race. He never
went to live at Oldham Court, but let it to stran-
gers, and kept on his modest establishment at
the Rectory, which was a very pretty place, hav-
ing once been a monastery, with a beautiful gar-
den, in which he greatly delighted, and over
which he was said to spend extravagant sums.
Otherwise he lived carefully, some thought pe-
nuriously, but he was charitable enough to the
poor of his parish ; and he read prayers now
and then, and preached a sermon, fifteen min-
utes long, regularly once a month ; which com-
prised for him the whole duty of a clergyman.
I have seen Mr. Oldham's portrait, engraved
after his death by the wish of his parishioners.
He is represented sitting at his library-table,
in gown and bands. His sermon lies before
him, and he has the open Bible under his right
hand, as in the portrait of the Reverend Sir
Edward de Bougainville. But he is very im-
like that admired individual, being a little spare
old man, with a funny scratch wig, and a keen,
caustic, though not unkindly expression ; more
like a lawyer than a clergyman, and more like
a country gentleman than either.
Except this monthly sermon, and his neces-
sary charities, which were no burden to him
Mr. Oldham being, as has been said, a very
wealthy man, though nobody knew the precise
amount of his wealth the rector left all his
parish responsibilities to his curate, whom he
24
A BRAVE LADY.
had picked up, during one of his rare absences
from home, soon after his former assistant in
the duty a college chum nearly as old as him-
self died.
How such a strong contrast as the Reverend
Edward Scanlan ever succeeded the Reverend
Thomas Heavisides was a standing wonder to
Ditchley. He was young, handsome, and an
Irishman, belonging to that section of the
Irish Church which coincided with the English
"Evangelicals," except that in Ireland they
added politics to religion, and were outra-
geously and vehemently "Orange" a term of
which, mercifully, the present generation has
almost forgotten the meaning.
Mr. Scanlan had been, in his native country,
as Ditchley soon discovered for he had no
hesitation in betraying the fact a popular
preacher. Indeed, his principal piece of fur-
niture in his temporary lodgings was his own
portrait in that character, presented to him just
before he left Dublin and he maintained the
credit of a popular preacher still. On his very
first Sunday he took the parish by storm. He
literally "roused" the congregation, who were
accustomed to do nothing but sleep during the
sermon. But no one could sleep during that
of the new curate. He preached extempore,
which of itself was a startling novelty, alarm-
ing the old people a little, but delighting the
younger ones. Then his delivery was so loud
and energetic : he beat the pulpit cushion so
impressively with his white ringed hand ; and
his sentences rolled off with such brilliant flu-
ency. He never paused a moment for a word
ideas nobody asked for; and his mellifluous
Irish accent sounded so original, so charming !
His looks too his abundance of black hair and
large blue-black eyes Irish eyes which he
knew how to make the very most of. Though
he was short of stature and rather stumpy in
figure compared to the well-grown young Sax-
ons about Ditchley, still all the Ditchley ladies
at once pronounced him "exceedingly hand-
some," and .disseminated that opinion accord-
ingly.
On the top of it perhaps consequent upon
it came, after a Sunday or two, the further
opinion, " exceedingly clever." Certainly Mr.
Scanlan's sermons were very unlike any thing
ever before heard in Ditchley. He seized upon
sacred subjects in a dashing, familiar way
handled them with easy composure ; illustra-
ted them with all sorts of poetical similes, tak-
en from every thing in heaven and earth;
smothered them up with flowers of imagery
so that the original thought, if there was any
at all, became completely hidden in its multi-
plicity of adornments.
Sometimes, in his extreme volubility of
speech, Mr. Scanlan used illustrations whose
familiarity almost approached the ludicrous,
thereby slightly scandalizing the sober people
of Ditchley. But they soon forgave him ;
when a man talks so much and so fast, he
must make slips sometimes and he was so
pleasant in his manner, so meekly subservient
to criticism, or so calmly indifferent to it, that
it soon died away ; more especially as the rec-
tor himself had the good taste and good feeling
never to join in any thing that was said either
for or against his curate. In which example
he was followed by the better families of the
place stanch old Tories, with whom a cler-
gyman was a clergyman, and not amenable to
the laws which regulate common men. They
declared that whoever Mr. Oldham chose was
sure to be the right person, and were perfectly
satisfied.
Mr. Oldham was satisfied too, or at least
appeared so. He always showed Mr. Scanlan
every possible politeness, and professed himself
perfectly contented with hira as he was with
most things that saved himself from trouble.
He had had in his youth a hard, in his age an
easy life ; and if there was one thing he dis-
liked more than another, it was taking trouble.
The Irish exuberance of Mr. Scanlan filled up
all gaps, socially as well as clerically, and lift-
ed the whole weight of the parish from the
old man's shoulders. So, without any foolish
jealousy, Mr. Oldham allowed his charming-
young curate to carry all before him ; and
moreover gave him a salary which, it was
whispered, was far more than Mr, Heavisides
had ever received ; nay, more than was given
to any^mrate in the neighborhood. But then
Mr, Sca!nlan was so very superior a preacher ;
and (alas ! for the Ditchley young ladies when
they found it out) he was already a married man.
This last fact, when it leaked out, which it
did not for a week or two, was, it must be
owned, a considerable blow. The value of the
new curate decreased at once. But Ditchley
was too dull a place, and the young Irishman
too great a novelty, for the reaction to be very
serious. So, after a few cynical remarks of the
sour-grape pattern, as to how very early and
imprudently he must have married the Irish
always did how difficult he would find it to
keep a wife and family on a curate's income,
and how very inferior a person the lady would
probably be Mr. Scanlan's star again rose, and
he was generally accepted by the little commu-
nity.
It is a mistake to suppose that the Irish are
unappreciated in England especially provin-
cial England. Often the slow, bovine, solid
Briton is greatly taken by the lively-tempered,
easy, mercurial Celt, who both supplies a want
and creates an excitement. A gentlemanly,
clever, and attractive young Hibernian will drop
suddenly down upon an old-fashioned English
country town, amuse the men, captivate the
women, and end by putting his bridle on the
neck of ever so many of these mild, stolid ag-
ricultural animals leading them by the nose k
completely for a little while as did the gen-
tleman who had just made his appearance in
Ditchley, For weeks nothing was talked of
but the Reverend Edward Scanlan his brilliant
preaching, his good looks, his agreeable man-
A BRAVE LADY.
25
ners. Every girl in the town would have been
in love with him but for that uncomfortable im-
pediment, his wife. Great was the speculation
concerning her what kind of person she was
likely to be. Imagination had full time to de-
velop itself: for the curate occupied his lodg-
ings alone for three months, during which time
as he confidentially, and not without much
anxious and husband-like feeling, told the ma-
trons of the place Mrs. Scanlan was awaiting
at his mother's house in Dublin the birth of
their second child.
Then he had a mother, and she had a house ;
two facts which, in the paocity of information
concerning him, were eagerly seized upon and
discussed exhaustively. Indeed these conjugal
confessions seemed to open to the young man
all the maternal arms in Ditchley Ditchley
town, that isi The county families still hung
back a little, pausing till they could discover
something certain about Mr. Scanlan's ante-
cedents.
This was not easy. Fifty years ago London
itself was very far off from the West of England,
and Ireland seemed a teira incognita^ as distant
as the antipodes. Nor, except letting fall in
his conversation a good many titled names,
which were recognized as belonging to the re-
ligious aristocracy of the period, did Mr. Scan-
lan say much about his family or connections.
He was apparently that odd mixture of candor
and secretiveness which is peculiarly Celtic
Highland and Irish. While voluble enough
concerning himself personally, of his wife, his
parents, and his relatives generally who could
not have been numerous, as he was an only
child he said remarkably little.
It is a curious fact, and a contradiction to
- certain amusing legal fictions concerning the
conjugal estate, that whatever a man may be,
and however great a personage theoretically,
practically his social status is decided by his
.wife. Not so mufh by her social status or ori-
gin, as by the sort of woman she is in herself.
King Cophetua may woo the beggar-maid, and
if she has a queenly nature she will make an
excellent queen ; but if he chooses a beggar in
royal robes they will soon drop off, and the
- ugly mendicant appear; then King Cophetua
may turn beggar, but she will never make a
queen. And so, in every rank of life, unless a
man chooses a woman who is capable of keep-
ing up at home the dignity which he labors for
in the world, he will soon find his own progress
in life sorely hampered and impeded, his use-
fulness narrowed, his honors thrown away.
Mr. Scanlan was no doubt a very charming
man quite the gentleman, every body said;
and his tastes and habits were those of a gen-
tleman, at least of a person who has been well
off all his life. Indeed, he every where gave
the impression of having been brought up in
great luxury as a child, with ponies to ride,
unlimited shooting and fishing, etc. the sort
of life befitting a squire's son ; on the strength
of which, though a clergyman, he became hand
in glove with all the rollicking squires' sons
round about.
Ditchley puzzled itself a little concerning his
name. Scanlan did not sound very aristocrat-
ic, but then English ears never appreciate Irish
patronymics. The only time that any one in
this neighborhood had ever seen it (the fact
was breathed about tenderly, and never reached
the curate) was upon a stray porter-bottle
"Scanlan and Co.'s Dublin stout" but that
might have been a mere coincidence ; no doubt
there were many Scanlans all over Ireland.
And even if it were not so if Mr. Scanlan did
really belong to the " stout" family what harm
was it ? Who had not heard of illustrious brew-
ers ? Whitbread in England, Guinness in Ire-
land were they not names high in honor, es-
pecially among the religious world of the day
the Evangelical set, which, however the old-
fashioned, easy-going church people might dif-
fer from it, had undoubtedly begun to work a
great revolution in the Establishment ?
Mr. Scanlan belonged to it, and evidently glo-
rified himself much in the fact. It was such
an exceedingly respectable section of the com-
munity : there were so many titled and wealthy
names connected with it ; even a poor curate
might gather from his alliance therewith sec-
ondary honor. Nevertheless, the county soci-
ety, which was very select, and not easily ap-
proachable, paused in its judgment upon the
Reverend Edward Scanlan until it had seen
his wife. Then there was no longer any doubt
concerning him.
I should think not! I could imagine how
she looked the first time she appeared in pub-
lic, which was at church, for she arrived at
Ditchley on a Saturday arrived alone with
her two babies both babies, for one was just
fifteen months the elder of the other and their
nurse, a thorough Irishwoman, very young, very
untidy, very faithful, and very ugly. Well could
I picture the curate's wife as she walked up the
aisle though perhaps her beauty wouer sovereigns or shillings, no more
than if they had been dead leaves. This pe-
A BRAVE LADY.
29
culiarity had mattered little once, when he was
a rich young fellow ; now, when it did matter,
it was difficult to conquer.
His mother had said to Josephine on parting
almost the last thing she did say, for the old
woman died within the year "Take care of
poor Edward, and look after the money your-
self, my dear, or it '11 bum a hole in his pockets
it always did." And Josephine had laughed
at the phrase with an almost childish amuse-
ment and total ignorance of what it meant and
implied. She understood it too well afterward.
But not now. Not in the least during that
first sunshiny summer, which made Ditchley so
pleasant and dear to her that the charm lasted
through many and many a sunless summer and
dreary winter. Her husband she had all to
herself, for the first time ; he was so fond of
her, so kind to her; she went about with him
more than she had ever been able to do since
her marriage; taking rambles to explore the
country, paying amusing first visits together to
investigate and criticise the Ditchley society ;
receiving as much attention as if they were a
new married couple ; and even as to themselves,
having as it were their honey-moon over again,
only a great deal more gay and more comfort-
able. It was indeed a very happy life for Mr.
and Mrs. Scanlan.
As for the babies, they were in an earthly
paradise. Wren's Nest was built among the
furze-bushs of a high common, as a wren's
nest should be ; and the breezes that swept
over were so fresh and pure that the two little
delicate faces soon began to grow brown with
health Cesar's especially. The infant, Adri-
enne, had always been a small fragile thing.
But Cesar grew daily into a real boy, big,
hearty, and strong; and Bridget showed him
off wherever she went as one of the finest chil-
dren of the neighborhood.
Thus time went on, marching upon flowers ;
still he did march, steadily, remorselessly. But
it was not till the fall of the year, when a long
succession of wet days and weeks made Wren's
Nest look as a wren's nest might be expected
to look in wintry weather that the Scanlans
woke up to the recollection that they were act-
ually "poor" people.
CHAPTER II.
What are ' ' poor" people such as I have just
stated the curate of Ditchley and his wife to be ?
Few questions can be more difficult to an-
swer. " Poor" is an adjective of variable value.
I compassionate my next neighbor as a "poor"
woman, because she lives in a small tumble-
down cottage at the end of my garden, and has
nine children, and a sick husband. While my
next neighbor but one, who drives about in her
carriage and pair, no doubt compassionates me,
because in all weathers I have to go on foot.
Often when she sweeps past me, trudging along
our muddy lanes, and we bow and smile, I can
detect a lurking something, half pity half no,
she is too kind for scorn ! in her face, which
exceedingly amuses me. For I know that if
her carriage meets the little chaise and ponies,
driven by the lovely Countess whose seat is four
miles off, the said Countess will be greatly en-
vied by my wealthy neighbor, whose husband
has only one handsome house to live in, while
the Earl has six.
Thus, you see, "poor'' is a mere adjective of
comparison.
But when I call the Scanlans * ' poor, " it was be-
cause their income was not equal to their almost
inevitable expenditure. Theirs was the sharpest
form of poverty, which dare not show itself as
such ; which has, or thinkg it has, a certain posi-
tion to keep up, and therefore must continually
sacrifice inside comforts to outside shows. How
far this is necessary or right remains an open
question I have my own opinion on the sub-
ject. But one thing is certain, that a curate,
obliged to appear as a gentleman, and mix free- ,
ly in other gentlemen's society to say nothing
of his having, unfortunately, the tastes and ne-
cessities of a gentleman is in a much harder
position than any artisan, clerk, or small shop-
keeper who has the same number of pounds a
year to live upon. Especially when both have
the same ever-increasing family, only a rather
different sort of family, to bring up upon it.
When Mr. Scanlan 's stock of ready-money
that " running account" in the Ditchley bank,
which he had thought so inexhaustible, but
which ran away as fast as a centipede before
the year was out when this sum was nearly at
an end, the young husband opened his eyes
wide, with a kind of angry astonishment. His
first thought was, that his wife had been spend-
ing money a great deal too fast. This was pos-
sible, seeing she was still but a novice in house-
keeping, and besides she really did not know
how much she had to keep house upon. For
her husband, proud of his novel dignity as mas-
ter of a family, had desired her to " leave every
thing to him just ask him for what she want-
ed, and he would always give it to her : a man
should always be left to manage his own af-
fairs." And Josephine, dutifully believing this,
had smiled at the recollection of her mother-in-
law's caution, thinking how much better a wife
knew her husband than his own parents ever
did, and cheerfully assented. Consequently,
she made not a single inquiry as to how their
money stood, until there was no money left to
inquire after.
This happened on a certain damp November
day she long remembered the sort of day it
was, and the minutise of all tliat happened on
it ; for it was the first slight lifting up of that
golden haze of happiness the first opening of
her eyes unto the cold, cheerless land that she
was entering; the land where girlish dreams
and ideal fancies are not, and all pleasures that
exist therein, if existing at all, must be taken
after a different fashion, and enjoyed in a dif-
ferent sort of -jyay.
30
A BRAVE LADY.
Mr. Scanlan had gone into Ditchley in the
forenoon, and his wife had been busy making
all sorts of domestic arrangements for a change
that would rather increase than diminish the
family expenditure, and holding a long con-
sultation with her one servant as to a little plan
she had, which would lighten both their hands,
and indieed seemed, with present prospects, al-
most a necessity.
For, hard-working woman as Bridget was
and when there is found an industrious, con-
scientious, tidy Irishwoman, how she will work !
with all her heart in it too still Wren's Nest
in winter and Wren's Nest in summer were two
very different abodes. You can not keep a
little cottage as warm as a good-sized house, or
as neat either, especially when the said little
cottage has two little people in it just of the age
when rich parents find it convenient to exile
their children to safe nurseries at the top of
the house, to be "out of the way." Wren's
Nest, quite large enough when Cesar and Adri-
enne were out on the common from morning
till night, became small when the poor little
things had to be shut up in it all day long.
Their voices not always sweet sometimes
rang through it in a manner that even their
mother found rather trying. As to their fa-
ther but Mrs, Scanlan had already began to
guess at one fact, which all young married wo-
men have to discover that the more little chil-
dren arc kept out of their father's way the bet-
ter for all parties.
Moreover, Josephine's husband still enjoyed
his wife's company far too well not to grumble
a little when she stinted him of it for the sake
of her babies. He excessively disliked the idea
of her becoming "a family woman," as he called
it, swallowed up in domestic cares. Why not
leave all that to the servants ? He still said
*' servants," forgetting that there was now but
one. Often, to please him it was so sweet to
please him always ! Mrs. Scanlan would resign
many a necessary duty, or arrange her duties
so that she could sit with him alone in the par-
lor, listening while he talked or read listening
with one ear, while the other was kept open to
the sounds in the kitchen, where Bridget might
be faintly heard, going about her work and
crooning the while some Irish ditty, keeping
baby on one arm while she did as much as she
could of the household work with the other.
Poor Bridget! With all her good-will, of
course, under such circumstances, things were
not done as well as they ought to have been,
nor were the children taken such care of as
their anxious mother thought right. When
there was a third child impending some addi-
tional household help became indispensable,
and it was on this subject that she and Bridget
were laying their heads together very different
heads, certainly, though the two young women
mistress and maid, were nearly the same age.
Let me pause for a moment to draw Bridget
Halloran's portrait lovingly, for she was a great
friend of mine.
She was very ugly, almost the ugliest woman
I ever knew ; and she must have been just the
same in youth as in age, probably uglier, for
time might by then have ironed out some of the
small-pox seams which contributed not a little
to the general disfigurement of her features.
True, she never could have had much features
to boast of, hers being the commonest type of
Irish faces, flat, broad, round as an apple-dump-
ling, with a complexion of the dumpling hue
and soddenness. There was a small dough- '
pinch for the nose, a wide slit for the mouth,
two beady black-currants of eyes and you had
Bridget Halloran's face complete. Her figure
was short and sturdy, capable of infinite exer-
tion and endurance ; but as for grace and beau-
ty, not even in her teens did it possess one sin-
gle line. Her sole charm was that peculiarly
Hibernian one a great mass of very fine blue-
black hair, which she hid under a cap, and no-
body ever saw it.
But Nature, which had been so niggardly to
this poor woman in outward things, compen-
sated for it by putting into her the brightest,
bravest, truest, peasant nature the nature of
the Irish peasant who, being blessed with a
double share of both heart and brains, is capa-
ble alike of any thing good and any thing bad.
Bridget, no doubt, had her own capacities for
the latter, but they had remained undeveloped ;
while all the good in her had grown, month by
month, and day by day, ever since, at little
Cesar's birth, she came as nurse-maid into the
service of young Mrs. Scanlan.
To her mistress she attached herself at once
with the passionate admiration that ugliness
sometimes conceives for beauty, coarseness for
grace and refinement. And, they being thrown
much together, as mothers and nurse-maids
are, or ought to be, this admiration settled into
the most faithful devotion that is possible to
human nature. At any time, I think, Bridget
would composedly have gone to be hanged for
the sake of her mistress ; or rather, dying be-
ing a small thing to some people, I think she
would have committed for her sake any crime
that necessitated hanging. Which is still not
saying much, as Efridget's sole consciousness of,
and distinction between, right and wrong was,
whether or not Mrs. Scanlan considered it so.
But I have said enough to' indicate what
sort of person this Irish girl was, and explain
why the other girl still no m^re than a girl in
years, though she was mistress and mother
held toward her a rather closer relation than
most ladies do with their servants nowadays.
Partly, because Bridget was of Irish, and Mrs.
Scanlan of French birth, and in both countries
the idiosyncrasy of the people makes the tie
between the server and the served a little dif-
ferent from what it is in England. Also, be-
cause the enormous gulf externally between
Josephine Scanlan ne De Bougainville, and
Bridget Halloran, nobody's daughter (being tak-
en from a foundling hospital), was crossed easi-
er than many lesser distances, especially by that
A BRAVE LADY.
31
slender, firm, almost invisible, but indestructi-
ble bond of a common nature a nature wholly
womanly. They understood one another, these
two, almost without a word, on the simple
ground of womanhood.
They were discussing anxiously the many,
and to them momentous arrangements for the
winter, or rather early spring the new-comer
being expected with the violets but both serv-
ant and mistress had quite agreed on the neces-
sity of a little twelve-year-old nurse-maid, and
had even decided on the village school girl
whom they thought most suitable for the office.
And then Bridget, seeing her mistress look ex-
cessively tired with all her morning's exer-
tions, took the children away into the kitchen,
and made their mother lie down on the sofa
underneath the window, where she could see
the line of road across the common, and watch
for Mr. Scanlan's return home.
She was tired, certainly; weary with the
sacred weakness, mental and bodily of impend-
ing maternity, but she was neither depressed
nor dejected. It was not her nature to be
either. God had given her not only strength,
but great elasticity of temperament ; she had
been a very happy-hearted girl as Josephine de
Bougainville, and she was no less so as Jose-
phine Scanlan. She had had a specially hap-
py summer the happiest, she thought, since
she was married ; her husband had been so
much more her own, and she had enjoyed to the
full the pleasure of being sole misti'ess in her
own house, though it was such a little one. I
am afraid, if questioned, she would not for one
moment have exchanged Wren's Nest for Mer-
rion Square.
Nor equal delusion! would she have ex-
changed her own husband, the poor curate of
Ditchley, for the richest man alive, or for all
the riches he had possessed when she first knew
him. She was very fond of him just as he was.
She greatly enjoyed his having no valet, and
requiring her to wait upon him hand and foot ;
it was pleasanter to her to walk across the
country, ever so far, clinging to his arm, than
to be driven along in state, sitting beside him
in the grand carriage. And beyond expres-
sion sweet to her were the quiet evenings which
had come since the winter set in, when no din-
ner parties were possible, and after the chil-
dren were gone to bed the young father and mo-
ther sat over the fire, as close together as lovers,
and making love quite as foolishly sometimes.
"I suspect, after all, I was made to be a
poor man's wife," Josephine would sometimes
say to herself, and think over all her duties in
that character, and how she could best fulfill
them, so that her Edward might not miss his
lost riches the least in the world, seeing he had
gained, as she had, so much better things.
She lay thinking of him on this wise, very
tenderly, when she saw him come striding up
to the garden-gate ; and her heart beat quick-
er, as it did still foolish, fond creature ! at
the sight of her young husband her girlhood's
love. She made an effort to rise and meet him
with a bright face and open arms.
But his were closed, and his countenance was
dark as night a very rare thing for the good-
tempered, easy-minded Edward Scanlan.
"What is the matter, dear? Are you ill?
Has any thing happened ?"
"Happened, indeed! I should think so!
Do you mean to say you don't know that you
never guessed ? Look there !"
He threw over to her one of those innocent-
looking, terrible little books called bank-books,
and went and flung himself down on the sofa
in exceeding discomposure. ~
" What is this ?" -opening it with some cu-
riosity, for she had never seen the volume be-
fore ; he had kept it in his desk, being one of
those matters of business which, he said, "a
woman couldn't understand."
"Nonsense, Josephine! Of course you
knew."
"What did I know?"
"That you have been spending so much
money that you have nearly ruined me. Our
account is overdrawn."
" Our account overdrawn ! What does that
mean?" she said not answering, except by a
gentle sort of smile, the first half of his sen-
tence. For she could not have been married
these five years without learning one small fact
that her Edward sometimes made "large"
statements, which had to be received cum grano,
as not implying more than half he said, espe-
cially when he was a little vexed.
" Mean ! It means, my dear, that we have
not a half-penny left in the bank, and that we
owe the bank two pounds five no, seven I
never can remember those stupid shillings !
over and above our account."
" Why did they not tell you before ?" -
"Of course they thought it did not matter.
A gentleman like me would always keep a
banker's account, and could at any time put
more money in. But I can't. I have not a
penny-piece in the world besides my paltry sal-
ary. And it is all your fault all your fault,
Josephine."
Mrs. Scanlan was startled. Not that it was
the first time she had been spoken to crossly
by her husband : such an idyllic state of con-
cord is quite impossible in ordinary married life,
and in this work-a-day world, where men's tem-
pers, and women's too, are rubbed up the wrong
way continually ; but he had never spoken to
her with such sharp injustice. She felt it acute-
ly ; and then paused to consider whether it were
not possible that Edward was less to blame than
she. For she loved him ; and, to fond, ideal-
izing love, Avhile the ideal remains unbroken,
it is so much easier to accuse one's self than the
object beloved.
" It may be my fault, my friend" she often
called him, affectionately, "my friend," as she
remembered hearing her mother address her
father as "/won ami,'' and it was her delight to
think that the word was no misnomer every
A BRAVE LADY.
"sue lay thinking of him on this wise, tendeel\.
woman's husband should be, besides all else,
her best, and dearest, and closest "friend."
"But if it is my fault I did not mean it, Ed-
ward. It was because I did not understand.
Sit down here, and try to make me under-
stand."
She spoke quite cheerfully, not in the least
comprehending how matters stood, nor how se-
rious was the conjuncture. When it dawned
upon her for, though so young and inexperi-
enced, she had plenty of common-sense, and a
remarkably clear head at business she looked
extremely grave.
'* I think I do understand now. You put all
the money we had, which was a hundred pounds,
into the bank, and you have fetched it out for
me whenever I asked you for it, or whenever
you wanted some yourself, without looking how
the account stood the ' balance,' don't you call
it? and when you went to the bank to-day,
you found we had spent it all, and there was
nothing left. Isn't that it ?"
" Exactly so. Whit a sharp little girl you
are; how quickly you have taken it all in!"
said he, a little more good-tempered, having
got rid of his crossness by its first ebullition,
and being relieved to find how readily she for-
gave it, and how quietly she accepted the whole
thing. For he had a lurking consciousness
that, on the whole, he had been a little "fool-
ish," as he called it himself, and was not alto-
gether free from blame in the transaction.
"Yes, I think I have taken it all in," said
she, meditatively, and turning a shade paler.
" I comprehend that the money I wanted I can
not get ; that we shall be unable to get any more
money for any thing until Mr. Oldham pays you
your next half-yearly salary."
"Just so. But don't you vex yourself, my
love. It will not signify. We can live upon
credit ; my father lived upon credit for I don't
know how long."
Josephine was silent through sheer igno-
rance. Her translation of the word "credit"
was moral virtue, universal respect: and she
liked to think how deeply her husband was re-
spected in the town ; but still she did not un-
derstand how his good name would suffice to
pay his butcher's and baker's bills, and other
expenses, which seemed to have fallen upon
A BRAVE LADY.
them more heavily than usual this Christmas.
To say nothing of another expense and a
strange pang shot through the young mother's
heart, to think that it should ever take the
shape of a burden instead of a blessing the
third little olive-branch that was soon to sprout
up round that tiny table.
"Edward," she said, looking at him entreat-
ingly almost tearfully, as if a sudden sense of
lier weakness had come upon her, and instinct-
ively she turned to her husband for help : " Ed-
ward, tell me, if we can get no money, not till
May, from Mr. Oldham, what am I to do in
March?"
"Bless my soul, I had forgotten that!" and
the young man spoke in a tone of extreme an-
noyance. "You should have thought of it
yourself; indeed, you should have thought of
every thing a little more. March! how very
inconvenient. Well, it can't be helped. You
must just manage as well as you can."
"Manage as well as I can," repeated Jose-
phine, slowly, and lifted up in his face her great,
dark, heavy eyes. Perhaps she saw something
in that face which she had never seen before,
some line which implied it was a weaker face,
a shallower face than at first appeared. She
had been accustomed to love it without reading
it much certainly without criticising it; but
now her need was hard. Still harder, too,
when wanting it most, to come for comfort
and find none ; or, at least, so little that it was
almost none. "He does not understand," she
said to herself, and ceased speaking.
" It is very, very provoking, altogether most
unfortunate," continued the curate. "But I
suppose you can manage, my dear; laborers'
wives do with half the comforts that I hope you
will have. Oh dear, a poor curate is much
worse off' than a day-laborer! But as to the
little nurse-maid you were speaking to me about
this morning, of course you will see at once that
such an additional outlay would be quite impos-
sible. She would eat as much as any two of
us ; and, indeed, we shall have quite enough
. mouths to fill rather too many. "
"Too many!"
- It was but a chance word, but it had stabbed
her like a sword the first actual wound her
husband had ever given her. And, by nature,
Josephine Scanlan was a woman of very acute
feelings, sensitive to the slightest wound ; not
to her pride, or her self-esteem, but to her af-
fections and her strong sense of right and jus-
tice. She answered not a syllable ; she turned
away quietly and stood looking out of the win-
dow toward where Ditchley church-spire rose
through the rainy mist. Then she thought, with
a sudden, startling fancy, of the church-yard be-
low it, where a grave might open yet a grave
for both mother and babe and so save the lit-
tle household from being " too many."
It was an idea so dreadful, so wicked, that
she thrust it from her in haste and shame, and
turned back to her husband, trying to speak in
a cheerful voice of other things,
C
"But what about the two pounds five, or
seven which is it? that you owe the bank?
Of course we must pay it."
" Oh no, they will trust me ; they know I am
a gentleman."
" But does not a gentleman always pay ? My
father thought so. Whatever comforts we went
without, if the landlord came up for our rent it
was ready on the spot. My father used to say,
' Noblesse oblige.'' "
"Your father," began Mr. Scanlan, with a
slight sneer in his tone, but stopped. For there
stood opposite to him, looking at him with stead-
fast eyes, the poor 'C'icomte's daughter, the beau-
tiful girl he had married the woman who was
now his companion for life, in weal or woe, evil
report or good report. She might not have
meant it probably was wholly unconscious of
the fact but she stood more erect than usual,
with all the blood of the De Bougainvilles rising
in her thin cheeks and flaming in her sunken
eyes.
" I should not like to ask the bank to trust
us, Edward ; and there is no need, I paid all
my bills yesterday for the month, but there are
still three sovereigns left in my purse. You
can take them and pay. Will you? At
once ?"
"There is no necessity. What a terrible
hurry you are in ! How you do bother a man !
But give me the money."
"Edward!" As he snatched at the offered
purse, half jest, half earnest, she detained him.
"Kiss me! Don't go away angry with me.
We are never surely beginning to quarrel ?"
" Not a bit of it. Only well, promise to be
more careful another time.*'
She promised, almost with a sense of contri-
tion, though she did not exactly know what she
had to repent of. But when her husband was
gone up stairs, and she lay down again, and be-
gan calmly thinking the matter over, her^ense
of justice righted itself, and she saw things
clearer alas ! only too clear.
She knew she had erred, but not in the way
Edward thought : in quite a contrary direction.
How could she, a mistress and mother of a fam-
ily, have been so unwise as to take every thing
upon trust, live merrily all that summer, sup-
plying both herself and the household with ev-
ery thing they needed, \yithout inquiring a syl-
lable about the money ; where it all came from,
how long it would last, and whether she was
justified in thus expending it !
" Of course, Edward did not think, could not
calculate it was never his way. His poor mo-
ther was right ; this was my business, and I have
neglected it. But I was so ignorant. And so
happy so happy !"
Her heart seemed to collapse with a strange,
cold fear a forewaniing that henceforward she
might not too often have that excuse of happi-
ness. It was with difficulty that she restrained
herself before her husband ; and the minute he
had left her which he did rather carelessly,
and quite satisfied she was "all right now"
34
A BRAVE LADY.
she burst into such hysterical sobbing that
Bridget in the kitchen heard and came in.
But when, with fond Irish familiarity, the
girl entreated to know what was the matter,
and whether she should run and fetch the mas-
ter, Mrs. Scanlan gave a decided negative,
which surprised Bridget as much as these hys-
terical tears.
Bridget and her master Avere not quite upon
as good terms as Bridget and her mistress. Mr.
Scanlan disliked ugly people ; also, he treated
servants generally with a certain roughness and
lordliness, which some people think it necessary
to show, just to prove the great difference be-
tween them and their masters, which otherwise
might not be sufiiciently discernible.
But when she saw him from the window strid-
ing across the common toward Ditchley, leaving
the house and never looking behind him, though
he, and he only, must have been the cause of
his wife's agitation, either by talking to her in
some thoughtless way, or telling her some piece
of bad news which he ought to have had the
sense to keep to himself, Bridget felt extremely
angry with Mr. Scanlan.
However, she was wise enough to hold her
tongue, and devote all her efforts to soothe and
quiet her mistress, which was finally effected by
a most fortunate domestic catastrophe ; Ce'sar
and little Adrienne being found quarreling over
the toa;Sting-fork Avhich Bridget had dropped in
her hurry, and which was so hot in the prongs
that both burned their fingers, and tottered
screaming to their mother's sofa. This brought
Mrs. Scanlan to herself at once. She sat up,
cuddled them to her bosom, and began comfort-
ing them as mothers can by which she soon
comforted herself likewise. Then she looked
up at Bridget, who stood by her, silent and grim
poor Bridget's, plain face was always so very
grim when she was silent and made a half ex-
cuse or apology.
"I can't think what made me turn so ill,
Bridget. I have been doing almost nothing all
day."
" Doing ! No, ma'am, it's not doing, it's talk-
ing," replied Bridget, with a severe and impress-
ive emphasis, which brought the color to her
mistress's cheeks. "But the master's gone to
Ditchley, I think, and he can't be back just yet,"
she added, triumphantly ; as if the master's ab-
sence at this crisis, if a discredit to himself, was
a decided benefit to the rest of the household.
"I know. He has gone on business," said
Mrs. Scanlan. And then the business he had
gone upon came back upon her mind in all its
painfulness ; she turned so deadly white once
more that Bridget was frightened,
"Oh, ma'am!" she cried, "what in the
world has happened ?"
(Here I had better state that I make no at-
tempt to give Bridget's brogue. Indeed, when
I knew her she had almost none remaining.
She had come so early into her mistress's serv-
ice, and she had lived so long in England, that
her Hibemicisms of speech and character had
gradually dropped off from her ; all except the
warm heart and elastic spirit, the shrewd wit
and stanch fidelity, which especially belong to
her nation, neutralizing many bad qualities, to
which miserable experience forces us to give the
bitter adjective so "Irish.")
"Nothing has happened," said Mrs. Scanlan.
"I suppose I am not quite so strong as I ought
to be, but I shall soon be all right, I hope.
Come, Baby, it's near your bedtime ; my bless-
ing! don't cry so! it goes to mother's heart."
She roused herself and began walking up
and down with Adrienne in her arms, vainly
trying to still her cries and hush her to sleep,
but looking herself so wretched all the time, so
feeble and incapable of effort, that Bridget at
last said, remonstratively :
"You're not to do that, ma'am. Indeed,
you're not."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Scanlan,
turning quickly round ; " what am I not to do ?"
"Not to be carrying that heavy child about.
It isn't your business, ma'am, and you're not fit
for it. And I'm not going to let you do it, ei-
ther."
" I must," said Mrs. Scanlan, in a tone so
sharp that Bridget quite started. Her mistress
was usually excessively gentle in manner and
speech too gentle, Bridget, who had a tongue
of her own, and a temper also, sometimes con-
sidered. Nevertheless, the sharpness surprised
her, but it was away in a minute.
Mrs. Scanlan turned round with tears in her
eyes.
"I did not mean to be cross, Bridget. I
only meant that I must learn to do a great many
things that I have.not hitherto done."
What things? Bridget wanted to know.
Because she thought the mistress did quite
enough, and too much ; she should be very glad
when they had a second sei'vant.
"No, we shall not have a second servant."
Bridget stared.
" It is quite out of the question. We can
not possibly afford it ; Mr. Scanlan says so, and
of course he knows."
Josephine said this with a certain air of dig-
nity, by which she wished to put a stop to the
"argufying" that she feared; but Bridget, in-
stead, looked so shocked and disconsolate that
her mistress took the other tack, and began to
console her.
"Really we need not mind much about it.
A girl of twelve would have been very ignorant
and useless, and perhaps more of a trouble than
a help ; and I shall be able to help much more
by-and-by, and according as I get used to things.
I was so very innocent of all house affairs when
I came here," added she, smiling, "but I think
I grow cleverer every day now."
"Ma'am, you're the cleverest lady I ever
knew. And you took to housekeeping like a
duck to the water. More's the pity ! you that
can play music, and talk foreign tongues, and
work beautiful with your fingers and there you
are washing dishes, and children's clothes, and
A BRAVE LADY.
35
children, with those same pretty fingers. I'd
like to tie 'em up in a bag."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Seanlan, laughing
outright now: she and Bridget often laughed
together, with their French and Irish light-
heartedness, even amidst the hardest work
and the cloudiest days. "But seriously, think
how many mothers have to take care of their
own children without any nurse-maid without
any help at all and I have yours. And three
will not be much more trouble than two ; in-
deed, this morning one of my neighbors con-
soled me by saying that, after two children,
even ten did not make much difference."
"And we may have ten !" said Bridget, with
a very long face, and a grave personal appropri-
ation of the responsibility, which at first made
lier mistress laugh again then suddenly turn
grave, muttering to herself something in French.
For the first time it had occurred to Mrs. Scan-
Ian that circumstances might arise in which
these gifts of God were not altogether bless-
ings. The thought was so painful, so startling,
that she could not face it. She drove it back,
with all the causes which had suggested it, into
the innermost comers of her heart. And with
her heart's vision she utterly refused to see
what to her reason's eyes would have been clear
enough that her husband had acted like a
child, and been as vexed as a child when his
carelessness came to light. Also that the care-
lessness as to worldly matters, which does not
so much signify when a man is a bachelor, and
lias nobody to harm but himself (if ever such a
state of isolation is possible), becomes an actual
sin when he is married and has others depend-
ing on him others whom his least actions must
affect vitally, for good or ill.
But as she walked up and down the room,
rocking Edward's child to sleep Adrienne was
the one of her babies most like the father,
Ce'sar being entirely a De Bougainville Jose-
phine could not think hardly of her Edward. He
would grow wiser in time, and meanwhile the
least said or thought of his mistake the better.
Nor did she communicate any further of it to
Bridget, beyond saying that, besides omitting
the little nurse-maid, they would henceforward
have to be doubly economical ; for Mr. Seanlan
and herself had decided they were spending a
great deal more than they ought.
"Ugh!" said Bridget, and asked no more
questions ; for she was a little afraid of even
her sweet young mistress when it pleased her to
assume that gentle reserve. But the shrewd
servant, nevertheless, made up her mind that
by fair means or foul, by direct inquiry, or by
the exercise of that sharp Irish wit in which the
girl was by no means deficient she would find
out what had passed between the husband and
wife, to make her mistress so ill. Also, wheth-
er there was any real occasion for her master's
extraordinary stinginess.
"It's not his way! quite the contrary!"
thought she, when, while Mrs. Seanlan was
hushing baby to sleep, she slipped up and put
to rights the one large room which served as
bedroom for both parents and children : finding
Mr. Scanlan's clothes scattered over Cesar's lit-
tle bed ; crumpled shirts without end (for he
had been dressing to dine out), and half a dozen
pairs of soiled lavender gloves. " What busi-
ness has he to wear lavender kid gloves, I
should like to know ?" said Bridget to herself,
rather severely. "They'd have bought Master
Cesar two pair of boots, or the mistress a new
bonnet. Ugh ! men are queer creatures I'm
glad I wasn't a man, any how !"
CHAPTER III.
After this day the curate's family began
painfully to recognize that they were really
" poor" people.
Not that Mr. Scanlan's salary was small ; in-
deed, the rector had been most liberal : but the
real property of a family consists, not so much
in what comes in, as in what goes out. Had
they never been richer than now, no doubt they
would have considered themselves tolerably well
off, and have received smiling even the third lit-
tle "encumbrance," which ere long made the
cottage too busy and too noisy for Mr. Seanlan
to " study" there with any sort of comfort. Not
that he was fond of reading, or ever read very
much ; but he liked to have his books about
him, especially the Greek and Latin ones : it
"looked well," he said. He had come to
Ditchley breathing a great aroma of classical
learning, and he did not like it to die out : it
gave him such an influence in the parish. So
he was much annoyed to find that it was now
difficult to keep up the appearance of a man of
literature ; for instance, his few books had dai-
ly to be cleared away that the family might dine
upon his study-table and though that rarely
incommoded him personally, he being so often
absent at dinner-hour and invariably on "fast-
days," as Bridget called them, she having been
once a Catholic. She was not one now ; hav-
ing soon expressed her willingness to turn Prot-
estant, or indeed any religion that Mrs. Seanlan
chose: she wished to go to heaven with her
mistress, she said, and how she went, or by
what road, was of no great consequence.
These "fast-days" were always made a joke
of, by both her, her mistress, and the children,
who were brought up to accept them as natural
circumstances. But the truth was, the little
family did not eat meat every day ; they could
not aflord it. They always chose for their
maigre days those days when Mr. Seanlan was
out which happened pretty frequently for he
had all the parochial visiting to do : the parish
was large and the houses scattered. More-
over, he was so agreeable had such a deal to
say for himself, and such a pleasant Irish way
of saying it, that every body was delighted to
see him. His welcome from house to house
was universal, and his invitations were endless.
At first he used to refuse them, not liking to
A BRAVE LADY.
go any where without his wife ; but when her
accompanying him began to groAV difficult, nay
impossible, he refused less and less. The neigh-
bors were so veiy pressing, he said, and he could
not well offend his own parishioners. Gradually,
as summer advanced, their eagerness for his so-
ciety grew to that pass that he might have dined
away from home every day in the week; in
fact he often was absent three or four days out
of the seven.
At first, I think, his young wife fretted a
good deal about this. She did not care to
have him stopping at home all day long ; the
children were a weariness and a trouble to him,
for there was no nursery to hide them in ; and
besides, she could not do her duty properly to
them when he was there. Nor to him as she
often vexed herself with thinking when they,
poor little pets ! were always wanting her, and
always in the way. But she would have pre-
ferred to see her husband come regularly home
of evenings. She would have liked to sit and
watch for him across the common at a certain
fixed hour; to have known that punctual as
the sun he would have come in and shone
upon her ; her sunrising being at the ordinary
sunsetting the close of the day. It would
have been good for her, and sweet to her, she
knew, if, though he disliked to be troubled and
worried and she should always avoid that he
had taken a kindly, husbandly interest in things
at home. It would have helped her, and made
her strong, braver, and fresher to bear the thou-
sand little household burdens, that are, in the
total, so heavy men have little idea how heavy !
upon women's weak shoulders. Especially
young women who have yet to learn how God
fits the back to the burden, and how He never
suffers the brave heart to fail, however totter-
ing may be the feeble knees.
But Mr. Scanlan did not seem to understand
these little difficulties of his wife. He was very
kind, very affectionate ; but it never occurred
to him that she, being young and inexperienced,
needed help as well as love, shelter as well as
sunshine. He was very good when all was
smooth and bright, but when any temporary
cloud came over Wren's Nest, as clouds will
come slight sicknesses of the children, or small
domestic cares of any kind he just slipped
away, and left her to bear the brunt of the
battle. True, when he reappeared, he over-
whelmed her with praise for having borne it so
exceedingly well ; which was most pleasant to
his wife's heart so pleasant that it seldom
occurred to her till afterward that the battle
might have been easier had she not been left
to fight it single-handed.
Still, a husband at home all day is a great
nuisance, especially with a young family ; and
she was not always sorry for Mr. Scanlan's ab-
sence, particularly at dinner-time. Women can
put up with so many things that are intolerable
to men. When butcher's meat ran short, Brid-
get developed quite a genius for puddings, which
delighted the, children amazingly. And then
their mother tried her delicate hand at various
French cookeries which she remembered out
of "the days of her youth," as she began to
call them now, and especially the potau-feu,
which her mother used to see when, as the
young demoiselle of the chateau, she was taken
by her nurse to visit old Norman cottages.
She loved to tell about this wonderful Nor-
mandy to her little Cesar, who listened ea-
gerly, with the precocity not rare in eldest chil-
dren, when the circumstances of the household
compel them to the lot often a most happy
one of being constantly under the mother's
eye, and constituted the mother's principal
companion.
These details I take from the Saturday night's
journal, which Mrs. Scanlan kept so scrupulous-
ly and for so many years. It was, as I have
said, written in French, her fondly-remembered
native tongue, but it was not at all French in
its style, being quite free from that sentimental
exaggeration of feeling which makes Frencli
journals and letters of the last century or half-
century seem so queer and affected to our Brit-
ish undemonstrativeness. Hers was as plain,
as accurate, as if she had been the "thorough
Englishwoman" into which, as their summit
of well-meant praise, her neighbors told her she
was growing. She records the fact, but makes
no comment thereon.
Nor will I. I believe firmly in the science
of anthropology; that you might as well expect
to evolve certain qualities out of certain races,
as to grow a rose out of a tulip ; buijyou can
modify both rose and tulip to an almost infinite
extent, cultivating their good points, and re-
pressing their bad ones ; and to quarrel with a
tulip because it is not a rose is certainly an act
of supreme folly, even though one may like the
rose far better. I myself own to having a warm
love for roses, and a strong aversion to tulips ;
yet when a certain great and good man once
took me to his favorite ftilip-bed, and dilated
on its merits, exhibiting with delighted admira-
tion the different sorts of blooms, I felt tempt-
ed to say within myself. Can I have been mis-
taken ? is a tulip a desirable, not a detestable,
flower after all? And I was such a tender
hypocrite to my old friend that I had not the
courage to confess I had detested tulips all my
life, but meant henceforward to have a kindly
feeling toward them for his sake.
So those of my readers who hate French peo-
ple and Irish people, with their national char-
acteristics may be a little lenient to both, as
they read on farther in this story.
Mrs. Scanlan's neighbors, though they did
pay her these doubtful compliments as to her
foreign extraction, were very kind, and neigh-
borly. They admired her without being envi-
ous of her, for indeed there was no need. She
came into competition with none of them. The
young ladies, unto whom her beauty might have
made her a sore rival, were quite safe she was
already married. The matrons, with whotn she
might otherwise have contested social distinc-
A BRAVE LADY.
87
tion, were also secure she never gave enter-
tainments, and competed for the queenship of
society with no one. The one field in which,
had she fought, she must certainly have come
off victorious, there being no lady for miles
round who was her equal in qualities which I
think are more French than English in the
gifts of being a good talker, a better listener ;
of making people comfortable together without
knowing why ; and of always looking so sweet
and pleasant and pleased with every thing that
all people were perforce pleased, both with them-
selves and her from that grand arena Mrs.
Scanlan retired ; and so soon that nobody had
time to dislike her for succeeding in it.
She had another quality which made her
popular at Ditchley she always sympathized
with her neighbors, and interested herself
warmly in their affairs, without ever troubling
them with her own. I remember a certain line
out of a once popular ballad, which then struck
me as a vry unfair balance of things, but which
I have since recognized as the easiest and safest
plan after all, with regard to all but the one or
two intimate friends that one makes in a life-
"So let us hope the future as the past has been
will be,
I will share with thee thy sorrows, and thou thy
joys with me."
It illustrates exactly the unconscious creed and
daily practice of Josephine Scanlan.
Thus, narrow-minded as Ditchley was in some
things-'i-as all country towns necessarily must be,
and were then, before the era of railways, much
more so than now it had a warm heart, and
kept the warmest side of it to the curate's wife,
a stranger though she was. Of her small out-
side world Mrs. Scanlan had nothing to com-
plain. It may have criticised her pretty freely ;
very likely it did ; but the criticisms fell harm-
less. She never heard them, or if she had heard,
would not have heeded. She was so entirely
free from ill-nature herself that she never sus-
pected it in others. If people talked about her,
what harm did it do her ? She was very sure
they never said any thing unkind.
And, strange to relate, I believe they never
did. She was so entirely simple and straight-
forward ay, from the first day when she ex-
plained, quite unhesitatingly, the dire mystery
which had agitated Ditchley for weeks, the Scan-
lan and Co. porter-bottle ! that spite laid down
its arrows unused, meanness shrank ashamed
into its own dark corners, and even malice re-
tired abashed before the innocent brightness of
her unconscious face.
"Every body likes me," she said of herself
at this time. " I really don't know why they
do it, but I am sure they do. And I am so
glad. It is such a comfort to me."
Was she beginning to need comfort outside
comfort even already ?
Hor outside gayety was certainly ceasing by
slow degrees. She was invited as usual, with
her husband ; but gradually it came to be an
understood thing that Mr. Scanlan went and
Mrs. Scanlan remained at home. *' She could
not leave the baby," was at first a valid and
generally accepted excuse, and by the time it
ceased to be available her absence had become
such a matter of habit that nobody wondered
at it. For a while the " every body" who liked
her so much missed her a little, and even re-
monstrated with her as to whether she was not
sacrificing herself too much to her family, and
whether she was not afraid of making Mr.
Scanlan angry in thus letting him go out alone.
"Oh no!" she would reply, with a faint smile,
"my husband is not at all angry. He quite
understands the state of the case."
He did understand, after his fashion that
is, he presently discovered that it is somewhat
inconvenient to take into society a wife who
has no carriage to go out in, but must spoil her
elegant attire by walking. Or still worse, who
has no elegant attire at all, and wherever she
appears is sure to be dressed more plainly than
any lady in the room.
It may seem ridiculously small, but the sub-
ject of clothes was now growing one of the
burdens of Mrs. Scanlan's life. She had never
thought much of dress before her marriage, and
afterward her rich toilet had been accepted by
her both pleasantly and naturally. Every body
about her dressed well, and so did she, for her
husband liked it. Fortunately her good clothes
were so many that they lasted long after her
good days that is to say, her rich days were
done.
But now the purple and fine linen began to
come to an end, and were hopeless of replace-
ment. The first time she went to Ditchley to
buy herself a new dress, which her husband de-
clared she must have, she was horrified to find
that a gown like one of her old worn-out ones
would involve the sacrifice of two months' in-
come to the little household at Wren's Nest. So
her dream of a new silk dress vanished : she
brought home a muslin one, to the extreme in-
dignation of Mr. Scanlan.
Poor man ! he could not understand why
clothes should wear out, and as little why they
should not be perpetually renewed. He had
never seen his mother dress shabbily why
should his wife do so ? His wife, upon whom
his credit rested. If she had only herself to
consider it would not have signified ; but a
married lady the Reverend Edward Scanlan's
wife was quite another thing. He could not
see the reason for it : she must be learning slat-
ternly ways ; yielding to matronly untidiness,
as he saw young mothers sometimes do which
he always thought a great shame, and a great
unkindness to the husband. Which arguments
were perfectly true in the main, and Josephine
recognized the fact. Yet the last one went
rather sharply into the young matron's heart.
She changed her style of dress altogether.
Her costly but no Jpnger fresh silks and satins
were put away indeed, they fell away of them-
selves, having been remodeled and altered to
38
A BRAVE LADY.
the last extremity of even French feminine in-
genuity. She now appeared almost exclusive-
ly in cotton print of a morning, in white dimity
of an afternoon ; dresses which Bridget could
wash endlessly, and which each week looked
fresh and new again. Her children the same.
She could not give them a clean frock every
day, as their father wished every other child
he saw had always a clean frock on, and why
not his -children? but she dressed them in
neat blue-spotted pinafores blouses she called
them the faii^iliar French name with a plain
leather belt round the waist and they looked
so pretty, so very pretty! or she and Bridget
thought so many a time.
It is a curious and sad indication of how
things changed after the first sunshiny summer
at Wren's Nest, that the mistress and servant
seemed to have settled their domestic affairs to-
gether, and shared their domestic griefs and
joys, very much more than the mistress and
master. Whenever there was a sacrifice to be
made, or a vexation or fatigue to be endured,
it was they who suffered any how, not Mr.
Scanlan. Mrs. Scanlan contrived to shield her
husband almost as she did her little children
from any household perplexity or calamity,
and especially from a certain dim sound heard
in the distance, every day approaching nearer
and nearer the howling of that blatant beast,
"the wolf at the door."
"Hardships are so much worse to him than
to me," she would reason. " With me it is but
just going back to old times, when I lived at
home with my father and we were so very
poor and so very happy too, I think whereas
with my husband it is different. He has been
rolling in money all his life poor Edward!"
No doubt this was true. Nor do I wish to
judge the curate more harshly than his wife
judged him. Besides, people are variously
constituted ; their ideals of happiness are dif-
ferent. I can imagine that when Josephine
Scanlan sat in front of her neat cottage with
Cesar and Adrienne playing at her feet, and
her baby-boy asleep on her lap sewing hard,
for she had never done sewing yet stopping a
minute now and then to refresh her eyes with
the sweet landscape green, low hills, smooth
and sunny, which shut out the not very distant
sea, beyond which lay la belle France, which
she had always dreamed of, but never beheld
I can imagine, I say, that it mattered very little
to Josephine Scanlan whether she lived in a
great house or a small one ; whether she went
clad in satin and velvet, or in the common dim
ity gown, which Bridget often sat up half the
night to wash and iron for Sundays, and in
which, as she went to church with a child in
either hand, poor Bridget declared, the mistress
looked "like an angel just dropped from the
sky."
Whether the rest of the congregation were of
that opinion can not now be discovered. They
still paid occasional visits to Wren's Nest, stop-
ping in carriage-and-pair at the garden-gate,
and causing Bridget a world of flurry to get a
clean apron and smooth her hair before rushing
to open it. But it is a very different thing,
paying visits in a carriage after an idle morn-
ing, and paying them on foot after a morning s
hard work in arranging the house affairs and
looking after the children. Mrs. Scanlan had
to explain this which she did very simply to
such of her husband's parishioners as were spe-
cially kind to her, and with whom she would
have liked to associate, had fate allowed. Her
excuses were readily and graciously accepted ;
but, after a time, the natural results of such an
unequal balance of things ensued. Her visitors
became fewer and fewer : sometimes, in winter,
whole weeks passed without a single foot cross-
ing the threshold of Wren's Nest.
Necessarily, too, there came a decline in
other branches of parish duty that Mr. Scanlan
considered essential, and urged his wife to keep
up ; which she did at first to the utmost of her
power Dorcas societies, district visifing, vil-
lage school-feasts, and so on ; various forms of
benevolenxie which had lain dormant until the
young curate came. Ditchley, having a very
small number of poor, and abounding in wealthy
families with nothing to do,.soon found charity a
charming amusement ; and the different schemes
which the new clergyman started for its admin-
istration made him very popular.
But with Mrs. Scanlan the case was different.
" I can't sit making clothes foi' little negroes,
and let my own children run ragged," said she
once, smiling : and arguing half in earnest, half
in jest for she found that the latter often an-
swered best with her husband, who had been
sharply reproving her. "And, Edward, it is
rather hard to sit smilingly distributing fuel and
blankets to the ' believing poor,' as you call them,
when I remember how thinly-covered is poor
Bridget's bed, and how empty our own coal-
cellar. Still, I will do my best, since you wish
it."
"Do so there's a dear girl!" replied he,
carelessly kissing her. " Charity looks so well
in a clergyman and a clergyman's wife. And,
besides, giving to the poor is lending to the
Lord."
Mrs. Scanlan cast a keen glance at her hus-
band she always did when he said these sort
of things. She had begun to wonder how
much they meant at least how much he meant
by them, and whether he really considered their
meaning at all. I am afraid, for a clergyman's
wife, she was not as religious a woman as she
ought to have been ; but she had had too much
of religion when she lived in Merrion Square.
In that particular set to which her husband be-
longed its cant phraseology had been painfully
dinned into her ears. She recognized all the
intrinsic goodness of the Evangelical sect, their
sincere and earnest piety ; but she often wished
they could do without a set of stock phrases
such as Edward Scanlan had just used which
gradually came to fall on her ear as mere words,
implying nothing.
A BRAVE LADY.
39
" Lending to the Lord !" said she. " I wish
He would begin to pay me back a little that
He owes me." "I wish He would send me a
new pair of shoes for each of the children.
They want them badly enough."
At which Mr. Scanlan looked horrified, espe-
cially as this unfortunate speech had been made
in presence of his rector, Mr. Oldham, who had
just come in for a call. Possibly he did not
hear, being very deaf, and using hiS deafness
sometimes both conveniently and cleverly.
He was the one visitor whose visits never
ceased, and were always welcome ; for they
caused no inconvenience. If the mother were
busy, he would be quite content to talk to the
children ; who liked him well enough, though
they were a little afraid of him, chiefly through
their father's always impressing upon them that
they must behave so exceedingly well when
they went to the Rectory, which was now al-
most the only house in the neighborhood they
did go to. At first, when Cesar and Adrienne
had acquired sufficiently walking capabilities
and good manners, their father amused himself
by taking them about with him pretty often ;
but being not angels, only children, they some-
times vexed him considerably. They would
get tired and cross ; or, from the great contrast
of living at home and abroad, they would be
tempted poor little souls to overeat them-
selves, which naturally annoyed the curate
much. By degrees both they and their mother
found that going out with papa was not un-
mixed felicity; so that when the habit was
given up it was a relief to all parties.
Gradually the parents and children seldom
appeared in public all together, except when
they were invited to the Rectory as they had
been lately to enjoy a strawberry feast, in the
garden of which its owner was so justly proud.
"I am glad you approve of my roses, " said
Mr. Oldham, when, with a half deprecating, half
threatening look at his wife, lest she should
make some other unlucky observation, Mr.
Scanlan had disappeared on important parish
business. "I often think, Madame" (he
changed his old-fashioned " Madam" into Ma-
dame, out of compliment to her birth, and be-
cause he liked to air his French a little) " I
think my garden is to me what your children
are to you. I only hope it may be equally
flourishing, and may reward me as well for all
my care."
The rector was sitting in the porch, his stick
between his knees he always wore breeches,
gaiters, a long coat, and a large clerical hat-
watching Ce'sar, who was pulling up weeds in
the somewhat neglected borders in front of the
garden, but doing laborer's work wirh the air
and mien of a young nobleman in disguise a
real Vicomte de Bougainville. One does see
these anomalies sometimes, though I grant not
often ; poor gentlefolks' children are prone to
sink to the level of the ordinary poor; but Jo-
sephine had taken great pains in the up-bring-
ing of hers. As her eyes followed the direction
of Mr. Oldham's, and then both their eyes met,
there was in one countenance a touch of envy,
in the other of pity which accounted for his
frequent visits and the kindly welcome which
she always gave him.
That is, of late years. At first Mrs. Scan-
lan had been rather shy of her husband's rec-
tor, perhaps like the children, because her hus-
band always impressed upon her the importance
of being civil to him. Not until she found this
needless that the little old bachelor exacted
nothing from her, and that, moreover, there
was nothing to be got out of him did Jose-
phine become as friendly with Mr. Oldham as
she was with her other neighbors. Her cold-
ness seemed rather to amuse him ; nor did he
ever take off"ense at it. He admired opeuly her
beauty, her breeding, her good sense ; and with
his own pedigree, a yard long, hanging up in
his hall, it is probable that he did not think the
less of his curate's wife for being descended
from so many noble De Bougainvilles.
What the old rector thought of his curate
people never quite discovered. He kept his
opinion to himself. When the parish went
crazy about Mr. Scanlan, his beautiful sermons,
his many accomplishments, Mr. Oldham list-
ened, silent ; when, as years ran on, a few holes
were picked in the curate's coat, he listened,
equally silent. But he himself always treated
Mr. Scanlan with pointed respect, courtesy, and
consideration.
He sat watching the children there were
four now, " baby" being exalted into Louis,
and another little white bundle lying across
Mrs. Scanlan's lap, as she sat busy at her cease-
less needle even while she conversed with her
guest.
"Another girl, I understand, for I am to have
the pleasure of christening her next Sunday.
Are you offended with me, Madame, for de-
clining to be godfather? As you are aware,
your husband asked me."
She was not aware, and would have disliked
it extremely ; but she would not betray either
fact, and therefore only smiled.
" What do you mean to do with your eldest
son ?" pointing to Ce'sar. " As I was saying to
his father, it is high time he went to school.
But Scanlan tells me he prefers teaching him
himself."
" Yes," snid Josephine, briefly, for her vis-
itor had touched upon a sore point. In ear-
ly days her husband had been very proud
of his "son and heir," who was a fine little
fellow, the image of the grandfather whose
name he bore for all the children had French
names, Mr. Scanlan not caring to perpetuate
the Dennises and Judiths of his ancestry. He
had insisted on educating Ce'sar himself^who
could so well teach a boy as his own father?
Only, unfortunately, the father had no aptitude
for teaching, was extremely desultory in his
ways, and, as he gave the lessons chiefly for
his own amusement, took them up and relin-
quished them whenever it suited hira. Conse-
40
A BRAVE LADY.
quently, things went hard with little Cesar.
He was a bright, bold, noble lad, but he was
not particularly clever nor overfond of his book.
Difficulties ensued. Not that Edward Scanlan
was one of your brutal fathers : he never lifted
his hand to strike his son I should have liked
to have seen the mother's face if he had ! but
he made her perpetually anxious and restless,
because "papa and Cesar did not get on to-
gether," and because, in spite of papa's classic-
al acquirements, her big boy, the pride of her
heart, was growing up a great dunce.
Yet when she suggested sending him to
school, Mr. Scanlan had opened eyes of the
widest astonishment. What necessity was
there? when he could teach him himself at
home. Besides, how could they possibly af-
ford the expense of schooling, when only late-
ly she had told him, the father of the family,
that he must do without a suit of new clothes
for another six months ? Differences ensued,
which ended in Cesar's remaining another year
at home, while his mother learned Latin in or-
der to teach him herself. And, somehow or
other, his father appeared at the next visitation
in a bran-new suit of best London-made cler-
ical clothes, dined with the Archbishop, and
preached a sermon on the text of " Charity suf-
fereth long and is kind ;" which was so much
admired that he came home covered with glo-
ry, and, except that it was, fortunately, extem-
pore, would have gone to the expense of print-
ing and publishing it immediately.
Thus, when Mr. Oldham spoke, Josephine
replied with that quick "Yes," and over her
face came the shadow which he, who had all
the quick observation which often belongs to
deaf people, detected at once, and changed the
conversation.
"I have my newly -married cousin. Lady
Emma Lascelles, coming with her husband to
dine with me on Thursday; will you come
too? I asked Mr. Scanlan, and he accepted
immediately."
**0h yes, of course he will be most happy."
*' I should like you to meet Lady Emma,"
pursued the old gentleman; "she was a nice
little girl, and I dare say has grown up a sweet
young woman. She will be sure to take to
you I mean, you will suit her better than
most of the ladies of Ditchley."
"Indeed!" said the curate's wife, smiling.
"You see they will all stand in such awe of
her" and there was a slight satirical expres-
sion on the rector's thin mouth. "It is not
often a ' lady' in her own right comes our way.
Though the most innocent eagle that ever was,
Emma will flutter our dove-cote, even as Corio-
lanus 'fluttered the Volsces in Corioli.' You
will see ! "
" Shall I ? No ; I fear I shall not. I am
sorry to decline your kindness, Mr. Oldham,
but you know I never go out now. I have not
been at a dinner-party for years."
"So your husband said; but he said also
that meeting Lady Emma was an exceptional
case, and that I was to persuade you to go, as
he wished it extremely."
"Did he? did he really?" said Josephine,
with a sudden glow of pleasure ; she had not
grown quite insensible to the amusements of
life, still less to that keenest enjoyment of
them to a wife the consciousness that her
husband likes to enjoy them with her ; that he
is proud of her, and admires her himself, be-
sides having a natural satisfaction in seeing
other people admire her too. But scarcely
had she spoken than the glow faded. "I
think you must have mistaken him, Mr. Old-
ham. My husband knows very well I do not
visit. Indeed, I can not do it."
"Why not?"
The rector was a daring man to put the
question, but he had often wished to get an
answer to it. Obseryant as he was, his ob-
servation only went a certain length ; and in-
timate as Mrs. Scanlan now was with him, her
intimacy had its limits too. So neat was
Wren's Nest whenever he called, so great was
its mistress's feminine ingenuity in keeping in
the back-ground all painful indications of pov-
erty, that the rich man, who had been rich all
his days, never guessed but that his curate was
exceedingly comfortable in his circumstances,
indeed, rather well off" for a curate. Thus,
when he asked "Why not?" he had no idea
that he was putting any painful or intrusive
question, or saying any thing beyond an inno-
cent joke, which, as an old man and a clergy-
man, he might well venture. When he saw
Mrs. Scanlan look grave and troubled he drew
back immediately.
" I beg your pardon. Pray, do not answer
me."
"No ; I think I had rather answer, once for
all," said she, after a pause. "It iS but hon-
est, and it will prevent your thinking me un-
grateful or rude. I have given up visiting,
because, in truth, we can not aff'ord it."
"I am aware, Madame," said Mr. Oldham,^'
" that fate, which has given you almost every
thing else, has denied you riches ; but I think
that should not affect you socially certainly
not in the visits with which you honor my
house. Let me hope still to see you on Thurs-
day. "
" I can not," she said, uneasily ; then laughing
and blushing, " If there were no other, there is
one very ridiculous reason. This is a grand
bridal party, and I have no suitable clothes!"
" Why not come as you are? This is white,"
touching, half reverentially, half paternally, her
dimity dress. " Would not this do ?"
She shook her head. "I should not mind
it ; if I were dressed ever so plainly I should
like to come. But my husband "
She stopped, for the same slightly satirical
expression crossed the old man's mouth.
"I have no doubt my friend Scanlan has
perfect taste ; and, being an old bachelor, I can
not be expected to understand how husbands
feel on the subject of their wives' dress. Still,
A BRAVE LADY.
41
if I had a wife, and she looked as charming as
Madame looks at this moment, whatever her
costume might be, I should But Ave will not
further discuss the subject. Thursday is a good
way off; before then I shall hope to bring you
or your husband, or both, round to my opinion.
May I go into the house, Mrs. Scanlan ? for it
is growing rather chill outside for an old man
like me."
He went in, and sat an hour or more with
her and the children ; but, though he talked on
indifferent subjects, and asked no further ques-
tions, she could see his sharp eyes wandering
here, there, and every where, as if a new light
had broken in upon him, and ho was anxious
to discover every thing he could respecting the
internal economy of Wren's Nest. Such a
shabby little nest as it was now growing ! with
carpets wearing threadbare and curtains all
darned, and furniture which had to be kept
neat and pretty by every conceivable device
all those things which a woman's eye at once
discovers, a man's never, unless they are brought
pointedly to his notice, or his attention is awak-
ened so that he begins to hunt them out for
himself.
Mr. Oldham talked a good deal, and looked
about him a good deal more ; but not a syllable
said he with reference to the matter which, the
moment she had referred to it, Josephine could
have bit her tongue off for doing so. Not that
she was ashamed of her poverty, in itself she
had been brought up in too lofty a school for
that but she was ashamed of the shame her
husband felt concerning it. And any thing
like a betrayal of it before his patron would
have seemed like begging for an increase of in-
come, which she knew Mr. Scanlan desired,
and thought his just due, and which every half-
year she had some difficulty to keep him from
applying for.
Therefore it was a real relief to Josephine
when the rector said not a word more of the
dinner-party, until, just as he was leaving, he
observed, "By-the-by, I quite forget, I had
come to consult you upon whom I should invite
to meet Lady Emma."
"Me!"
" Who so fitting ? Are you not hand-in-glove
with all our neighbors ? Do they not come to
you for advice and sympathy on all occasions ?
Is there a birth or a death or a wedding in the
parish that you don't know all about before it
happens ?"
"It used to be so," she, said, half amused,
half sadly; "and if not now, perhaps it is my
fault. But tell me whom you mean to invite.
I should like to hear all about the entertain-
ment, though I do not go. It is such an im-
portant event in Ditchley, a dinner-party at the
Rectory, and to a young bride."
So she took pencil and paper, and made out
a list of names, he dictating them for the old
man seemed quite pleased with his little out-
burst of hospitality until they came to one at
which Mrs. Scanlan stopped.
"Dr. and Mrs. Waters. No; that will be
useless. She she does not go out."
"Bless my soul, I had forgotten. How
stupid of me!" cried Mr. Oldham; and then
he too stopped, and his keen, inquisitive eyes
sought Josephine's. But she had dropped them,
and was making idle marks upon the paper, to
hide a certain awkwardness. They had both
evidently hit upon a subject in which each was
uncertain how much the other knew.
"I ought not to have forgotten. My good
old friend ! Of course, I must ask him ; and
his wife."
" You had better ask him without his wife,"
said Josephine, quietly, with her eyes still cast
down. "If you ask her, and she hears of it,
she IS sure to want to come ; and she ought
not to come."
" I suppose not. Poor Mrs. Waters ! she is
ahem ! a great invalid."
Mrs. Scanlan was silent.
"I thought," said the rector, clearing his
throat, "that my poor old friend and I had
arranged all between us, so that nobody in
Ditchley was any the wiser for this this sad
affair. I hate gossip, and gossip about such a
painful thing would be hard to bear. Waters
and I took every precaution, and his house is a
large house, and quite out of the town; one ^
would have thought a person could be ill
there without the whole town's knowing."
"I am not aware that the town does know;
I hardly see how it can," said Josephine, gen-
tly, for she saw how troubled the rector was.
She well knew why, only she had not expected
so much warm feeling in the cold-mannered,
lonely old man, who was supposed to care for
nobody but himself.
" But you know ?" said he, anxiously. " Yes,
from your face now I am sure of it. Tell me
frankly, how much do you know ?"
"Every thing, I believe. I found it out by
accident."
"How long since?"
" Six months ago."
"And you have never told not a creature?
And in the many times that I have spoken to
you about the Waters family, you have never
once betrayed that you knew any thing ? Well,
you are a wonderful woman the only woman I
ever knew who could hold her tongue."
"Am I?" said Josephine, smiling, half sad-
ly, for she had had a few sharp lessons conju-
gal and domestic before arriving at that height
of perfection.
Still anxious, Mr. Oldham begged she would
tell him exactly what she knew, and there
came out one of thdse terrible domestic trage-
dies, which people always hide if they can, and
which had hitherto been successfully hidden,
even from gossiping Ditchley. Dr. Waters's
wife, of whom he was very fond, had sudden-
ly gone mad, and tried to destroy both him and
herself The fi* over without harm, she had
partially recovered, but still required to be kept
in strict seclasion as a "great invalid," appear-
42
A BRAVE LADY.
A EEMAEKAIJLE WOMAN.
ing little outside her own house, and then only
with her so-called " nurse" in reality her keep-
er. This woman, once meeting Mrs. Scanlan
when she had lost her mistress on the common,
and was frantically searching for her, had be-
trayed the whole sad truth, imploring her to
keep the secret, which she did faithfully.
" Even from your husband?" inquired, rather
pointedly, Mr. Oldham.
" Yes. It did not aifect him, nor would he
have taken much interest in the matter," she
answered, half apologetically. She could not
say the other fact that he would have told it
the next day, quite unwittingly, to every body
in Ditchley. "Besides, I had promised, and
a promise ought to be kept implicitly. "
"Certainly, my dear Madame, certainly!"
The old man sat rubbing his hands, and look-
ing at her with great admiration. " A remark-
able woman the most remarkable woman I
ever knew!" Then, as a knock came to the
door, "There is Scanlan coming home to his
tea, and I must go to my dinner. I will just
shake hands with him, and depart. Adieu, Ma-
dame. Au revoir."
He bowed over her hand his quaint, formal
little bow and disappeared.
But the next day Mrs. Scanlan received by
coach, from the largest linen-draper's shop in
the county town, a magnificent silk dress, rich-
er than any thing ever seen in Ditchley. With
it was an envelope, addressed* to herself, con-
taining these lines, written in French, and in
the delicate, precise hand which was at once
recognizable : " From an old man, in token of
his respect for a lady who can both keep a
promise and hold her tongue about it."
Alas ! by this time there was no need for
Mrs. Scanlan to hold her tongue any longer.'
Mrs. Waters had had another "attack," during
which she had gone Ditchley never quite knew
how to that world where she would wake up in
her right mind, and heaven would be as tender
over her as her deavly-loved and loving husband
was, to the last, in this.
There was no dinner-party at which to show
off the beautiful new gown ; the rector was too
shocked and sad to give any. But Lady Emma
came, and Mrs. Scanlan saw her, greatly to Mr.
Scanlan's delight. Nay, the bride praised so
warmly his Josephine that he admired her him-
self more than ever, for at least ten days, and
took great interest in the handsome appearance
she would make in her new silk dress. But
Mrs. Scanlan herself had little pleasure in it,
and, though she thanked the rector for it, and
accepted it kindly as, indeed, the kindness of
the gift deserved she laid it by in a drawer,
almost as sadly as if it had been a mourning
weed.
CHAPTER IV.
On Josephine Scanlan's lovely face a slight
shadow was now deepening every year and with |
every child for a child came almost every year.
Fortunateh' or at least so said the neighbors
A BRAVE LADY.
43
but did the mother ? fortunately, not all were
living ; but ere ten years were past Wren's Nest
contained six little nestlings, growing up from
babies into big boys and girls Ce'sar, Adrienne,
Louis, Gabrielle, Martin, Catherine. Josephine
had insisted on this latter name, in remembrance
of her gentle, kindly, vulgar, good old mother-
in-law, now long gone to her rest. Curiously
enough, except Adrienne, who was the plain
one of the family, but, as if by tender compen-
sation, the sweetest little soul among them all,
the whole of the children were De Bougain-
villes handsome, well -grown, graceful; a
young tribe that any mother might be proud
of. And she was very proud of them, and very
happy in them, at times yet still the shadow
in her face grew and grew.
Tliere is a portrait of her, taken about this
time, I believe, by a wandering artist who had
settled for the summer at Ditchley, and with
whom the curate struck up one of his sudden
friendships. Mr. Summerhayes, attracted by
Mrs. Scanlan's beauty, requested permission to
paint her, and afterward, out of politeness,
painted, as a companion picture, her husband
likewise.
The two heads are very characteristic. The
one is full of a lovely gravity, nay, something
more, for the expression is anxious even to se-
verity ; in the other is that careless insouciance
which may be charming in itself, but which has
the result of creating in other people its very
opposite. That painful earnestness about great
things and small, that unnatural and exagger-
ated "taking thought for the morrow," which
sometimes grows to be an actual misfortune, so
as to make the misery of to-day might never
have come to Josephine, if her Edward had
been blessed with a little more of these quali-
ties. There is no need to do more than look
at the two portraits, speaking so plainly through
the silence of years, in order to detect at once
the secret of their married life ; how that the
burden which the man shirked and shrunk
from the woman had to take up and bear.
Josephine Scanlan did this, and did it to the
end.
Without murmuring either, except, perhaps,
just at the first. Tliere might have been a
season when, like most young wives and many-
childed mothers, she had expected to be cher-
ished and taken care of; to be protected as well
as loved'; helped as well as admired ; but that
time had passed by. Not without a struggle ;
still it did pass, and she accepted her destiny ;
accepted it as a fact ; nay, more, as a natural
necessity. She was young and strong; phys-
ically, quite as strong as her husband, delicate
though her appearance was ; morally, no person
who was in their company for an hour could
have doubted the relative calibre of Mr. and
Mrs. Scanlan. A man is not necessarily "a
man," in the true spiritual sense, because he
happens to wear coat and trowsers ; nor is a wo-
man always of the " weaker sex" because she
has a soft voice, a quiet manner, a feeble and
feminine frame. I have seen many and many
a couple in which, without any great external
show of the thing. Nature seemed to have
adapted herself to circumstances, and "turned
the tables" in a most wonderful way between
husbands and wives, giving to the one where-
withal to supply the other's lack ; and that so
gradually, so imperceptibly, that they them-
selves scarcely recognized how completely they
had changed places the man becoming tho
woman, and the woman the man. A sad sight,
theoretically : but, practically, often not so sad
as it seems.
Possibly Mrs. Scanlan grew to be dimly con-
scious of one fact as concerned herself and her
husband that, whether or not she was the clev-
erer, he being always considered such a brilliant
and talented young man she was certainly the
stronger, Aviser, more sensible of the two. But
at any rate she experienced its results, and ac-
cepted them, and the additional duties they in-
volved, with a great, silent courage, such as the
urgency of the case demanded. For she was
a mother, and mothers must never know either
despondency or fear.
If she began to look anxious and care-worn,
so care-worn that it spoiled her beauty and
made her husband gradually become indiffer-
ent to whatever sort of dress she wore, it was
no wonder. The mere thought of her chil-
dren was enough to weigh her down night and
day ; to say nothing of the incessant physical
weariness of taking care of so many little folk,
bright, loving, mischievous monkeys, who had
all the activity of healthy, country-bred chil-
dren, placed under the very simplest discipline,
and a discipline that was, of necessity, wholly
maternal ; for the father took less and less no-
tice of them every day.
She did not spoil them, I think at least
Bridget ])rotested she never did ; that she al-
ways kept a wholesome authority over them,
and never indulged them in any way. Poor
little souls ! there was small opportunity for in-
dulgence in their primitive, all but penurious
life ; but she was obliged to see them growing
up around her almost as wild as young colts ; . .'
deprived of every advantage which good food, *
good clothes, good society, and, above all, good
education, give to young people ; that uncon-
scious influence of outward things, which affects
children, even at that early age, far more than
we suspect.
Their mother saw all this ; knew all that they
lacked which she would have given any thing
to provide them with. Yet here she was, bound
hand and foot with the iron bands of poverty ;
able to do almost nothing for them, except love
them. She did that. God only knows how a
mother's heart goes out to her children with
a perfect torrent of passionate devotedness
when in its other channel, deepest and holiest
of all, the natural stream is slowly drying up ;
or becoming, as Wordsworth mournfully sings
of it, no longer a living fountain, but
"A comfortless and hidden weU."
H
A BRAVE LADY.
I have no right to take any thing for grant-
ed but straws show which way the wind blows
and I find in Mrs. Scanlan's journal, hidden
under its safe French, many a sentence such as
this, which betrays a good deal more than ap-
pears on the surface ;
" My poor Adrienne is ailing, wliich casts a
gloom over the whole house, and makes me
busier than ever ; for she has grown to be such
a help to her mother, dear child! I wish I
could take her to the sea, if only for a week ;
but how could I leave home leave papa all to
himself? Things would be sure to go wrong
if I did ; and besides, Edward would be so very
uncomfortable. Nor should I like to propose
it ; for it would cost a deal of money nearly
as much as that pi'ojected journey of his to
London with Mr. Summerhayes, against which
I have set my face so firmly, telling him he
must give it up ; we could not possibly afford
it.
"Nor can we. Even with all the lighten-
ing of my housekeeping through Mr. Oldham's
kindness" (the rector had long ago given the
children what he called "a quarter of a cow,"
namely, a can of new milk daily, with eggs and
butter, fruit and vegetables in unlimited sup-
ply, from his own farm and garden) "even
with all this I shall scarcely succeed in making
ends meet this Christmas ; and if we have any
extraneous expenses out of the house we shall
not be able to pay our Christmas bills. And
oh ! what a terrible thing that Avould be sorer
than any thing which has yet happened to us !"
Sore things had happened them occasional-
ly ; but she rarely noted them down except by
implication. This, perhaps, was one of them ;
"Cesar, mon petit Cesar, wearies me to let
him learn drawing of Mr. Summerhayes. Not
that he has any particular talent for it, but it
amuses him, and he likes it better than his book.
And it takes him away from home from our
poor little house going sketching about the
country with papa and Mr. Summerhayes. Not
that they do much work ; indeed, I think Mr.
Summerhayes has little need to work he is not
a ' ])Oor' artist a])parently ; but it is a lively,
wandering, pleasant life, such as most men take
to eagerly. I wish Edward did not take to it
quite so much ; it does no good, and it is very
expensive. I myself have no great faith, nor a
very warm interest in this Mr. Summerhayes.
Still, he is a i)leasant young fellow enough : my
husband likes him, and so do my children, es-
pecially my two eldest. Poor little Adrienne,
who at eleven years old is twice as clever as
lier brother in her drawing as in other things,
though she is such a tiny dot of a child Adri-
enne, I see, quite adores Mr. Summerhayes."
"My" children alas! a deep meaning lies
imder that small word, that unimpressive, ap-
parently unimportant " my."
There came a period in Mrs. Scanlan's mar-
riage as it does in many a marriage which
looks comfortable enough to the world and jogs
on fairly to the last when the wife was gradu-
ally becoming absorbed in the mother. Now
a voice at my elbow, and one I can not choose
but listen to, knowing it is often both wiser and
tenderer than my own, whispers that this is a
wrong thing, a wicked thing that any woman
who deliberately prefers her children to her hus-
band is unworthy the name of wife. To which I
reply that no man worthy the name of husband
need ever fear that his wife will love him less
than she loves her children the thing is unnat-
ural, improbable, impossible. But all the shams
in the world will not exalt an unworthy husband
into a position which, even if he had it, he could
not keep. He will find his level, and the chil-
dren will find theirs, in the heart which is never
likely to be very false to either.'
But of that mysterious thing, love, it is as
true as it is of most other things what people
win they must earn. When Josephine de Bou-
gainville married Edward Scanlan she was a
mere girl, little beyond a child, and he a groAvn
man at least he considered himself as such.
When she developed into the woman that she
was, a creature embodying more than any one I
ever knew Wordsworth's picture of
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command, "
he remaining still what he was, an average young
man, no better than most young men and infe-
rior to many the diff'erence between the two
showed fearfully plain. Less in their mental
than in their moral stature: Edward Scanlan
was a very clever fellow in his way ; brilliant
with all Hibernian brilliancy, and the Hibernian
aptitude of putting every talent well forward, so
that, like the shops in the Rue de Rivoli and the
Palais Royal all the jewelry was in the win-
dows. Of mere brains he had quite as much
as she; or even^if he had not it would have
mattered little. Many a clever woman loves
passionately a not particularly clever man, when
she sees in his nature something which is dif-
ferent from and nobler than her own. And
seeing this she can always place herself, quite
naturally, in the inferior attitude, which to all
women and wives is at once so delicious and so
indispensable.
But to wake up from that love-dream and
find that its object is quite another sort of per-
son from what he was fondly imagined to be ;
that her aff'ection toward him must, if it is to
continue at all, entirely change its character,
and become not a loving up but a loving doAvn
an excusing of weaknesses, a covering over
of faults, perhaps a deliberate jjardoning of sins
this must be, to any wife, a most awful blow.
Yet it has happened, hundreds of times ; and
women have survived it, even as they survive
love-disappointments, and losses by death, and
other agonizing sorrows, by whick Heaven
teaches us poor mortals that here is not our
rest; and that, deeper than any thing stock
phraseology can teach, comes back and back
upon us the lesson of life to lay up our treas-
ure not overmuch in this world, but in that
A BKAVE LADY.
45
world "where neither moth nor rust doth cor-
rupt, and where thieves do not break through
nor steal."
The blow falls, but, happily, it seldom falls
suddenly. And being so utterly irremediable,
women, especially those who have children, be-
come reconciled to it; make the best of it;
take it as other women have done before them,
and pass gradually out of its first blinding dark-
ness into that twilight stage of much-cnduring
matrimony, which seems to be the lot of so
many, and with which so many are apparently
(lite content. Nevertheless, to those happy
wives who, thank God ! know what it is to
live daily and hourly in the full daylight of
satisfied love, such a region appears only a
better sort of Hades, peopled with the flitting
ghosts of departed joys.
Into that silent valley of endless shade the
young matron, Josephine Scanlan, had slowly
passed.
I do not allege that her husband was unkind
to her : personal unkindness was not in his na-
ture ; he was far too easy and good-tempered
for that. It would almost have been better if
he had been a little unkind sometimes. Many
a bad-tempered man is not essentially a bad
man, and a woman like Josephine could have
borne patiently some small ill-usage, had it
come from a husband whom in other things
she could deeply respect. I have heard her
siay sometimes, *' that common men break their
wives' heads, and gentlemen their hearts : and
the former was a less heinous crime than the
latter." Be that as it may, I think she herself
would have borne any personal wrong easier
than to sit still and endure the maddening
sight of watching her youth's idol slowly crum-
ble down into the very commonest of clay.
It may be urged, first, why did she set him
up as an idol, when he was ^t an ordinary
man ? Well, that may have been a very silly
thing, yet do not all women do it ? And would
tlieir love be much worth having if they did not
do it? Secondly, finding him to be what he
was, why did she not try to improve him ?
It is a melancholy fact that some men can
not be improved. A strong nature, warped to
evil, may be gradually bent back again to good ;
but over a weak nature no person has any pow-
er; there is nothing to catch hold of; it is like
throwing out the ship's sheet-anchor into shift-
ing sands. Edward Scanlan's higher impulses
were as little permanent as his lower ones.
"Unstable as water thou shalt not excel," had
been his curse through life ; though so bright
and sweet are the self-delusions of youth it
was not for some years that his wife discovered
it.
And, mercifully, Ditchley did not discover
it at all, at least not for a long time. It was
I one of those failings which do not show out-
side. He was still the most interesting of men
and of clergymen ; played first fiddle in all so-
cieties '^ and if he did hang up that invaluable
instrument at his own door, why, nobody was
any the wiser : his wife never told. Perhaps,
indeed, it was rather a comfort to her to have
the fiddling silenced within the house it would
have been such a cruel contrast to the struggle
that went on there : the continual battle with
toil, poverty, and grinding care.
The one bit of sunshine at Wren's Nest was
undoubtedly the children. Rough as they were,
they were very good children, better than many
rich men's offspring in their self-denial, self-de-
pendence, and uncomplaining gayety amidst all
deprivations, which they, however, having nev-
er known any thing better, did not much feel.
Here, too, the Irish light-heartedness of their
faithful Bridget stood them in good stead ; and
their mother's French adaptability taught them
to make the best of things. The little girls be-
gan to do house-work, sew, and mind the baby;
the little boys to garden and help their mother
in all sorts of domestic ways; and this at an
age when most children are still in a state of
nursery helplessness, or worse. The incessant
activity of little people, which in well-to-do
households finds no outlet but mischievousness,
here was always led into a useful channel, and
so did good instead of harm. Work became
their play, and to " help mother" their favorite
amusement. She has many an entry in her
diary concerning them, such as this :
"This morning, Adrienne, standing on a
stool at my ironing-table, began to iron pocket-
handkerchiefs, and really, for her first attempt,
did it quite beautiful. She was so proud ; she
means to do it every week now, and I mean to
let her, provided it does not injure her poor
back, which not yet is as strong as it should
be. I shall not, however, allow her to carry
the next baby." Alas! the " next" baby.
Or this :
" Ce'sar and Louis went up to the Rectory
all by themselves, to fetch a great bundle of
young cauliflowers, which my children are so
fond of, saying, when I cook them a la Fran-
ffaise, meat at dinner is quite unnecessary. They
planted them all by themselves, too. Papa said
he would show them how, but he happened to
be out. He takes very little interest in the
garden ; but my two boys are born gardeners,
and love every inch of the ground, and every
living thing upon it. .1 wish they may make it
produce more than it does, and then we need
not accept so much from the Rectory. It is
always a bad thing to be too much dependent
upon even the kindliest of neighbors ; and so
I often say to the children, telling *them they
must learn to shift for themselves as assuredly
they will have to do and try and be as inde-
pendent as possible.
"I had to tell them yesterday that they must
try and do without sugar to their tea grocery
is so very dear now. They pulled a wry face
or two at the first cup, but afterward they did
not complain at all, saying ' that what mother
did, surely they could do.' My children are
such exceedingly good children."
So it came to pass that finding, young as they
46
A BRAVE LADY.
HELPING MOTUEE.
were, she could actually respect and trust them
more than she could their father, she gradually
loved them best. A mournful truth ; but does
any mother wonder at it ? I, for one, do not.
No household is very dreary so long as it has
children in it good children, and merry with
all the mirth of youth. The little Scanlans
must have had their fill of mirth ; their happi-
ness made their mother happy also, in a sort
of reflected way. She was still young enough
to become a child with them, to share in all
their holiday frolics, their primrose gatherings,
hay-makings, nuttings, skatings, and slidings.
All the year round there was something doing ;
in the endtess variety which country children
enjoy. But from these festivals the father was
usually absent. They were "not in his line,"
he said ; and when he did go, he enjoyed him-
self so little that the rest of the young party
found, in plain language, "his room was better
than his company." That grand and lovely
sight I use advisedly these strong adjectives
of a father taking a day's pleasure with all
his children round him ; stooping from his large
worldly pursuits to their small, unworldly ones ;
forgetting himself in the delight of making them
happy with a happiness which they will remem-
ber long after he is laid in dust this sight was
never seen at Ditchley, so far as concerned the
Scanlan family. If Ditchley ever noticed the
fact, reasons for it were never lacking. Poor
Mr. Scanlan's parish duties were so very heavy;
it was quite sad to think how mtle he saw of
his family how continually he was obliged to
be away from home.
That was true ; only, strange to say, nobody
at home seemed much to miss his absence. Per-
haps, unconsciously, the little folks betrayed
this ; and, as they grew up being remarkably
simple and straightforward children found it
difficult not to let their father see that they had
discovered certain weak points in his character
inaccuracies and exaggerations of speech, self-
ishnesses and injustices of action which dis-
covery could hardly have been altogether pleas-
ant to Mr. Scanlan. He gradually ceased to
look oftener than he could help into Cesar's
honest eyes, which sometimes expressed such
intense astonishment, to say the least of it, at
the father's words and ways ; and he gave up
petting little Adrienne, who sometimesj when
he did something that "grieved mother," fol-
A BRAVE LADY.
47
lowed him about the house with mute looks of
such gentle reproach that he could not stand
them. His love of approbation was so strong
that he could not bear to be disapproved of,
even by a child ; but he did not try to amend
matters and win approval ; he only got vexed,
and took the usual remedy of an uneasy con-
science he ran away.
Alas for his wife, the woman who had to ex-
cuse him not only to herself but to these others
the quick-sighted little people, whose feelings
were so fresh and clear what must her diffi-
culties have been? And when, all excuses
failing before her stern sense of absolute right
the justice without which mercy is a misera-
ble weakness or a cowardly sham, the duty to-
ward God, which is beyond all obedience to
man she had, as her sole resource, to main-
tain a dead silence toward her children with
regard to their father how terrible her trial !
The only comfort was, that nobody knew it.
Ditchley pitied the curate's wife for many things :
because she had such narrow means and such a
large family ; because, being such a charminf ,
elegant, and accomplished woman, she was
only a curate's wife, doomed to have her light
hidden under a bushel all her days. But it
never thought of pitying her for the one only
thing for which she would have pitied herself
the blank in her heart where an idol should have
been the sad silence there instead of singing
the dull patience and forbearance which had
taken the place of joy and love.
No wonder that her beauty began to fade,
that her cheerfulness declined, or was only
prominent in her intercourse with children
her own and other people's. Grown-up people
she rather avoided ; her neighbors, with whom
she had been so popular once, said among them-
selves that Mrs. Scanlan was not quite so pleas-
ant as she used to be ; was overridden by do-
mestic cares, and growing rather unsocial, hard,
and cold. Nay, some of them sympathized with
her husband in having so little of a companion
in his wife, and quite understood how it was he
went out so much, and alone ; one or two mar-
ried ladies, who were very well off and had no
children, blamed her openly for this ; anct said
it was " all her fault if Mr. Scanlan went too
much into society."
Mrs. Scanlan heard it, of course. Birds of
the air always carry such a matter. She heard,
and set her lips together in that stern hard line
which was becoming natural to them but she
said not a word. She never defended herself
at all, either then or afterward. So, by de-
grees, the kindliest of the Ditchley ladies left
her to herself, to carrj- out her lonely life at
Wren's Nest, which was a good mile away from
the town and its prying gossip. Often she
passed days and weeks without receiving a sin-
gle visitor, and then the visiting was confined
to an exchange of calls, at long intervals, kept
up, Ditchley owned, for civility's sake, and chief-
ly out of respect to Mr. Scanlan. Ho was pop-
ular enough ; not run after quite as much as at
first, perhaps, yet still very well liked in the
neighborhood, and always welcome in any soci-
ety. But it was such exceedingly up-hill work
keeping up acquaintance with Mrs. Scanlan.
One person, however, maintained toward her
a firm fidelity, and that was the rector. Not
that he showed it in any strongly demonstrative
way he was by no means a demonstrative man
but he always spoke of her in the highest
terms, as "a first-rate woman," and specially
"a woman who could hold her tongue." And
though, from something she let fall in thanking
him for her silk dress, he delicately forbore mak-
ing her any more personal presents, his thought-
ful kindness with regard to the children was
continual.
He did not raise his curate's salary, in spite
of many a broad hint from that gentleman ; but
he helped the household in many a quiet way,
often obvious to no one but the mistress of it
and to Bridget, who had a very great respect
for Mr. Oldham at least so far as was consist-
ent with her evident and outspoken disapproba-
tion of men as a race, and especially as clergy-
men.
"I'd like to put my missis in the pulpit,"
said this excellent woman, who lived before the
great question of women's rights was broached.
"I wonder what she'd say? Any how, she'd
say it better than most men ; and she'd act up
to it too, which isn't always the way with your
parsons. Their religion's in their head and in
their mouths ; I'd like to see it a bit plainer in
their lives."
This may show that the curate's was not ex-
actly a "religious" family. They kept up all
the forms of piety ; had prayers twice a day,
and so on ; the Bible, lying always open on Mr.
Scanlan's desk, and tossing about in his coat-
pockets, was read aloud enough, especially the
Epistles, for all the household to know it^ by
heart. But Bridget once told me her mistress
had confessed that, for years, to hear certain
portions of the Bible read actually turned her
sick, until she had laid it aside long enough to
come to it with a fresh and understanding soul,
free from all the painful associations of the past.
And so the Scanlan household struggled on,
living "from hand to mouth" with often a
wide space between the hand and the mouth;
while many a time it needed all Josephine's
vigilance to take care that even the hand which
led to the mouth those poor hungry mouths of
her dear children ! should be strictly an honest
hand. For that creed of the De Bougainvilles,
^'Noblesse oblige" which held that a gentleman
may starve, but he must neither beg nor borrow
this creed was not the creed of the Scanlan
family. It was Mrs. Scanlan's hardest trial to
keep sternly before her children's eyes that
code of honor which her husband talked about,
but neither practiced nor believed in. And
when at last the climax came when their " dif-
ficulties" increased so much that it was obvious
the year's income could not possibly meet the
year's expenses then she recognized fully what
48
A BRAVE LADY.
a death-blow it is to all conjugal peace and do-
mestic union when the husband holds one stand-
ard of right and the wife another ; or, rather,
when it is the wife only who has any fixed stand-
ard of right at all.
As usual, the collapse came suddenly that
is, the discovery of it ; for Mr. Scanlan would
go on for days and weeks playing on the brink
of a precipice rather than acknowledge it was
a precipice, or speak of it as such. He disliked
even to open his lips on what he called "un-
pleasant subjects. " He left all these to his wife.
"Do you manage it, my dear," he would say;
"you manage so beautifully." The little flat-
tery only now awoke in her a passing smile, but
she managed the troubles for all that.
At length a day came when she could not
manage them any longer ; when she was obliged
to insist upon her husband's speaking out his
mind to her upon the critical position of their
affairs.
Very much astonished was poor Mr. Scanlan !
Surely this pressure must be all a mistake,
springing from his wife's overweening anxiety
about money-matters; an anxiety common to
all mothers, he thought.
"It is not a mistake," said she, calmly,
though with a hot cheek. " See there !"
And she laid before him, written out, in
plain black and white, all the sums they owed,
and all the money they had in hand to meet
them. Alas ! it was a heavy deficit.
Mr. Scanlan took up the paper carelessly.
"How neatly you have set it all down, and
what capital arithmetic! Really, Josephine,
you ought to apply for a situation as clerk and
book-keeper somewhere."
"I wish I could!" said she, beneath her
breath ; but her husband either did not or
would not hear. Still he looked a little vexed.
"You should have told me this before, my
dear ! "
"I have told you, but you said it did not
matter, and that I was not to trouble you with
it. Nor would I have done so, till the last ex-
tremity."
"I can't conceive what you mean by the last
extremity. And how has it all come about?
It must be your fault, for you manage every
thing and spend every thing. "
" Not quite," said she, and put before him
a second list of figures, in two lines, headed
severally "House expenses" and "Papa's ex-
penses." It was remarkable how equal the
sum total of each was ; and, naturally, this
fact made papa very angry. He burst out into
some very bitter words, which his wife received
in stolid silence.
I do not here praise Josephine Scanlan; I
think she must have gradually got into a hard
way of saying and doing things, which, no doubt,
was very aggravating to the impulsive Irish na-
ture of her husband. He was fond of her still,
in his sort of selfish way, and he liked to have
her love and her approbation. He would have
been much better pleased, no doubt, had she
put her arms about his neck with "Never mind,
dearest Edward!" and passed the whole thing
over, instead of standing in front of him thus
the embodiment of moral right a sort of
domestic Themis, pointing with one hand to
those terrible lines of figures, and pressing the
other tightly upon her heart, the agitated beat-
ing of which he did not know. But she stood
quite still, betraying no weakness. The thing
had to be done, and she did it, in what seemed
to her the best and only way. There might
have been another, a gentler way: but I do
not know. Alas ! that one unfailing strength
of a wife, the power of appeal to her husband's
conscience, certain that, even if he has erred a
little, his sense of duty will soon right itself;
this engine of righteous power was wanting to
poor Mrs. Scanlan. She had tried it so often
and found it fail, that now she never tried it
any more.
She stood in dead silence, waiting until his
torrent of words had expended itself; then she
said :
"Now, without more talking, we had better
see what is best to be done."
"Done? Why, what can we do? Where
was the use of your coming to me about all
this ? I'm not Midas ; I can't turn pebbles
into pounds!" And even in the midst of his
annoyance Mr. Scanlan smiled at his own apt
illustration.
His wife might have replied that to throw
away pounds like pebbles was more in his line,
but she checked the sharp answer, and made
none at all.
"I can not imagine what is to be done," he
continued. "If we had any relatives, any
friends, to whom I could have applied "
"We have none, happily."
"Why do you say happily? But I know
your crotchets on this head. You are totally
mistaken, Josephine. Friends ought to help
one another. Does not Scripture itself say,
'Give to him that asketh, and from him that
would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. ' "
"But Scripture does not say, 'Go a borrow-
ing, knowing all the while that you never can
pay.*"
"Nonsense! We should pay in course of
time."
"We might, but I should be sorry to risk
the experiment. No ; fortunately for them and
us, we have no friends."
She spoke in such a measured, impassive
voice that Mr. Scanlan looked at her, uncer-
tain whether she were in jest or earnest, pleased
or vexed.
" You are an odd kind of woman, Josephine;
much more so than you used to be. I can't
understand you at all. But come, since my ^
idea is scouted, what plan do you propose?
I leave it all to you, for I am sick of the whole**^
matter." And he threw himself on the sofa
with a weary and much injured air.
She sat down by him, and suggested a very
simple scheme selling some of her jewelry,
A BRAVE LADY.
49
which was valuable, and almost useless to her
now. But she had reckoned without her host.
The sacrifice which to Mrs. Scanlan had seemed
trifling, to Mr. Scanlan appeared quite dreadful.
"What ! part with these lovely emeralds and
diamonds, which have been so much admired,
and which make you look well-dressed, how-
ever careless you are in other ways ? And sell
them in Ditchley, that some neighbor may pa-
rade them before your very face, and proclaim
to all the world how poor we are ? Intolera-
ble ! I will never allow it ; you must not think
of such a thing."
But finding she still did think of it, he took
another tack, and appealed to her feelings.
" I wonder at you ! To sell my gifts, and my
poor father's and mother's the pretty things
you used to look so sweet in when we were first
married ! Josephine, you must have the heart
of a stone ! "
"Have I?" cried she. "I almost wish I
had. " And as her husband put his arm round
her she burst into tears ; upon which he began
to caress and coax her, and she to excuse him :
thinking, after all, it was loving of him to wish
not to part with these mementoes of old days.
"Oh, Edward!" she said, leaning her head
against his shoulder, "we used to be so fond
of one another."
"Used to be? I hope we are still. You
are a very good wife to me, and I am sure I
try to be a good husband to you. We should
never have these differences at all, if you would
only mind what I say, and not hold to your own
opinion so firmly. Remember, the husband is
head of the wife, and she must obey him."
Here Edward Scanlan assumed rather a lord-
ly air, which he usually did when his Josephine
was particularly humble. Like most men of
his character, he resembled that celebrated net-
tle which, if you " tenderly touch it "
"stings yon for your pains;
Bat be like a man of mettle and it soft as silk remains."
" It is no use, my dear," continued he ; " you
must give in to me a little more. The root of
all our miseries is our being so poor, which we
always shall be while we stick in the mud of
Ditchley this wretched country town, where
I am not half appreciated. As I have so often
said, we must remove to London."
Mrs. Scanlan drew back from him, turning
so white that he was frightened.
" My dear, you are ill. Have a glass of wine.
Bridget ! Here, Bridget ! "
" Don't call her. I need it not. And, be-
sides, there is no wine in the house."
"Then there ought to be," returned Mr.
Scanlan, angrily : for this too was a sore sub-
ject, lie had been brought up in the old-
fashioned school of considering stimulants a
'necessity. Old Mr. Scanlan used to imbibe
his bottle of port a day, and young Mr. Scan-
lan his three or four glasses; which habit,
Josephine, accustomed to her father's French
abstinence, had greatly disliked, and succeeded
in breaking him off from just in time, before
D
their changed circumstances required him to
do so as a point of economy. He did it cheer-
fully enough, for he was no drimkard ; still he
sometimes went back to the old leaven, enjoyed
and envied the wine at other men's tables, and
grumbled sorely at the want of it at his own.
"I tell you what, Josephine, I won't stand
this miserable penury any longer. That a man
like me should be hidden in this hole of a place,
deprived of every comfort of life, and hindered
from taking his rightful position in the world,
is a very great shame. It must be somebody's
fault or other."
" Whose ?" At the flash of her eyes his own
fell.
"Not youi-s, my dear; I never meant to ac-
cuse you of it. Nor the children's though it
is an uncomfortable fact that a man with a fam-
ily is much more hampered, and kept back in
the world, than a man who has none. Still,
they can't help it, poor little things ! But I am
sure it would be a great deal better for them,
and even for you, if we had a wider sphere.
We 7nust go and live in London."
But he said "must" very doubtfully, being
aware of his wife's mind on the subject.
This bone of contention had been thrown be-
tween the husband and wife by Mr. Snmmer-
hayes, the artist. He had persuaded Edward
Scanlan, who was easily enough persuaded by
any body, that his great talents for preaching
were entirely wasted in the provinces ; that if
he came to the metropolis, and rented a pro-
prietary chapel, crowds would flock to hear him :
Irish eloquence was so highly appreciated. He
would soon become as popular in London as he
had been in Dublin, and derive a large income
from his pew-rents, besides being in a much
more independent position as preacher in a li-
censed Church of England chapel than as cu-
rate of a country parish. At the time, Jose-
phine had been able to reason the scheme out
of his head, showing him that the whole thing
was a matter of chance, built upon premises
which probably did not exist, and running cer-
tain risks for very uncertain benefits. Her ar-
guments were so strong, that, with his usual
habit of agreeing with the last speaker, her
husband had agreed with her at first : still he
went back and back upon the project : and
whenever he was restless, or sick, or dissatis-
fied, brought it up again using all the old com-
plainings, and old inducements, just as if she
had never set them aside ; proving, with that
clear common-sense of hers, that such a proj-
ect was worse than imprudent all but insane.
Still, by this time she had ceased to argue ; she
simply held her peace and her own opinion.
" We must not go to London, Edward. It
would be utter ruin to both me, the children,
and yourself."
"Ay, there it is," returned he, bitterly;
" *me' first, the children second, your husband
last always last."
This form of her speech had been purely ac-
cidental, and if it sprung from an underlying
50
A BRAVE LADY.
truth, that truth was unrecognized by herself.
So, naturally, her whole soul sprang up indig-
nant at her husband's injustice.
" I do not think of myself first ; that is not
my way not any mother's way. My whole
life is spent for you and the children, and you
know it. I am right in what I say. And I
will not have my poor lambs carried away from
here, where at least we have bread to eat, and
one or two people who care for us, and taken
up to London to starve. I will not, Edward. "
She spoke so loudly that Adrienne put her
little anxious face in at the parlor door, asking
"if mother called?" Then the mother came
to her right senses at once.
" No, my darling," she whispered, putting the
child out, and shutting the door after her. " Run
away ; papa and I are busy talking."
Then she turned, saying gently, "Husband,
I beg your pardon."
"You have need," said he, grimly. But he
was not of a grim nature, and when she further
made concessions, he soon came round.
"Nevertheless," she said, when they were
quite reconciled, "I hold to my point. I can
not consent to this scheme of yours, or rather
of Mr. Summerhayes's."
"You are very unjust you always were
to my friend Summerhayes. He is a capital
fellow, worth any number of the stupid folk of
Ditchley associations quite unfitted for a man
like me. But if you will have me thrown away
bury your husband all his life down here, like
a diamond in a dunghill why, take your way !
Only you must also take the consequences."
"I will!" she said. And then her heart
smote her once more. She had been so furi-
ous, Edward so good-tempered, and he had
yielded to her so completely, that her gener-
ous nature recoiled from accepting what seemed
such a sacrifice from him to her. She could
not have done it, were there only herself to
think of. But those six children! And a
vision rose up befoie her of London as she had
seen it, only once in her life passing through
from Ireland to Ditchley; ghastly London,
where, in the midst of splendor, people can so
easily die of want. As, supposing her hus-
band were unsuccessful, her poor little children
might die. No, she could not consent. Be-
sides, what use would it be if she did ? They
had no money whatsoever, not even enough to
pay the expenses of the journey.
Still, remorse for her hardness toward him
made her listen patiently to another scheme of
Mr. Scanlan's, which many a time lie had tried
vainly to persuade her to ; namely, asking Mr.
Oldham for an increase of salary.
"I quite deserve it,' said the curate. "I
do all the work, and he has all the pay. My
income is hundreds to his thousands. I won-
der, by-the-way, how large his income is, and
who will drop in for it ? His property is con-
siderable ; but he is as stingy as all rich men
are. He would drive a bargain and stick to it
to the very last."
"I see no harm in sticking to a bargain, if
it is not an unfair one," said Josephine, smil-
ing ; " nor do I think Mr. Oldham so very stin-
gy. Think how kind he is to the children!"
"The children, pooh! Has he ever been
kind to me? Has he ever fairly appreciated
my abilities, and the sacrifice I make in con-
tinuing to be his curate, when I might so easi-
ly But I won't vex you, my dear ; I'll never
refer to that subject again."
Nevertheless he did ; being one of those peo-
ple who can not take " No" for an answer, or
believe that "Yes" implies a decision ; but are
always trusting to the chance of other peojjle
being as weak and undecided as themselves.
At last, partly in a kind of despair, and partly
because she really saw some justice in the thing,
Mrs. Scanlan consented that the rector should
be appealed to for more salary.
But who should "bell the cat?" a rather
unpleasant business.
"I think you would do it best, my dear;
women are cleverer at these things than men,
and you are such an extraordinarily clever wo- '
man."
Josephine smiled at the "blarney,^" which
she was not quite deaf to yet ; seeing it was
the blarney of aff'ection. And her husband d\d
feel great affection for her at that minute. She
had saved him from a difiiculty ; she had con-
sented to what he wanted, and he was really
grateful to her, with that shallow gratitude for
small mercies and deep sensibility to tempo-
rary reliefs which formed part of his insouciant
disposition.
And then she paused to think the matter
over. It was not her business certainly, but
her husband's ; still, as he said, she would
probably manage it best. Mr. Oldham was
rather difiicult to deal with; Edward mighty
vex him and spoil all. At any rate, he dis-
liked the burden of doing it ; and most of his .
burdens had gradually fallen upon her, till her
delicate shoulders had grown hardened to the
weight. How many another woman has been
driven to the same lot, and then blamed for
tacitly accepting it; ridiculed as masculine,
strong-minded the "gray mare," which is
called contemptuously the "better horse!"
And why ? Because she is the better horse.
(While I say this a firm arm holds me, and
a tender voice suggests that I am talking non-
sense. But I can not be calmly judicial on
this head. I know, and he who holds me
knows too, that it is the truth I speak ; forced
on me by the remembrance of the sad life of
my dear Lady de Bougainville.)
" Come, my darling," said Edward Scanlan,
caressingly. " Please go to the Rectory and do
this difficult business. You will do it so beau-
tifully a thousand times bei^r than I. For
you have a way of doing and saying any thing
so as to offend nobody. Never was there a
truer proverb : ' One man may steal a sheep,
while another mayn't look over the hedge.'"
"And so you want me to go and steal your
A BRAVE LADY.
51
sheep for you ?" said Josephine, laughing, and
clinging to her husband fondly, in that vain
hoping against hope which had so often be-
guiled her that if he were a richer he would
be both a happier and a better man ; and that,
whether or no, her continuing to love him would
help him to become all she wished him to be.
" Well, I will try to get you out of this diffi-
culty, and, perhaps, things may be easier for
the future. I will go and speak to Mr. Old-
ham to-morrow."
CHAPTER V.
That to-morrow, of which Josephine Scan-
Ian spoke so calmly, turned out to be the crisis
of her life.
To make up her mind to this visit to the Rec-
tory cost some pain. It was like assuming her
husband's duty ; doing for him what he was too
weak to do for himself; and, though many a
woman is compelled to do this, still it is only a
mean sort of woman who enjoys the doing of it,
or likes being made perforce a heroine because
her husband is a coward.
Ay, that was the key-note of Edward Scan-
lan's nature. He was a moral coward. Phys-
ically, perhaps, he had the bravery of most Irish-
men ; would have faced the cannon's mouth ;
indeed, it was always his regret that he had
not been a soldier instead of a clergyman.
But to say No to an evil or unworthy request ;
to enter an elegant drawing-room in a shabby
coat ; in short, to do any thing awkward, un-
pleasant, or painful, was to him quite impos-
sible as impossible as it would have been to
his wife to go away and leave it undone.
She knew this well ; it had been forced upon
her through years of bitter experience, and,
therefore, she nei-ved herself to undergo her
double humiliation : that of asking a favor
which might not be granted, and of reading
in the rector's shrewd eyes, though he might
be too courteous to say it, the knowledge that
her husband, and not she, was the person who
ought to have come and asked it. She knew,
too, that all sorts of common-sense questions
might be put to her. Why could they not make
ends meet ? other people did who were no bet-
ter off than they, and had as many children.
Perhaps, too, even Mr. Oldham would side with
the opinions of the other two men Mr. Scanlan
and Mr. Summerhayes against her only a
woman ! and recommend that they should try
to better themselves by seeking their fortune in
London.
Seeking one's fortune ! A bright, bold, happy
thing to do for a young woman with her young
husband, in whom she has full faith, and for
whom she is ready to give up every thing and
follow him cheerfully, in weal or woe, through-
out the world. Ten years ago Josephine Scan-
lan would have done it gladly with the Edward
Scanlan whom she then believed in Now ?
She could not do it ; she dared not. With
those six little ones intrusted to her charge ;
sent to her by God Himself, to be her crown of
comfort, to keep her heart warm, and open a
dim vista of joy in the heavy future, which
otherwise might have closed blankly upon her
like the dead wall of a cave no, it was impos-
sible.
The thought of them, and this only alterna-
tive of saving them from what she felt would
be utter ruin, beat down the cruel feeling of
shame which came upon her whenever she con-
sidered how she should speak to Mr. Oldham
into what words she should put the blunt re-
quest, "Give me some more monpy?" For
she knew that, in degree, her husband was
right ; the rector was rather hard in the mat-
ter of money. That is, where he did give, he
gave liberally enough ; but he disliked being
encroached upon, or applied to unnecessarily ;
and he was so exceedingly accurate himself in
all his pecuniary affairs that he had a great con-
tempt for inaccuracy in others. He had, too,
on occasion, the power of making people a little
afraid of him ; and, brave woman as she was,
I think Mrs. Scanlan must have been slightly
afraid too conscious of that sensation which
children call "their courage slipping down to
the heels of their shoes" as she sat, lacing her
poor, half-worn, nay, shabby boots, on her deli-
cate feet, the morning she had to walk down to
the Rectory.
It was a burning hot morning in the middle
of June. I can picture her, for I know exactly
how she was dressed. She had on her usual
print gown, with a tippet of nankeen, and a
gipsy hat, such as was then the fashion, of
coarse black and white straw. She used to
plait this straw herself, and make it into hats
for her own use and for the children large,
shady, and comfortable, tied across the crown
and under the chin with green ribbon. Her cos-
tume was, perhaps, not quite matronly enough,
but it suited her circumstances ; the lilac print
gown washed forever ; the hat was much more
convenient than the gigantic bonnets, heavy
with feathers and flowers, which were then in
vogue and much more economical besides.
With her stately gait and still slender, girlish
figure, upon which almost any thing looked well,
I have little doubt, though the Ditchley ladies
who met her that day might have set her down
as dressed rather oddly and unfashionably, there
was something about Mrs. Scanlan's appearance
which marked her unmistakably as "the gen-
tlewoman. "
She walked quickly across the common, and
through the town, for she wanted to get rid of
some ugly thoughts which oppressed her ; and,
besides, whenever a difficulty had to be met it
was her nature to meet it as soon as possible.
"If I had to be hanged," she would say, "I
would rather be hanged at once. Reprieves
are intolerable."
It was not often she quitted her own house
for other people's now. For months she had
not been inside the pretty Rectory, and the
52
A BRA.VE LADY.
sight of it in all its summer beauty aroused old
remembrances and vaia desires. Desires not
for herself, but for those belonging to her. Had
she been alone she almost thought she would
have lived on forever at Wren's Nest, dilapidated
and dreary though it was growing. But her
children. It was now most difficult to stow
them all away within those narrow walls ; and,
as for making them really comfortable there,
the thing could not be done at all.
She counted them over, her pretty flock:
manly Cesar, delicate Adrienne, Louis, who
bade fair to be the cleverest of the tribe, Ga-
brielle, growing up with all the health and
beauty that her elder sister lacked, Martin and
Catherine, baby nonentities still, but fast turn-
ing into individualities, like the rest, for the
mother's character had impressed itself upon
every one of her children. They were not
commonplace at all, but had each strong wills
and decided tastes. Poor little souls ! How
hard it would be to repress their dawning tal-
ents and aspirations, to bring them up little
better than laborers' children, for so it must
be how could it be different? She did not
know where even food and clothing were to
come from, to say nothing of education. Oh,
if she only had a little money! merely the
crumbs from the rich man's table the merest
tithe of that wealth which Mr. Oldham spent
so carelessly upon his garden, his conservato-
ries, his beautiful and tasteful house.
She began to think that after all her husband
was right in his complaints against fate ; that
blessings were very unfairly divided, especially
money ; and that it was hard this childless old
bachelor should have so much, and she and her
poor young tribe so little. Did the good God
look with equal eyes on all ? Did He see how
she suffered? Was it any use to call upon
Him, and ask Him to help her? Not in one
of those voluminous and voluble prayers which
her husband poured out night and morning, to
the phraseology of which she had grown so ac-
customed that now it all went in at one ear and
out at the other. She either never listened at
all, or listened with a slight curl of the lip, in-
credulous both as to the prayer itself, and, God
help her, to the Hearer of it also.
Blameworthy she might be ay, she was.
She ought to have been Christian enough to
judge between the sham and the reality f wise
enough to know that all the musty human cur-
tains hung between may darken the soul's day-
light, but can never blot out the existence of
the sun, the great Sun of Kighteousness, who
shines forever above and upon us all. But she
was also deeply to be pitied ; for the man who
made this woman half an unbeliever stood to
her in the closest relation that one human be-
ing can stand to another, the ruler of her life,
the centre of her world, her priest, her lord, her
husband.
Usually she was too busy, from hour to hour,
and from minute to minute, for these ill thoughts
to come ; thoughts which, beginning in lack of
faith in man, ended in lack of faith toward God ;
but to-day, in her long, lonely, fatiguing walk,
the devil had had full opportunity to attack her.
She felt his cruel black wings flapping behind
her at every step she took, and she flung the
Rectory gate after her with a clang, hoping in
that pleasant, peaceful garden to shut him out,
but he would come in. He seemed to jeer at
her from under the faded laburnums, and be-
hind the syringa bushes those mock-orange
blossoms, with their faint, sickly smell, sweet at
first, but afterward growing painful to the sense.
They reminded her of many marriages, which
begin so bright at first, and end God knows
how ! Marriages in which nobody is particu-
larly to blame, and of which the only thing to
be said is, that they were altogether a mistake
a sad mistake.
" But nobody knows it, aifd nobody ought to
know," said to herself this thirteen-years' wife
apropos of nothing external as she walked
on in her rare solitude, thinking she would give
herself, and the devil, no more opportunities of
the same sort again ; and forcibly turning her
mind away from other things to the special thing
she had that morning to do. '^
She found Mr. Oldham, not in his study, as
she expected, but sitting in his veranda. The
day was so hot and his book so uninteresting
that he had fallen asleep in his arm-chair. As
she came suddenly upon him thus he looked so
withered and wasted, such a forlorn specimen
of a solitary old bachelor, with not a creature
to look after him, not a soul to care whether
he was alive or dead, that the wife and mother
who a moment before had been bitterly envy-
ing him now felt a sensation of pity. Her own
full, bright home, alive with little voices, and
this lonely house and silent garden, where the
bees and the birds went on with their humming
and singing, as heedless of the old man as if
he were not asleep but dead struck her with
forcible contrast, and reproached her uncon-
sciously for all she had been thinking of so bit-
terly.
She had no time to think more ; for Mr. Old-
ham woke, and apologized, in some confusion,
for being so discovered.
" But I really do not believe I was asleep,
Madame ; I was only meditating. At my age
one has plenty of time for meditation. You, I
suppose, have very little ?"
"None at all." And the idea of her sitting
down, only for ten minutes, idle, with a book
in her hand, quite amused Mrs. Scanlan.
The old man seemed much pleased to see
her ; brought her an arm-chair as comfortable
as his own, and thanked her warmly for taking
such a long, hot walk just to pay him a neigh-
borly visit.
" It is very kind of you ; very kind indeed,
and you are most welcome too. I am so much
alone."
His courteous gratitude smote her conscience
painfully. Coloring, almost with shame, she
said at once, blurting it out in a confused way,
A BRAVE LADY.
53
TUE BEOTOB AT UOME.
very unlike her ordinary sweet and stately man-
ner
" You must not thank me too much, Mr. Old-
ham, or I shall feel quite a hypocrite. L am
afraid my visit to-day was not at all disinter-
ested, in the sense you put it. I had some-
thing which I particularly wished to speak to
you about."
*'I shall be most happy," returned the rec-
tor ; and then noticing how far from happy his
visitor still looked, he added, " My dear lady,
make yourself quite at ease. I like your plain
speaking, even though it does take down an
old man's vanity a little. How could I expect
you, a busy mother of a family, to waste your
valuable time inquiring after the health of a
stupid old bachelor like me ?"
" Have you been ill ? I did not know."
" Nobody did, except Waters ; I hate to be
gossiped about, as you are aware. I think,
Mrs. Scanlan, you and I understand one an-
other pretty well by this time ?"
"I hope so," she said, smiling; and taking
the hint asked no more questions about his ill-
ness. She noticed that he looked a little worn,
and his hands were "shaky," but he was as
])olite and kind as usual rather more so, in-
deed.
*' Come, then, we will sit and talk here, and
afterward we will go and look at my roses. I
have the finest Banksia you ever saw, just com-
ing into flower."
Banksia roses ! and the bitter business that '
she had to speak about ! It was a hard con-
trast for the curate's wife ; but she made a no-
lent effort, and began. Once begun it was less
difficult to get through with ; the rector help-
ing her by his perfect yet courteous silence;
never interrupting her by Avord or look till she
had got to the end of her tale, and had made,
in as brief language as she could put it, her
humiliating request. Then he raised his eyes
and looked at her inquiringly, as it seemed, but
satisfied ; looked away again and sat drawing
patterns on the gravel-walk with his stick.
" What you tell me, Mrs. Scanlan, you prob-
ably think I was unacquainted with, but I am
not. Your husband has broached the matter
to me several times ; he did it a week ago, and
I gave him an answer a direct refusal."
" A direct refusal ! And he never told me !
He allowed me to come and ask you again I"
For a moment Josephine's indignation had
got the better of her prudence.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Oldham," added
she, rising at once. "I perceive I ought not
to have come here at all. But Mr. Scanlan
said"
She stopped. It was not always safe to re-
peat what Mr. Scanlan said, without some con-
firmatory or secondary evidence.
"Mr. Scanlan probably said a great many
unnecessary things, as a man does when he is
annoyed and I fear I annoyed him very much
that day. But you must pardon me, Madame.
Your husband is a young man, and he ought
to put up a little with an old man like me.
So ought you. My dear lady, will you not sit
54
A BRAVE LADY.
down again, and let us talk the matter quietly
over?"
She obeyed, though it went against her grain
sorely. But the rector was, as he said, an old
man, who had been very kind to her and her
children. She believed him to be really her
friend in fact, the only friend she had. Since
forlorn wives, whom the world supposes well
protected, are, consequently, the most friend-
less women alive. Their one stay failing them,
they can have no substitute ; they must acquire
strength enough to stand alone or drop.
" Mr. Scanlan told me, of course, of the al-
ternative the fatal alternative, for me" (here
it was difficult to distinguish whether Mr. Old-
ham meant truth or satire) " that if his income
were not increased he would have to go at once
to reside in London. It seems he has admira-
ble prospects there ?"
This last sentence, which, though stated as
a fact, sounded more like a query, was met by
Mrs. Scanlan with a dead silence. In truth,
she was so surprise4^at finding all these things,
upon which her husband had bound her to se-
crecy, made patent by him to the very last per-
son she expected he would have told them to,
that she could not find a word to say.
*' Or else, " pursued Mr. Oldham, " he thinks
he has great prospects which, in a person of
ray friend Scanlan's enthusiastic temperament,
comes to the same thing. But in such import-
ant matters I always prefer having the lady's
opinion likewise. What do you say ? Is it
your wish to leave Ditchley ?"
"No. Decidedly no."
The old man looked pleased. "I am glad
of that. I should be sorry, Madame, that after
all these years you liked us so little that you
were glad to run away. And, besides, I can
not feel that there are such vital objections to
Ditchley. It is a pretty neighborhood, with
good society, a healthy place for children, and
all that. Why should you go to London ?"
"My husband wishes it."
"Yes, I remember he said he would bebet-
ter appreciated there ; would attract large con-
gregations ; get into the aristocratic evangelical
set, and so on. He might ; he is a clever man,
and a most ahem! most popular preacher.
But, at the same time, he might not. As I told
him, it is just a chance ; and if the chance fails,
where is he ? Also, where are you and the
children ?"
Mr. Oldham spoke in such a practical, kind-
ly, common-sense way, having evidently taken
in the position and thought it over, in a way
that people seldom trouble themselves to think
over their friends' affairs, that Mrs. Scanlan
was a little relieved. He had not been offend-
ed, evidently, whatever unpleasant talk had
passed between him and her husband. She felt
extremely grateful to the old man, and expressed
her gratitude warmly.
" No, no. You have nothing to thank me
for ; it is quite the other way. And I looked
forward to having the pleasure of your society,
and my friend Scanlan's, for some years in
fact, till my years are done. It would be a
great regret to me if you had to leave Ditchley."
"And to me also. In which," added she,
recollecting herself, "I am sure my husband
would join. He would hesitate very much at
giving up his curacy. But necessity has no
law." For it seemed as if the object of her
visit were slipping away, so she forcibly brought
herself back to the point. " It all comes to this,
Mr. Oldham : we can not live upon the income
we have from you, and we have no other not
a half-penny but what you give us."
" Indeed ? I feared so, but I never was quite'
sure of it. You must have a sore pull some-
times. Poor lady!"
He just touched her hand, with which she
had grasped the arm of his chair. What a thin
hand it was ! and marked with traces of toil,
not usually seen on a lady's hand. Mrs. Scan-
lan drew it away at once.
"I do not complain," she said, rather proud-
ly. " I shall make ends meet, if I can, but jnst
this year I have been unable to do it, and I feel
quite miserable. Do you know we actually owe
fifteen pounds!"
"Fifteen pounds what an alarming sum !"
said the rector, smiling.
" Not to you, perhaps ; but to me it is alarm-
ing. It makes me shrink from going through
Ditchley High Street.' I think all men's eyes
must be Upon me. * There is the clergyman's
wife ; she owes money, and she can't pay, or
won't pay;' for how do they know which it is?
Oh ! Mr. Oldham, you may think lightly of it,
but to me it is dreadful intolerable ! "
She spoke earnestly ; almost with the tears in
her eyes. It was so long since her heart had
been opened to any body, that once beginning
to speak she could not stop herself.
" You see, I never was used to this sort of
thing. My father ah ! if you had known my
father! He would have gone hungry many
a time we have both gone hungry but to go
into debt ! we would have shuddered at such a
thing. Yes, you should have known my father,"
she repeated, and her tears began to start.
"I have never named the circumstance to
you, Madame, because it was not neces^ry ''
said Mr. Oldham, gently ; " but once in Paris^,
at the marriage of Mademoiselle his sister,')
whom I had met before and much admiredxl
had the honor of seeing, for five minutes only,
Monsieur le Vicomte de Bougainville."
' Greatly astonished, but still unwilling to put
questions which Mr. Oldham had evidently no
intention of answering indeed he seemed ex-
ceedingly to dislike the subject Mrs. Scanlan
sat silent ; and the next moment the butler ap-
peared, announcing lunch.
"You will allow me?" said the rector, offer-
ing her his arm. "After luncheon we shall
have an opportunity of talking our little busi-
ness over."
The curate's wife roused herself to necessary
courtesy, and her courage, which had been slow-
A BRAVE LADY.
55
ly ebbing away, faintly revived. During the
meal she and Mr. Oldham conversed together
in their usual pleasant way ; on his favorite hob-
bies, his garden and so on ; nay, he paid her ev-
ery attention that he could think of; even send-
ing for a bottle of his most precious Burgundy,
in celebration, he said, of the rare honor of hav-
ing her for his guest. His kindness comforted
her even more than his wine.
Besides alas for poor mortality ! to her,
faint from her hot walk, this plentiful meal,
more luxurious than any dinner she had had
for months ; and the peaceful eating of it, sur-
rounded by the quiet atmosphere of wealthy
ease, affected her with a sensation- of unaccus-
tomed pleasantness. She had never cared for
luxuries when she had them ; but now, in her
long lack of them, they seemed to have acquired
an adventitious value. She almost wished she
had a beggar's wallet, and a beggar's cool ef-
frontery, that she might take a portion of the
delicately-cooked dinner home to her children,
especially her sickly Adrienne ; and she gazed
round the large, cool, airy dining-room with an
unconscious sigh.
" You seem to admire this room," said Mr.
Oldham, smiling.
" Yes, I always did, you know. The Rectory
is, to my mind, the prettiest house in Ditchley.
And I have a weakness for all pretty things."
" So have I. And sometimes I think I might
indulge it even more than I do in collecting
pictures, for instance. But where would be the
good of this to an old bachelor like me, who
can not, at best, enjoy theni long ? and at my
death they would be all dispersed. No, no ; I
have made up my mind to keep to my old plain
ways, and leave extravagance for those that will
come affcer me."
It was the first time Mr. Oldham had ever
openly reverted to his heir or heirs. Of course
they existed : rich men have always a tribe of
seventeenth cousins and so on, eager to drop
in for what may be left them ; but none such
had ever appeared at Ditchley. The town and
neighborhood seemed as ignorant on the sub-
ject as Mrs. Scanlan ; in fact, the general opin-
ion was that Mr. Oldham meamt to leave all his
money to some charitable mstitution. He was,
she knew, the last of his family a sad thing in
itself, and not a pleasant topic to speak upon
with him ; so she tried to turn the current of
cwiversation by some commonplace remark,
hoping that " those which came after him"
would long be kept out of their inheritance.
*' Thank you. However, when they do come
into it they will find it safe and sure. I take
a good while to make up my mind, but having
once made it up I rarely change it. My heirs
may count securely upon their property."
It was an odd remark, and Josephine was puz-
zled how to reply to it. Of course, it showed
Mr. Oldham's friendly spirit toward herself and
her interest in his affairs thus to speak of them
to her ; but her own business was too near her
heart, and she was pardonably indifferent as to
who might or might not inherit Mr. Oldham's
money. The humble fortunes of herself and her
family were of much more importance to her
just then. StiU, she would not force the con-
versation ; but she waited with nervous impa-
tience for her host to quit the dining-room and
lead the way into his study.
He did so at length ; though even when there
he settled himself in his chair, and pointed to
her to take another, without testifying any im-
mediate intention of beginning the subject which
lay so close to her heart.
" Do you ever think of dying, Mrs. Scanlan ?"
It was an odd question, odd even to ludicrous-
ness ; but she restrained her inclination to see it
in that light, and said, gravely :
" In a religious point of view, do you mean,
Mr. Oldham?"
" No ; a worldly one. Do you consider your-
self likely to have a long life ?"
"My family were all long-lived, and I am
myself, so far as I know, a very healthy per-
son. Yes; I hope I shall live to see all my
children grown up. God grant it ! "
She slightly sighed. For, when in her last
crisis of motherhood she had a nearer risk of
her life than ordinary, it had struck her what
if she were to die, leaving those poor little ones
of hers with no shelter, no protection against
the hard world, except their father ? And since
that time she had taken especial care of her
own health, and striven hard against a weary
longing for rest that sometimes came over her,
praying that she might be forgiven for it, and
not allowed to die until she was quite an old wo-
man, or until her children needed her no more.
"My life is in God's hands," she resumed,
"but, humanly speaking, I see no reason why
it should not be a long one. I trust it will be,
for my children's sake and my husband's."
" Your husban(f is less strong than you ; at
least he always tells me so. When he gets
into a melancholy mood he says he shall never
live to be my age."
f' " I think he will, though," replied Mrs. Scan-
lan, cheerfully, "especially if he has no very
hard work, and resides always in the country.
Which is one of my strong reasons for dislik-
ing to remove to London."
" Stay ; we will enter upon that matter pres-
ently. , Just now I wish to speak to you about
what I did not at first mean to tell you, but
have decided that it is better I should some
private affairs of my own. A secret, in short.
I know that you can keep a secret. "
Mrs. Scanlan bent her head assentingly, won-
dering what on earth was coming next. Surely,
she thought, it is not possible that the old man
is going to be married ! He was seventy-five at
least ; yet such things do happen, even to sep-
tuagenarians. But his next sentence removed
this doubt.
" It is a secret that you will have to keep for
some time possibly several years. And you
must keep it implicitly and entirely. You must
not even tell it to your husband."
56
A BRAVE LADY.
"Not tell my husband!" cried Josephine,
drawing back. " Then, I think, Mr. Oldham,
you had better not confide it to me at all. It
is exceedingly diflBcult not to enter upon the
question of whether it is right or wrong for
any wife to keep a secret from her husband."
"May be; I have never had the advantage
of being married, and am certainly not likely
now to risk the experiment. But still, in the
matter of Mrs. Waters you did not tell your
husband."
"That was diiFerent," said she, hesitating.
"Nevertheless, here the case stands. Either
you must promise not to communicate this fact
to your husband, or I can not confide it to you.
And it is important indeed, of the most vital
importance that you should know it."
The rector spoke decidedly, with that decis-
ion which, whenever he chose to exercise it,
she was aware was inflexible. He did not care
to fight about small things, but in great ones,
when his mind was made up, you might as well
attempt to move a mountain as Mr. Oldham.
"It is a secreC^" continued he, "which is
exclusively mine ; which would do Scanlan no
good to learn, and might do him considerable
harm. The greatest kindness I can show him,
I honestly believe, is to keep it from him."
" Then why tell it to me ?"
"Because you are another sort of a person.
It could not possibly harm you, and might be
useful to you in some degree you and the chil-
dren. I advise you to hear it, if only for the
sake of the children."
"I hate mysteries," said Mrs. Scanlan, un-
easily, and turning over in her mind what this
secret of the rector's could possibly be. Was
it any difiiculty between him and his bishop, in
which Mr. Scanlan was also concerned? Or
was it this suggestion occurred to her as most
probable something relating to Mr. Scanlari's
future ; perhaps his chance of the next present-
ation to the living of Ditchley, on Mr. Oldham's
decease? The rector's next words confirmed
her in this idea.
"I hate mysteries, too, Madame, unless they
are quite unavoidable, as this is. I ask from
you a plain Yes or No, nor can I give you any
more information to influence you on the mat-
ter, except that when you know my secret, I
believe, I am almost sure, that you will not
think it necessary to go and live in London. "
The temptation was sore. "Oh! Mr. Old-
ham," she said, piteously, "why do you try me
so hard?"
" I do it for your own good. Do you think
I don't feel for you, my poor girl?" and his
tone was almost paternal in its kindness. " But
the circumstances of the case are quite inevita-
ble. Either you must accept my secret, and
keep it from your husband, and from every hu-
man being during my lifetime, or I shall con-
sider the conditions void ; and all things shall
be as if they had never been."
" I do not understand "
" There is no necessity that you should un-
derstand. Only, will you trust me ? Have I
not always been a good friend to you ? Can
you not believe that I shall remain so to the
last? And I give you my honor the honor
of the last of the Oldhams" added he, with a
sort of proud pathos, that went right to the
heart of this mother of a rising race, " that
what I ask of you will never trouble you, or
grieve you, or compromise you in the smallest
degree. It is my secret. I might have kept
it from you to the last, only," with an air of
amused benevolence, "I think you will be the
better for hearing it. I think, too, that Scan-
lan himself would urge you to accept my con-
ditions if he knew."
"Let me tell him," pleaded the wife. " Let
me just tell my husband that there is a secret ;
which he must allow me to keep, even from
himself, for the present."
Mr. Oldham shook his head. "ou Quix-
otic woman ! You are like Charity, that ' be-
lieveth all things, hopeth all things.' But I
know better. No, no. Don't mistake me. I
like Scanlan very much. He is a clever fellow ;
a pleasant fellow ; he suits me as a curate. I
never wish to part from him. Still, my dear
lady, you do not require me to tell you that
that " he hesitated "Mrs. Scanlan is a very
superior person to her husband."
Poor Mr. Oldham ! in his ignorant bachelor-
hood he had not a suspicion of the effect his
compliment would produce.
The blood rushed violently into Josephine's
face ; she drew herself up with a haughtiness
which he had never before seen.
"Sir! Mr. Oldham! you can not surely
mean what you are saying. Let us dismiss this
subject, and confine ourselves entirely to the
matter in hand the matter my husband sent
me to discuss with you. May we enter upon
it at once ? for I must go home to my children."
Mr. Oldham regarded her a moment, and
then held out his hand almost humbly.
"Pardon, Madame. I was forgetting my-
self, and speaking to you as if you were my
daughter. You almost might have been. I
was once in love with a lady very like you."
There was a slight twitch in the withered
face, and the momentary emotion passed. Who
the " lady" was, Mrs. Scanlan did not, of course,
ask him. Years afterward she had reason to
think it might have been her aunt, that beau-
tiful Mademoiselle Josephine de Bougainville
who died young, soon after her marriage, which
had been a marriage de convenance; but the real
facts, buried far back in long forgotten years,
Josephine never inquired into and never learned.
" The matter in hand, as you termed it," re-
sumed Mr. Oldham, "is easily settled. I like
you I like your husband. I wish him to re^
main my curate as long as I live. Therefore,"*
tell me how much income you think necessary
for your comfort, and you shall have it. Give
me my check-book there, state your sum, and
we will arrange the matter at once. And now,
may I tell you my secret ?"
A BRAVE LADY.
67
Mrs. Scanlan had listened in wondering
thankfulness, too great for words ; but now
she recoiled. Evidently the old man was bent
upon his point, and upon exacting his ^condi-
tions to the letter. Her strait was very hard.
The simple duty of a wife to hide nothing
from her husband ; to hear nothing that she will
require to hide Josephine never doubted for a
moment; but hers was, an exceptional case.
She knew well enough, and was convinced
the rector knew, that Edward Scanlan was the
last man in the world to be trusted with a se-
cret. At least, so she should have said or him
had he been any other man than her husband ;
and did his being her husband alter the facts
of the case, or her judgment upon it ? We may
be silent concerning the weak points of our
nearest and dearest ; but to ignore them, to be
willfuljy blind to them, to refuse to guard against
them, is, to any prudent and conscientiously-
minded person, clearly impossible.
Could it be that in refusing the rector's con-
ditions, which her judgment toM her he, who
knew her husband's character as well^as she
did, was warranted in exacting, she was strain-
ing at gnats and swallowing camels ? setting up
a sham eidolon of wifely duty, and sacrificing
to it the interests of her whole family, including
her husband's ?
"Are you sure it will never harm him that
he will never blame me for doing this ?"
"Scanlan blame you? oh no! Quite im-
possible," answered the rector, with a slight
curl of the lip. " I assure you, you may quiet
all apprehensions on that score. He will con-
sider it the best thing you could possibly do for
him."
Yet still poor Josephine hesitated. That
clear sense of the right, which had always
burned in her heart with a steady flame, seemed
flickering to and fro, turned and twisted by side
winds of expediency. The motto of the De
Bougainville family, ''' Fais ce que tu dots, ad-
vienne que pourra,'' rung in her ears with a
mocking iteration. In her girlhood she had
obeyed it always had dared every thing, doubt-
ed nothing. Could yifehood and motherhood
have made her less honorable, less brave ?
*' Come," said Mr. Oldham, "*this is too im-
portant a matter for you to give, or me to take,
a rash answer. There is a blank check, fill it
up as you think fair. And meantime go into
the garden and look at my roses, just for a
quarter of an hour."
With gentle force he led her to the French
window of his study, handed her through, and
closed it behind her, shutting her out alone in
the sunshiny garden.
Therein she wandered about for fully the
prescribed time. What inward struggle she
went through, who can know ? Whether she
was able to satisfy herself that she was doing
right ; that circumstances justified what, in most
other women's case, would actually be wrong,
and she would have been the first to pronounce
wrong, who can teU? Or, perhaps, goaded on by
the necessities of her hard lot, she deliberately
set aside the question of whether her act was
right or wrong, and was determined to do it
for her children's sake. If any thing could turn
a woman into a thief, a murderess, a sinner of
any sort, I think it would be for the love of, or
the terror for, her children.
I do not plead for Josephine Scanlan. I only
pity her. And I feel ay, I feel it even with
my own husband's honest eyes looking into
mine that, had my lot been hers, I should have
acted exactly the same.
She came back to Mr. Oldham.
"Well, my dear lady, have you decided ?"
" Yes. You may tell me any thing you like,
and so long as you live I will keep your secret
faithfully."
" As you did Mrs. Waters's?"
"That was a different matter; but I will
keep your secret too, even from my husband."
' ' Thank you. " And Mr. Oldham shook her
hand warmly. " You shall never regret the
the sacrifice."
But now that he had her promise, he seemed
in no hurry to claim it. He finished writing
out the check, putting in a sum a little beyond
that which she had named, and then, taking up
his hat and stick, composedly accompanied her
round the garden, pointing out his favorite flow-
ers and his various improvements.
"That Banksia rose, is it not fine? I shall
train it all over the veranda. Indeed, I have
thought of making a proper rosary, or rosari-
um ; but it would be expensive, and is hardly
worth while, since the Rectory comes into other
hands at my death. Oldham Court, however,
will be the property of my successor and a
very fine property it is quite unencumbered.
My heirs might run through it in no time ;
however, I shall take care to prevent that. My
friend and executor, Dr. Waters, and my law-
yer, are both remarkably acute, firm, and hon-
orable men."
" Oh ! yes," replied poor Josephine, answer-
ing at random, for her patience was at its last
gasp. But still Mr. Oldham went on talking
she scarcely heard what about every thing ex-
cept the important secret; and not until the
very last minute, when he had let her out at the
gate and stood leaning against it, still convers-
ing with her, and regarding her in a tender,
wistful sort of way, did he refer to what he had
to tell.
" I am laying on you a heavy burden, you
think, Mrs. Scanlan? Perhaps it is so. But
be easy ; you may not have to bear it very long.
Only during my lifetime."
" That may be, I trust, many years."
" And, possibly, not one year. I had a slight
seizure the other day, which made me arrange
all my affairs. But do not speak of this. It
is of no consequence. Go home now, and mind,
what I have to tell you must make no difference
there ; every thing must go on as heretofore.
Only you need not come to me again, looking
the picture of despair, as you did to-day."
58
A BRAVE LADY.
ilK8. 80A_NI.AM 8 80EUPLE8.
" Well, I do not return in despair, thanks to
your kindness. And on my next visit I will
take care to put on my best looks, and bring a
child or two with me, to amuse myself and you,
Shalll?"
"Certainly. Yours are charming children,
and " he added, becoming suddenly grave,
" do not torment yourself any more about their
future ; it is not necessary. This is my secret
-^a very simple one. Yesterday I made my
will, and I left you my heiress. Not a word.
Adieu!"
He turned, and walked quickly back into his
garden. Mrs. Scanlan stood, transfixed with
astonishment, at the Rectory gate ; and then,
there being nothing else left for her to do, she
also turned and walked home.
CHAPTER VI.
Josephine Scanlan walked home from the
Rectory that afternoon feeling like a woman in
a dream.
At first she was so stunned by the tidings
she had received that she did not realize her
position. How strange ! how very strange !
to be the heiress of a man who in the course
of nature could not possibly live many years,
and might pass away any day leaving behind
him, for her and hers, at the least a very hand-
some competence, probably considerable wealth
wealth enough to make her mind entirely at
ease Concerning the future of her children. Her
bright, bold Cesar, her sensitive Adrienne, and
all her other darlings, loved, each as they came,
with the infinitely divisible yet undivided love
of a mother they would never have to suffer
as she had suff'ered. Thank God !
This was her prominent thought. It came
upon her gradually, deliciously ! on leaving the
garden-gate, where, quite overcome, she had
stood ever so long under shelter of the great
white-thorn tree : for years the sight and smell
of the faint pinky blossoms of the fading flowers
reminded her of the emotions of that hour.
Slowly her confused mind settled into calm-
ness, and she took in the full extent of all that
had happened to her since morning, and the
total change that had come to her lot.
Not externally. It was obvious that Mr.
Oldham meant to make no public acknowledg-
A BRAVE LADY.
69
ment of his intentions with regard to her.
Also, he was leaving his property to herself;
he had said distinctly "my heiress:" never
naming her husband. These two facts startled
her. The rector, with all his reticent polite-
ness, was then an acuter man than she sup-
posed, and had seen further than she thought
he had into the secrets of her married life, and
the inner mysteries of her household. He had
his own reasons and her unwarped judgment
told her they were quite feasible and good ones
for exacting from her this promise, and re-
quiring that the daily existence of the little
family at Wren's Nest should go on as hereto-
fore, and that Edward Scanlan should be told
nothing whatever of the change that was likely
to take place in his fortunes. It was best so.
Edward Scanlan's wife knew that quite as well
as Mr. Oldham did.
Some may hold that she erred here in seeing
with such clear vision her husband's faults.
Can it be that in any relation of life, conjugal
or otherwise, it is one's duty to shut one's eyes
to facts, and do one's best to believe a lie?
I think not. I think all righteous love par-
takes in this of the love of God that it can
"hate the sin and love the sinner:" that with-
out deceiving itself for a moment as to the weak
points of the object beloved, it can love on in
spite of them ; up to a certain limit, often a very
large limit, of endurance : and that when love
fails, this endurance still remains. Besides,
mercifully, love gets into a habit of loving, not
easily broken through. And Josephine had
been married thirteen years.
In all those thirteen years she had never car-
ried a lighter heart than that which seemed to
leap in her bosom as gradually she recognized
the change that those few words of Mr. Old-
ham's had wrought in her thoughts, hopes, and
plans, though all must necessarily be kept to
herself, and not allowed to influence her out-
side life. Still, this was not so hard as it might
once have been : she had been gradually forced
into keeping many things to herself: it was use-
less, worse than useless, to speak of them to her
husband. She always intuitively kept from him
perplexing and vexatious things ; it would not be
much more difficult to keep from him this good
thing. Only for the present too : he would one
day enjoy it all. And even now she brought
back to him the welcome news of an addition
to his salary ; large enough, she fondly believed,
to make him fully satisfied and content.
She was quite content. Before she had
walked half a mile the morning's events had
grown to her an unmixed good, in which she
rejoiced without a single drawback. She had
no hesitation whatever in accepting the unex-
pected heirship. Mr. Oldham had no near kin-
dred who could look for any thing from him ;
and, even if he had, could he not do as he liked
with his own ? He was an old bachelor : no
one had any claims upon him : he was free to
leave his property as he chose. Nor in her ma-
ternal vanity did Mrs. Scanlan much wonder
at his choice. She herself was of course mere-*
ly nominal. She might be quite elderly before
the fortune came to her, but it would assuredly
come to her children ; and who that looked at
her Cdsar, her Louis, would not be glad to leave
a fortune to such boys ? In her heart the mo-
ther considered Mr. Oldham a wise man as well
as a generous.
After taking a slight circuit by the river-side,
just to compose her mind, she walked through
Ditchley town ; walked with an erect bearing,
afraid of meeting nobody. For was not the
check in her pocket, and her future safe and
sure ? No such humiliation as had happened
lately would ever happen to her again. Had
not the check been made out to her husband,
and requiring his indorsement, she would have
paid great part of it away on the spot this
"painfully honest" woman as Mr. Scanlan
sometimes called her. In the mean time,
she went into every shop as she passed, and
collected ail her bills, saying she should go
round and pay them early next morning.
Then she walked gayly across the common
with her heart full of gratitude to both God and
man. She felt kindly toward every creature
living. A beggar whom she chanced to meet
she relieved with silver instead of copper this
time. And every neighbor she met, instead of
slipping away from, she stopped to speak to ;
gave and accepted several invitations; and
talked and smiled so brightly that more than
one person told her how very well she was look-
ing. At which she did not wonder much ; she
felt as if henceforward she should always be well ;
as if her dark days were gone by forever. We
all have such seasons, and wonder at them when
the dark days return again, as return they must ;
but they are very blessed at the time, and they
leave a dim' odor of happiness behind them
which refreshes us more than we know.
When Mrs. Scanlan came to the door of her
house that small house in which she had lived
so long, and might have to live how much
longer? the first that ran out to meet her
was her little daughter.
" Mamma, you bring good news !" cried the
child, who was a wise child, and could already
read, plain as a book, every expression of her
mother's face.
And then the mother recognized, for a mo-
ment like the touch of a thorn on her hand, the
burden which had been laid upon her, or rath-
er which she had deliberately laid upon her-
self, in accepting Mr. Oldham's secret and its
conditions. She did bring good news ; yet, for
the first time, she could not tell them, could not
ask her family to rejoice with her, except to a
very limited extent. For the first time she was
obliged to prevaricate ; to drop her conscious
eyes before those of her own child so clear, so
earnest in their sympathy.
"Yes, my darling, I do bring good news.
Mr. Oldham has been exceedingly kind. He
has done what I wanted. We shall be quite
rich now."
60
A BEAVE LADY.
MAMMA, YOU BRING GOOD NEWS
For of course Adrienne knew of all the trou-
bles so did Bridget so did the whole family.
They were troubles of a kind not easily dis-
guised : and, besides, Mr. Scanlan was so in-
cautious and careless in his talk before both
servant and children, that to keep things con-
cealed from either was nearly impossible. Mrs.
Scanlan had tried to do it as much as she could,
especially when Cesar and Adrienne, growing
up a big boy and girl, began to enter into their
mother's cares with a precocious anxiety pain-
ful to witness ; but at last she gave up the at-
tempt in despair, and let matters take their
chance. Better they should know every thing
than take garbled statements or false and fool-
ish notions into their little heads. Were not
the children's souls in the mother's hand ? she
believed so.
" Yes, Adrienne, my pet, you need not fret
any more. Mr. Oldham has increased papa's
salary : we must all be grateful to him, and do
as much as ever we can for him to the end of
his days."
" Must we? Oh, of course we will ! But,
mamma, if, as papa has just been telling me,
the rector has paid him far too little, why need
we be so exceedingly grateful? It is but
fair."
Mrs. Scanlan made no reply. Again the
thorn pressed, and another, a much sharper-
pricking thorn, which wounded her sometimes.
When the father could get no better company,
he used to talk to the children, particularly to
Adrienne, and often put into the little innocent
minds ideas and feelings which took the mother
days and weeks to eradicate. She could not
say plainly, "Your father has been telling you
what is not true," or "Papa takes quite a mis-
taken idea of the matter, which is in reality so
and so :" all she could do was to trust to her
own strong influence, and that of time, in silent-
ly working things round. That daringly self-
reliant and yet pathetic motto of Philip II.,
"Time and I against any two," often rung
in the head of this poor, brave, lonely woman
forced into unnatural unwomanliness until
sometimes she almost hated herself, and thought,
could she meet herself like any other person,
Josephine Scanlan would have been the last
person she would have cared to know !
"Adrienne, we "will not discuss the question
of fairness just now. Enough that Mr. Oldham
A BRAVE LADY.
61
is a very good man, whom both papa and I ex-
ceedingly respect and like."
" I don't think papa likes him ; for he is al-
ways laughing at him and his oddities."
" We often laugh at people for whom we feel
most kindly," said Mrs. Scanlan, formally, as if
enunciating a moral axiom; and then, while
drawing the little thin arms round her neck,
and noticing the prematurely eager and anxious
face, the thought that her frail, delicate flower
would never be broken by the sharp blasts of
poverty, came with such a tide of thankfulness
that Josephine felt she could bear any other
trouble now. Ay, even the difficult task of
meeting her husband and telling him only half
that was in her mind : of having afterward, for
An indefinite time, to go on walking and talk-
ing, eating and sleeping beside him, carrying
on their ordinary daily life, conscious every in-
stant of the secret so momentous which she
dared not in the smallest degree betray.
Yet she was on the point of betraying it with-
in the first half hour.
Edward Scanlan had seized upon the check
with the eagerness of a boy. One of the ex-
cuses his wife often made for him was, that in
many things he was so very boy-like still, and
could not be judged by the laws which regulate
duty to a man, now considerably past thirty, a
husband, and the father of a family; for he
seemed as if he had never been bom to carry
the weight of these " encumbrances. " Delight-
edly he looked at the sum, which represented to
his sanguine mind an income of unlimited ca-
pacity. He began reckoning up all he wanted,
for himself and the household ; and had spent
half the money already in imagination, while his
wife was telling him how she had obtained it.
On this head, however, he was not inquisi-
tive. It was obtained, and that was enough.
He never noticed the blanks in her story her
many hesitations, her sad shamefacedness, and
her occasional caresses, as if she wished to atone
for some unconscious wrong done toward him
which her tender conscience could not help
grieving for, even though he himself might
neither feel it nor know it.
But when she told him of all she had done
in Ditchley as she passed, and of the large sum
she was to pay away the following morning, Mr.
Scanlan was exceedingly displeased.
" What a ridiculous hurry you are in ! As
if those impertinent fellows could not wait a
little, after having bothered us so much. I've
a great mind not to pay them for ever so long,
only that would look so odd in a clergyman."
"Or in any man," said the wife, quietly.
"Here is the list of what we. owe; we must
think twice, you see, before we lay out the re-
mainder."
^^ What, are you going to pay away all that
money at once? Why, you might as well have
brought me home nothing at all! We shall be
none the better for Oldham's 'generosity,' as
you call it. Generosity, indeed ! When you
were at it, Josephine, and he allowed you carte
blanche, why in the yorld didn't you ask him for
a little more ?"
Josephine rose in warm indignation. " Ask
him for more, when he has already given us so
much ? When he is going to give us "
Every thing, she was about to say, but stopped
herself just in time. Not, however, before Ed-
ward's sharp ears I have already said, he was
at once careless and cunning in money-matters
had caught the word.
" Given us what ? More silk gowns, or books
for the children, or garden-stuff for the house ?
These are his principal sort of gifts mere rub-
bish ! He never gives any thing to me : never
seems to consider the sacrifice I am making
every day I stay on in stupid Ditchley. And
yet he must know my value, or he never would
have increased my salary as he has done to-
day. It is just a conscience twinge, or because
he knows he could not get any body else to do
my work for the money."
" You know he could, Edward. He told me
plainly that for half your salary he could get
twenty curates to-morrow."
^ " But not a curate like me !"
* Mrs. Scanlan looked silently at her husband.
Perhaps she was taking his measure ; perhaps
she had taken it long ago ; and accepted the
fact that, whatever he was, he was her husband
possessed of certain qualities which he could
no more help than he could the color of his
hair ; a rather lofty estimate of the individual
called Edward Scanlan was one of them.
"Don't you think, Edward, that instead of
arguing about our blessings in this way, we had
better accept them, and be thankful for them ?
I am, I know."
But no, the mean soul is never thankful.
Into its capacious maw endless benefits from
heaven and from man that is, from heaven
through man may be poured, and still the cry
is continually, "Give, give!" and the moment
the gifts stop the murmurs begin again.
Before Edward Scanlan had ended his first
five minutes of rejoicing over his unexpectedly
large check, he began to feel annoyed that it
was not larger. It was not until his wife,
watching him with those clear, righteous eyes
of hers, made him feel a little ashamed of him-
self, that he vouchsafed to own she had "done
pretty well" in her mission of the morning.
" A hard day's work, too, it was, my dear ; a
long walk and a good deal.of talking. You are
a very good wife to me, and I owe you much."
Josephine smiled. Yes, it had been a hard
day's work to her, and he did owe her much ;
rather more than he knew. It is astonishing
how often people apologize for errors never com-
mitted and wrongs never perceived, while the
real errors, the most cniel wrongs, are not even
guessed at by the parties concerned in the in-
fliction of them.
While Mrs. Scanlan busied herself in prepar-
ing the tea or in holding baby Catherine while
Bridget laid the cloth Bridget, who, of course,
had quickly learned every thing, and hovered
62
A BRAVE LADY.
about her mistress with eyes of rapturous con-
gratulation and admiration it did occur to her
that there must be something a little wrong
somewhere ; that there was an incongruousness,
almost amounting to the ludicrous, in the rec-
tor's future heiress doing all these menial du-
ties. But the idea amused more than perplexed
her : and ere many hours had passed the whole
thing seemed to grow so unreal, that next morn-
ing when she woke up she almost imagined she
had dreamt it all.
When, a few days after, Mr. Oldham paid
his customary visit to "Wren's Nest, she took an
opportunity of expressing her gratitude for all
his kindness, and slightly reverted to his last
words over the garden gate: but he stopped
her at once.
" Never refer to that again. Perhaps I was
a fool to tell you, but it's done now. Only
mind, let all be as if I never had told you."
"I am sorry if your reasons "
*' My reasons are, that few men like to be re-
minded of their own death ; I don't. I shall
keep to my bargain, Mrs. Scanlan ; but if you
ever name it again, to me or to any other creat-
ure, it is canceled. Remember, a will can be
burnt as easily as made."
"Certainly," replied Josephine, though with
a sense of humiliation that was almost agony.
Mingled with it came a sudden fear, the faint,
cold fear of the shipwrecked sailor who has seen
a speck on the horizon which looks like a sail,
and may turn out to be no sail at all, or else
drifts away from him and then? Neverthe-
less, she had self-control enough to say calmly,
"I quite understand you, Mr, Oldham, and I
should wish you always to do exactly what you
think right."
"I believe that, Madame, and I am accord-
ingly doing it," said the old man, with a return
to his ordinary suave politeness, and calling one
of the children in to the conference so that it
could not possibly be continued.
It never was either continued or revived.
The rector's silence on the subject was so com-
plete that oftentimes during the long months
and years which followed Josephine could
scarcely force herself to believe there was any
truth in what he had told her, or that it was
not entirely the product of her own vivid imag-
ination.
But at first she accepted her good fortune
with fullness of faith, and rejoiced in it unlimit-
edly. It was such an innocent rejoicing too ;
it harmed nobody: took away from nobody's
blessings. The fortune must come to some
one ; the good old man could not caiTy it away
with him ; he would enjoy it to the full as long
as he lived, and by the time death touched him
he would just drop off like the last leaf from the
bough, perhaps not sorry to go, and gladdened
in his final hour by the feeling that his death
would benefit other lives, young and bright,
ready to take up the ended hope, and carry it
triumphantly on to future generations.
That desire of founding a family, of living
again in her posterity, was I think peculiarly
strong in Josephine Scanlan. The passionate
instinct of motherhood perhaps the deepest
instinct women have (and God knows they
need to have it, to help them along that thorny
path which every mother has trod since mother
Eve) in her did not end with her own chil-
dren. She sometimes sat and dreamed of her
future race, the new generations that should be
bom of her, impressed with her soul and body
for she rather admired her bodily self, it was
so like her father dreamed of them as poets
dream of fame and conquerors of glory. She
often looked at her Cesar who after the curi-
ous law by which nature so often reproduces the
father in the daughter, and again in the daugh-
ter's son, was an almost startling likeness of the
old Vicomte de Bougainville and thought,
with a joy she could scarcely repress, of the old
race revived, though the name was gone ; of
her boy inheriting fortune and position enough
to maintain the dignity of that race before all
the world.
And then Cesar was such a good boy, simple-
minded, dutiful ; chivalric and honorable in all
his feelings ; so exactly after the old type of
the De Bougainvilles, who had once fought for
their country as bravely as at last, for religion's
sake, they fled from it ; sustaining through all
reverses the true nobility, which found its out-
let in the old Vicomte's favorite motto, "No-
blesse oblige." Josephine watched the lad
growing taller and handsomer, bolder and stron-
ger, month by month and year by year, much
as Sarah must have watched Isaac ; seeing in
him not only Isaac her son, but Isaac the child
of promise, and the father of unborn millions.
I think Mrs. Scanlan must have been very
happy about this time. Her worldly load was
completely taken off her shoulders for the time
being. She had enough and to spare. She
could pay all her debts, and give her children
many comforts that had long been lacking.
She had not the sharp sense of angry pain
which she used to experience, ever and anon,
when, after waiting week after week till she
could fairly afford Adrienne a new warm cloak,
or Cesar a pair of winter boots, their father
would come in quite cheerily, and claim her
admiration for a heap of musty volumes ; valu-
able and expensive theological works which he
had just purchased : not that he wanted to read
them ; he was no great reader at any time ; but
" they looked so well for a clergyman to have in
his library." And when she remonstrated, he
would argue how much better food for the mind
was than clothes for the body ; and how a good
wife ought always to prefer her husband's tastes
to her children's. And it was so easy to talk,
and Edward Scanlan's arguments were so vol-
uminous, that sometimes he half convinced, his
wife she was in the wrong ; till, left alone, her
honest conscience went back with a bound, like
a half-strung bow, to the old conviction. She
knew not how to say it, but somehow she felt
it, and all the eloquence in the world could not
A BRAVE LADY.
63
convince hei that black was white, or perhaps
only gray very delicately and faintly gray.
But now the sunshine of hope which had
fallen across her path or still more, her fu-
ture path seemed to warm Josephine's nature
through and through, and make her more leni-
ent toward every one, especially her husband.
She felt drawn to him by a reviving tenderness,
which he might have a little missed of late had
he been a sensitive man ; but he was not. His
wrongs and unhappinesses were more of the
material than spiritual kind more for himself
than for other people. He regretted extreme-
ly his children's shabby clothes, but it never
struck him to be anxious because their minds
were growing up more ill-clad than their bodies.
For they had little or no education ; and for
society scarcely any beyond Bridget's and their
mother's, though they might have had worse,
at any rate.
Mr. Scanlan was exceedingly troubled about
the present, because the luxuries of life were
so terribly wanting at Wren's Nest : but he
rarely perplexed himself about the future his
own or his family's. Whatever pleased him at
the time, he did, and was satisfied with doing :
he never looked ahead, not for a single day.
"Take no thought for the morrow," was a fa-
vorite text of his whenever his wife expressed
any anxiety. What on earth could she find to
be anxious about ? she was not the bread-win-
ner of the family. It was he who had to bear
all these burdens, and very sincerely he pitied
himself; so much so that at times his wife pitied
him too, believing him, not untruly, to be one
of those characters whose worst faults are elimi-
nated by adversity. For the fact that
" Satan now is wiser than pf yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor,"
was not then credited by Josephine Scanlan.
She still felt that the man of Uz was supreme
in his afflictions ; and often she read the Book
of Job with a strange sort of sympathy. True,
she did not understand half his trials "her
children were with her in the house ;" her " can-
dle" was still '*in its place" that bright light
of contentment which illumined all the pov-
erty of Wren's Nest. Health was there too :
for the lightly- fed and hardly- worked enjoy
oftentimes a wonderful immunity from sickness.
But still it seemed to her that these blessings
were not so very blessed, or lack of money neu-
tralized them all, at least with regard to her
husband.
His complainings, she fondly hoped, would be
quieted by prosperity : when they had a larger
house, and she could get the children out of his
way in some distant nursery ; when he had more
servants to wait upon him, more luxuries to
gratify him, and fewer opportunities of growing
discontented by the daily contrast between his
neighboi's' wealth and his own poverty. For,
unfortunately, there were not many " poor" peo-
ple in Ditchley, society being composed of the
county families, the well-oflF townsfolk, and the
working-classes. And Mr. Scanlan was always
more prone to compare himself with those above
him than those below him, wondering why Prov-
idence had not more equally balanced things,
and why those stupid squires and contented
shop-keepers should have so much money to do
what they liked with, and he so little he whose
likings were of such a refined and superior or-
der that it seemed a sin and shame they should
be denied gratification.
For, as he reasoned, and his wife tried to rea-
son too, his pleasures were all so harmless. He
was no drunkard though he liked a glass of
wine well enough ; he seldom philandered with
young ladies, except in the mildest clerical way ;
was never long absent from home ; and, as for
his extraordinary talent for getting rid of mon-
ey, he got rid of it certainly in no wicked way,
but scattered it about more with the innocent
recklessness of a child than the deliberate ex-
travagance of a man. It was hard to stint him,
still harder to blame him ; much easier to blame
"circumstances" which made all the differ-
ence between a harmless amusement and a se-
rious error. When he was a rich man he would
be quite different.
At least so thought his wife, and tried to ex-
cuse him, and make the best of him, and believe
in all his possible capacities for good ; also in
the actual good there was in him, which might
have satisfied some people, who are content to
accept as virtue the mere negation of vice, or
to rule their affections by the safe law which I
have heard enunciated by mediocre goodness
concerning absolute badness : " Why should I
dislike the man when he has never harmed
me ?" But to a woman whose standard of right
was distinct from any personal benefit received
by her, or personal injury done to her; who
loved for love's sake, and hated only where she
despised ; who had begun life with a high ideal,
and a passionate necessity for its realization in
all her dear ones, especially the dearest and
closest of all her husband to such a one,
what must this kind of married life have been ?
Still, her heart grew tenderer over the father
of her children. She saw him, and all he did
or rather all he left undone in the fairest
light. When he grumbled she took it very pa-
tiently, more patiently than usual, thinking with
satisfaction of her comfortable secret how all
these annoyances were only temporary ; how he
would by-and-by become a rich man, able to in-
dulge himself as he chose. For in her heart
she liked to see her husband happy liked to
give him any lawful pleasures, and minister
even to his whims and vagaries, when this could
be done conscientiously, without her having the
pang of knowing that every selfish luxury of the
father's was taking the very bread out of the
mouths of the children. Not that he did this
intentionally ; but he did do it ; because the
even balance and necessity of things was a mat-
ter Edward Scanlan could never be taught to
undei'stand.
Still, he was very good, on the whole, for
64
A BRAVE LADY.
some time after he received this addition to his
income. It allowed him more pleasures ; it
lessened his wife's cares, and made her less
obliged to contradict him. She grew softer in
her manner to him and Edward Scanlan was
one who thought much about outside manner,
without troubling himself to investigate what
feelings lay beneath. In their mutual relief of
mind the husband and wife drew nearer togeth-
er dangerously so, for the preservation of Mr.
Oldham's secret.
Righteous hypocrite as she fully believed she
was, Mrs. Scanlan often felt herself to be a ter-
rible hypocrite after all. Twenty times a day
she longed to throw her arms round her hus-
band's neck, and whisper that she had a secret
though one which did not injure him, quite
the contrary ! Whenever he was vexed about
little things, she thirsted to tell him that his
poverty days would not last forever that she
would by-and-by be a rich heiress, able to give
him all he wanted, and rejoice in the giving.
That keenest joy of wealth to lavish it upon
others flashed out sometimes from the distant
future, with a glow that lightened for her many
a present gloom.
Still, things were hard now and then, and
she had many a twinge of conscience as to how
far she was doing right, and what her husband
would think of her when he really knew all, as
he necessarily must, some day. More than
once she definitively resolved to go and speak
to the rector whether he liked it or not ; un-
burden herself of all her doubts, and implore
him to free her from her promise, and take
away this load from her heart a load heavier
than he, as a bachelor, could comprehend.
Little he knew how fatal to happiness is any
concealment between married people, whose
chief strength and surest consolation lies in be-
ing, for good and ill, absolutely and perfectly one.
With this intent Josephine had actually one
day put on her bonnet, meaning to go to pay a
visit to the Rectory, ostensibly to excuse herself
and the children from a tea-party there a feast
on the lawn the year had again come round
to the time of open-air delights when her hus-
band entered the room, and asked her where
she was going.
Her answer was, of course, the truth, though
not, alas ! the whole truth.
"Excuse yourself from the Rectory feast?
What a ridiculous thing ! To decline Mr. Old-
ham's invitation, because the children had an
engagement elsewhere at a common farm-
house, too!"
Still, Josephine reasoned, it was a prior en-
gagement ; and the people at the farm had been
very kind to the children.
"But they are such unimportant people.
Annoying them does not matter ; now annoy-
ing Mr. Oldham does. I never noticed the
thing much till lately, when some neighbor or
other put it into my head ; but Oldham does
seem to have taken an extraordinary fancy for
our children."
"They are very good children," said the
mother, with a slight trembling of the voice.
" Oh yes, of course. And pretty, too some
of them. Don't be up in arms on their account,
mamma, as if I were always crying them down.
I see their good points just as much as you do.
And if the old fellow really has taken a liking
to them, I'm sure I don't object to your culti-
vating him as much as ever you like."
" Cultivating him ! "
"I mean with an eye to his leaving them,
something. He can't live forever ; and when
he dies, some small sum even a hundred or
two would be a great help to us."
Josephine stood dumb. Oh, if she had had
the free, clear conscience of a year ago, how in-
dignantly she would have repudiated such a
motive ! as she used to do all other similar mo-
tives of self-interest or expediency, which her
husband occasionally suggested to her. For
this lavish, frank-spoken, open-hearted young
Celt had also the true Celtic characteristic of
never being blind to his own interests. Care-
less as he was, he knew quite well on which side
his bread was buttered ; and under all his reck-
less generosity lay a stratum of meanness :
which indeed is generally found a necessary
adjunct to the aforesaid qualities.
He noticed his wife's silence : at which his
sensitive love of approbation to call it by a
lighter name than vanity immediately took
offense.
" You think that was a wrong thing of me to
say? But you always do find fault with any
new ideas of mine. You would like every thing
to originate with yourself ! "
Josephine answered only the first half of his
sentence. " I think it wrong to ' cultivate' any
body for the sake of what you can get out of
him. And you know the proverb, ' It's ill
waiting for dead men's shoes.' "
"But how can one help it when one has to
go barefoot ?"
"Which is not exactly our case, Edward.
We have as much as we require ; and we need
not be beholden to any man thank God ! "
"You are thankful for small mercies," said
Edward Scaolan, bitterly- very bitterly for a
clergyman. "But, putting aside the future,
don't you think Mr. Oldham might do some-
thing for us at present, if he knew we wanted
help ? For instance, last Sunday, in the vest-
ry, he was preaching to me a little extra ser-
mon about Cesar, noticing what a big boy he
was growing, and asking me what I intended
to do with him when he was to go to school,
and where ? Rather impertinent interference,
I thought."
"He meant it well," said Mrs. Scanlan,
humbly, and with averted eyes : afraid of be-
traying in any way the comfort it was to find
out that the rector was not indiflferent to a
fact which had haunted herself for many cruel
weeks how her handsome, manly Cesar was
growing up in a state of rough ignorance, lam-
entable in any gentleman's son, and especially
A BRAVE LADY.
65
to be deplored in one who might have to fill a
good position in society, where he would one
day bitterly feel every defect in education.
" Meant well ? Oh, of course a rector is al-
ways supposed to mean well toward a curate,
or the poor curate is obliged to take it so, as I
shall. But my idea was this : that since he
is so anxious that the lad should be well edu-
cated which we can not possibly afford per-
haps, if the matter were cleverly put before him
and you have such a clever way of doing
things, dearest Mr. Oldham might send Ce-
sar to school himself. "
Josephine started. "I do not quite under-
stand you," she said.
No sometimes she really did not under-
stand her husband. She found herself making
egregious mistakes concerning him and his
motives. To put a most sad thing in a ludi-
crous light (as how often do we not do in this
world ?) her position was like that of the great
cat trying to get through the little cat's hole :
her large nature was perpetually at fault in cal-
culating the smallness of his.
"Not understand! Why, Josephine, the
thing is as plain as a pikestaiF. Don't you
see how much we should save if Mr. Old-
liam could be induced to send Ce'sar to school
at his own expense? It is no uncommon
thing. Many a rich man has done it for a
poor man's son, who turned out a credit to
him afterward : as Cesar might, and then the
obligation would be rather on Mr. Oldham's
side, in my having consented to the thing. In-
deed," growing warmer as he argued, "it
would be a very good thing on both sides.
And I could then afford to pay that visit to
London which Summerhayes is always bother-
ing me about, and considers would be such an
advantage to myself and the family."
Still Josephine was silent ; but her face
clouded over and hardened into the expression
which her husband knew well enough, and was
in his secret heart a little afraid of. He was
thus far a good fellow he respected and loved
his good wife very sincerely.
" I see you don't like either of these notions
of mine, my dear, especially about Cesar. You
know Mr. Oldham pretty well, perhaps even
better than I do. If you think he would take
offense at such a hint "
"I should never dream of hinting any thing
to Mr. Oldham. If I wanted to ask of him a
kindness I should ask it direct, and I believe
he would grant it. But to beg from him indi-
rectly the help which we do not really need "
" We do need it. Cesar must go to school
I want to go to London. And we can't do
both, you say."
"No we can not. It is impossible. But it
is equally impossible for us to accept favors, or
to beg for any, from Mr. Oldham."
" So you say, but I entirely differ from you.
It is no favor: the laborer is worthy of his
hir."
" And the beggar is worthy of both his kicks
E
and his half-pence. But, Edward, I will take
neither. You know my mind. Many a free,
honest, honorable kindness may one man have
to owe to another, and both be benefited there-
by ; but to ask from another any thing that by
any amount of personal sacrifice one could do
for one's self is a meanness I have not been
used to. My father never would stoop to it,
nor shall my son."
Quietly as she said them, they were stinging
words : such as she could use on occasions.
She was not a stupid woman, nor a tame wo-
man; and in her youth the "soft answer,"
which is often woman's best strength, did not
always come. She was fierce against wrong
rather than patient with it outraged and in-
dignant where it might have been wiser to be
quietly brave. Though not too thin-skinned,
ordinarily, to-day her husband winced as if she
had been whipping him with nettles. For he
knew what an idol Josephine's father had been
to her, and how well the noble old nobleman
had deserved that worship. Poor Edward
Scanlan was a little cowed even before the dim
ghost of the dead Vicomte de Bougainville.
"Your father your son. Then your hus-
band may do any thing he chooses ? You won't
care. He, of course, is quite an inferior being. "
" Edward, hush ! The child ! "
For Adrienne had put her tiny pale face in
at the bedroom door, outside which she often
hovered like an anxious spirit when her father
and mother were talking.
" The child may hear it all," said Mr. Scan-
lan, glad to escape from a diflSculty. "Look
here, Adrienne; the difference between your
mother and me is this : I want you to go to the
Rectory to-morrow she wishes to take you to
the farm ; which should you like best ?"
The perplexed child looked from one parent
to the other. "I thought, papa, you did not
care for Mr. Oldham ; you are always finding
fault with him, or laughing at him."
"What a sharp child it is!" said Mr. Scan-
lan, extremely amused. "Never mind, Adri-
enne, whether I like Mr. Oldham or not ; I wish
you to go and see him whenever he asks you :
and always be sure to pay him particular atten-
tion, for he may be very useful to both me and
my family."
"Yes, papa," replied innocent Adrienne,
though not without a shy glance at her mother
for assent and approval.
The mother stepped forward, pale and firm,
but with a fierce light glittering in her eyes ;
" Yes, Adrienne, I too wish you to pay Mr.
Oldham all proper attention, because he is a
good man who has heaped us all with kind-
nesses ; because, though wo will never ask any
more from him, we can not show sufiicient
gratitude for those we have already received.^
Therefore, since papa particularly desires it, we
will give up the farm and go to the Rectory."
' ' Thank you, my dearest ; you are very good, "
said Edward Scanlan, quite satisfied and molli-
fied ; and on leaving the room he went over to
66
A BRAVE LADY.
his wife and kissed her. She received the kiss,
but let him depart without a word.
Then, taking off her bonnet, Josephine put it
by, mechanically rolling up the strings a habit
she had to make them last the longer and did
various other things about her drawers in an
absent sort of way never noticing the childish
eyes which followed her every motion. But
always silently Adrienne was such a very quiet
child. Not until the mother sat down on the
bedside, and put her hands over her dry, hot
eyes, with a heavy sigh, did she feel her little
daughter creeping behind her, to clasp around
her neck cool, soft arms.
*'Maman, maman" the French version of
the word, with the slight French accentuation
of the first syllable, such as ber children gener-
ally used when they petted her.
Mrs. Scanlan turned round and hid her fore-
head on the little bosom leaving a wet place
where her eyes had lain on the coarse blue
pinafore.
She said nothing to Adrienne, of course ; and
henceforth she carefully avoided naming to her
husband the subject of Cesar's going to* school.
But she made up her mind when it should be
done, and how, during those ten silent minutes
in her bedroom. And from that day the idea
of asking Mr. Oldham's permission to tell her
husband of their future prospects altogether
passed from her mind. No ; the rector was
right in his judgment : she herself was the only
safe depositary of the secret. She locked it
closer than ever in her heart, and returned to
her old solitude of spirit the worst of all soli-
tudes that which does not appear outside.
CHAPTER VII.
Mr. Scanlan went to London. How he
went is by no means clear; but I rather sus-
pect it was through a pearl brooch, which a
rich and warm-hearted bride, just going out
to India a neighbor's daughter greatly de-
siderated, and purchased. At any rate, it
came about somehow that Josephine's purse
was full, her jewel-case rather empty, and
that her husband took his jaunt to the me-
tropolis a pleasure which he had longed for
ever since Mr. Summerhayes began his yearly
visits to Ditchley and the neighborhood.
I do not want to depict this Mr. Summer-
hayes in villainous colors, with horns and a
tail. I believe the very personage who owns
those appendages may be not quite as black as
he is painted, still I do not agree with those
novel writers who will not call a spade a spade
^ who make us interested in murder, lenient
{ toward bigamy, and amused with swindling,
provided only it be picturesque. There does
not seem to me such a wide distinction between
the vulgar man who steals a leg of mutton or a
loaf of, bread, and the "genteel" man let me
not profane the word "gentleman" who dines
luxuriously, but never thinks of paying his
butcher or baker; who, however deficient his
income, lives always at ease, upon money bor-
rowed from friends or kindred, with promise of )
speedy return. But it never is returned was
never meant to be ; and the man, however
charming he may be, is neither more nor less
than a thief and a liar, and ought to be scouted
by society as such. And till society has the
courage to do it to strip the fine feathers from
these fine birds, and show them in their ugly
bareness, mean as any crop-headed convict in
Pentonville Prison so long will the world be
cumbered with them and the miseries they
cause. Not to themselves : they never suffer,
often flourishing on like green bay-trees to the
end, or almost the end ; but to other and most
innocent people, who unhappily belong to ttem,
and perhaps even love them.
Mr. Summerhayes was one of these, and he
became the evil genius of Mr. Scanlan's life.
Though younger than the curate, he was a great
deal older in many things from his superior
knowledge of the world. They sympathized
in their testes, and each found the other very
convenient and amusing company, when, year
by year, Summerhayes made his sketching tour
round the beautiful neighborhood of Ditchley.
There were great diff"erences between them for
instance, the elder man was weak and pliable,
the younger cool-headed and determined ; the
Irishman possessed a fragment of a heart and
the ghost of a conscience the Englishman had
neither. On many points, however, they were
much alike with enough dissimilarity to make
their companionship mutually agreeable and
amusing. And as in both the grand aim of
life was to be amused, they got on together re-
markably well. Nay, in his own way, Edward
Scanlan was really quite fond of "my friend
Summerhayes."
So was Cesar, for a while ; so was Adrienne
with the intense admiration that an imagina-
tive child sometimes conceives for a young man,
clever, brilliant, beautiful, godlike ; in so much
that the mother was rather sorry to see it, and
stopped as soon as she could without observa-
tion the constant petting which the artist be-
stowed, summer after summer, upon his little
girl-slave, who followed him about with eyes as
loving as a spaniel dog. This year, when he
succeeded in carrying oif their father, the two
children envied papa exceedingly, scarcely so
much for the pleasures of London as for the
permanent society of Mr. Summerhayes.
This, however, he did not get, as he soon
found himself obliged to " cut" his friend, and
the set the artist belonged to which, in spite
of their irreligious Bohemianism, the curate
liked extremely for the sake of reviving his
own former acquaintances, who had come up
to attend the May meetings in Exeter Hall^
and who were of a class, aristocratic and cler-
ical, who looked down upon painters, poets,
and such like, as devotees to the world, the
flesh, and the devil and besides not exactly
"respectable." Mr. Scanlan had to choose
A BRAVE LADY.
67
between them, and he did so externally ; but
he nevertheless contrived to serve two mas-
ters, in a way that excited the amusement and
loudly-expressed admiration of Mr. Summer-
hayes.
Often, after being late up overnight, in
places which Exeter Hall could never have
even heard of, and which, to do him justice,
the innocent curate of Ditchley knew as little
about as any young lamb of his fold only
8ummerhayes asked him to go, and he went
after this he would appear at religious break-
fasts, given by evangelical Earls, and pious
Huchesses dowager; where he would hold
forth for hours, delighted to see reviving his
former popularity. This did not happen im-
mediately. At first he found the memories of
even the best friends grew dulled after seven
years' absence; but many were kind to him
still. The exceeding sincerity and single-
heartedness often found, then as now, among
the evangelical party making them associate
alike with rich and poor, patrician and ple-
beian any one who, like themselves, holds
what they believe to be "the Gospel" stood
Edward Scanlan in good stead.
After he had succeeded in making a platform
speech full of the Beast with seven heads and
ten horns, the Woman in scarlet, and other fa-
vorite allegories by which, in that era of Cath-
olic Emancipation struggles, the Orange party
always designated the Romish Church many
of his old admirers rallied round the once pop-
ular preacher. But he was in London not
Dublin and had to deal with cool-headed En-
glishmen, not impulsive Hibernians. Though
his former friends had not forgotten him, and
were very glad to see him, still he was no lon-
ger "the rage," as he once had been. His
blossoming season had a little gone by. He
hung his head, "like a lily drooping," before
those full-blown orators who now mounted the
rostrum, and discoursed on the topics of the
day with an energy and a power which carried
all before them, because they had a quality
which the brilliant Irishman somewhat lacked
earnestness.
Of all places, London is the one where peo-
ple find their level ; where only under peculiar
circumstances, and never for very long, is gild-
ing mistaken for.gold. The Church of England
was beginning to pass out of that stage which
the present generation may still remember
when the humdrum sermons of the last century
were, by a natural reaction, replaced by the
" flowery" style of preaching ; now, in its turn,
also on the decline. Names, Irish and English
which it would be invidious here to record,
but which were fondly familiar to the religious
world of that date were a little losing thdr
charm, and their owners their popularity. Mere
"words, words, words," however eloquently ar-
ranged and passionately delivered, were felt not
to be enough. Something more real, more sub-
stantial, was craved for by the hungry seekers
after truth who hud brains to understand, as
well as hearts to love ^besides the usual cant
requirement of "souls to be saved."
For such vital necessities the provender given
by Mr. Scanlan and similar preachers was but
poor diet. Vivid pictures of death and the
grave, painted with such ghastly accuracy that
it was no uncommon circumstance for poor wo-
men in fresh mourning weeds to be carried out
fainting into the vestry; glowing descriptions
of heaven, and horrible ones of hell, as minute
and decisive as if the reverend gentleman had
lately visited both regions, and come back to
speak of them from personal observation ser-
mons of this sort did not quite satisfy the church-
goers of the metropolis, even in the month of
May, and amidst all the ardors of Exeter Hall.
No not though backed by the still handsome
appearance and Irish fluency which so often
passed current for eloquence of the curate of
Ditchley. Many people asked who Mr. Scan-
lan was, and lamented, especially to his face,
that he should be "thrown away" in such a
far-distant parish ; but nobody offered him a
living, a proprietary chapel, or even a common
curacy. And he found out that the induce-
ments and advices held out by Mr. Summer-
hayes on the subject were mere random talk,
upon a matter concerning which the artist knew
nothing, "ke had urged Scanlan's coming up
to London with the careless good-nature which
they both possessed ; but now that he was there
he found his guest rather a bore, and, in degree,
turned the cold shoulder upon him. Between
his two sets of friends, artistic and religious, it
sometimes happened that the poor curate had
nowhere to resort to, and spent more than one
lonely evening in crowded, busy London ; which
caused him to write home doleful letters to his
wife, saying how he missed her, and how glad
he should be to return to her. These letters
filled her heart with rejoicing.
And when he did come back, a little crest-
fallen, and for the first day or so not talking
much about his journey, she received him glad-
ly and tenderly. But she rejoiced nevertheless.
It was one of the sad things in Josephine's life
that her husband's discomfiture was, necessa-
rily, oftentimes to her a source of actual thank-
fulness. Not that she did not feel for his dis-
appointment, and grieve over it in her heart,
but she was glad he had found out his mistake.
Her conscience was never deluded by her af-
fections. She would as soon have led her boy
Cesar over ice an eighth of an inch thick, as
have aided her husband in any thing where she
knew the attainment of his wish would be to his
own injury.
Nevertheless, when he came home worn and
irritable, fatigued with London excitements,
which were such a contrast to his ordinary
quiet life, and none the \etter for various dis-
sipations to which he had not the power to say
No Mrs. Scanlan was very sorry for him, and
tried to make Wren's Nest as pleasant as pod-
sible to him, supplying him, so far as she could,,
with all his pet luxuries, listening to his endless
68
A BRAVE LADY.
egotistical talk about the sensation he had cre-
ated in London, and, above all, accepting pa-
tiently a heap of presents, more ornamental than
useful, which she afterward discovered he had
purchased with money borrowed from Mr. Sum-
merhayes, and which, with other extraneous ex-
penses, caused this London journey to amount
to much more than the pearl brooch would cov-
er. And Ce'sar had already gone to school;
Louis too for the brothers pined so at being
separated. At school they must be kept, poor
boys ! cost what it would.
Many a night did their mother lie awake,
planning ways and means which it was useless
to talk of to her Edward. In fact, she had very
much given up speaking of late : she found it
did no good, and only irritated her temper, and
confused her sense of right and wrong. She
generally thought out things by herself, and
mentioned nothing aloud until it was fully ma-
tured in her own mind. One plan, which had
occurred to her several times since the day when
Mr. Scanlan satirically suggested that she should
apply for a clerk's situation, and she had replied
bitterly, "I wish I could !" finally settled itself
into a fixed scheme that of earning money
herself, independent of her husband. For that
more money must be earned, somehow and by
somebody, was now quite plain.
To the last generation the idea of women
working for their daily bread was new, and
somewhat repellent. First, because it was a
much rarer necessity then than now. Society
was on a simpler footing. Women did work in
a sense but it was within, not without the
house : keeping fewer servants, dressing less
extravagantly, and lightening the load of hus-
bands and fathers by helping to save rather
than to spend. There Avere more girls mar-
ried, because men were not afraid to marry
them ; young fellows chose their wives as help-
mates, instead of ornamental excrescences or
appendages expensive luxuries which should
be avoided as long as possible. Consequently
there were fewer families cast adrift on the
world helpless mothers and idle, thriftless sis-
ters thrown on the charity of kindred, who have
their own household to work for, and naturally
think it hard to be burdened with more.
But, on the other hand, the feeling, begun
in chivalrous tenderness, though degenerating
to a mere superstition, that it is not " respect-
able" for a woman to maintain herself, was
much more general than now. And the pas-
sionate "I wish I could!" of poor Josephine
Scanlan had been a mere outcry of pain, nei-
ther caused by, nor resulting in, any definite pur-
pose. Gradually, however, the purpose came,
and from a mere nebulous desire resolved itself
into a definite plan.
She saw clearly that if, during the years that
might elapse before her wealth came years,
the end of which she dared not look for, it
seemed like wishing for Mr. Oldham's death-:-
the family was to be maintained in any com-
fort, he must work as well as her husband.
At first this was a blow to her. It ran counter
to all the prejudices in which she had been
reared ; it smote her with a nameless pain.
What would her father have said ? the proud
old nobleman, who thought his nobility not dis-
graced by becoming a teacher of languages, and
even of dancing any thing that could earn for
him an honest livelihood ; who would have
worked unceasingly himself, but never have al-
lowed his daughter to work. Poor as they
were, until her marriage Josephine had been
the closely shut up and tenderly guarded Ma-
demoiselle de Bougainville. But Mrs. Scanlan
was, and long had been, quite another person.
Nobody guarded her ! Remembering her own
old self, sometimes she could have laughed,
sometimes rather wept.
But of that, and of a few other sad facts, her
father had died in happy ignorance, and she was
free. She must work and she would do it.
But how? There lay the difficulty, greater
then than even in our day. A generation ago
no one supposed a woman in the rank of a lady
could do any thing but teach children. Teach-
ing, therefore, was the first thing Mrs. Scanlan
thought of; but the scheme had many objections.
For one reason, she wa% far from well-educated, -
and, marrying at sixteen, the little education
she ever had would have soon slipped away,
save for the necessity of being her children's
instructress. She learned in order to teach ;
sometimes keeping only a short distance ahead
of the little flock, who, however, being fortu-
nately impressed with the firm belief that mam-
ma knew every thing, followed her implicitly,
step by step, especially the little girls. But
even the boys, fragmentary as their education
was, had been found at school not half so ig-
norant as she had expected ; every thing they
knew they knew thoroughly. So the master
said, and this comforted their mother, and em-
boldened her to try if she could not find other
little boys and girls about Ditchley to teach
with Adrienne, Gabrielle, and Martin. Very
little children, of course, for she was too honest
to take them without telling their parents the
whole truth, that she had never been brought
up as a governess, and could only teach them
as she had taught her own.
Gradually, in a quiet wp^y, she found out who
among the rising generation of Ditchley would
be likely to come to her, as the mistress of a
little day-school, to be held in the parlor at
Wren's Nest, or in any other parlor that might
be offered to her ; and then, all her informa-
tion gained and her plans laid, she prepared
herself for what she considered a mere form,
the broaching of the subject to her husband.
To her surprise it met with violent opposition.
" Keep a school ! My wife keep a school !"
Edward Scanlan was horrified.
"Why should I not keep a school? am I not
clever enough?" said she, smiling. "Never-
theless, I managed to get some credit for teach-
ing my boys, and now that they are away my
time is free, and I should like to use it; be-
A BRAVE LADY.
69
sides," added she, seriously, "it will be better
for us that I should use it. We want more
money. "
"You are growing perfectly insane, I think,
on the subject of money," cried the curate, in
much irritation. "If we are running short,
why not go again to Mr. Oldham and ask him
for more, as I have so often suggested your do-
ing?"
Ay, he had, till by force of repetition he
had ceased to feel shame or indignation. But
the suggestion was never carried out, for she
set herself against it with a dull persistence,
hard and silent as a rock, and equally invinci-
ble.
Taking no notice of her husband's last re-
mark for where was the good of wasting
words? she began quietly to reason with him
about his dislike to her setting up a school.
" Where can be the harm of it ? Why should
I not help to earn the family bread ? You work
hard, Edward." (" That I do," he cried, eager-
ly.) " Why should not I work too ? It would
make me happier, and there is no disgrace in it."
" There is. What lady ever works ? Shop-
keepers' wives may help their husbands, but in
our rank of life the husband labors only ; the
wife sits at home and enjoys herself, as you
do."
" Do I ?", said Josephine, with a queer sort
of smile. But she attempted not to retouch
this very imaginative picture. Her husband
would never have understood it. "But I do
not wish to enjoy myself; I had rather help you
and the children. Nor can I see any real rea-
son why I should not do it. "
"Possibly not; you have such odd ideas
sometimes. If I were a tradesman you could
carry them out ; stand behind the counter sell-
ing a pound of tea and a yard of tape, calcula-
ting every half-penny, and putting it all by
which I dare say you would much enjoy, and be
quite in your element. But my wife a clergy-
man's wife could not possibly so degrade her-
self."
"Why, Edward, what nonsense! Many a
clergyman's widow has turned schoolmistress."
"As my widow, you may; as my wife, nev-
er ! I would not endure it. To come home
and find you overrun by a troop of horrid brats,
never having a minute to spare for me ; it would
be intolerable. Besides, what would Ditchley
say ?"
" I do not know, and excuse me, Edward
I do not very much care."
"But you ought to care. It is most import-
ant that I keep up my position, and that Ditch-
ley should not know my exact circumstances.
Why, the other day, when somebody was talk-
ing about how well we managed with our large
family, I heard it said ' Of course Mr. Scan-
Ian must have, besides his curacy, a private for-r
tune.' "
"And you let that pass? You allowed our
neighbors to believe it ?"
"Why should I not? It made them think
all the better of me. But, my dear, I fear I
never shall get you to understand the necessity
of keeping up appearances."
"I am afraid not," said Josephine, slow-
ly. "Perhaps we had better quit the subject.
Once again, Edward, will you give me your
consent, the only thing I need, and without
which I can not carry out my plans? They
are so very simple, so harmless, so entirely for
your own benefit and that of the family."
And in her desperation she did what of late
she had rather given up doing : she began to
reason and even to plead with her husband.
But once again, for the hundredth time, she
found herself at fault concerning him. She
had not calculated on the excessive obstinacy
Avhich often coexists with weakness. A strong
man can afford to change his mind, to see the
force of arguments and yield to them, but a
weak person is afraid to give in. "I've said
it, and I'll stick to it," is his only castle of de-
fense, in which he intrenches himself against
all assaults ; unless indeed his opponent is cun-
ning enough to take and lead him by the nose
with the invisible halter of his own vanity and
selfishness. But such a course this woman
all honest-minded women would have scorned.
Mrs. Scanlan found her husband, in his own
mild and good-natured way, quite impractica-
ble. He had taken it into his head that it was
not " genteel" for a woman to work, especially
a married woman ; so, work his wife should not,
whatever happened.
" Not in any way, visible or invisible ?" said
she, with a slight touch of satire in her tone.
"And is this charming idleness to be for my
own sake or yours ?"
"For both, my dear; I am sure I am right.
Think how odd it would look, Mrs. Scanlan
keeping a school ! If you had proposed to earn
money in some quiet way, which our neighbors
would never find out "
"You would not have objected to that?"
said Josephine, eagerly.
" Very likely I might ; but still not so much.
However, I am quite tired of discussing this
matter. For once, Josephine, you must give
in. As I have so often to remind you, the hus-
band is the head of the wife, and when I do
choose to assert my authority However, we
will not enter upon that question. Just leave
me to earn the money, and you stay quietly at
home and enjoy yourself, like other wives, and
be very thankful that you have a husband to
provide for you. Depend upon it this is the
ordinance of Scripture, which says that mar-
riage is a great mystery."
"Yes," muttered Josephine, turning away
with that flash of the eye that showed she was
not exactly a tame creature to be led or driven,
but a wild creature, tied and bound, that felt
keenly, perhaps dangerously, the careless hand
dragging at her chain.
Most truly, marriage was a mystery to her.
Why had Heaven mocked her with the sham
of a husband ? ordered her to obey him, who was
70
A BRAVE LADY.
MAEKIAGE IS A GBEAT MY8TEBY.
too weak to rule ? to honor him, whom, had he
been a stranger, she would in many things have
actually despised ? to love him ? ah ! there
was the sharpest torture of her bonds. She had
loved him once, and in a sort of way she loved
him still. That wonderful, piteous habit of
loving the affection which lingers long after
all passion has died, and respect been worn out
which one sees in the beggared peeress who
will not accept the remedy the law gives her,
and part forever from her faithless, spendthrift,
brutal lord : in the coster-monger's wife, who
comes bleeding and maimed to the police-office,
yet will not swear the peace against the savage
she calls husband nay, will rather perjure her-
self than have him punished God knows there
must be something divine in this feeling which
He has implanted in women's breasts, and
which they never fully understand until they
are married.
I did not; and I have often marveled at,
sometimes even blamed, this Josephine Scanlan,
whose little finger was worth more than her
husband's whole body, that to the end of his
days, and her days, she cherished a strange
tenderness for the man to whom she had been
bound by the closest tie that human nature can
know.
Some chance interrupted their conversation
at this critical point, and before she could get
an opportunity of reviving it for Mr. Scanlan
shirked the subject in every possible way she
thought over the question, and arranged it in
her own mind in a different form.
To go directly counter to her husband was
impossible, and to yield to him equally so.
That charming picture of domestic life with
which he deluded himself would result in leav-
ing their children without bread. Certainly the
father earned money, but he spent it as fast as
he earned it, in that easy, Irish fashion he had,
which his poor old mother knew so well ! As
to how it was spent nobody quite knew; but
nobody seemed any the better for it. That
creed, fortunately not a true one, which I once
heard nobly enunciated by a stout father of a
family, " that a married man must always sac-
rifice himself to either wife or children," did
not number among its votaries the Rev. Edward
Scanlan.
His wife must earn money; she^knew that,
but she thought she would take him at his
word, and try to do it, as he said "in some
quiet way." And suddenly a way suggested
itself, after the curious fashion in which the
bread we cast upon the waters is taken up
again after many days.
The woman who had been nurse to unhappy
Mr. Waters, overwhelmed by the fatal termina-
tion of her duties in this case, gave up her vo-
cation as attendant on the insane ; and, being
a clever and sensible person, started a little
shop for ladies' and children's clothes, lace
cleaning and mending, and other things for
which the wealthy families hereabout had
hitherto required to send to London. She
prospered well not unhelped by advice from
her good friend Mrs. Scanlan, whose exquisite
A BRAVE LADY.
71
French taste, and French skill in lace and era-
broidery work, had never quite deserted her.
In her need, Josephine thought whether she
could not do for money what she used to do
for pleasure. Priscilla Nunn always wanted
"hands," which were most difficult to find.
Why should not the curate's wife offer her-
self as "first hand," doing the work at her
own home, and if possible " under the rose"
that flower which must have been chosen as
the emblem of secrecy because it has so many
thorns ?
So had Mrs. Scanlan's scheme: but once
again, as in that well-remembered mission to
the Rectory, she took her courage dans ses deux
mains, as her father would have said, and went
to speak to^Priscilla.
It was not so very hard after all. She was
asking no favor ; she knew she could give fair
work for honest pay, and she did not feel de-
graded ; not half so degraded as when owing
money to six shops in High Street she had
walked down Mr. Oldham's garden on that
summer day which now seemed half a lifetime
ago.
Priscilla was, of course, much astonished,
but the quickness and delicacy of perception
essential to one who had followed her mel-
ancholy mtier for so many years, prevented
her betraying this to the lady who wanted to
work like a shop girl. She readily accepted
the offer, and promised not to make the facts
public if Mrs. Scanlan wished them concealed.
" You kept my secret once, ma'am," she said,
'* and I'll keep yours now. Not a soul in Ditch-
ley shall find it out. I'll tell all my ladies I send
my v/ork to be done in London."
" Don't do that, pray ! Never tell a false-
hood on my account, it would make me miser-
able. And besides, for myself I don't care who
knows ; only my husband. "
"I see, ma'am. Well, then, I'll tell no
stories ; only just keep the matter to myself,
which I can easily do. I am accustomed to
hold my tongue ; and, besides, I've nobo.dy to
speak to. Thank goodness!" she added, with
a shrewd acerbity, that half amazed, half pained
Mrs. Scanlan "Thank goodness, ma'am, I've
got no husband."
So the matter was decided, and the curate's
wife took home with her a packet of valuable
lace, which occupied her for many weeks, and
brought her in quite a handful of money. Often
it amused her extremely to see her handiwork
upon her various neighbors, and to hear it ad-
mired, and herself congratulated as being the
means of inducing Priscilla Nunn to settle at
Ditchley such an advantage to the ladies of
the neighborhood.
Her faithful Bridget, and her fond little
daughter Adrienne, of course, soon found out
her innocent mystery ; but it was a good while
before her husband guessed it. He was so ac-
customed to see her always at work that he
never thought of asking questions. When at
last he did, and she told him what she was do-
ing, and why, he was a little vexed at first;
but he soon got over it.
"A very lady-like employment," said he,
touching the delicate fabric over which her
eyes were straining themselves many hours a
day. "And it keeps you a good deal within
doors, which is much more proper than trailing
every where with the children, as you used to
do. And you are certain nobody has the slight-
est idea of your earning money ?"
"Quite certain."
" Well, then, do as you like, my dear. You
are a very clever woman, the cleverest woman
I ever knew, and the most fitted to be my
wife."
It did not occur to him was he most fitted
to be her husband? He took this side of the
question with a satisfied complaisance beauti-
ful to behold.
But to her it mattered little. She did not
weigh minutely the balance of things. She
was doing her duty both to him and the chil-
dren, and that was enough for her. Especially
when, after a time, she found her prevision
more needful than she had expected ; since
there would ere long be seven little mouths to
feed instead of six. She was not exactly a
young woman now, and the cry, "My strength
faileth me!" was often on her lips. Never
audibly, however; or nobody heard it but
Bridget. But still ever and anon came the
terror which had once before beset her of dy-
ing, and leaving her children to the sole charge
of their father. And the restlessness which
ever since his journey to London had come
upon Edward Scanlan at times, the murmurs
that he was "not appreciated at Ditchley,"
that he was "wasting his life," "rusting his
talents," and so on, tried her more than any
sufferings of her own.
Another sketch which just at this time Mr.
Summerhayes took of her Mr. Summerhayes,
who still found it convenient and agreeable to
come to Ditchley every summer, making his
head-quarters within a walk of Wren's Nest,
the hospitable doors of which were never shut
against him by his good friend the curate, who
would forgive any shortcomings for the sake of
enjoying "intellectual" society this portrait
has, stronger than ever, the anxious look
which, idealized, only added to the charm of
Josephine's beauty, but in real life must have
been rather painful to behold. She sat for it,
I believe, under the impression that it might
possibly be the last remembrance of her left to
her children but Providence willed otherwise.
She labored as long and as hard as she
could to provide for the reception of this youn-
gest child, welcome still, though, as Mr. Scan-
lan once said, " rather inconvenient ;" and then,
quite suddenly, her trial came upon her : she
laid herself down, uncertain whether she should
ever rise up more. When she did, it was
alone. That corner of Ditchley church-yard
which she called her grave for two of her in-
fants lay there had to be opened in the moon-
72
A BRAVE LADY.
light to receive a third tiny coffin, buried at
night, without any funeral rites, as unchristen-
ed babies are babies that have only breathed
for a minute this world's sharp air, and whom
nobody thinks much of, except their mothers,
who often grieve over them as if they had been
living children.
But this mother, strange to say, did not
grieve. When Bridget told her all about the
poor little thing for she had been unconscious
at the time of its birth, and her head " wan-
dered" for several days afterward, in conse-
quence, her servant angrily believed, of some
" botherations" of Mr. Scanlan's which he talk-
ed to his wife about, when any husband of
common-sense would have held his tongue
Josephine looked in Bridget's face with a
strange, wistful smile.
" Don't cry, don't cry ; it is better as it is.
My poor little girl ! It was a girl ? And she
was very like me, you say? Did her father
see her at all ?" '
" Can't tell," replied Bridget, abruptly.
" Never mind ; we'll not fret. My little
lamb ! she is safer away. There is one woman
less in the world to suffer. I am content she
died."
And when Mrs. Scanlan was seen again in
her customary household place, and going
about her usual duties, there was indeed a
solemn content,' even thankfulness in her face.
She never had another child.
CHAPTER VIII.
During the sad domestic interregnum, when
she had the law entirely in her own hands,
Bridget Halloran, with her usual acuteness,
stimulated by her passionate fidelity, did not
fail to discover the whole length and breadth
of the " botheration" which, she firmly believed,
had been the cause of the all but fatal termina-
tion of her dear mistress's illness. And the
root of it was that root of all bitterness in
Wren's Nest Mr. Sumraerhayes.
Mrs. Scanlan disapproved of him in a pas-
sive, though reticent and unobnoxious way, but
Bridget cordially hated Mr. Summerhayes.
Perhaps he had betrayed himself more care-
lessly to the servant than he did before the
lady, unto whom he was always exceedingly
courteous ; perhaps, human nature being weak,
Bridget had taken umbrage at things the chil-
dren let out concerning his ridicule of her ug-
liness and her rough odd ways ; or, more like-
ly, he had rivaled her a while in the affections
of that little flock, who were the idols of her
fond and jealous heart. At any rate, there^ was
secretly war to the knife between the servant
and her master's friend, whom Bridget be-
lieved, and not without reason, to be any thing
but the friend of hei* mistress and the family.
Possibly, though she never said it, the mistress
thought the same.
It may be urged that a true and loving wife
has no cause to dread any other influence
certainly not any male influence over hei-
husband : none can possibly be so strong as
her own. But this must depend greatly upon
what sort of man the husband may be. If he
is a mere weather-cock, blown about by every
wind, she has much reason to be careful from
which quarter the wind blows. The influence
which Summerhayes gained over Mr. Scanlan
was exactly that which a strong bad man can
always exercise over an amiable weak one
taking him on his weakest side, and leading
him by means of his tastes, his follies, or his
prejudices. This was apparent even to the in-
experienced eyes of Bridget Halloran. She
good, ignorant woman! had never seen that
wonderful engraving of Satan playing with the
young man for his soul, or she would have lik-
ened her master to one of the players, and his
friend to the other ; while in the sorrowful an-
gel \^ho stands behind, striving to the last for
the possession of that poor fool who is. perhaps
hardly worth striving for, she would at once
have seen another likeness, another good angel,
such a one as few men have, or similar strug-
gles might not end as they so often do in blank
defeat.
The contest must have been sore on the day
before Mrs. Scanlan was taken ill. It seemed
Mr. Summerhayes had "got into difficulties"
to use the mild term in which society puts
such things; in fact, he was flying from his
creditors-, who had at last risen up indignant
against the fascinating gentleman who for years
had played a deep game of deception with them
all. There are some people who, more than
even being wronged, abhor being made a fool
of, and two or three of these pursued relent-
lessly the man of fashion who, after cheating
them in every possible way, had tried to free
himself from them by calling his art a trade,
and by some legal chicanery making himself a
bankrupt instead of an insolvent. He had
been some days in hiding, and then, driven to
the last extremity, implored to be hidden at'
Wren'^Nest.
This Mrs. Scanlan steadfastly withstood.
Perhaps she might have sheltered a noble trai-
tor, but a " thief as she very plainly put it
had no interest in her eyes. She was deaf to
all her husband's arguments, entreaties, threats ;
she declared positively the swindler should not
enter her doors ; but the resistance nearly cost
her her life.
These facts Bridget ingeniously discovered,
and the consequence was that one day, when,
taking advantage of the forlorn state of the
garrison, Mr. Summerhayes appeared, he had
the door shut in his face, and was summarily
taken possession of by the enemy a wolf in
sheep's clothing who had tracked him safely to
Ditchley. The law caught hold of him, and
consigned him to the jail which, in Bridget's
opinion, he richly deserved. Possibly, had he
been an Irishman and her friend, she might have
thought differently, and have resisted rather
A BRAVE LADY.
73
ADBIENNE.
than abetted "the powers that be" for poor
Bridget's heart always had clearer vision than
her head ; but being what he was, and she what
she was, he found with her no mercy, only stem
justice. Bridget triumphed over her victim
like Jael over Sisera, with a righteous triumph,
which she did not fail to betray to the only one
to whom she could betray it poor little Miss
Adrienne, who listened and wept! For the
child was growing up into a maiden of four-
teen, and the only hero in her life had been
this young man, so clever, so handsome, viewed
with reverence as well as admiration, being so
many years older than herself Hapless Adri-
enne ! already she could not bear to have a word
said to the disparagement of Mr. Summerhayes.
Bridget shut the door upon him ; and her
master, when he found it out, was furious.
Even her mistress thought the thing might
have been done more gently, and was rather
glad when, by some loophole of justice, the
artist crept out of his durance vile and escaped
abroad, where by nothing worse than letters
could he attack her husband. And when, grad-
ually, on her complaining a little of them, and
their constant hints for assistance, the letters
ceased, her spirits revived. She thought if this
baleful influence were once removed from Ed-
ward Scanlan's life her own life might become
brighter. For she loved brightness, this sorely-
tried woman. She never lingered a moment
longer than she could help under the fringe of
the cloud.
One small shadow, however, that cloud left
behind for long. Mr. Scanlan's dislike to
Bridget increased every day. Her ugliness
and roughness had always been an annoyance
to him i but the worst thing was that she, with
her sharp eyes, had long ago seen through " the
masther,"and no man likes to be seen through,
especially by his servants.
Besides, Bridget's passionate devotion to
" the misthress" caused her to make perpetual
and not always silent protest against things
which Mrs. 'Scanlan herself bore with perfect
equanimity, for long habit scarcely even no-
tices them small daily sacrifices ; which an
unselfish nature is perpetually off*ering to a self-
ish one, and a woman to a man whether for
his good is not always clear. And Bridget,
being an inveterate man-hater, resented this.
Unquestionably, Bridget could not have been
always a pleasant person to have in the house.
She was a special bugbear to Edward Scanlan,
with whom her warm Irish heart counted as
nothing against her sharp Irish tongue, edged
with shrewd mother-wit, and weighted by the
sterling honesty which detects at once any thing
like a sham. He not merely disliked her, he
actually dreaded her, and tried every means,
not 9pen, but underhand, to get rid of her.
They all failed, however. When she left Ire-
land Bridget had declared she would live and
die with her dear mistress, and she kept her
word. She stuck like a bur to the struggling
household at Wren's Nest, blind to all hints,
deaf to all scoldings totally indifferent on the
subject of wages, or of *' bettering herself," as
74
A BKAVE LADY.
her master sometimes urged. She would not
go ; and both she and her mistress knew per-
fectly well that she could not go. For what
new servant would have been content with
Bridget's wages have lived upon Bridget's
scanty fare have put up with every sort of in-
convenience, and still gone working on "like a
horse," as Bridget did ? Above all, who would
have loved them one and all as Bridget loved
them?
And in this story, where I am conscious of
shooting many a sharp arrow against the Irish
nation casting dust ah, well! on the graves
of my children's forefathers let me confess
with tears over another grave, where I myself
lately laid Bridget Halloran's dear old head,
that I believe she is not an untrue type of many
Irishwomen women carrying under their light,
lively manners hearts as true as steel, and as
pure and fresh as their own green meadows and
blue skies cheerful themselves and cheering
others to the last limit of a blessed old age. I
have known such ; and I wish oh ! my sin-
cere, formal, dear, gentle Englishw9men ; my
brave, true, narrow-minded, large-hearted
Scotchwomen I wish I knew a few more !
The whole course of Bridget's relations with
the family of which she considered herself a
member were a queer mixture of tragedy and
comedy, which climaxed to a point when there
appeared unexpectedly a quite legitimate mode
of getting rid of her. The Rectory gardener
an elderly widower, with a large family who
had long noted Bridget's good qualities, bal-
anced them against her defects ; and having
very deaf ears and no eye for beauty, considered
that she would make him a capital wife. Ac-
cordingly he asked her formally in marriage,
and of Mr. Scanlan, who, with great amaze-
ment and ill-concealed satisfaction, forwarded
the old fellow's suit by every means in his
power.
But Bridget refused to smile upon her an-
cient lovei' not that his antiquity was against
him : she said, " Old men were much better
than young ones ; she'd rather marry the rec-
tor than any curate in the neighborhood, if she
was a lady. But," she added, severely, "not
a man in the world was to be depended on;
she'd seen too much of matrimony to wish to
try it herself." Which remark, being repeated
to him unconsciously by one of his " little pitch-
ers," who have always such proverbially "long
ears," did not greatly gratify Mr. Scanlan.
I fear he may be considered, after all, an ill-
nsed man, playing a rather subordinate part in
his own household. But people get what they
can ; and there is one thing which no sham rev-
erence will impart to its object dignity. It is
no easy thing to set up as the household deity
an idol, not of gold but clay, from whom the
gilding is perpetually rubbing off, and the baser
material appearing in the eyes even of children
and servants ; so that nothing but the assertion
of an absolute falsehood can maintain the head
of the family as a "head" at all. Oh how
thankful ought those families to be who really
have a head to worship with the leal devotion
which is his rightful due who, as husband, fa-
ther, and master, righteously fulfills his duties,
and is in truth God's vicegerent upon earth unto
those who with all their hearts love, honor, and
obey him ! Knowing what such loyalty is, it is
with tears rather than wrath or ridicule that I
draw this inevitable picture of Edward Scanlan.
He was a very unfortunate man, and thought
himself so, though for other causes than the
true ones. He counted as nothing his bright,
clever, handsome wife, his healthy children, his
settled income, but was always wearying for some
blessing he had not got to be a popular preach-
er, a great author, a man of wealth and fashion.
He envied his rich neighbors every luxury they
had, and would have aped their splendor con-
stantly with his own pinchbeck imitations of
the same had not his wife withstood him stead-
ily. She tried all possible arguments to make
him live simply, modestly ; resting upon his
sure dignity as a minister of God, who has no
need^ to pay court to any man ; whose mere
presence is an honor, and who may receive the
best society without deviating in the least from
his own natural household ways.
For instance, that small snobbishness of a
poor man asking rich men to dinner, and giv-
ing them dinners like their own, seemed con-
temptible to the "blue blood" of Josephine
Scanlan. When Lady Emma Lascelles came
to the Rectory, and walked over, as she always
did, to the children's tea at Wren's Nest, Mrs,
Scanlan gave her a cordial welcome, the best
she had of food and drink, and nothing more.
But Mr. Scanlan would have feasted her on
silver and gold, and let the family fast for a
week to come.
Small differences such as these springing
from the fact that the husband has one stand-
ard of right and the wife another, and that
they look at things from totally opposite points
of view caused the wheels of life to move not
always smoothly in the Scanlan household.
How can two walk together unless they be
agreed? especially when they have children,
and every year the young eyes grow sharper,
and the little minds wider and clearer. Alas !
often, when the wife's agony has grown dulled
by time, the mother's but begins. Many a day,
had she been alone, Mrs. Scanlan, in very wea-
riness of warfare, would have laid down her
arms, indifferent not merely to prudence and
imprudence, but almost to right and wrong.
Now she dared not do it, for the sake of her
children. To bring them up honestly, simply,
in the fear of God and total fearlessness of man,
was her one aim and one desire ; and to do
this she again and again buckled on her armor
for this pitiable domestic skirmishing, this guer-
rilla warfare ; having to fight inch by inch of her
way, not in an open country, but behind bushes
and rocks. For, as I before said, Edward Scan-
lan was at heart a coward, and his wife was not.
In most contests between them he ended by pre-
A BRAVE LADY.
75
cipitately quitting the ground ; leaving his mel-
ancholy victress to gaze, more humiliated than
victorious, round upon her desolate battle-field.
She did this the day after Bridget had given
the final cong to her lover, and declared her
determination not to be " druv out o' the
house," but remain a fixture there as long as
she lived ; which Mrs. Scanlan honestly said
she thought was the best thing possible for the
family. So Mr. Scanlan had to yield ; but the
domestic atmosphere was not sunny for a week
or more ; the mistress had a sad worn face, and
the master allowed himself to be irritable over
trifles in a way patent even to chance visitors
to the rector, for instance.
"I'll tell you what, Scanlan," said he, one
afternoon, when he had spent an hour or two,
after his wont, with the family; "you are a
good fellow, and a very amusing fellow, but you
ought to have been a bachelor."
" I wish I had. It would have saved me a
world of trouble," replied the curate, laughing.
But he seemed a little vexed for all that. He
liked always to appear the amiable paterfamil-
ias. It looked so very much better in a clergy-
man. And many a time, when visitors were by,
he would put his arm round his girls' waists and
pat his boys on the shoulder caresses which
these young people received at first with awe
and pleasure, then with hesitation, at4ast with a
curious sort of smile. Little folks are so sharp !
sharper than big folks have any idea of.
I will not say these children did not love
their father, for he was good-natured to them ;
and they clung to him with the instinct of life-
long habit ; but they did not respect him, they
did not rely upon him. " Oh, papa says so,"
which meant that secondary evidence was nec-
essary; or, "Papa intends it," which implied
that the thing would never be done grew to be
familiar phrases in the household. The mother
had simply to shut her ears to them ; for to ex-
l)lain them, to argue against them, above all,
to reprove them, was impossible.
And thus time went on, and it was years since
the day she had heard Mr. Oldham's intentions
with regard to her; which at first seemed to
make such a momentous difference in her life,
but at last sunk into a mere visionary fancy,
scarcely believed in at all.
Besides, sad to say, but not wonderful, the
secret which she thought would have been a
permanent bond of union between herself and
her good old friend turned out quite the con-
trary ; rather a bar of separation between them.
Her sensitive pride took alarm lest, silent as she
was by his command, any filial attentions she
might show to him might be misinterpreted ;
supposed by him to be meant to remind him of
his promise. For the same reason all her dif-
ficulties and anxieties, yearly accumulating, she
hid from him with the utmost care ; complain-
ings might have been construed into an entreaty
for help, or for some change in the difficult and
anomalous position in which he had placed her
and allowed her to remain.
It was indeed most difficult ; especially with
regard to the children, of whom, as he grew fee-
bler, Mr. Oldham's notice gradually lessened.
They obviously wearied him, as the young do
weary the old. And their mother could not
bear to intrude them upon him ; would scarce-
ly ever send them to the Rectory, where they
used to be such constant guests, lest, as he
once said, they might "remind him of his
death," and of their own future heirship ; also,
lest their somewhat provincial manners and
shabby dress should be a tacit reproach to him
for his half-and-half kindness toward them.
For their mother acutely felt that a hundred
pounds spent upon them now would be worth
more than a thousand ten years hence, if Mr.
Oldham lived so long. She would sit calcu-
lating how late Ce'sar might go to college, with
any hope of succeeding there ; and whether
Adrienne and the younger ones could acquire
enough accomplishments to make them fit for
their probable position. And then she caught
herself reckoning horrible idea! how long the
term of mortal life usually extends, and how long
it was likely to extend in Mr. Oldham's case,
until she started up, loathing her own imagina-
tion, feeling as guilty as if she were compass-
ing the old man's death, and wondering wheth-
er the promised fortune was a blessing or an act-
ual curse ; for it seemed both alternately.
Sometimes the hope of the future was the
only thing that made her present life endura-
ble ; again, it haunted her like an evil spirit,
until she felt her very nature slowly coiTupting
under its influence. She was conscious of
having at once a bitter scorn for money, and
yet an exaggerated appreciation of its value,
and an unutterable craving to possess it.
Then oftentimes she felt herself such an arrant
hypocrite. Luckily, her husband never talked
of the future it was not his way; he took
things easily, would have eaten calmly his last
loaf, and then been quite surprised that the
cupboard was empty. But Bridget often let
out her own humble fears about "them poor
dear children," and the way they were growing
up ; and one or two of her neighbors came and
advised with her on the subject wondering
what she meant to do with Cesar, and wheth-
er, presently, he would not be able to leave
the grammar-school and get a small clerkship,
or be apprenticed to some respectable very
respectable trade. To all of which remarks
and not unkindly anxieties she had but one
answer, given with a desperate bluntness which
made people comment rather harshly upon how
very peculiar Mrs. Scanlan was growing, that
"she did not know."
It was the truth ; she really did not know.
Mr. Oldham's total silence on the subject often
made her fancy she must have mistaken him in
some strange way, or that he had changed his
mind altogether concerning her. The more
so, as there gradually grew up a slight coolness
between him and her husband. Whether it
was that the rector had offended the huge
76
A BRAVE LADY.
self-esteem of his curate and of all enmity,
the bitterest is that of a vain man whose vanity
has been wounded ; or else the curate had been
seen through clearer than ever by the astute
and acute old rector ; but certainly they never
got on well when they did meet, and they grad-
ually met as seldom as possible. Mr. Oldham
generally called at Wren's Nest when Mr.
Scanlan was absent ; and Mr. Scanlan always
found an excuse ready for sending his wife
alone when invitations came from the Rectory.
Yet still he every now and then harped upon
his stock grievance the great injustice with
which he was treated in being so underpaid,
and compelled, for the sake of wife and family,
to hide his light under a bushel at Ditchley,
when he might be acquiring fame and fortune
in London. And still he at times suggested
going there, or threatening to go, that, to de-
tain him, Mr. Oldham might still further in-
crease his salary. To all of which notions and
J)rojects his wife opposed a firm, resolute nega-
tive that of silence. She let him talk as much
as he liked and he dearly enjoyed talking
but she herself spoke no more.
At length a thing happened which broke this
spell of sullen dumbness broke it perhaps for
her good, for she felt herself slowly freezing up
into a hard and bitter woman. Still, the way
the blow fell was sharp and unexpected.
Her husband came home one night, irritable
exceedingly. Now many a wife knows well
enough what that means, and her heart yearns
over the much-tried man, who has been knocked
about in the world all day and comes to her
for rest, and shame if he can not find it ! even
though he may task her patience and forbear-
ance a little sometimes. But irritability was
not Edward's failing; he rather failed in the
opposite direction in that imperturbable in-
difference to all cares and all troubles which
did not personally annoy himself, which often
passes muster as "the best temper in the
world;" though, undoubtedly, he was by na-
ture of a better temper than his wife, in whom
circumstances were gradually increasing certain
acerbities, not uncommon in strong and high-
spirited women, but yet far from beautiful.
And Mr. Scanlan's easy laisser aller tried Mrs.
Scanlan to the last limit of feminine endur-
ance.
To-day, however, they seemed to have
changed characters. She was calm, and he
was sorely out of humor. He found fault with
Bridget, the children, the house, every thing
nay, even with herself, which he did not often
do. And he looked so ill and wretched, lying
on the sofa all the evening, and scarcely saying
a word to any one, that she grew alarmed.
When the children had gone to bed the se-
cret came out not naturally, but dragged out
of him, like a worm out of its hole, and then
pieced together little by little, until, in spite of
numerous concealments and contradictions,
Mrs, Scanlan arrived at a tolerable idea of what
was wrong.
Her husband had gone and done what most
men of his tempei-ament and character are very
prone to do it looks so generous to oblige a
friend, and flatters one's vanity to be able to do
it he put his name to a bill of accommodation.
The " friend" turned out as such persons usually
do, a mere scoundrel, and had just vanished,
to Greece, or Turkey, or Timbuctoo, little mat-
ter where ; but he could not be found, and the
acceptor of the bill had to pay it all.
" 1 declare, Josephine, I had no idea of such
a thing," pleaded he, eagerly ; " I thought it
was a mere form : and after it was done I quite
forgot all about it. I did, indeed, my dear
wife."
"I fully believe you," Josephine said, bitter-
ly. Hitherto she had opposed not a word to
his stream of talk, explanations, regrets, apol-
ogies. He never looked at her, or he would
have seen her slowly whitening face, her rigid
mouth, and knotted hands.
"But isn't it unlucky so very unlucky for
me ?"
" For us, you mean," said Mrs. Scanlan, slow-
ly. " But do you think you can tax your mem-
ory enough to tell me just two facts? How
much have you to pay ? and how soon must you
pay it ?"
Facts were not the prominent peculiarity
of Edward Scanlan ; but at last She elicited
from him that the bill was over-due, and that it
amounted to two hundred pounds.
"Two hundred pounds ! And when did you
sign it ?"
"A year ago six months I really forget."
She looked at him with her indignant eyes.
" Edward, why did you not tell me at the time ?"
" Oh, my dear, you would have made such a
fuss about it. And besides it was merely sign-
ing my name. I never expected to be called
upon to pay a farthing. I never should have
been but that my friend "
" You have never said yet who is your friend."
" Ah, that was your fault. You always dis-
liked him, so that I could not mention him.
Otherwise I should never have thought of not
telling you. It was your doing, you see ; you
were always so unjust to poor Summerhayes."
"So it was Mr. Summerhayes for whom
you accepted the bill ?"
"I could not help it, Josephine, I assure
you. He kept writing to me letter after letter."
"What letters? I never saw them."
Edward Scanlan blushed ; yes, he had the
grace to blush. "No, they never came here :
I knew they would only make you angry, so I
had them directed to the post-office. In fact,
my darling, I was really afraid of you."
"Afraid of me!" said Josephine, turning
away. And as she did so there crept into her
heart a feeling worse than indignation, jeal-
ousy, or wounded love the most fatal feeling
any wife can have not anger, but contempt
for her husband.
Edward Scanlan was mistaken ; she made
" no fuss" about this. Women like her seldom
A BRAVE LADY.
77
waste their strength in idle struggles against
the inevitable. She bore the disastrous reve-
lation so quietly that he soon began to think
it had not aiFected her at all, and recovered
his spirits accordingly. If Josephine did not
mind it, of course the thing could be of no con-
sequence : she would find a way out of it ; she
was so very sensible a woman. For among the
pathetic bits of good in him which accounted
for his wife's lingering love, was this unfailing
belief in her, and unlimited reliance upon her.
Surely, with the aid and counsel of his good
Josephine he would be able to swim through
that unpleasant affair. " Unpleasant" was the
only light in which it occurred to him. The
actual sin of the thing, and the weakness, al-
most amounting to wickedness, of a man who,
rather than say No to another man, will com-
promise the interests of his own nearest and
dearest, did not strike in any way the curate
of Ditchley. He became quite cheerful.
"I am so glad to see how well you take it.
Tnrly, my dear, you are the best wife in En-
gland, and I always say so to every body.
And since you agree with me that I could not
avoid this difiiculty, I hope you will help me in
trying to get out of it."
"How?"
"By going to Mr. Oldham and asking him
to lend us the money. He has lots of capital
lying idle I know that and two hundred
pounds is nothing to him, even if he gave it
instead of lending it. But I don't ask him to
give it, only to lend it, and on ample security. "
*' On what security ?"
" My own ; my I O U my * promise to pay,'
which perhaps you don't understand ; women
are so ignorant about business. Personal se-
curity is of coarse all I can offer, unless I had a
fortune. Heigh-ho! I wish somebody some
wealthy old spinster, or miserly old bachelor
like Oldham would leave me one !"
Josephine's breath almost failed her. Though
her husband had spoken in the most random,
careless way, she looked at him in terror, as if
he knew the truth. But no ; her own timorous
conscience had been alone to blame.
" Why, Josephine, how red you have turned !
Have I said such a dreadful thing, or are you
getting furious, as usual, because I suggest ap-
plying to Mr. Oldham for money ? Not in the
old way, you will observe ; this way is quite legal
and unobjectionable a transaction between
gentleman and gentleman; and he ought to
feel rather flattered that I do apply to him.
But you you seem as frightened of that poor
old fellow who is fast breaking down, I see
as if he were the Great Mogul himself."
Josephine paused a little. In her answer it
was necessary to weigh every word.
" Edward," she said at last, " if you do this
you must do it yourself. I can not and will
not beg from Mr. Oldham in any shape or
under any pretext. He pays us sufficiently,
and more than sufficiently, and I wish to keep
free from all obligations to him."
"You are perfectly silly! Why should we
not get as much out of him as we can? He
has no children, as we have, and goodness only
knows who is his heir, if he has any. He may
leave all his money to a college or a foundling
hospital. Let him ! Who cares ?"
" No one ought to care. It is his own, to do
what he likes with."
" Bless me ! If I thought I had the slightest
chance wouldn't I have a try for it! If the
rector would only leave his property to his poor
curate not the most unnatural thing either!
why we might almost live u\)on post-obits.'*
"Will you tell me what is & post-obit f'
" You innocent, dear woman ! Only a bond
given as security for money advanced, to be
paid after the death of one's father, or uncle,
or any one to whom one is lawful heir. Many
a young fellow supports himself for years upon
post-obits. 1 only wish I had a chance of try-
ing the system."
"Fortunately you have none," said his wife,
in her hard, unwifely tone. And yet, had she
been married to a hero, nay, to an ordinarily
upright and high-minded man, Josephine Scan-
Ian would any day have died for her husband.
Harder still, she would have helped him to die.
She was the sort of woman to have gone with him
to the very foot of the scaffold, clung around his
haltered neck, or laid his disgraced head upon
her bosom, heeding nothing for worldly shame,
so that she herself could r"Srerence him still.
But now ? Well, the man was what he was ;
and, alas ! he was her husband.
She might have been too hard upon him, ex-
acting from him a nobility of thought and action
of which few are capable striving forever to
pull out the mote from his eyes, and forgetting
the beam in her own. And yet and yet
I can not judge I dare not. When I
Winifred (not Winifred Weston now) look at
the dear face opposite to me, on my own hearth,
I know that such a marriage would have mad-
dened me.
Ignorant as she was in many worldly things,
Mrs. Scanlan knew enough to see that, though
her husband had brought himself into it foolish-
ly rather than guiltily, his position was very
critical. Unless he could meet the bill, he
would have to give up every thing he had
and that was not worth two hundred pounds.
No wonder that, as she drew him b^ck again
to the subject in hand, and they began to dis-
cuss every possible way In which he could
avoid the consequences of his imprudence, Ed-
ward Scanlan gradually became so terrified that,
even with the demon of contempt lurking at the
bottom of her heart, his wife felt almost sorry
for him.
" Help me ! do help me !" he cried. " I have
nobody in the wide world to help me but you."
That was true ; truer far than he meant it to
be. For the once charming curate had a little
worn out the admiration of his flock. He got
fewer invitations than he used to have, and
those among the new rather than the old in-
78
A BRAVE LADY.
habitants of Bitchley. Of these latter, the
younger folks began to look upon him as a
middle-aged father of a family, and the seniors
found, both in his conversation and character,
a certain lack of that stability and wisdom
which replace so nobly, in many men, the at-
tractiveness of youth. Perhaps, too, others
besides Bridget and Mr. Oldham, when thrown
in nearer relations with him, had in course of
years "seen through" Mr. Scanlan. At any
rate, his popularity was a little waning in the
neighborhood, and if he did not guess the fact
his wife did pretty plainly.
As to how it affected her well, a man might
not easily understand, but I think most women
would. When he said with what he did not
know was truth, only pitiful appeal "I have
nobody to help me but you," and leaned his
head on her shoulder, his wife did not thrust
him away ; she drew him closer, with a sad
tenderness.
"Poor Edward!" said she, softly. "Yes;
I will help you if I can."
And she sat a long time thinking ; while
Mr. Scanlan went on talking, arguing with her
in every possible form the duty and necessity
of her making application to Mr. Oldham. She
returned no answer, for another scheme had
darted into her mind. Alas ! she was growing
into a painfully quick-witted woman as alive
to the main chance, she often thought, as any
man could be.
Those jewels of hers long put by and nev-
er used they were worth fully two hundred
pounds. She knew that by the brooch she had
once sold. She had never tried to sell any
more ; she thought she would keep them, these
relics of her youth and her early married life,
until the day when her prosperous condition
would make them suitable for her Avearing.
But now, if she could dispose of them, tempo-
rarily, to some friend who would generously al-
low her to redeem them ! And then she thought
of Lady Emma Lascelles, between whom and
herself had sprung up something as like friend-
ship as could well exist between a curate's wife
and an earl's daughter married to a million-
aire.
"I will get Lady Emma's address from the
Rectory, and write to her." And she explained
to Mr. Scanlan the reason why.
He did not object, having fallen into that
dejected condition in which he never objected
to any thing, but let his wife do just as she
liked. Nor did he now take a sentimental
view of her parting with her marriage pearls ;
the practicalities of life had long since knocked
all sentiment out of him. He only implored
her to conduct the transaction with the utmost
care, and let nobody know, especially the rec-
tor.
" For I think indeed, I am sure that some-
body has given him a hint about the matter.
He sent me a rather curt note requesting me
to come and speak to him at ten o'clock to-
morrow morning on my way to the vestry-
meeting. It may be only about vestry busi-
ness ; but I wish I was well out of it, or I
wish you could go instead of rae, my dearest
Josephine."
"I wish I could," she said, with a mixture
of pity and bitterness ; and then stopped her-
self from saying any more.
They took the pearls out of her jewel-case,
a beautiful set the bridegroom's present on
her wedding-day. But neither referred to
that ; possibly neither remembered the fact ;
these memories wear out so strangely fast
amidst all the turmoil and confusion of life ;
and the crisis of the present was too imminent,
the suspense too great.
" Lady Emma is at Paris now, I think ; but
I can easily get her exact address. I will go
up to the Rectory for it to-morrow morning ;
or you could ask yourself, Edward."
" Not I. I will have nothing to do with it.
Manage your own affairs. "
"My own affairs!" Well, they were her
own now her children's whole future might
be at stake on the chance of Lady Emma's act-
ing promptly and kindly. But there was little
fear, she had so good a heart. "I feel sure
she will buy them," said Mrs. Scanlan, locking
up the case again. "And I shall beg her to
let me buy them back if ever we are rich enough
for me to wear them."
"You never will wear them," said the cu-
rate, drearily. "Depend upon it, Josephine,
we are slowly sinking sinking into abject pov-
erty. You would not let me get a chance of
rising in the world, and now you must reap the
results. Mark my words, your sons will end in
being mere tradesmen wretched, petty trades-
men." For Mr. Scanlan, being only a gener-
ation removed from that class, had a great con-
tempt for it, and a great dread of being in any
way identified or mixed up with it.
"My sons!" cried the poor mother, sudden-
ly remembering them and what they might
come to, if at this crisis things went ill, if no
money were attainable to meet the bill, and it
were put into a lawyer's hands ; when, suppos-
ing he were unable to pay it, he would assured-
ly be sent to prison. After such a dire dis-
grace it would be all over with him and them
all, for Mr. Oldham would never receive him
again as curate, aiid Ditchley, which, with all
its narrowness, was quite old-fashioned in its
innocent honesty, certainly never would.
"My poor boys!" Mrs. Scanlan repeated,
piteously ; then started up erect, her black eyes
flashing, and her whole figure dilated. "I do
not care," she said ; "whatever happens, I do
not care. Edward, I had i-ather see my Ce'sar,
my Louis, an honest butcher or baker than a
thief of a ' gentleman' like your friend Mr.
Sumraerhayes."
A BRAVE LADY.
79
CHAPTER IX.
Aftek his wife's fierce ebullition about "a
thief of a gentleman" Mr. Scanlan did the only
wise thing a husband could do under the cir-
cumstances he held his tongue. Next morn-
ing, even, he took every opportunity, not of re-
newing, but of eluding the subject. Fortunately
he had to leave early ; and after he had started
for a long day of what he called "parish duties"
which meant a brief vestry-meeting and a
long series of pastoral visits afterward to lunch-
eon, dinner, and so on, at various hospitable
houses Josephine sat down to collect her
thoughts before she paid her call to the Rec-
tOlT.
Though she saw Mr. Oldham less often than
of yore, and there had grown up between them
a vague reserve, still she knew he liked her
still, and she liked him very sincerely. Both
the old man and the young woman had instinct-
ively felt from the first that theirs were sympa-
thetic and faithful natures, and no drawbacks
of circumstances could alienate the firm friend-
ship between them, though it was one of those
dormant friendships which sometimes never
thoroughly awaken in this world, and, ceasing
out of it, leave us with the feeling less of what
they were than what they might have been.
Nevertheless, the tie between Mrs. Scanlan and
the old rector was strong enough to make it
difficult for her to disguise from him her pres-
ent heavy anxiety, especially if, as her husband
suspected, he had some inkling of it already.
What if he questioned her why she wanted
Lady Emma's address? Some simple femi-
nine reason might easily be assigned ; but that
Josephine scorned. No small womanish arts
were at all in her line ; she must always go
straight to her point. If Mr. Oldham asked
her, she must, of course, tell him the exact
state of the case ; but, for her husband's sake,
she determined to keep it back as long as pos-
sible.
These anxious thoughts showed so plainly in
her face that Bridget, coming into the parlor to
find out the cause of her mistress's unusual state
of quiescence, read them at once.
"You've got another botheration, ma'am, I
see. Tell it me, do. The children are safe
out of doors ; look at 'em all playing in the
garden, so full of fun ! It '11 do your heart
good, ma'am dear."
Poor Bridget had touched the right chord ;
the hard, stony look passed from Mrs. Scanlan's
face ; she began to weep, and once beginning
she could not stop. By degrees her faithful
servant had coaxed her out of half her trouble,
and guessed the rest.
Bridget drew a long breath, and, being behind
her mistress's back, clenched her sturdy fist and
pulled her good, ugly face into a succession of
villainous frowns, which might be meant for
any body or nobody but she said nothing.
And there, I think, the poor servant deserves
some credit, and some pity too. Her life was
a long series of self-suppression. What she
felt toward her mistress and the children was
patent enough ; her feelings toward her master
nobody knew. It is hard to disguise love ; but
it is still harder to hide its opposite ; and, per-
haps, the hardest thing of all is to see the ob-
ject of one's love a willing, deluded victim to the
object of one's not hatred, perhaps but in-
tense aversion and contempt. Bridget despised
her master ; there was no doubt about that ; yet
I feel sure that throughout her life she never let
her mistress know it. Which fact, I think, may
fairly place the poor, unlettered Irishwoman in
the rank of heroines.
Bridget had no question that Lady Emma
would buy the jewels, and hold her tongue on
the matter too. "She was a rale lady, and
could keep a secret." Logic at which Mrs.
Scanlan smiled faintly. But still in many ways
the devotedness of the woman comforted her
heart not for the first time.
It may seem strange, and some people may
be much scandalized at it, that this poor lady
should be so confidential with her servant; more
so than with her husband. But it must be re-
membered that in both Irish and French house-
holds the relation between superiors and infe-
riors is both freer and closer than it is in En-
gland generally ; and, besides, she could trust
Bridget. No shams with her! no mean, dou-
ble-minded, worldly ways; no half-truths, or
prevarications arranged so cleverly as, without
telling an actual lie, to give the appearance of
one. Irish though she was (I confess with sor-
row an all but universal Celtic fault !) Bridget
had learned, difficultly and painfully, to "tell
truth and shame the devil," and her mistress
loved her accordingly.
" Wish me good-speed," said she, as the lov-
ing servant threw something after her from the
door "for luck." "I trust I may come back
with a lighter heart than I go."
And slipping away out of sight of her little
folks, who would have overwhelmed her with
questions about her unusual errand to Ditchley
alone, Mrs. Scanlan walked quickly across the
common, even as she had done the day she had
first heard Mr. Oldham's secret, years ago.
How many they seemed ! And how many
more appeared to have slipped by since she was
married ! Manied on just such a morning as
this, a soft February morning, with the sap just
stirring in the leafless trees, the buds forming
on the bare hedges, the sky growing blue, and
the sunshine warm, and the thrushes beginning
to sing. All the world full of youth and hope,
and half-awakened spring, as her life was then.
For she had loved him ; with a foolish, girlish,
half-fledged love ; still, undoubtedly, she had
loved him, this Edward Scanlan, whom now
she could hardly believe sometimes was the
Edward she had married.
A frantic vision crossed her of what she had
thought then their married life would be ; what
it might have been^ay, and what even after
they had settled at Ditchley she had tried hard
80
A BRAVE LADY.
to make it. For how little their loss of fortune
would have harmed them had Mr. Scanlan
only been content "with such things as he had
had they rejoiced over their daily blessings,
and been patient with their inevitable cares!
How much wiser if, instead of pestering Prov-
idence like angry creditors for what they fan-
cied their due, they had accepted His gifts like
dear children, believing in the father who loved
even while He denied !
This faith, which I conclude Mr. Scanlan
taught, like most clergymen, in the letter of
his sermons, was now the only rag of religion
left in Josephine. Doctrines which her hus-
band with his other Evangelical brethren was
very strong in she did not believe in one whit ;
or rather she never considered whether they
were true or false. They had been dinned into
her with such weary iteration, preached at her
on all occasions only preached, not practiced
that now she let them alone ; they went in at
one ear and out at the other. She did not act-
ually loathe them ; mercifully, Christianity is
so divine that all pure souls instinctively accept
it and cling to it, in spite of the corruptions of
its followers ; but she ignored them as much as
she could, and taught as little as possible of
them to her children. But at every step she
was stopped ; even at the Lord's Prayer, when
her youngest child, to whom she tried to ex-
plain why he was to call God "Our Father,"
and Avhat a father was, horrified her by the sim-
ple question, " Is God any thing like papa ?"
Poor mother ! Poor children ! And they
had all "souls to be saved," as Mr. Scanlan
would have put it. But happily he did not
perplex himself much about the souls of his
own family ; he took it for granted that, being
his family, they were all right, when in truth
they were in a spirit of skeptical contempt
worse than the blackest heathenism. It re-
quired many years and many sorrows to bring
Josephine Scanlan to the light ; and her chil-
dren, save perhaps Adrienne, died without see-
ing it, or recognizing in "the Gospel" any
thing beyond a cant phrase, which meant no-
thing, or worse than nothing. '*No wonder!"
said Bridget one day to me, unconscious of the
bitter satire of her words. "You see, Miss,
their papa was a clergyman."
Fiercely and fast, thinking as little as pos-
sible of how she should word her eiTand, and
nerving herself for disappointment, as if it were
her usual lot, Mrs. Scanlan walked through the
Rectory garden to the front-door. It stood
wide open, though the day was cold, and up
and down the usually silent house were sounds
of many feet. Nevertheless, she rang several
times before the bell was answered. Then ap-
peared some under-servant with a frightened
face, by which Josephine perceived that some-
thing was terribly wrong.
"What has happened your master?" and
a sudden constriction of the heart made her
stop. She felt almost as if her thoughts had
murdered him.
No, Mr. Oldham was not dead. Worse than
dead, almost, for his own sake and other^. He
had gone to his study, desiring he might not be
disturbed till lunch-time, as he had " business."
At one o'clock the butler went in and found
him lying on the floor, alive and sensible, but
speechless and motionless. How long he had
lain there, or what had brought on the fit, no
one knew, or was ever likely to know. For
Dr. Waters, who had been fetched at once,
said it was very unlikely he would ever speak
again. The paralysis which had struck him
was of that saddest kind which afi'ects the
body, not the mind; at least not at first.
Poor Mr. Oldham would be, for the rest of his
days, whether few or many, little better than a
living corpse, retaining still the imprisoned but
conscious soul.
"Oh, doctor, this is temble! Is there no
hope?"
Dr. Waters, coming down the staircase,
wrung Mrs. Scanlan's hands, but replied no-
thing. He was much affected himself, and so
was Mr. Langhorne, the rector's man of busi-
ness, who followed him. The two old gentle-
men old, though still much younger than Mr.
Oldham were noted as very great "chums,"
and the two honestest and best men in all
Ditchley, even though, as satirical people
sometimes said, one was a doctor and the
other a lawyer. They stood talking together
mournfully, evidently consulting over this sad
conjuncture of aff"airs.
" Yes, I have been putting seals upon all his
papers," said Mr. Langhorne. " It is the only
thing to be done until until further change.
There is nobody to take any authority here:
he has no relations."
" Except Lady Emma, and she is abroad ; I
do not know where. Perhaps Mrs. Scanlan
does."
Dr. Waters turned to her, as she stood aloof,
feeling herself one too many in this house of
grief, and as if she had no right there. And
yet she felt the grief as deeply as any one;
more so, perhaps, because it was not unmixed
with remorse. Kind, good Mr. Oldham!
why had she neglected him of late why suf-
fered her foolish pride, her ridiculous sensitive-
ness, to come between her and him ? How she
wished she had put both aside, and shown fear-
lessly to the lonely old man what a tender and
truly filial heart she bore toward him !
"I know nothing about Lady Emma," said
she, forgetting how she had come to ask that
very question, and how serious it was for her-
self that it could not be answered. Her own
affairs had drifted away from her mind. ' ' Only
tell me, will he ever recover, ever speak again ?"
"I fear not ; though he may lie in his pres-
ent state for months, and even years ; I hate
known such cases. Why do you ask? Did
you come to speak to him about business? I
hope all is right between your husband and him ?"
Mrs. Scanlan bent her head assentingly.
"That is well. I was half afraid they had
A BRAVE LADY.
81
IS TUEEB NO HOPE?"
had some little difficulties of late. And now
Mr. Scanlan will have the whole duty on his
hands, and Langhorne and I, as church-ward-
ens, ought to make our arrangements accord-
ingly."
So they both fell into business talk, as men
do fall, even after such a catastrophe as this,
though it seemed shocking enough to the wo-
man who, with her woman's heart full, stood
and listened. No one interfered with her. As
the curate's wife she had a certain right to be
in the house. No other right did she for a mo-
ment venture to urge. She only sat and listened.
Shortly she caught a sentence which startled
her.
" He will never be capable of business again,
that is quite certain," said the doctor. "I do
hope he has made his will."
"Hem I believe I have some reason to
suppose he has," replied the cautious lawyer.
"But these things are of course strictly pri-
vate."
" Certainly, certainly ; I only asked because
he once said he intended to make me his ex-
ecutor. But he might do that without telling
F
me ; and I shall find it out soon enough when
all is over."
"All over," that strange periphrasis oat of
the many by which people like to escape the
blank plain word death ! Mrs. Scanlan list-
ened she could not keep herself from listen-
ing with an eagerness that, when she caught
the eyes of the two old men, made her blush
crimson, like a guilty person.
But the doctor's mind was preoccupied, and
the lawyer apparently either knew nothing, or
else and this thought smote Josephine with a
cold fear there was nothing to be known. Mr.
Oldham might long ago have burned his will,
and made another. Her future and that of her
children hung on a mere thread.
The suspense was so dreadful, the conflict in
her conscience so severe, that she could not
stand it.
'* I think," she said, " since I can do no good
here, I had better go home. Shall I write to
Lady Emma ? But in any case I want her ad-
dress for myself; will Mr. Langhorne look in
Mr. Oldham's address-book for it ?"
This was easily done, the old rector being
82
A BRAVE LADY.
so accurate and methodical in all his habits.
But the result of the search stopped any hope
of applying to Lady Emma, even if, under the
circumstances, Mrs. Scanlan could have made
up her mind to apply. The address was, " Poste
Restante, Vienna."
But Josephine scarcely felt that last shock.
All she said was, "Very well; she is too far
off for me to write to her. I will go home."
But she had hardly got through the Rectory
garden when Mr. Langhorne overtook her.
The good lawyer was a very shy man. He
had raised himself from the ranks, and still
found his humble origin, his gauche manners,
and a most painful stammer he had, stood a
good deal in his way. But he was a very hon-
est and upright fellow ; and though she had
seldom met him in society, Mrs. Scanlan was
well aware how highly Mr. Oldham and all his
other neighbors respected him, and how in that
cobwebby little office of his lay hidden half the
secrets of half the families within ten miles
round Ditchley.
He came up to her hesitatingly. "Excuse
me, ma'am ; taking great liberty, I know ; but
if you had any affairs to transact with poor Mr.
Oldham, and I as his man of business could
ass-ass-assist you "
Here he became so nervous, and began stam-
mering so frightfully, that Mrs. Scanlan had
time to recover from her surprise and collect
her thoughts together. Her need was immi-
nent. She must immediately consult some-
body and do it herself, for her husband was
sure to escape the painful thing if possible.
Why should she not consult this man, who was
A clever man, a good man, and a lawyer besides ?
And, after all, Mr. Scanlan's misfortune was
only a misfortune, no disgrace. He had done a
very foolish thing, but nothing really wrong.
So she took courage and accepted Mr. Lang-
home's civility so far as to communicate to him
her present strait ; why she had wished to write
to Lady Emma ; and why, even if there were
no other reason, the uncertainty of the lady's
movements made it impracticable. Yet she
could see no other way out of this crisis, and
her need was imperative.
"Otherwise," she said, with a sort of bitter
pride, "believe me, I never should have com-
municated my husband's private affairs in this
way."
" They would not have been private much
longer, Madam," said the lawyer, seeming to
take in the case at a glance, and to treat it as
a mere matter of business, happening every
day. "You have no time to lose; Mr. Scan-
lan must at once pay the money, or the law
will take its course. Shall I advance him the
sum ? Has he any security to give me ?"
He had none; except his personal promise
to pay, which his wife well knew was not worth
a straw. But she could not say so.
" I had rather," she replied, " be quit of debt
entirely, in the way I planned. Will you buy
my jewels instead of Lady Emma ? They are
worth more than two hundred pounds. You
could easily sell them, or if you would keep
them for me I might be able to repurchase
them."
Poor soul! she was growing cunning. As
she spoke she keenly investigated the lawyer's
face, to find out whether he thought had any
cause to think she should ever be rich en^ugh
to repurchase them. But Mr. Langhorne's vis-
age was impenetrable.
"As you will," he said; "it makes no dif-
ference to me ; I only wished to oblige a neigh-
bor and a friend of Mr. Oldham's. Will your
husband come to me to-morrow? Or you
yourself? Perhaps you had better come your-
self."
" Yes, if you desire it, as my husband will be
much engaged."
"And take my advice, Mrs. Scanlan say
nothing in Ditchley about this matter of the
bill. As we lawyers know, such things ai-e
best kept as quiet as possible. Good -after-
noon."
Kind as he was, the old man's manner was a
little patronizing, a little dictatorial ; but Jose-
phine did not care for that. Her distress was
removed, for she had jio doubt of getting her
husband to agre^, to this arrangement ; so as
he had the money, it mattered little to him
how it was obtained. She hastened home, and
met Mr. Scanlan at the gate. He was coming
from an opposite quarter, and evidently quite
ignorani of all that had happened at the Rec-
tory.
"Well!" he said, eagerly, "have you got me
the money ?" having apparently quite forgotten
how she had meant to get it. " Are things all
right?"
"Yes, I have arranged it. But " And
then she told him the terrible blow which had
fallen upon poor Mr. Oldham.
" Good Heavens ! what a dreadful thing to
happen ! If I had thought it would have hap-
pened But I had no idea he was ill, I as-
sure you I had not."
"Did you see him, then, this morning?"
The news affected Mr. Scanlan more than
his wife had expected, seeing he always took
other people's misfortunes and griefs so lightly.
He staggered, and ti^rned very pale.
Nobody seeming to know of her husband's
having been at the Rectory, she concluded he
had not gone there ; it was no new thing for
Edward Scanlan to fail in an appointment, par-
ticularly one that he suspected might not be al-
together pleasant.
"Yes, I saw him ; he let me into the house
himself. He had been on the look-out for me
to give me a lecture; which he did, for one
whole hour, and very much he irritated me. .
Indeed, we both of us lost our tempers, I fear."/
" Edward ! The doctor said some agitation
must have caused this ; surely, surely "
" It is no use worrying me, Josephine ; what
is done is done, and can't be avoided. I don't
deny we had some hot words, which I am very
A BKAVE LADY.
83
sorry for now ; but how on earth was I to know
he was ill ? You can't blame me !"
Yet he seemed conscious of being to blame,
for he exculpated himself with nervous eager-
ness.
"I do assure you, my dear, I was patient
with him as long as ever I could, and it was
difficult ; for somehow he had found out about
the bill, and he was very furious. He said my
conduct was 'unworthy a gentleman and a cler-
gjman,' that I should ruin you and the chil-
dren, and similar nonsense ; declaring that if
such a thing ever happened again he would do
something or other, I can't tell what, for he
began to mumble in his speech, and then "
" And then ? Oh, husband ! for once in your
life tell me exactly the truth, and the whole
truth. "
" I will only you need not imply that I am
a story-teller. Don't lose your temper, Jose-
phine ; you sometimes do. Well, Mr. Oldham
lost his ; he grew red and furious, and then his
words got confused, I thought he was only in
a passion, and that I had better leave him to
himself; so I went away quietly I declare
quite quietly slipped out of the room, in short
for soniebody might hear us, and that would
have been so awkward."
"And you noticed nothing more?"
" Well, yes ; I think I am not sure but T
think, as I shut the study door, there was a
noise some sort of a fall ; but I could not go
back,' you know, and I did not like to call the
servants ; they might have found out we had
been quarreling."
"They might have found out you had been
quarreling," repeated Josephine, slowly, with a
strange contempt in her tone. "And this was,
when ?"
" About eleven, I fancy."
"And he lay on the floor till one lay help-
less and speechless, not a creature coming near
him ! Poor old man ! And. you let him lie.
It was your doing. You "
"Coward" was the word upon her lips; but
happily she had enough sense of duty left not
to utter it. She left him to hear it from the
voice of his own conscience. And he did hear
it; for he had a conscience, poor weak soul
that he was. He could not keep from sin-
ning ; yet when he had sinned he always knew
it. This was what made dealing with him so
very difficult. His pitiful contrition almost dis-
armed reproach.
"Josephine, if you look at me like that I
shall almost feel as if I had killed him. Poor
Mr. Oldham ! who would have thought it ?
And I know you think it is all my fault. You
are cruel to me, very cruel. You that are so
tender to the children to every body are as
hard as a stone to your own husband."
Was that true ? Her conscience in turn half
accused her of it. She tried to put on an en-
couraging smile, entreating him not to get such
fancies into his head, but to make the best of
things. In vain! He threw himself on the
sofa in such a paroxysm of distress and self-
reproach that it took all his wife's ettorts to
quiet him and prevent him from betraying him-
self to the household. And she felt as much
as he that nothing must be betrayed. No one
must know the part which he had had in caus-
ing this attack of Mr. Oldham's. That he had
caused it was clear enough ; one of those unfor-
tunate fatalities which sometimes occur, making
one dread inexpressibly ever to do an unkind
thing or delay doing a kind one, since, in com-
mon phraseology, "one never knows what may
happen."
In this case what had happened was irre-
trievable. To publish it abroad would be worse
than useless, and might seriously injure Mr.
Scanlan; just now especially, when so much
additional responsibility would fall upon him.
Far better that this fact which nobody at
Ditchley knew of his interview with the rec-
tor should be kept among those sad secrets of
which every life is more or less full.
So Josephine reasoned with her husband,
and soothed him as she best could. Only
soothed him ; for it was hopeless to attempt
more. To rouse him into courage to stimu-
late him into active goodness, for the pure love
of goodness, had long since become to her a
vain hope. Powerless to spur him on to right,
all she could do was to keep him from wrong
to save him from harming himself or others.
"Edward," she said, taking his hand, and
regarding him with a mournful pity, "I can
not let you talk any more in this strain ; it
does no good, and only agitates and wears you
out. What has happened we can not alter;
we must only do our best for the future. Re-
member to-morrow was his Sunday for preach-
ing ah, poor Mr. Oldham! and you have no
sermon prepared ; you must begin it at once."
This changed the current of the curate's
thoughts, always easily enough diverted. He
caught at the idea at once, and saw, too, what
an admirable opportunity this was for one of
his displays of oratory in the pathetic line. He
brightened up immediately.
"To be sure, I must prepare my sermon,-
and it ought to be a specially good one. For
after what has occurred half the neighborhood
will come to Ditchley church on Sunday, and,
of course, they will expect me to refer to the
melancholy event."
Josephine turned away, sick at heart. " Oh,
Edward, do not mention it ; or, if you must, say
as little about it as possible."
But she knew her words were idle, her hus-
band being one of those clever men who always
make capital out of their calamities. So, after
sitting up half the night to compose his dis-
course indeed, he partly wrote it, for there had
crept into the pai-ish of late a slightly High-
Church element which objected to extempore
sermons ; which element, while abusing it round-
ly, the curate nevertheless a little succumbed
to he woke his wife about two in the morning
to read her the principal passages in the ser-
84
A BRAVE LADY.
mon, which he delivered afterward with great
success, and much to the admiration of his con-
gregation. His text was, "Boast not thyself
of to-morrow," and his pictures of all kinds of
terrible accidents and unforeseen misfortunes
were most edifying, thrilling all Ditchley with
horror, or moving it with pathos. He ended
by reverting to their beloved rector and his sud-
den and sad illness ; which he did in a manner
so tender, so affecting, that there was scarcely
a dry eye in the church. Except one; and
that, I am much afraid, was Mrs. Scanlan's.
CHAPTER X.
There is 5, proverb which sometimes seems
amazingly true, that " Heaven takes care of
fools and drunkards." Can it be for their own
sake, or is it out of pity for those belonging
to them, to whom they serve as a sort of
permanent discipline the horse-hair shirt and
nightly scourge which are supposed to contrib-
ute to the manufacture of saints? And it is
one of the most mysterious lessons of life that
such often is the case ; that out of the wicked-
ness of one half of the world is evolved the
noble self-devotedness of the other half. Why
this should be we know not, and sometimes in
our ignorance it makes us very angry ; but so
it is, and we can not help seeing it.
Of a truth, whether he himself thought so or
not. Providence had all his life taken pretty
good care of EdAvard Seanlan. His " good
luck" followed him still. When, on Mr. Old-
ham's private affairs being laid open to his law-
yer and doctor who were also, fortunately,
the two church-wardens of the parish it was
discovered that the rector had been paying his
curate for salary the whole amount of the small
living of Ditchley ; still no objections were
made. His was considered so very peculiar a
case that the laborer was found worthy of his
hire, and it was cheerfully continued to him.
Arrangements were made whereby the curate
should take the entire duty of the parish, until,
at Mr. Oldham's death, the living should fall
in ; when as the patronage of it happened by
a curious chance to belong to Lady Emma's
husf)and, Mr. Lascelles there was exceeding
probability of its being bestowed upon Mr.
Seanlan. At least, so said Dr. Waters confi-
dentially to Mrs. Seanlan, and she listened silent-
ly, with that nervous, pained expression which
always came upon her anxious face when people
talked to her about her future or her children's.
But for the present things went smoothly
enough both with her and them ; more so than
for a long time. Impelled by his wife's influ-
ence, grateful for the ease with which she had
got him out of his money difficulty and never
reproached him with it, or else touched by some
conscience-stings of his own concerning Mr.
Oldham, at the time of the rector's illness Mr.
Seanlan behaved so well, was so active, so sym-
pathetic, so kind, that the whole parish was
loud in his praise. His sinking popularity rose
to its pristine level. All the world was amia-
bly disposed toward him, and toward his hard-
worked, uncomplaining wife. In the general
opening-up of things people found out Mrs.
Scanlan's private relations with Priscilla Nunn.
The ladies of her acquaintance, who had wonV\
her mended lace and bought her beautiful mus-
lin embroideiy, so far from looking down upon
her, rather honored her for it ; and, with fee
warm, good heart of country gentlewomen,
patronized Priscilla's shop till Mrs. Seanlan
had more work than she could do.
Also, when another secret mysteriously came
to light, probably through the curate's own gar-
rulousness, and it was whispered abroad that
Mr. Seanlan had greatly hampered himself by
going surety for a friend a most talented, ami-
able, but temporarily unfortunate friend (which
was the poetical version that reached Wren's
Nest) the sympathy of these dear innocent
country people rose to such a height that when
somebody proposed subscribing a purse as a
delicate testimony of their respect for their
curate, it was soon filled to the amount of sixty
pounds. Thereto was added a gown and cas-
sock, a Bible and Prayer-book all of which
were presented to Mr. Seanlan with great eclat.
And he acknowledged the gift in an address so
long and effective that, yielding to general en-
treaty, he had it printed at his own expense
of course and distributed gratis throughout
the county.
Meanwhile Mrs. Seanlan sat at home at
Wren's Nest, sewing at her lace and embroid-
ery more diligently than ever, for it was not
unnecessary. All these glories without doors
did not provide any additional comforts within
at least none that were perceptible so great
was the increase of expenses. Dazzled by
the excitement of his new position, his vanity
tickled, his sense of importance increased by
being now " monarch of all he surveyed" in the
large and increasing parish of Ditchley, Mr.
Seanlan launched out more and more every
day, and was every day less amenable to his
wife's gentle reasonings. Not that he openly
contradicted her : indeed, when differences oc-
curred, he continually allowed that her way was
the right way ; but he never followed it, and
never lacked excuses for not following it
the good of the parish, the good of the family,
his position as a clergyman, and so on. He
was not honest enough to say he did a thing
because he liked to do it, but always found
some roundabout reason why it was advisable
to do it ; at which, finally, Josephine only
came to smile without replying one single word.
Women learn in time, out of sheer hopeless-
ness, these melancholy hypocrisies.
Meanwhile the curate's money " burned a
hole in his pocket," as Bridget expressed it
a bigger hole every day ; and had it not been
for his wife's earnings, the family must often
have run very short the family, which, be-
sides the younger four, comprised now a great
A BRAVE LADY.
85
tall youth, almost a young man, and a girl,
small and pale, plain and uninteresting but
yet a growing-up maiden, on the verge of wo-
manhood more of a woman, in precocity of
heart and feeling, than many of the young la-
dies of Ditchley now "come out," and even
engaged to be married. But there was no
coming out and no sweet love episode for poor
little Adrienne. Her mother, looking at her,
felt sure she would be an old maid, and was
glad she saw no one she was likely to care for,
so as to wound her tender heart with any un-
fortunate attachment ; for the child was of an
imaginative nature, just one of those girls who
are apt to fall in love innocently as hope-
lessly ; and never get over it as long as they
live. So, if she ever thought of the matter at
all, Josephine was thankful that her girl, shut
up in her quiet obscurity, was safe so far.
Ce'sar was diflFerent. About him she had no
end of anxieties. He was a manly, precocious
boy ; full of fun, keen in his enjoyment of life ;
rough a little, though his innate gentlemanhood
kept him from ever being coarse. Still, in
spite of her care, his frank, free, boyish nature
inclined him to be social, and he caught the
tone of his associates. He was growing up to
manhood with a strong provincial accent, and
a gauche provincial manner, much more like
the shop-boys, bankers' clerks, and lawyers'
apprentices of Ditchley, than the last descend-
ant of the long race of De Bougainville.
It might have been a weakness, but she
clung to it still this poor woman, to whom the
glories of her ancestry were now a mere dream
. her love of the noble line which had upheld
for centuries that purest creed of aristocracy
that "all the sons were brave, and all the
daughters virtuous." Now, indeed, it was lit-
tle more than a fairy tale, which she told to
her own sons and daughters in the vague hope
of keeping alive in them the true spirit of no-
bility which had so shone out in their fore-
fathers. ' Nevertheless, she felt bitterly how cir-
cumstances were dead against her poor chil-
dren, and how it would be almost a miracle if
she could keep their heads above water, and
bring them up to be any thing like gentlemen
and gentlewomen.
Her husband seemed very indifferent to the
matter. Indeed, after listening for some time,
very impatiently, to her arguments that they
should make some sacrifice in order to send
Ce'sar to college, he negatived the whole ques-
tion. It did not affect him personally, and
therefore assumed but small dimensions in his
mind. He seldom saw Cdsar except on Sun-
days, when it rather annoyed him to have such
a big fellow, taller than himself, calling him
father. As he said one day to Josephine, "it
made one look so old."
And all this while the poor old rector lay
in his shut-up room, or was dragged slowly up
and down the paths of his pretty garden, a
melancholy spectacle, which gradually the peo-
ple about him and his sympathizing parishion-
ers grew so accustomed to that it ceased to
affect them. Satisfied that he had every alle-
viation of his condition that wealth could sup-
ply, they left him to be taken care of by his
faithful old servants until should come the hap-
py release ; at first looked forward to continu-
ally, but gradually becoming less imminent.
Even Lady Emma his most affectionate and
nearest friend, though only a third or fourth
cousin after coming from Vienna to Ditchley,
and staying a few days, returned, scarcely ex-
pecting to see him alive again. Yet he lin-
gered one year a year and a half, in much
the same state ; partially conscious, it was sup-
posed, but able neither to speak nor to move.
He ate, drank, and slept, however passively,
but peacefully as a child ; his eyes were'^often
as sharp and as bright as ever, and the work-
ings of his countenance showed considerable
intelligence, but otherwise his life was a total
blank. Death itself seemed to have forgotten
him.
Mrs. Scanlan went to see him every Sunday
her leisure day, and her husband's busiest |
one, which fact made less apparent the inevi-
table necessity which she soon discovered, that
she must pay her visits alone. From the first
appearance of his curate at the rector's bed-
side, Mr. Oldham had testified so strong a re-
pugnance to his company that it was necessary
to invent all sorts of excuses thankfully enough
received by Mr. Scanlan to keep him away.
And so the formal condolatory visits, and sick-
room prayers spiritual attentions which Mr.
Scanlan paid, because he thought people would
expect him to pay, to his rector were tacitly
set aside, or took place only at the longest in-
tervals that were consistent with appearances.
However, in all societies he testified the ut-
most feeling, assured the parishioners that his
"dear and excellent friend" was quite "pre-
pared." Once, when this question was put to
Mrs. Sc^anlan, she was heard to answer "that
if not prepared already, she thought it was
rather late to begin preparations for death
now ; and that for her part she considered liv-
ing was quite as important, and as diflicult, as
dying." Which remark was set down as one of
the " extraordinary" things Mrs. Scanlan some-
times said confirming the doubt whether she
was quite the pleasant person that she used to be.
Her pleasantness such as it was she kept
for Mr. Oldham's sick-chamber ; where the old
man lay in his sad life-in-death all day long.
He was very patient, ordinarily ; suffered no
pain ; and perhaps his long, lonely life made
him more submissive to that perpetual solitude,
which for him had begun even before the im-
prisonment of the grave. He seemed always
glad to see Mrs. Scanlan. She talked to him,
though not much it was such a mournful mon-
ologue to carry on still he would look inter-
ested, and nod his head, and try to mumble
out his uncertain words in reply. She read to
him, which he always enjoyed immensely. She
too ; since it was the first time for many years
86
A BRAVE LADY.
JOSEPUINE AND TUK EEOTOB.
that she had had leisure for reading, or con-
sidered it right to make for herself that leisure.
But now she did it not for herself; and it was
astonishing how many books she got through,
and what a keen enjoyment she had of them.
And sometimes she would simply bring her
work and sit beside him, telling him any thing
which came into her head the news of the
parish, her children's doings and sayings ; to
which latter he always listened with pleasure;
and she had now no hesitation in talking about
them. Whatever the future might be, it was
settled by this time. Pride and delicacy were
alike needless : the poor helpless old man could
alter nothing now. So she lay passive on her
oars and tided down with the stream. After
Mr. Oldham's illness there came a season of
unwonted peace for poor Mrs. Scanlan.
But it was a false peace impossible to last
very long.
There is another proverb I fear I am fond
of proverbs " Set a beggar on horseback and
he will ride to the devil." Now, without lik-
ening Mr. Scanlan to a beggar, or accusing him
of that dangerous equestrian exercise, there is
no doubt he was one of the many men who are
much safer walking on foot. That is, too great
liberty was not good for him. He did better
as the poor curate limited by his prescribed
line of duties, and steadied by the balance-
weight of his sagacious old rector than when
he was left to himself, responsible to nobody,
and with the whole parish on his hands. He
was not a good man of business, being neither
accurate nor methodical. Clever he might be ;
but a clever man is not necessarily a wise man.
Ere long he began doing a good many foolish
things.
Especially with reference to one favorite hete
noire he had Puseyism, as it began to be call-
ed. A clergyman with these proclivities had
settled in the next parish, and attempted vari-
ous innovations choir-singing, altar-decora-
ting, daily services which had greatly attract-
ed the youth of Ditchley. They ran after the
High-Church vicar, just as once their prede-
cessors had run after the young Evangelical
curate, which the old Evangelical curate did
not like at all.
Mr. Scanlan's congregation fell from him,
which irritated his small vanity to the last de-
gree. He tried various expedients to lure them
back a new organ, a Dorcas Society, a fancy
bazar all those religious dissipations which
often succeed so well in a country community
which happens to have plenty of money and
nothing to do ^but the errant sheep would not
be recalled. At length, maddened by his rival's
successes, and by the beautiful new church tlmt
was being built for him, a brilliant thouCit
struck Mr. Scanlan that he would try building
too. The old school-house, coeval with tlie
parish church of Ditchley, wanted repairs sad-
ly. He proposed to pull it down and erect a
new one, of commodious size and Gothic de-
sign, a great deal finer and more expensive
than the obnoxious church.
This idea restored all his old animation and
A BRAVE LADY.
87
sanguine energy. He brought down an archi-
tect from London, and went round the parish
with him, plan in hand, collecting subscriptions.
And Ditchley still keeping up its old spirit of
generosity, these came in so fast that a goodly
sum was soon laid up in the Ditchley bank, in
the combined names of the architect and the
treasurer, who was, of course, the Reverend
Edward Scanlan. A very simple transaction,
which, of course, nobody inquired into; and
even Mrs. Scanlan was scarcely cognizant of
the fact. Indeed, her husband had rather
kept her in the dark as to the whole matter ;
it pleased him to do it all himself, and to say
with a superior air that "women knew nothing
of business."
But presently, top-heavy with his success, he
became a little difficult to deal with at home,
and prone to get into petty squabbles abroad
womanish squabbles, if I may malign my sex
by using the adjective. But I have seen as
much spite, as much smallness, among men as
among any women, only they were men who
had lost all true manliness by becoming con-
ceited egotists, wrapped up in self, and blind
to any merit save their own. When these
happen to be fathers of families, how the do-
mestic bark is ever guided with such a steers-
man at the helm, God knows ! Nothing saves
it from utter shipwreck, unless another hand
quietly takes the rudder, and, strong in wo-
man's invisible strength, though with stream-
ing eyes and bleeding heart, steers the vessel
on.
So had done, or had tried to do, against many
cross currents and dangerous shoals, poor Jose-
phine Scanlan. But now her difficulties in-
creased so much that sometimes her numbed
hand almost failed in its task ; the very stars
grew dim above her; every thing seemed
wrapped in a dim fog, and she herself as far
from land as ever.
Hitherto, though, as before hinted, Mr. Scan-
lan had hung up his fiddle at his own door, he
had always played satisfactorily at his neigh-
bors'. But now he did not get on quite so well
with them as formerly. There broke out in him
a certain quarrelsomeness, supposed by Saxons
to be a peculiarly Hibernian quality, and per-
haps it is, with the lowest type of Irish charac-
ter. He was always getting into hot water, and
apparently enjoying the bath, as if it washed
away a dormant irritability, which his wife had
never noticed in him before. Now she did, and
Wondered at it a little, till she grew accustomed
to it, as to many other faults in him, which, like
notches in the bark of a tree, grew larger and
uglier year by year.
So large that the children themselves no-
ticed them. It was useless to keep up the high
ideal of paternal perfection, which is the salva-
tion of a family ; the blessed doctrine that the
father can do no wrong ; that he must be obeyed,
because he would never exact any obedience
that was not for the child's good; must be
loved, because he loves so dearly every member
of his household. Indeed, these young people
sharply criticised, secretly or openly, their fa-
ther's motives and actions, and continually
made out of them* excuses for their own short-
comings. "Oh, papa says so-and-so, and no-
body blames him ;" "Papa told me to do such
and such things, so of course I must do them ;"
until Mrs. Scanlan was almost driven wild by
the divided duty of wife and mother a position
so maddening that I should think a woman
could hardly keep her senses in it, save by
steadily fixing her eyes upward, on a. higher
duty than either, that which she owes to her
God. But, for many a year. He who reveals
Himself by the title of " the Father," and the
promise, "I will be an husband unto you," had
veiled Himself from her in the clouds and dark-
ness generated by her mortal lot, which was
such a daily mockery of both these names.
She herself was cruelly conscious how much
she was changed, and how rapidly changing;
growing callous to pain, indifferent to pleasure,
even that of her children ; neglectful of her ap-
pearance and theirs ; allowing her household
to sink into those untidy ways, so abhorrent to
inbred refinement, which mark the last de-
spondency of poverty. The bright energy with
which she used to preach to Bridget and the
children on the subject of clean faces and clean
clothes, order, neatness, and prettiness since
no narrowness of means warranted a family in
living in a daily muddle, like pigs in a sty
all this was quite gone. She rarely complain-
ed and never scolded. Toward her husband,
above all, she was falling into that passive state
of indifference, sadder than either grief or an-
ger. She took little interest in his affairs, and
seldom asked him any questions about them.
Where was the use of it, when she could place
no reliance on his answers ?
Oftentimes, with a bitter joy, she thought
how much wiser Mr. Oldham had been than
she in pledging to keep the secret; and how
well it was that she still retained it ; if, indeed,
there were any secret to retain. That, until the
rector's death, she could not possibly discover.
He must have made his will, but in whose pos-
session it was, or whether any body was aware
of its contents, she knew no more than that oft-
en appealed to personage, the man in the moon,
who seemed to have as much influence over
her destiny as any thing else, or any body ei-
ther, in heaven or earth. She felt herself drift-
ing along in blind chance, not knowing from
day to day what would happen, or what she
ought to do.
Often, when returning home from her even-
ing visits to Mr. Oldham, she wished she had
never heard from him one word about his mon-
ey or its destination that she had struggled
on patiently, as a poor curate's wife, and made
her boys little butchers or bakers, and her girls
milliners or school-teachers, to earn an honest
livelihood by the sweat of their brow. Then "
again, in her passionate ambition for them, she
felt that to realize this fortune, to give them all
88
A BRAVE LADY.
they wanted and make them all she desired
them to be, she would have "sold her soul to
the devil," had that personage appeared to her,
as he did to Doctor Faustus and other tempted
souls. She could understand thoroughly the
old wives' tales about persons bewitched or
possessed ; sometimes she felt Satan almost as
near to her as if he had started out of a bush
on the twilight common, and confronted her in
the visible likeness of the Prince of the power
of the air hoofs, horns, tail, and all.
Thus time went on, and it was already two
years since Mr. Oldliam's attack ; yet still no
kind angel of death had appeared to break with
merciful touch his fetters of flesh,' and lift him,
a liappy new-born soul, out of this dreary world
into the world everlasting. And still to the
much-tried mother remained unsolved the mys-
tery of life, more difficult, as she had once tru-
ly said, than dying ; and she knew not from
week to week either what she ought to do, or
how she should do it above all, with regard
to her children.
They were growing up fast ; Cesar being
now a tall youth of sixteen ; very handsome,
with the high aquiline features and large-limb-
ed frame of his Norman ancestors ; not clever
exactly Louis was the clever one among the
boys but sensible, clear-headed, warm-heart-
ed ; with a keen sense of right and wrong,
which he acted upon in a somewhat hard and
fierce fashion, not uncommon in youth. But
in this his mother rather encotiraged than con-
demned him. Any harshness of principle was
better to her than that fatal laxity which had
been, and continued to be, the bane of her do-
mestic life.
Cesar and his father were cast in such a to-
tally opposite mould, that, as years advanced,
they naturally divided further and further.
Both were very much out of the housd, and,
when they met within it, they kept a polite
neutrality. Still sometimes domestic jars oc-
curred ; and one great source of irritation was
the father's extreme anxiety that his son's school-
^ days should end, and he should begin to earn his
own living. Of course, as he reasoned, a poor
curate's sons could not expect their father to do
more than give them a respectable education.
The rest they must do for themselves.
"Yes," their mother would say, when the
question was argued, and say no more how
could she ? Only she contrived to stave off the
evil day as long as possible ; and keep Cesar
Steadily at his studies in the grammar-school,
which was a very good school in its way, till
something turned up.
At last, unfortunately, something did turn
up. Mr. Scanlan came home one night in high
satisfaction ; the manager of Ditchley bank hav-
ing offered to take Cesar as junior clerk with a
salary of a few shillings a week.
Josephine stood aghast. Not that she ob-
jected to her boy's earning his living, but she
wished him first to get an education that wduld
fit him for doing it thoroughly and well, and
make him equal for any chances of the future,
particularly that future to which she still clung,
as at least a possibility. But here, as on every
hand, she was stopj)^ by her sore secret.
"It is a kind offer," said she, hesitatingly,
" and perhaps we may think of it when when
the boy has quite finished his education "
" Finished his education ! What more edu-
cation can he get ? You surely don't keep up
that silly notion of his going to college ? Why,
that is only for lads whose parents are wealthy
heirs to estates, and so on."
" What does my boy say himself about the
matter ? He is old enough to have a voice in
his own future." And Josephine turned to her
son, who stood sullen and silent.
" No ; children should never decide for them-
selves," said Mr. Scanlan, harshly. "You are
talking, my dear wife, as if we were people of
property, when in our circumstances the princi-
pal object ought to be to get the boys off our
hands as quickly as possible."
" Get our boys off our hands !"
" Exactly ; let them maintain themselves and
cease to be a burden on their father. Why, that
big fellow there eats as much as a man, and his
tailor's bill is nearly as heavy as my own. I
stibuld be only too glad to see him paying it
himself."
" So should I, father," said the boy, bitterly.
"Then why don't you jump at once at the
chance, and say you will go to the bank ?"
" Do you wish to go ? Answer honestly, my
son. Would you like to be a bank clerk ?"
"No, mother, I shouldn't," said Cesar, stur-
dily. " And what's more, as I told papa while
we were walking home, I won't be one, and
nobody shall make me."
" I'll make you I" cried Mr. Scanlan, furious-
Cesar curled his lips a little " I think, fa-
ther, if I were you I wouldn't attempt to try."
There was nothing disrespectful in the boy's
manner ; if it expressed any thing, it was sim-
ple indifference ; Cesar evidently did not think
it worth while to quarrel with his father ; and,
tamed by the perfectly courteous tone, and
perhaps scarcely hearing the words, the fa-
ther seemed to hesitate at quarreling with his
son. They stood face to face, Ce'sar leaning
over his mother's chair, and she clasping secret-
ly with a nervous, warning clasp the hand which
lie had laid upon her shoulder. A father and
son more unlike each other could hardly be.
Such differences nature does make, and often
the very circumstances of education and early
association that would seem to create similari-
ty prevent it. One extreme produces another.
"Cesar," whispered his mother, "you must
not speak in that way to papa and me. Tell
us plainly what you desire, and we will do our
best to accomplish it."
"Papa knows my mind. I told it to him
this evening," said the boy, carelessly. "I'm
ready to eai-n my living ; but I won't earn it
among those snobs in the Ditchley bank."
A BRAVE LADY.
" How snobs ? They are all the sons of re-
spectable people, and very gentlemanly-looking
young fellows, " said the father. ' ' Quite as well
dressed as you."
" Very likely ; I don't care much for my
clothes. But I do care for having to do with gen-
tlemen ; and they're not gentlemen. Mamma
wouldn't think they were."
"Why not?"
"They drink; they smoke; they swear;
they idle about and play billiards. I don't like
them, and I won't be mixed up with them.
Find me something else, some honest, hard
work, and I'll do it ; but that I won't do, and
so I told you."
And Cesar, drawing himself up to his full
height, fixed his honest eyes his mother's eyes
full on "the author of his being," as poets
and moralists would say implying in that fact
a claim to every duty, every sacrifice. True
enough when the author of a child's existence
has likewise been the origin of every thing that
ennobles, and brightens, and makes existence
yaluable. Not otherwise.
"My son," said his mother, anxiously inter-
fering, "how comes it that you know so much
about these clerks at the bank? You have
never been there ?"
"Oh yes, I have; many times, on papa's
messages."
" What messages ?"
Cesar hesitated.
"I meant to have told you, my dear," said
his father, hastily, "only it concerned a matter
in which you take so little interest. And it is
quite separate from your bank account and
you know I am very glad you should draw and
cash all our checks yourself, because then you
know exactly how the money goes."
" What does all this mean ?" said Mrs. Scan-
Ian, wearily. "Money, money nothing but
money. I am sick of the very sound of the
word."
" So am I too, my dearest wife ; and there-
fore I never mention it. These were merely
parish matters money required in the school,
which I have once or twice sent C^sar to get
for me."
" Once or twice, father ! Why, I have been
to the bank every week these two months ! I
have fetched out for you-j one two, let me
see, it must be nearly two hundred and fifty
pounds."
" You are an excellent arithmetician ; would
have made your fortune as a banker," said the
father; and patted his son on the shoulder in
a conciliatory manner. "But do not bother
your mother with all this. As I told you, she
is a woman, and you and I are men ; we ought
not to trouble her with any business matters;"
" No, I'll never trouble her more than I can
help," said the boy, fondly. "But indeed,
mamma asked me a direct question, and to put
her otF would have been as bad as telling her a
lie."
" Yes, my son," said Josephine, with a gasp,
almost of agony. How was she ever to steer
her course? how keep this lad in the right way
the straight and narrow road while his fa-
ther-
Mr. Scanlan looked exceedingly uncomfort-
able. He avoided the countenances of both
wife and son. He began talking raj)idly and
inconsequently about the school-building and
the responsibility it was, and the great deal he
had to do, with nobody to help him.
"For, my dear, as a clergyman's wife, you
know you are no help to me whatever. You
never visit ; you take no position in the par-
ish ; you inquire about nothing ; you hear no-
thing."
"I shall be glad to hear," said Josephine,
rousing herself, with a faint dread that she had
let matters go too far, that there were things it
would be advisable she should hear. " For in-
stance, this money the boy spoke of I suppose
it was wanted for the school-house, to pay the
architect or builder. Have you, then, nearly
finished your building?"
" Why, the walls are so low I can jump over
them still, as Remus did over the walls of
Rome," said Ce'sar, laughing; but his father
turned away, scarlet with confusion.
" I won't be criticised and catechised, before
my own son too," said he, angrily. " Cesar!
go to bed at once."
The boy looked surprised, but still prepared
to depart ; kissed his mother, and said good-
night to his father ; politely, if not very affec-
tionately Mr. Scanlan's fondling days with his
children had been long done.
" Shall you want me to take that message to
Mr. Langhorne, father? I'm ready to fetch
and carry as much as ever you li1e. Only I
thought I heard you tell somebody that the
money subscribed was untouched. What am I
to say if he asks me about the 250 you had ?"
Cesar might not have meant it probably,
shrewd boy as he was, he did not as yet see
half-way into the matter but quite uncon-
sciously he fixed upon his father those intense
dark eyes, and the father cowered before them.
" Hold your tongue, you goose ; what do you
know about business ?" said he, sharply ; and
then Cesar woke up to another fact to more
facts than it was fitting a boy of his age should
begin studying and reasoning upon ; especially
with regard to his own father.
As for the mother, she looked from one to
the other of them these two men; for Ce'sar
was fast growing into a man, with all manly
qualities rapidly developing in mind as in body
looked, and shivered ; shivered down to the
very core of her being. God had laid upon her
the heaviest burden He can lay upon a woman.
She had lived to see her husband stand self-
convicted before the son she had borne to him.
Convicted of what ?
It was quite true she had taken little interest
in this school-building ; she hardly knew why,
except that her interest in every thing seemed
to have died out very much of late : a dull pas-
90
A BKAVE LADY.
sive indifference to life and all its duties had
come over her. And Edward had so many
projects which never resulted in any thing. She
did not believe this would, and thought little
about it ; indeed, the mere facts of it reached
her more through her neighbors than her hus-
band, who seemed very jealous of her interfer-
ence in the matter. . When his first enthusiasm
had ceased, and the subscriptions were all col-
lected and placed in the bank, he gave up talk-
ing and thinking about it.
But now she must think and inquire too, for
it had appeared before her suddenly, and in a
new and alarming light. The money which
Mr. Scanlan had drawn out, evidently not for
business purposes, whose money was it, and
what had he done with it ?
He had said truly that she managed all the
household finances now. He left them to her,
it was less trouble ; and she had contrived to
make ends meet even including two journeys
to London, which he said were necessary ; and
to which she consented more readily, seeing
Mr. Summerhayes was not there. The artist
Lad found England too hot to hold him, and
disappeared permanently to Korae. No fear
therefore of his further influence over that weak
facile nature, with whom it was a mere chance
which influence was uppermost. Except for
one thing and the wife thanked God all her
days for that : Edward Scanlan's pleasures were
never criminal. But what had he wanted that
money for, and how had he spent it ? Painful
as the question was, she must ask it. To let
such a thing go uninquired into might be most
dangerous.
When her boy was gone she sat silent, think-
ing how best she could arrive at the truth. For
it was always necessary to arrive at it by a sad-
ly ingenious approximation ; the direct truth
her husband had never told her in his life.
Even now he glanced at the door, as if on any
excuse he would be glad to escape. But at
eleven o'clock on a wet night even the most
hen-pecked husband would scarcely wish to
run away.
A hen-pecked husband ! How we jest over
the word, and despise the man to whom we ap-
ply it. But do we ever consider what sort of
a man he is, and must necessarily be ? A cow-
ard since only a coward would be afraid of a
woman, be she good or bad ; a domestic traitor
and hypocrite, whose own weakness sinks him
into what is perhaps his safest condition that
of a slave. If men knew how we women all
honest and womanly women scorn slaves and
worship heroes, they would blame not us but
themselves, when they are "hen-pecked."
Few men could have looked less like a hero,
and more like a whipped hound, than Edward
Scanlan at this moment.
"My dear," said he, rising and lighting his
candle, " don't you think you had better go to
bed ? It is late enough."
*' I could not sleep," she said, irritably. She
was often irritable now inwardly at least, and
sometimes it showed outside, for she was not
exactly an "amiable" woman. There was a
sound, healthy sweetness in her at the core, but
she was like a fruit that has never been proper-
ly shone upon, never half ripened ; she set a
man's teeth on edge sometimes, as she did just '
now. "How you can sleep, with that matter
on your mind, I can not imagine."
"What matter, my dear?"
" Edward," looking him full in the face, and
trying a plan a very piteous plan of finding
out the truth by letting him suppose she knew
it already, " you have been doing, I fear, a very
dangerous thing drawing out for your own
uses the money that was meant for your new
school. When the architect and builder come
to be paid, what shall you do ? They will say
you have stolen it."
This was putting the thing so plainly, and in
such a brief, matter-of-fact way, that it quite
startled Edward Scanlan. His look of intense
surprise, and even horror, was in one sense al-
most a relief to his wife ; it showed that, what-
ever he had done, it was with no deliberately
guilty intention.
" Bless my life, Josephine, what are you talk-
ing about ? If I have taken some of the money,
I was obliged, for I ran so short in London, and
I did not like to come to you for more, you
would have scolded me so ; if I did draw a hun-
dred or so, of course I shall replace it before it
is wanted. The accounts will not be balanced
for three months yet."
"And then?"
"Oh, by then something is sure to turn up.
Please don't bother me I have been bothered
enough. But, after all, if this was in your mind
one of the endless grudges you have against
your husband I am rather glad you have
spoken out. Why didn't you speak out long
ago? it would have made things much easier
for me."
Easier, and for him! Ease, then, was all
he thought of? The actual dishonesty he
had committed, and its probable consequences,
seemed to touch him no more than if he had
been an ignorant child. To appeal to him in
the matter of conscience was idle ; he appeared
to have no idea that he had done wrong.
But his wife realized doubly both the erring
act and its inevitable results. Now, at last,
she not merely trembled and rebelled, but stood
literally aghast at the prospect before her, at
the sort of man to whom her future was linked,
whom she had so ignorantly made her husband
and the father of her children. In marrying,
how little do women consider this and yet it
is not wrong, but right to be considered. The
father of their children the man from whom
theif unborn darlings may inherit hereditary
vices, and endure hereditary punishments
viewed in this light, I fear many a winning
lover would be turned and righteously from
a righteous woman's door.
But it was too late now for Josephine : her
lot had long been fixed. All that she could
A BRAVE LADY.
91
do was to exercise the only power she had over
her husband to show him what he had done,
and the danger of doing it ; to terrify him, if
no other means availed, into truthfulness and
honesty.
"Edward," said she, "nothing will make
things easy for you. It is useless to disguise
the plain fact. You can not replace that mon-
ey ; you have none. of your own wherewith to
replace it. And if when the bills for the school-
building fall due, it is found that you have made
away with the money that was to pay them,
your act will be called by a very ugly name
embezzlement."
Poor Edward Scanlan almost started from
his chair. "You are joking only joking!
But it is a very cruel joke, to call your husband
a thief and a scoundrel."
"I did not call you so. I believe you would
not steal intentionally; and you are far too
simple for a scoundrel. But every body will
not make that distinction. If a man uses for
himself a sum of which he is only treasurer, and
it is public money, the public considers it theft,
and he will be tried for embezzlement."
Her husband had sometimes called her
"Themis," and not unlike that stern goddess
she looked, as she stood over the frightened
man, growing more and more frightened every
minute, for he knew his wife never spoke at
random, or merely for effect as he did.
" How can you say such things to me, Jose-
phine ? But I don't believe them. They are
not true."
"Then ask Mr. Langhome ask any lawyer
any commonly honest man."
" How dare I ask ?"
" That proves the truth of my words. If you
had done nothing wrong, you would dare."
Her tone, so quiet and passionless, struck
him with more dread than any storm of anger.
He felt convinced his wife was right. An over-
whelming fear came over him.
" Suppose it were true, suppose I could not
put this money back in time, and all were to
come out, what would happen ?"
" You would be sent to prison, tried, perhaps
transported."
" Oh, Josephine ! And you can look at me
and say such things me, your own husband !
Can't you help me? Have you already for-
saken me ?"
THB MlttHT-WATCU.
92
A BRAVE LADY.
Quite overwhelmed, he threw himself across
her knees, like one of the children, and burst
into a paroxysm of childish weeping.
Poor Josephine ! What could she do ? Only
treat him as a child her miserable husband :
soothe him and caress him in a pitying, mother-
ly sort of way, not attempting either reproach-
es or reasonings, for both were equally hope-
less. Evidently, what he had done had never
till now presented itself to him in its true as-
pect; and when it did so, he was confounded
by the sight. He lay, actually shaking with
terror, muttering, " I shall be sent to prison
I meant no harm, yet I shall be sent to prison.
And I shall die there, I know I shall ; and you
will be left a widow a widow, Josephine, do
you hear?" with many other puerile moans,
which she listened to without heeding much.
Once or twice, with a sudden recoil of feeling,
she looked keenly at him, to discern if possible
how much of his agony of fear and contrition
was real ; or how much was contrition, and how
much only fear.
Edward Scanlan was too weak to be a scoun-
drel, at least a deliberate one. But your un-
conscious sinners, perhaps, do the most harm
after all, because you can use none of the or-
dinary weapons against them. You can de-
fend yourself against a straightforward villain ;
but a man who cries " peccavi" to all you have
to urge against him, who is ready to plead
guilty to all the sins in the Decalogue, and
commit them again to-morrow against such a
one what chance have you ?
Mrs, Scanlan had none. To-night it was
useless to say another word ; it would be like
striking a man that was down. All she could
do was to calm her husband's violent agitation
to get him to bed as quickly as possible, and
then to watch by him till he fell asleep, which
he did soon enough, holding fast by his wife's
hand.
Wretched wife! forlorn mother! Heaven
and earth seemed leagued against her, as she
sat for hours in that dull calm alive to all
which had happened or might happen yet
bound by a temporary spell, which made it all
unreal. She sat, the only creature awake in
the house ; and scarcely stirred until dawn
broke over those smooth, low hills, every out-
line of which she now knew so well the hills
behind which lay the invisible sea which round-
ed that smiling France whence her forefathers
came. " Why, oh why was I ever born ! " cried
she in her heart.
Ah ! not here, not here in this dimly seen,
imperfect life, must any of us expect to find
the complete answer to that question.
CHAPTER XI.
In spite of her long knowledge of her hus-
band's character, Mrs. Scanlan had expected
blindly expected that after last night he would
wake up fully alive to his position, amenable to
reason, and glad to be helped, even if he could
not help himself. But no ; he shirked it all.
He rose, after a good night's sleep, as if nothing
were amiss, avoided every allusion to unpleas-
ant things, and all chance of private conversa-
tion with his wife, ate a hearty breakfast, and
then set off for a walk, taking Ce'sar with him ;
evidently this companionship of father and son
being very unusual in order to avoid Ce'sar's
talking with his mother at home.
When Josephine perceived this her heart
hardened. The tenderness which had come
over her during the heavy watches of the night,
when she sat by the sleeping man, and tried to
remember that he was her husband, and she
must save him, if possible, from the result of
his own folly to call it by no worse name
this softness dried up ; her spirit changed
within her; and the plans she had formed,
the sacrifices she had contemplated for his
sake, seemed but wasted labor, love thrown
away.
At dinner-time Mr. Scanlan did not return,
but Cesar did, apparently of his own accord.
He had not been to school, but had been oc-
cupied in delivering various notes for his father
"begging letters," he had overheard them
called in one drawing-room, while waiting in
the hall and the proud lad had gone home
burning with indignation, which he tried hard
not to let his mother see.
" Why should papa beg ?' " said he ; " espe-
cially money and I know it was money, for I
had to pay it into the bank afterward ; several
five-pound notes."
"They were probably for the school," the
mother said, and guessed at once that, by the
common system of robbing Peter to pay Paul,
which weak people are so apt to indulge in, her
husband had been trying to replace his defalca-
tions by collecting further subscriptions. She
tried to find out what she could from her son,
excusing herself secretly by the vital necessity
there was that she should know the truth ; but
Cesar was very uncommunicative. He had evi-
dently been charged to say as little as he could
of what he had done or where he had been ;
and, being a boy of honor, he kept faith, even
though it cost him a sore struggle, for he was
passionately fond of his mother. At last he
said, plainly, "Please, don't question me. If
you want to know any thing, ask papa," and
stole out of the house.
Then a great fear came over Josephine a
fear which only women and mothers, who feel
their awful responsibility toward the young souls
intrusted to them, can understand.
There comes a crisis in many women's lives
I mean women who have made unhappy mar-
riages when the wife becomes merged in the
mother ; and the divine instinct for the protec-
tion of offspring, which Providence has rooted
in all our hearts, in some of us even deeper than
conjugal love, asserts itself so strongly that ev-
ery other feeling bends before it. I do not say
that this ought to be I only know that it is
A BRAVE LADY.
93
and I believe there are circumstances which
fully justify it ; for upon it depends the whole
salvation of the children.
A wise and good woman once said to me,
" If ever you have to choose between old and
young, save the young ! " Dares any one preach
the doctrine "If a woman has to choose be-
tween husband and children, save the chil-
dren ?" I think I dare ! I give it as my de-
liberate opinion that when the experience of
long years had killed all hope in the father,
and his influence is ruining the children, the
slow corruption of daily example adding to the
danger of inherited temperament, the mother
is bound to save her offspring from destruc-
tion ; ay, even if in so doing shQ has to cut
adrift the blazing ship upon which once all
her treasure was embarked, and escape, per-
haps with life only, still with life.
In what manner Josephine Scanlan came to
this conclusion, during the miserable time which
followed when she tried every means to gain
hef husband's confidence, to win him to ac-
knowledge that sin was sin, and not merely
" ill luck," and that instead of shutting his
eyes on his position he ought to look it in the
face and strive to retrieve it I do not know.
But that she did come to it I am certain. Wild
and terrible thoughts, nebulous at first, and then
settling into a distinct purpose, haunted her day
and night. If she only had her children all to
herself! to earn their bread and her own by the
work of her hands, and bring them up, if ever
so poor, honestly ; out of debt and out of dan-
ger, out of falsehood and sham religion, out of
the cowardly weakness which comes to the same
result as wickedness ! She meant her husband
no harm, she had no personal wrong to accuse
him of; she only wished to escape from him,
as she would escape from small-pox or scarlet-
fever, or any other infectious bodily disease,
with these poor little ones, whose moral health
was in her hands.
I blame her not, I only pity her; and the
horrible struggle she must have gone through
before there even dawned in her mind the last
resort of any woman who has once loved her
husband :to leave him. How it was to be
done, where and in what manner she could
maintain herself and her children without com-
ing upon him for one farthing which she was
determined never to do was all cloudy at pres-
ent ; but the idea having once presented itself
to her mind, not as a moral wrong, but a moral
right, germinated there day by day.
No counter-influence came to weaken it. Her
husband seemed determined to avoid her, resent-
ed the slightest interference, and fell into fits of
suUenness whenever she approached, in the re-
motest manner, that vital point in his affairs
which hung over him and his like Damocles's
sword. He saw it not ; he kept up more than
his ordinary gayety, arranged a grand opening
of his new schools, as public as the rector's mel-
ancholy state made possible, and accepted with
supreme self-satisfaction the parish's tribute of
gratitude for his " unparalleled exertions" in the
matter.
This ovation took the form of a public break-
fast, to which he, his wife, and family were in-
vited, and whither Mrs. Scanlan, with all her
children, had to go and receive the congratu-
lations of Ditchley. Dr. Waters himself the
good old man presented the piece of plate,
with much feeling, to the curate's wife; and
hoped that these elegantly built schools, which
did her husband so much credit, and which
bore his name on the comer-stone, would carry
it 4own to posterity, as well as his three noble
boys ; which speech Cesar listened to, in silence,
certainly, but with a curl on his lip not good to
be seen in a boy who is listening to the praises
of his father.
Yet how could the mother help it? She
could not teach her son that his father was
a hero, or even an honest, brave, truthful, or-
dinary man. She could only teach him alas !
nothing at all ; but leave him to find out things
for himself, and trust that God, who sometimes
strangely instructs by contraries, would bring
all things clear to her poor boy in he end.
And walking home that day, with her hand
on his arm Cesar was taller than herself now
Mrs. Scanlan made up her mind.
Her son told her that within a month the
school accounts were to be settled, Mr. Lang-
horne being appointed auditor.
"Does your father know this?" she asked,
startled out of all precaution by the imminence
of the danger.
"Yes," Ce'sar answered ; " but papa did not
seem to care." And, though saying nothing,
the boy showed by his manner that he guessed,
plainly enough, why papa had need to care.
How he had found it out the mother dared not
inquire; but that he had found out, only too
surely, that his father had taken and used mon-
ey which did not belong to him, was sufficient-
ly clear. Also that his young honest soul was
perplexing itself exceedingly about the matter,
and all the more because, from some new and
unwelcome reticence, he could not speak of it
to his usual confidante in all things his mo-
ther.
Into his father's confidence he had been
taken to an extent which made Josephine
tremble. Indeed, with the vague fear of his
children being set against him, Mr. Scanlan
had of late been unusually demonstrative to
them all. Uneasy as Cesar was, it was evident
that the delicate flattery of being treated as a
man, ajid talked to upon subjects that even his
mother did not know, was not without its ef-
fect how could it be at sixteen? When she
thought of this, and of what it might result in,
Josephine*grew half frantic.
Her husband came home an hour or two aft-
erward, greatly exhilarated by his success. Ra-
diant with gratified vanity, exulting in his re-
newed popularity, and his undoubted triumph
over his High-Church brother, who had been
present and seen it all, he walked up and down
94
A BRAVE LADY.
the little parlor, admiring his piece of plate, and
talking about himself and his doings, till, as
Bridget expressed it, " you would have thought
'the earth was not good enough for him to stand
upon. She only wondered why the master didn't
spread his wings and fly away at once, to the
moon or somewhere, and then the family might
get their tea comfortably." So said the sharp-
witted servant, feeling thus much on the mat-
ter, and no more, for of course she knew no
more. But the mistress, who did know, how
felt she?
First, a sensation of most utter scorn a wish
that she could hide, not only her children from
their father, but their father from the children,
who, she^aw, were all looking at him and crit-
icising him, with that keen, silent criticism to
which youth is prone youth, just waking up
to the knowledge that the grand eidolon of
parenthood is not an infallible divinity after
all. By-and-by there comes a time when,
parents ourselves, we begin to have a tender-
ness for even the broken image of what might
have been a god but not at first. The young
heart is as stern as the young conscience is ten-
der. When children cease to be worshipers
.they become iconoclasts.
Adi'ienne sat watching her father with those
big, astonished, half-reproachful eyes of hers,
but the rest only laughed at him. (^esar at
last rose and quitted the tea-table, slamming
the djoor behind him, and muttering, as he
passed through the kitchen, "that he didn't
think he could stand this style of thing much
longer." So as soon as she could, Mrs. Scan-
Ian contrived to get her husband out of the way,
to cool his head, intoxicated with laudations,
upon the breezy common.
She walked with him for a long time in si-
lence, holding his arm, and trying to gather up
her thoughts so as to put what she had to say
in the gentlest and most effectual form, and to
drive away from her own spirit that intense
sense of disgust which now and then came over
her a sort of moral sickness, which no famil-
iarity wdth Mr. Scanlan's lax ways had ever
quite overcome.
We are all accustomed to have faulty kin-
dred and friends, being ourselves, whether we
think it or not, very faulty too. But what
would it be to have belonging to us an actual
criminal, who had not only laid himself open to
the lash of the law that sometimes falls on in-
nocent people but was really guilty, deserving
of punishment, yet toward whom we ourselves
must continue to fulfill those duties, an(i enter-
tain that habitual tendeniess, which guilt itself
can not annul or destroy ?
Mrs. Scanlan asked herself, What if any oth-
er man, any stranger, were like her Edward,
and had done what he had done, how would
she have felt and acted toward him ? Undoubt-
edly she would have cut off herself and her
children from the smallest association with him ;
have pitied him perhaps, but with a pity min-
gled with contempt. Now oh the weakness
of womanhood ! though she planned quitting
her husband, she did not hate him. Many pit- i-
eous excuses for him slid into her mind. He *
was so feeble of will, so regardless of conse-
quences ; why had Providence made him thus,
and made her just the contrary put into her
that terrible sense of right and wrong which
was at once her safeguard and her torment,
making her jealous over the slightest errors in
those she loved, and agonizingly sensitive over
her own ?
Perhaps she was in error now had been too
hard upon her husband ; had made virtue ugly
to him by over-preaching it ! Then she would
preach no more, but act. She had already care-
fully arranged a plan to get him out of his diffi-
culty; if he agreed to it, well and good ; if he
refused But further she could not look : she
dared not.
"Edward" and her voice was so gentle,
that to herself it sounded like a hypocrite's
"don't go in just yet; we so seldom take a
walk together!"
Mr. Scanlan assented. He was in the best
of tempers, the most cheerful of moods ; you
would have thought he had all the world at his
feet. Whatever doubts might affect him, doubt
of himself never did. He talked to his Avife,
in a delighted vaingloriousness, of all he had
done, and meant to do, with regard to the new
schools.
"But are they paid for? Have you where-
withal to pay ? Did you replace the money
you drew for yourself?"
She put the question, not accusingly, but-just
as a mere question, and he replied, with easy
composure :
" Well not exactly. There will be a cer-
tain deficit, which I can easily explain to Mr.
Langhorne. He will never be hard upon me ;
me, who have worked so hard for the parish,
and not been half paid from the first. It will
all come right, you'll see. Don't vex yourself
about so small a matter."
"A small matter!" Josephine echoed, and
hardly knew whether she was dealing with a
child, or a man so utterly unprincipled that he
hid his misdoings under the guise of childish
simplicity. "I am afraid, Edward, you are
deceiving yourself. People will not think it a
small matter."
"What will they think? Speak out, you
most intolerable woman !"
"They will think as I think. But why re-
peat what I have so often said before ? And
we have no time for talking, we must act. Ce-
sar tells me "
" What has he told you ? the simpleton !"
" Do not be afraid. Only what probably all
the world knows, that Mr. Langhorne has been
chosen auditor of the school accounts, and that
they will be all wound up, and made generally
public in a month. Is it so ?"
" Oh, don't bother me ! Josephine, you are
always bothering! Why can't you let a man
alone ?"
A BRAVE LADY.
95
"I would if I were not his wife, and his
children's mother. Edward, just two words.
Have you thought what will happen if your ac-
counts are looked into, and found incorrect, and
you can not furnish the deficit, as you call it ?"
"But I shall, sooner or later. Of course
I am responsible. I shall tell Langhorne so.
He will hush up the matter. He would never
jn'oceed to extremities with me."
"Why not?"
*'My position as a clergyman "
"So a clergyman may do things which, if
another man did, it would be called swindling !
I beg your pardon" and Mrs. Scanlan checked
the passion that shook her from head to foot
" I did not mean to use hard words, but I must
use plain ones. For I believe, in spite of all
you say, that Ditchley might view the thing in
a different light from yourself; and that Mr.
Langhorne, being a remarkably honest man,
and having public money intrusted to his hon-
esty, would find himself unwillingly obliged to
have you arrested for embezzlement, clergyman
as you are. You would find yourself a little
uncomfortable in the county jail."
Edward Scanlan started. "Nonsense ! You
are talking nonsense!"
"Excuse me, no! I am not speaking at
random ; I know it for a fact."
" How can you know it ? You have not been
80 mad as to go and consult any body ?"
"I have not. A wife must be very mad in-
deed before she takes any body into her coun-
sel against her husband. But she must pro-
tect herself and her children, if she can. I
borrowed a law-book, and found out from it
every thing I wanted to know on that and
other subjects."
"I always said you were a very clever wo-
man, and so you are. Too clever by half for a
poor fellow like me."
Edward Scanlan's speech, bitter as it was,
had an underlying cunning in it ; it touched
his wife's most generous point, and he knew
it.
"I' am not clever, I do not pretend to be,"
she cried, warmly. "I am only honest, and
anxious to do my duty to both husband and
children, and it is so hard so hard ! You drive
me nearly wild sometimes. Edward, why will
you not listen to me why will you not trust me ?
What motive can I have in * worrying' you, as
you call it, but your own good and the chil-
dren's? God knows, but for that I would let
every thing go lay me down and die. I am
80 tired so tired ! "
And as she stood with her face to the sun-
set, even its rosy glow could not brighten her
wan features or her hair, in the raven black
of which were mingling many white streaks.
Josephine had arrived at the most painful crisis
for a beautiful woman, when she is neither
young nor old ; not even middle-aged, which
season has sometimes a comely grace of its own ;
but prematurely faded, like the trees after a hot
summer of drought, which attempt no lovely
autumn tints, but drop at once into winter and
decay.
Her husband looked at her, and saw it. He
was in a vexed mood, perhaps, or else he sim-
ply said what came uppermost, without think-
ing, but he did say it, "Dear me, Josephine,
how very plain you are growing!"
She turned away. She would hardly have
been woman had the arrow not touched her
heart, but it scarcely penetrated there. She
had long ceased to care for her good looks, and
now she was too desperately in earnest about
other things to mind what even her husband
thought of her. It was not till afterward that
his words recurred to her memory and settled
there, as bitter words do settle, long' after the
speaker has forgotten them. Now she simply
turned the conversation back to the point-vin
question, and discussed it as calmly and lucni-
ly as she could.
The plan she urged was, that Mr. Scanlan
should borrow, in some legal way, the sum*
wanting, giving as security a policy of assur-
ance on his life, and finding a friend to guaran-
tee his yearly payment of the same. This kind-
ness she would herself ask of Dr. Waters, or of
Lady Emma's husband. It was merely nom-
inal, she knew ; because, if Edward neglected
to pay the few pounds yearly, she could do it
herself; her earnings through Priscilla Nunn
were still considerable. Her practical mind
had laid out the whole scheme. She had even
got the papers of an assurance office ; there was
nothing for Mr. Scanlan to do but to take the
requisite steps for himself, which he being un-
luckily a man, and therefore supposed compe-
tent to manage his own affairs and that of his
household nobody else could do for him. But
his wife's common-sense had simplified all to
him as much as possible, and her clear head
succeeded in making him take it in.
It was of no use. Either he did not like the
trouble hisj^ Irish laziness always hated trou-
ble or else he had that curious prejudice which
some weak people have against life assurance,
as against making a will. Above all, he was
annoyed at his wife's having done all this with-
out consulting him, step by step, in the affair.
It seemed to imply that she had her own way
in every thing, which must not be. He brought
in every possible argument Apostolic or He-
braic to prove that even to criticise or attempt
to guide her husband was a dereliction from
wifely duty, which he, for one, was determined
to resist.
Far different was his tone the night he flung
himself at her knees, and implored her to help
him ; but then Mr. Scanlan had been made an
important personage to-day. He was like one
of those
"Little wanton boys who swim on bladders,"
of his own vanity and egotism, and the bladders
had been pretty well blown up since morning.
Nothing that Mrs. Scanlan urged could in the
least open his eyes to the reality of his position,
96
A BRAVE LADY.
or persuade him that he was not sailing tri-
umphantly on a perfectly smooth sea, with all
Ditchley looking at and admiring him.
*' Nobody will ever breathe a word against
me," repeated he, over and over again. "And I
dare say, if I manage him well, Langhorne will
aiTange so that nobody even finds the matter
out. Then, of course, it will not signify."
"Not signify!"
Years ago nay, only months ago Josephine
would have blazed up into one of her "furies,"
as her husband called them ; her passionate in-
dignation against shams of all kinds, and espe-
cially against the doctrine that evil was only
evil when it happened to be found out ; but
now she indulged in no such outburst. She
did not even use that sarcastic tongue of hers,
which sometimes could sting, and would have
stung bitterly, had she not been such a very
conscientious woman. She merely echoed Ed-
ward's words, and walked on in silence. But
what that silence covered it was well he did
not know.
So he made himself quite comfortable, and
even cheerful ; satisfied that he_ was his own
master and his wife's likewise, and had used
fully his marital authority. He treated the
whole subject lightly, as if quite settled, and
would again have passed on to other topics.
But Josephine stopped him. Her lips were
white, and her hand with which she touched
him was cold as stone.
"Pause a minute, Edward, before you talk
of this thing being ' settled.' It is not settled.
You have a heavy time before you, though you
see it not. I am very sorry for you."
"Tush tush!" cried he, much irritated.
"As if I could not manage my own affairs,
and take care of myself. Do let me alone.
All I ask of you is to hold your tongue."
*'I will, from this time forward. Only it
would not be fair, it would not be honest, if I
did not tell you what I mean to do^ that is, if
things go on with us as they have been going
on of late."
" How do you mean ?"
Josephine stopped a moment to put into
words, plain words, though neither imprudent
nor harsh, the truth she thought it right not to
keep back. Stern as her course might be, there
should be at least no concealment, no double-
dealing in it.
"I mean, Edward, that you and I, who al-
ways differed, now differ so widely, that the
struggle is more than I can bear ; for I see that
it is destruction to the children. To use your
own favorite text, * two can not walk together
unless they are agreed.* They had .better di-
vide."
"I am sure I have no objection. Good-
night, then. I never do take a walk with you
that you don't scold me," said he, perhaps will-
fully misunderstanding, or else, in his loose
way of viewing things, he did not really catch
the drift of her words.
She tried again. " I shall never ' scold' any
more ; I shall not speak, but act ; as seems to
me right and necessary. I can not sit still and
see my children ruined."
"Ruined! Why, they are getting on ex-
ceedingly well. They'll take care of them-
selves, never fear. Already Cesar knows near-
ly as much of the world as I do."
"Does he?" said the mother, with a thrill
of fear which made her more desperate than
ever to say these few words the fewest possi-
ble which she had told herself, at all costs,
she must say. "I know, Edward, children are
not to a father what they are to a mother ; and
to you especially they have never been any
thing but a burden. I therefore have less
scruple in what I intend to do."
"What are you driving at? What is the
meaning of all these hints ?"
"I hint nothing; I say it out plain. Your
ideas of honesty and honor are not mine, and
I will not have my children brought up in them.
I shaU therefore, as soon I can, take a decisive
step."
" What ? inform against me ? tell all Ditch-
ley that your husband is a thief and a rogue?
That would be a nice wife-like act."
"No. I shall not inform against you, and
I shall never say one word concerning you to
any body; I shall simply leave you." \
"Leave me! What ridiculous nonsense!" J
Nevertheless, Edward Scanlan looked star-
tled. Gentle as his wife was ordinarily, he
knew well that, when roused, she had a " spirit
of her own " that she always meant what she
said, and acted upon it too. And, as some-
times in his mistaken notions of propitiating
her he had told her himself, he was a little
afraid of his Josephine. But the idea she now
suggested was too daringly untenable. His
sense of outward respectability, nay, even his
vanity, refused to take it in. After a moment-
ary uneasiness he burst into laughter.
"Leave me! Well, that is the drollest
idea ! As if you could possibly do it ! Run
away, bag and baggage, with the children on
your back, and Bridget trotting after. What
a pretty sight ! How amused Ditchley would
be! And how could you maintain yourself,
you silly woman ? Isn't it I who keep the pot
boiling ?" (He did not now, but it was useless
telling him so.) "Besides" and Mr, Scanlan
drew closer to his wife, and tried to put upon
her "the comether," as Bridget would say, of
his winning ways very winning when he chose
" besides, Josephine, you couldn't leave me ;
you are fond of me ; you know you are,"
Josephine drew her breath in a gasp, and
looked from her husband's face up to the face
of the sky, which seemed so clear, so pure, so
true! Oh! the difference between, it and us,
between heaven and man !
"I was fond of you," she said; "but if I
were ever so fond if you were dear to me as
the core of my heart, and I had children whom
you were doing harm to, whom it was neces-
sary to save from you, I would not hesitate one
A BRAVE LADY.
97
minute ; I Would snatch them up in my arms
and fly."
"Here's a new creed!" and Mr. Scanlan
laughed still, for the whole matter appeared
to his shallow mind so exceedingly absurd.
" Have you forgotten what St. Paul says, ' Let
not the wife depart from her husband ?' "
*' St. Paul was not a woman, and he had no
children."
"But he spoke through the inspiration of
Scripture, every word of which we are bound
to receive. "
"I dare not receive it whenever it is against
truth and justice," cried, passionately, the half-
maddened wife. " I do not believe blindly in
Scripture ; I believe in God my God, and not
yours. Take Him if you will that is, if He ex-
ists at all but leave me mine my God and
my Christ!"
After this outbreak, which naturally horrified
Edward Scanlan to a very great extent, he had
nothing to say. With him every thing was so
completely on the surface, religion included a
mere farrago of set phrases which he never took
the trouble to explain or to understand that
when any strong, eager soul dared to pluck oft'
the outside coverings of things and pierce to
the heart of them, he stood aghast. No Ro-
man Catholic one of those "Papists" whom
he lost no opportunity of abusing could be-
lieve more credulously in his Virgin Mary and
all the saints than did this "gospel" curate in
a certain circle of doctrines, conveyed in cer-
tain fixed phrases, the Shibboleth of his portion
of the Church, upon which depended the salva-
tion of its members. God forbid that I should
allege every Evangelical clergyman to be like
Edward Scanlan ; or that I should not allow
the noble sincerity, the exceeding purity of life,
the wftrm-hearted Christian fellowship, and wide
practical Christian charity oh, how infinitely
wider than their creed ! of this body of relig-
ionists. But to any one like Josephine, born
with a keen and critical intellect, a passionate
sense of moral justice, and a heart that will ac-
cept no temporizing until it has found the perfect
truth, the perfect right, this narrow form of
faith, which openly avers that its principal aim
is its own salvation, becomes, even when sin-
cere, so repulsive that its tendency is to end in
no faith at all.
She had occasionally horrified Mr. Scanlan
by remarks like the foregoing, but this last one
fairly dumfoundered him. He regarded her
with complete bewilderment, and then, not hav-
ing a word wherewith to answer her, said " he
would pray for her." No other conversation
passed between them till they came to the gate,
when he observed, with a patronizing air,
" Now, my dear Josephine, I hope you have
come down from your high horse, and are ready
for supper and prayers. Let us drop all un-
pleasant subjects. I assure you I am not angry
with you, not in the least. I always wish you
to speak your mind. All I want is a little
peace."
G
Peace, peace, when there was no peace !
when the merest common -sense, even a wo-
man's, was enough to show her on what a mine
her husband was treading ; how at any moment
it might burst at his feet, and bring him and
all belonging to him to ruin in the explosion.
For, shut his eyes to it as he might, excuse it
as she might, his act was certainly embezzle-
ment; disgraceful enough in any man, doubly
disgraceful in a clergyman. When it came to
be known, in a community like Ditchley, his
future and that of his family would be blighted
there forever. The straw to which she had
clung in case that other future, which she was
now so thankful he had never known of, failed
namely, that on Mr. Oldham's death the living
of Ditchley might be given to Mr. Scanlan,
would then become impossible. Nay, wherever
he went her husband would be branded as a
thief and a swindler'and, justly or unjustly, the
stigma of these names would rest upon his chil-
dren. It might be that in her long torment
about money-matters she exaggerated the posi-
tion ; still it was one cruel enough to madden
any honest, upright- minded woman, who was
a mother likewise. A little more, and she
felt it would be so ; that her mind would lose
its balance, and then what would become of
the children ?
"Edward," said she and her great black hol-
low eyes gleamed upon him like one of Michael
Angelo's sibyls (not a pleasant woman to be mar-
ried to ; a Venus or Ariadne might have suited
him far better) "one word before it is too
late. Peace is a good thing, but there are bet-
ter things still honesty and truth. Listen to
me ; any honest man will see the thing as I see
it. You must replace that money, and there is
but one way the way I told you of. Try that,
however much you djslike it ; save yourself, and
the children, and me. Husband, I was dear to
you once."
"Don't blarney me," said he, cruelly, and
turned away.
His wife did the same. That appeal also
had failed. But she never altered her manner
toward him. She was speaking only out of*
duty, but with no hope at all.
" If you can once get clear of this liability,
I will go on working as usual, and making ends
meet as usual. And perhaps you will try that
we shall be a little more of one mind, instead
of pulling two ditterent ways, which is such a
fatal thing in the master and mistress of a
household. But you must decide, and quick-
ly. We stand on a precipice which any mo-
ment we may fall over."
" Let us fall, then !" cried he, in uncontrolled
irritation, shaking ofi^ her detaining hand. ' ' For
I won't insure my life, and nobody shall make
me. It looks just as if I were going to die ;
which no doubt I shall, if you keep on worrying
me so. There, there, don't speak in your sharp
tone, which always sets my heart beating like
a steam-engine, and you know my father died
of heart-disease, though they say sons never
98
A BRAVE LADY.
take after their fathers but their mothers,
which ought to be a great satisfaction to you.
Never mind ; when you've killed me, and are
left a widow with your boys, you'll be so sorry ! "
So he rambled on, in a sort of pitiful tone,
but his complaints, as unreal as the bursts of
carefully - arranged pathos in his sermons, af-
fected Mrs. Scanlan very little ; she was used
to them. Though not robust, she always found
he had strength enough for any thing he liked
to do. It was chiefly when he disliked a thing
that his health broke down. So his lugubrious
forebodings did not wound her as once they
used to do. Besides God help her ! the wo-
man was growing hard.
" Very well," she said, "now we understand
one another. You take your own course, I
mine. I have at least not deceived you in any
way; and I have had patience years of pa-
tience. "
*'0h, do cease that dreadful self-compla-
cency. I wish you would do something wrong,
if only that you might have something to re-
pent of. You are one of the terribly righteous
people 'who need no repentance.'"
"Am I?" said Josephine. And I think
to use one of those Bible phrases so ready to
Mr. Scanlan 's tongue that instant "the devil
entered into her as he entered into* Judas;"
and she passed into the last phase of despera-
tion, when we cease to think whether we ought
or ought not to do a thing, but only that we
will do it.
The head of the family walked in at his front
door, calling Bridget and the children to pray-
ers, which he made especially long this night,
taking occasion to bring in "Judge not, that
ye be not judged;" "First take out the mote
that is in thine own eye, and then shalt thou
see clearly to pull out the beam that is in thy
brother's eye;" with other similar texts, all
huddled together, higgledy-piggledy, in mean-
ingless repetition, so that the first Divine utter-
er of them would scarcely have recognized His
own gracious words.
Josephine heard them, as one who hears not
' who desires not to hear. She merely knelt
down, and rose up again, with the sense of evil
possession, of the devil in her heart, stronger
than ever ; sinking presently into a sort of dull
despair. Had things come to this pass ? Well,
then, let them come ; and there would be an
end.
An end !
CHAPTER XII.
Even had Mrs. Scanlan wished again to
reason with her husband, he gave her no op-
jmrtunity of so doing. He scarcely spoke to
her, or took any notice of her, but addressed
himself entirely to the children ; and, early
next day, he started for one of his three-days'
visits to a great house on the borders of his
parish, where the agreeable Irish curate was
always welcome, particularly in the shooting
season ; when all sorts of dukes and lords " of
high emprise" assembled to make war upon
pheasants and partridges. Mr. Scanlan sel-
dom handled a gun himself it was unclerical
but he was great at a hedge-side lunch, and
greater at a smoking-room conclave. Nor did
he spare any trouble to be amusing ; for, like
a celebrated countryman of his own, he " dear-
ly loved a lord."
When he had departed, saying loudly to
Adrienne, in her mother's hearing, "that he
was sure he should enjoy himself extremely"
when the house would be empty of him for three
whole days (and, oh, misery ! it did not feel
empty, only free and clear), then Mrs. Scanlan
^t herself to meet the future ; to ascertain, not
what she ought to do, that was already decided,
but in what rtianner she could best do it.
Deliberately, judicially, advisedly out of no
outburst of passion, no vengeance for personal
wrong, but with a firm conviction that she was
doing the right thing and the only thing, this
woman contemplated quitting her husband
separating herself entirely from him a mensd et
thoro, as the lawyers say, from bed and boai'd
for life ; since after sucfi a step there is no
return. Nor was she a woman ever likely to
return. She had much endurance long pa-
tience ; she was slow in making up her mind,
but once made up she almost never changed it
suffered from neither hesitations, recalcitra-
tions, nor regrets, but went resolutely on to th^e
end.
She knew her desertion of her husband
would bring no opprobrium upon him; quite
the contrary the blame would probably be laid
to her own door. He had broken none of the
external duties of married life was neither a
profligate nor a drunkard ; had kept carefully
within the bounds of worldly morality, and
probably the world would sympathize with him
much ; that is, if he made public his wife's
secession, which there was no absolute neces-
sity for him to do. " Going abroad a while for
the children's education," that was the nearest
and most convenient fiction to account for her
absence, and this she should leave him at full
liberty to use. For she had no wish either to
harm him, or complain of him, or seek any
remedy against him. She wanted simply to
escape from him to escape with life, and only
that, for she determined to take nothing with
her either of hers or the children's, except
clothes. Nor would she ever ask a penny of
him for maintenance ; the whole income of the
curacy should remain his to spend as he chose.
Thus, to the best of her power, she meted out
strict equity between him and herself, as well
as between him and his children. They had
never owed much to their father, except the
mere gift of existence; henceforward she de-
termined they should owe nothing. It would
be her daily counsel to them to struggle, woi'k,
starve even, rather than ask him for any thing.
In the new and terrible code which she had
A BRAVE LADY.
99
laid down for herself, to which she had been
driven by most cruel circumstance, no love, no
generosity was possible only stern, even-hand-
ed justice, the same on both sides. She tried
to see it, and do it.
Feeling of every kind the miserable wife put
aside from her entirely. Had she for one in-
stant let the flood-gates of emotion loose, her
reason, strength, and power of action would
have been swamped entirely.
She knew she was acting contrary to most
laws, social and scriptural, which the world
believes in ; but this moved her not. It was
Mrs. Scanlan's peculiarity that, her conscience
clear, nothing external affected her in the
least ; also, that if dissatisfied with herself, no
praises of others satisfied her for a moment.
Therefore in this her flight, from moral as from
physical contagion, she consulted no one, trust-
ed no one, but was resolved simply to take her
children, and depart.
This departure must be sudden ; and, of
necessity, in Mr. Scanlan's absence, but she
would arrange it so as to make it of as little
public a nature as possible, so that he might
give it whatever color he pleased. Whether
for or against herself she little cared ; her only
anxiety was to do the right thing; nor, with
that extraordinary singleness of purpose she
had, did it much trouble her whether other
people thought well or ill of her for doing it.
The only person to whom she meant to con-
fide the s'ecret of her flight, and where she would
b*found, was Priscilla Nunn, upon whom she
depended for future subsistence. Priscilla had
often lamented that Mrs. Scanlan was not in
Paris, where she had lately established an agen-
cy, in which house Josephine's skillful handi-
work could have earned twice the income it
did here. To Paris, therefore, the mother de-
termined to go la belle France, which she had
taught her children to dream of as a sort of
earthly paradise, where the sun always shone,
and life was all pleasantness and brightness.
That every one of her young folk would be eager
to go asking no questions; for she had de-
termined to answer none, except ia the very
briefest way she had not a shadow of doubt.
Her influence with her children was still para-
mount and entire.
Once in France, and all her own, to be
brought up in the traditions of her race ; in the
pure Huguenot faith, such as she saw it through
the golden haze of memory; in the creed of
chivalry and honor which, though poor as peas-
ants since the time of the first Revolution, the
De Bougainvilles had ever held unstained oh,
how happy both she and her little flock would
be!
Most of all, C^sar, who was just reaching the
age when the most affectionate of fathers and
sons seldom quite agree, and nature herself gives
the signal of temporary separation ; after which
they meet again on equal terms as man and
man, neither encroaching on the rights of the
other. In spite of their late alliance more
dangerous than any quarrel C^sar and his fa-
ther had been far from harmonious for the last
year or two ; and the boy had confessed that
he should be only too thankful when he was out
in the world '* on his own hook."
Now, C?sar was his mother's darling. Not
openly she was too just to let partiality ap-
pear but in her heart she built more hopes on
him than on any of her children. None the
less so because she saw in him the old genera-
tion revived. Josephine had had a passionate
admiration for her father; so strong that it
made her struggle to the last to keep sacred in
her children's eyes that pitiful imitation of true
fatherhood which it had been their lot to have,
while she herself had been blessed with the re-
ality. Her half-broken, empty heart clung to
the image of her dead father which she saw re-
vived in her living son the hope that, passing
over a generation, the old type might be re-
vived, and Cesar might grow up not a Scanlan
at all wholly a De Bougainville.
It seemed so at present. Besides being ex-
ternally so like the old Vicomte that he starticd
her continually by tones, gestures, modes of
speech, as if it were the dead come alive again
he seemed in character to be strong, reliable,
truthful, honest ; every thing that his grandfa-
ther had been, and his father was not. And
yet to confide in him, to enlist him against his
father, was a thing at which Josephine's sense
of right recoiled at once. The only thing she
could do which she was in a measure forced
to do was to learn from her son the exact foot-
ing upon which matters stood.
She did it very simply, cutting the Gordian
knot by what is at once the sharpest and safest
knife that any body ever can use truth.
*' Cesar, I have some very important plans in
my mind, which concern you as well as myself;
they will be settled in a day or two, and then I
will tell you them : in the mean time tell me
every thing that has passed between you and
your father. I have a right to know, and papa
knows I meant to ask you."
*'0h, I'm so glad!" cried the boy, greatly
relieved, and immediately began and told ev-
ery thing.
It was worse than she had anticipated, and
caused her to regret, not her haste but her dil-
atoriness, in compelling this confidence. With
the rash incontinence of speech which formed
such a curious contrast to his fits of cunning
reticence, Mr. Scanlan had not hesitated to
explain all his affkirs to his son that is, in
the light in which he viewed them. And he
had for months past been in the habit, when-
ever he wanted money, of sending the lad about
*' begging," as Ce'sar irritatedly called it : bor-
rowing from house to house small sums, on one
excuse or other, till there was hardly a well-to-
do family in the parish who had not lent him
something, and never been repaid.
"And the strange thing is," said the boy,
who, his tongue and his conscience being both
unsealed, opened his whole heart to his mo-
m M /&(;iyvvt^oO
100
A BKAVE LADY.
ther, "that papa does not intend to pay, yet
seems to think this not wrong at all. He says
that it is the business of the parish to maintain
him comfortably, and that borrowing money is
only doing as the Israelites did ' spoiling the
Egyptians.' Mamma, what does he mean ?"
The mother answered nothing. She did not
even dare to meet her boy's eyes she only cast
them upward in a kind of despair, as if taking
Heaven to witness that the step she contempla-
ted was not only right, but inevitable.
It struck her, however, that before she took
it she ought to discover, not the equity of that
she had no doubt but the law of what she was
about to do : how far her rights extended, and
what legal mode of defense she had, supposing
her lot drifted her into that cruel position a
wife who has to protect herself against her nat-
ural protector, her husband.
That night, the children being all in bed, and
even Bridget's watchful eyes at last sealed safe
in slumber, Mrs. Scanlan took down a big book
which she had some time ago borrowed from
Mr. Langhorne, and began carefully to study
the laws relating to married women and their
property, in order to ascertain what her rights
were : only her rights no more.
She found what many an unfortunate wife
and mother has found : that, according as the
law of England then stood, and, with little mod-
ification, now stands, a married woman has no
rights at all.
First for Josephine had strength and cour-
age to write all things down, so as to have the
case as clearly before her mind as possible
unless there exists an antenuptial settlement,
every farthing a wife may have, or acquire, or
earn, is not hers, but her husband's, to seize
and use at his pleasure. Second that he may
personally "chastise" her "confine" her re-
strict her to the merest necessaries, or treat her
with every unkindness short of endangering her
life without being punishable. Third that
if she escapes from him he can pursue her, and
bring her back, forcing her to live with him,
/and share, however unwillingly, the burden and
disgrace of his wrong-doings ; or, if he dislikes
this, he may refuse to maintain her ; while, at
the same time, if she is able to maintain herself,
he can swoop down upon her from time to time,
and appropriate all her earnings, she having
no defense whatever against him. Is he not her
husband, and all hers his, no matter how ac-
quired'?
Then, as regards her children. After they
are seven years old he can take them from her,
denying her even access to them, and bringing
them up exactly as he chooses, within certain
limits, which the law, jealous of interference
with paternal authority, usually makes broad
enough. In fact, until they become of age,
they are as much in his power as his wife is
mere goods and chattels, for whom he is re-
sponsible to no one, so long as he offends so-
ciety by no open cruelty or crime.
Rich women, who can make to themselves a
barricade of trustees, settlements, etc. those in-
genious devices by which the better classes pro'r
tect themselves against the law are able to neu-
tralize its effects a little ; but for poor women,
working-women, dowerless women, this is how
it stands ; and thus, after a long hour of half-
incredulous studying, Mrs. Scanlan found it.
She sat perfectly aghast. In her ignorance
she had never contemplated such a state of
things. She knew marriage was, in a sense, a
bondage, as all duties and ties must be more or
less ; but she believed it a sacred bondage, the
same on both sides, or rather a partnership, in
which each had equal rights, equal responsibil-
ities, and, did either fail in the fulfillment of
them, equal powers of self-defense against the
wrong. For, alas ! such is the imperfection of
things human, that in all bonds we accept
including marriage it behooves us not to for-
get the melancholy maxim, " Treat every ene-
my as a possible friend, and every friend as a
possible enemy." And it harms no men or wo-
men who have found in a married partner their
best and closest friend to know that other mis-
erable men and women, who have proved theirs
to be their direst enemy, have a refuge and pro-
tection provided for them by the law, which is
a terror to evil-doers only, not to those who do
well.
Josephine Scanlan, now that she knew her
lot, writhed under it as if she had felt coiling
round her the rings of a serpent. It bound
her, it strangled her, it hissed its hot breath in
her face, till she seemed nearly growing mad.
She had married which alone implied that
she had been content to merge her existence in
that of her husband ; that she desired no prom-
inent self-assertion, no contradictory rights.
Had her marriage turned out what marriage
should be, neither would ever have thought of
their rights at all, only of their duties, and
scarcely even of these ; for love would have
transformed them into pure delights. But ev-
ery union is not a happy one ; every bridegroom
is not what his bride believes him ; nor for let
us be just every bride what her husband hopes
to find her. In such cases, what redress ? For
the husband, some, seeing he has the power in
his own hands ; for the wife, none at all. The
man may be knave or fool, may beggar her by his
folly, disgrace and corrupt her children by his
knavery, yet she can neither cut him adrift, as
he can her under similar circumstances, nor es-
cape from him, as Josephine Scanlan desired
to do.
All in vain. She found that, struggle as she
might, she could not get free. Though she
wanted nothing from her husband, was pre-
pared to maintain herself and her children, not'
interfering with him in any way, still he had
just the same rights over her, could pursue her
to the world's end, take her children from her,
possess himself of every thing she had and the
law would uphold him in this, so long as he
kept within its bounds and committed no actual
crime. There it was, clear as daylight : that
A BRAVE LApy/
101
however bad a man may be, however fatal his
influence and dangerous his association to those
belonging to him for nothing short of adultery
or cruelty can a wife get protection against him,
or succeed in separating herself from him and
his fortunes.
There are people who believe this to be right,
and according to Scripture. I wonder wheth-
er they would still believe it if they found them-
selves in the position of Josephine Scanlan ?
As she sat reading, in the dead of night, with
tlie house so still that the scream of a little
mouse behind the wainscot startled her and
made her shiver with nervous dread, there
came over her, first a sense of utter despair,
and then the frenzied strength which is born of
despair. Rights or no rights, law or no law,
she would be free. Nothing on earth should
bind her, an honest woman, to a dishonest man ;
nothing should force her to keep up the sham
of love where love was gone ; nothing should
terrify her into leaving her poor children to the
contamination of their father's example. No,
she would be free. By fair means or foul she
would set herself free, and them likewise.
A timid woman, or one who was keenly alive
to the world's opinion, might have hesitated ;
but Josephine was come to that pass when she
recognized no law but her conscience, no relig-
ion except a blind faith that God, being a just
God, would make all things right in the end.
Beyond this she felt nothing, except a resolute,
desperate, ^nd utterly fearless will, that was ca-
pable of any eifort and stopped by no hindrance.
While she sat calculating all the pros and cons,
the risks and diflSculties of the course she was
still as ever determined upon only it required
now cunning as well as resolution, deception
instead of truth she recalled the story of a cer-
tain Huguenot ancestress also a Josephine de
Bougainville who, when the Catholics attacked
her house, stood at its doorway, pistol in hand,
with her two children behind her, and fought
for them killing more than one man the while
until she was killed herself. Josephine Scan-
lan would have done the same and she knew
it.
No future contingencies on the side of expe-
diency perplexed her mind. Mr. Oldham's
death might not happen for years, and when
it did happen it might not affect her : the for-
tune might be left elsewhere. Nay, if not,
what matter? As the law stood, it would
not be hers, but her husband's ; and he would
be as unscrupulous over thousands as he had
been over hundreds. Once she had thought
differently, had fondly hoped that the posses-
sion of wealth would make him all right; now
she knew the taint in him was ineradicable.
His dishonesty, his utter incapacity to recog-
nize what honesty was, seemed an actual mor-
al disease. And diseases are hereditary. At
least, nothing but the utmost care can pre-
vent them from becoming hereditary. Even
as a noble ancestor often stamps his likeness,
mental and physical, upon unborn generations.
so does any base blood, morally speaking for
moral baseness is the only real degradation
crop out in a family now and then in the most
mysterious way for generations ; requiring ev-
ery effort of education to conquer it if it can
ever be conquered at all.
Mrs. Scanlan 's ambition for her children was
altered now. Once she had wished to make
them rich now her only longing was that they
should be honest. The wealth of the Indies
would be worth nothing to her if they learned
to use it as their father faithless in much as
he had been in little would assuredly teach
them. Better that Cesar and Louis, and even
delicate Adrienne, should earn their bread by
the sweat of their brow, and earn it honestly,
than that they should share any bread, even a
father's, that was unrighteously gained ; or grow
up reckless, selfish spendthrifts, to whom wealth
was no blessing, only an added curse. If it
came, let him take it! she cared not. Her
sole hope was to snatch up her children and
fly-
That very night Josephine laid her plans,
modified according to the new light which she
had gained as to her legal position laid them
with "a caution and foresight worthy of one of
those righteous conspirators against unright-
eous authority, who, according as they succeed
or fail, are termed in history patriots or trait-
ors: Some end on a throne, others on a scaf-
fold ; but I think, if they have an equally clear
conscience. Heaven gives to both good rest.
And good rest, strangely calm, came to Jo-
sephine's tired eyelids somewhere about dawn.
She woke with the feeling of something hav-
ing happened, or being about to happen the
sort of feeling that most of us have on a mar-
riage or funeral morning; they are strangely
alike that this day will make, for good or ill,
a great gulf between the old life and the new.
Nevertheless, she rose and prepared for it, as
somehow or other we all do prepare, with a fac-
titious calmness, that grows easier each minute
as we approach the inevitable.
On descending to her children, the first thing
she saw was a letter from Mr. Scanlan, not to
herself but to Adrienne, saying he was enjoying
himself so much that he mean* to stay away
the whole week. Therefore she had before her
that week. Within it soii^thing might occur.
No, nothing would occur nothing that could
save her from the act which she felt was a ne-
cessity. Only a miracle could so change things
as to cause her to change ; and miracles do not
happen in these days.
Simple as her preparations were, she found*
them a little difficult to manage without excit-
ing the suspicion of her household. At first
she had intended to take Bridget with her;
now she decided not. No one should be com-
promised by her departure: no one, until she
was clearly away, should know any thing about
it. Besides, in leaving Bridget behind at
Wren's Nest, she left a certain guarantee that
things would go on rightly there, and Mr. Scan-
102
A BfeAVE LADY.
lan's physical comforts be looked after, at least
for the present.
For, strangely enough, np from the fathom-
less tragedy of her heart came floating small,
ridiculous, surface things such as who would
arrange her husband's breakfasts and dinners,
see that he had every thing comfortable, and do
for him the thousand and one trifles which he
being either more helpless or more lazy than
most men these seventeen years she had been
in the habit of doing roi* him ? Mechanically
she did them to the last ; even sewing buttons
on his clean shirts, and looking over his clothes
for several weeks to come, till the farce and the
tragedy of her departure mixed themselves to-
gether in such a horrible way, and the familiar
facts of everyday life assumed such a ghastly
pathos, that she felt she must shut her eyes and
steel her heart, if her purpose was to be carried
out at all.
Day after day slipped past ; as they slip past
a doomed man who has lost all hope of reprieve,
yet has become not yet quite indifferent to dy-
ing a death in the midst of life ; which, so far
as this world ends, is ended forever. It may.
be the entrance to a new life, but this life is the
familiar one this is the one he understands.
Somewhat thus did Josephine feel when, night
after night, she lay down in her empty, silent
chamber, foretasting the loneliness that would
henceforward be hers till death. Yet she nev-
er wavered. She believed she was doing right ;
and with her, that question being decided, no
after-thought ever came.
Still, she deferred till the very last making
her only necessary confidence, which was to
Priscilla Nunn. Even to her it would be brief
enough, merely enough to secure the faithful
woman's help in Paris, and to conceal her ad-
dress there from every body, including Mr.
Scanlan. Further, neither to Priscilla nor to
any one did she intend to explain. When we
have to hew off a rotten branch to save the rest
of the tree, we hew it off; but we do not sit
slashing and hacking at it, and prating to all
comers what harm it has done us, and the rea-
son why we cut it down. At least, Josephine
was not the woman to do this : she acted, but
she never talked.
Having settled almost word for word the
fewest possible what she had to explain to
Priscilla, she started on her walk to receive
from the little shop the money that was due to
her a tolerable sum, enough to take her and
the children to Paris, and keep them there, at
least beyond want, for a short time, till she ob-
tained the work which, with Priscilla's assist-
ance, she had no fear of getting. Every thing
she did was done in the most methodical man-
ner, even to the new name she meant to take
her mother's maiden name which she did not
think Mr. Scanlan had ever asked or heard.
She had hoped to go through Ditchley with-
out meeting any one she knew, but just before
^ she reached Priscilla's shop she was stopped by
Mr. Langhome, whom she had not seen for
some time, since the sudden friendliness which
had sprung up between them after Mr. Oldham's
illness had as suddenly died down she well
guessed why. From her husband's irritability
whenever the lawyer was named, she knew he
had tried to borrow from him, and failed : after
which little episode Mr. Scanlan could never
see merit in any body: so Josephine let this
friend also drop from her, as she did all her
friends. It was safest and best for them and
for her.
Still she and Mr. Langhorne spoke kindly
when they did meet, and now he crossed the
street to join her. He had been calling at the
Kectory, he said : had found Mr. Oldham some-
what better, and the nurse, trying to make out
the poor invalid's confused speech, had caugljt
the name of Mrs. Scanlan. Would it not be
well, Mr. Langhorne suggested, for Mrs. Scan-
lan to go and see him ?
Josephine hesitated. Great griefs had so
swallowed up her lesser ones that she had not
visited her poor old friend for weeks past.
Now that shie was quitting him too for what
must surely be an eternal farewell she thought
she ought to go and see him once more. It
would be painful, for she had always kept a
tender corner in her heart for Mr. Oldham ;
but happily he would never know the pain.
"Do you really think he wants me, or that
he has begun again to notice any body ? In
that case I would gladly go much oftener than
I do."
What was she promising, when she could
fulfill nothing? when in a few days nay, a
few hours her fate would have come, and she
would have left Ditchley forever? Struck
with a sudden consciousness of this, she stopped
abruptly so abruptly that Mr. Langhorne turn-
ed his keen eyes upon her ; which confused her
still more.
Then he said, in a somewhat formal man-
ner, "I do not urge you to go ; I never have
urged you, knowing it could make no differ-
ence in any thing now. Still, if our poor
friend has any consciousness and we never
know how much he has I think it would be a
kind thing for you to see him often."
"I will go at once," she said, and parting
from Mr. Langhorne, took the turning toward
the Rectory, passing Priscilla Nunn's door.
As she passed it she was conscious of a cer-
tain relief : in being able to keep, if for only an
hour longer, the bitter secret which she had
hitherto so rigidly hidden from all her neigh-
bors, which, so long as it is unconfessed, seems
still capable of remedy the misery of an un-
happy marriage.
The Rectory garden looked sweet as ever,
carefully tended by the honest old gardener
whom Bridget would not marry. Mrs. Scan-
lan stopped to speak to him, and ask after his
new wife, a young and comely woman, to whom,
in spite of Bridget, he made' an exceedingly
good husband.
Yes, he was very comfortable, he said
A BRAVE LADY,
J08EPUIMK AND TUE REOTOK.
hadn't a care in the world except for the dear
master, and the grief it was to keep the garden
so nice with nobody to look at it. He only
wished Mrs. Scanlan would come sometimes
and make herself at home there, and say what
she'd like to have done in it, since perhaps,
when it pleased God to take the dear master
out of his troubles, she might come there for
good and all.
Josephine shrank back, knowing well what
the honest fellow alluded to the common talk
of the parish, that Mr. Scanlan was to succeed
Mr. Oldham as rector of Ditchley. It seemed
as if every word that every body said to her
that day was fated to stab her like a knife.
But when she went up stairs to Mr. Old-
ham's room her agitation subsided, and a
strange peacefulness came over her. It often
did, in presence of that living corpse ; which
had all the quietness of death itself, and some
of the beauty ; for the face was not drawn or
altered ; and any one whom he liked to see Mr.
Oldham was still able to welcome with his old
smile. As he welcomed his visitor now ; sig-
naling for her to come and sit beside him, and
take possession of his powerless hand.
Though there was as yet in his countenance
no sign of that merciful order of release which
his nearest and dearest could not but have
hailed as the best blessing possible to the poor
old man, still this smile of his seemed more
serene than ordinary, and his eyes rested upon
his visitor With a wistful affectionateness, as if
he too were taking a farewell his farewell of
her, not hers of him. In the stillness of the
sick-room, Mrs. Scanlan forgot for a time
every thing but her poor old friend, who had
been so true to her, and so faithfully kind to
her. Her personal griefs melted away, her
bitter and troubled spirit grew calm. The
silent land, the land where all things are for-
gotten, which was, alas ! the only light in which
she looked at the invisible world for her hus-
band's heaven was almost as obnoxious to her
as his hell became a less awful, nay, a desira-
ble country. In it she might perchance find
again only perchance! for every thing con-
nected with religious faith had grown doubtful
to her those who had loved her, and whom it
had been noble, not ignoble, to love ; her mo-
ther, dead when she was still a child ; her fa-
ther, the vivid remembrance of whom alone
made her still believe in the fatherhood of God ;
possibly even her little infants, who had but
breathed and died, and were now laid safely
asleep in Ditchley church-yard. As she sat
by Mr. Oldham's bed she could see their white
head-stone gleam in the sunset. And she
thanked God that they at least were safe, these
three out of her nine.
And into this unknown land, to join this
dear known company, Mr. Oldham would soon
be traveling too. The puerile and altogether
material fantasy, which is yet not unnatural,
that she should like to send a message by him
to her dead, affected her strangely. It would
have been such a comfort ; just one word to tell
her father that she was struggling on her best
104
A BRAVE LADY.
through this rough world, but would be so glad
to be with him, and at peace. She sat until
the tears came dropping quietly; sat, holding
Mr. Oldham's hand, and speaking a little now
and then, in that sad monologue which was all
that was possible with him now. But still she
felt less unhappy, less frozen up. The sense
of filthy lucre of money, money, money, being
the engrossing subject of life, its one hope, fear,
and incessant anxiety faded away in the dis-
tance. Here, beside that motionless figure,
never to be moved again till lifted from the
bed into the coffin, the great truth that we
brought nothing into this world, and it is cer-
tain we can carry nothing out, forced itself upon
her, with a soothing strength, as it had never
done before.
She might have remained longer on this,
which she meant to be her last visit only in
the external calm and cheerfulness that must
be kept up with Mr. Oldham it would not do
to think of such things but Dr. Waters came
in, and when she rose to go home he asked her
if she would accept an old man's escort over the
common ; it was growing too dark for a lady to
cross it alone.
" Thank you," said she, touched by the kind-
ness, and staid. For one day more she might
still safely put off her arrangement with Pris-
cilla, and so extreme was her shi-inking, even
within herself, from all final measures, that
this was rather a relief. A relief too it was
that, in bidding good-nigtit to Mr. Oldham,
she added and sincerely meant it "I shall
come again and see you to-morrow," and so
avoided the last pang of farewell.
When they went away together she asked her
good friend the doctor what he thought of his
patient's state, and how long it might continue.
Not that this would affect her purposes in any
way ; for she had determined it should not ;
still she wanted to know.
But no medical wisdom could pronounce an
opinion. Dr. Waters thought that life, mere
animal life, might linger in that helpless frame
for months or years, or another stroke might
come, and the flickering taper be extinguished
immediately. But in either case, the old man
was not likely to suffer any more.
*' Thank God for that!" sighed Mrs. Scanlan,
with a curious sort of enxy of Mr. Oldham.
She had had it before that desperate crav-
ing for rest, only rest ! as if the joys of Paradise
itself would be mere weariness ; and all she
wanted was to lie down in the dark and sleep.
There was upon her that heavy hush before a
storm ; before the God of mercy as well as judg-
ment arises in lightning and thunders to rouse
us out of that lethargy which, to living souls,
is not repose but death. Almost before she
had time to breathe the storm broke.
"Mrs. Scanlan," said Dr, Waters, suddenly,
pressing her hand with a kindly gesture, for he
knew her well, had been beside her in many a
crisis of birth and death, and was well aware,
too, though he never referred to it, how faith-
fully she had kept his own miserable domestic
secret in years past " Mrs. Scanlan, where is
your husband to-day?"
She told him.
" I am glad. A week's amusement will be
good for him. He is quite well, I hope ?"
"Perfectly well."
One of those shivers which superstition calls
"walking over one's own grave" ran through
Josephine. Did Dr. Waters suspect any thing ?
Or was it only her own vague terror, which had
made her feel for weeks past as if she were
treading on a mine, that she discovered in his
words something deeper than ordinary civility ?
Had he discovered any thing of her husband's
misdoings ? She feared, but her fear was alto-
gether different from the reality. It came soon.
"I walked home with you to-night, partly
that I might say a word to you about your
husband. You are too sensible a woman to
imagine I mean more than I say, or to give
yourself groundless alarm."
"Alarm!" she repeated, her mind still run-
ning in the one groove where all her misery
lay. "Tell me quickly ; do tell me."
" Nay, there is really nothing to tell : it is
merely a harmless bit of precaution. You are
aware that your husband consulted me the
other day about effecting an assurance on his
life ?"
She was not aware, but that mattered little.
"Go on, please."
"He said you were very anxious he should
do it, and he had refused, but, like the disobe-
dient son in the parable, afterward he repented
and went. You wished it, he added, as a pro-
vision for yourself and the children."
"I! Provision for me and the children!"
Even yet she had not grown accustomed to her
husband's startling modifications of facts.
The quick-witted physician saw her angry
confusion, and tried to help her through it.
" Well, well, it was something of the kind. I
can not be very accurate, and I never inter-
fere in family affairs. All I want to urge upon
you is, unless there is some very urgent neces-
sity, do not let him try to insure his life."
"Why not?" said she, facing the truth in
her direct, almost fierce way.
"Because I am afraid no office would take
him. He has this need not frighten you ;
hundreds have it ; I have it myself, and yon
see what an old man I have grown to but he
has confirmed disease of the heart."
"Oh, Doctor!"
This was all she said, though the bolt, God's
own bolt of terror, sent to rouse her from her
lethargic despair, had fallen in her very sight.
In all her thoughts about her husband the
thought of his death had never crossed her
imagination. He seemed, one of the sort of
people who live forever, and enjoy life under
all circumstances; being blessed with an easy
temper, a good digestion, and no heart to speak
of. That he, Edward Scanlan, should bear
about with him a confirmed mortal disease, and
A BRAVE LADY.
105
not feel it, not know it ; the thing was impossi-
ble ; and she said so vehemently.
Dr. Waters shook his head. " It is a very
good thing that he does not know it, and he
never may, for this sort of complaint advances
so slowly that he may live many years and die
of some other disease after all. But there it
is, and any doctor could find it out the doctor
of the assurance company most certainly would.
And if Mr. Scanlan, with his nervous tempera-
ment, were told of it, the consequences might
be serious. Therefore, I tell his wife, who is
the bravest woman I know, and who can keep
a secret better than any other woman I know."
"Ah !" feeling that upon her was laid and
laid for life another burden. No lying down
to rfest now ; she must arise and bear it. "What
must I do ? What can I do ?" she said at last.
"Nothing. Forewarned is forearmed. Tell-
ing you this seems cruel, but it is the best kind-
ness. Cheer up, my dear Mrs. Scanlan. I am
sure you have looked so ill of late that your
husband may live to bury you yet, if that is
what you desire. Only take care of him ; keep
him from overexcitement, and above all from
assurance offices."
" I understand. I will remember. Thank
you. You are very kind."
Her words, brief and mechanical, were meant
as a good-by, and Dr. Waters took them as such,
and left her at the gate of Wren's Nest without
offering to go in. Nor did she ask him ; the
strain upon her was such that, if it had lasted
another ten minutes, she felt as if she would
have gone mad.
She sat down, a few yards only from her own
door, behind a furze -bush on the common,
which lay all lonely and silent under the stars,
and tried to collect her thoughts together, and
realize all she had heard.
I have said that in the noblest sense of love,
clear-eyed, up-looking, trustful, that ever loves
the highest, Mrs. Scanlan had ceased to love
her husband. Natural affection may revive by
fits and starts, and a certain pitiful tenderness
is long of dying ; but that a good woman should
go on loving a bad man, in the deep and holy
sense of woman's love, is, I believe, simply im-
possible. If she did, she would be either a fool
or something worse. But often, when love
is dead and buried, duty arises out of its grave,
assuming its likeness, even as the angel assumed
that of King Robert of Sicily, till one can not
tell which is the king and which the angel ; and
over this divine travesty we may weep, but we
dare not smile.
The Edward Scanlan of to-day was in nowise
different from the Edward Scanlan of yesterday.
And yet his wife felt that her relation to hira
was totally changed. So long as he was well
and happy, gayly careering through life, in-
different to every body but himself, selfish,
unprincipled, dishonest, and yet of that easy
nature that he would always contrive to fall on
his feet, and reappear on the best terms with
every body; then she felt no compunction at
quitting him : nay, her desertion became a
righteous act. But now? Every noble, ten-
der, generous feeling in the woman's breast re-
volted at doing the very thing which an hour
before she had been resolved upon.
This change seemed hardly her own act at
least she did it more by instinct than reason-
ing; indeed, she hardly reasoned at all about
it, or paused to consider whether, in thus total-
ly ignoring her past resolve, she needed to
blame herself for having ever made it. The
thing was now impossible; that was enough.
While desperately pursuing one course, fate,
or circumstance, or Providence, had seized her
with a strong right hand, and flung her upon
another.
"I can't go away," she said, and rocked
herself to and fro, with sobs and tears. "I
must 'take care of him,' as Dr. Waters told
me. What could he do Avithout me ? What
should I dp if he wanted me, and I were not
there ?"
This was all she thought, all she argued.
Her single-minded nature took all things sim-
ply, without morbid introspection, or needless
self-reproach. Indeed, she hardly thought of
herself at all in the matter, until there sudden-
ly flashed across her the remembrance of the
children and for a minute or two her head
was in a whirl, and she was unable to see the
path of duty clearly. Only duty. No senti-
mental revulsion of feeling drew her back to
the days when the children were not, and her
young lover - husband was to her all in all.
Those days were dead forever ; he had himself
destroyed them. She never for a moment dis-
guised from herself that her children those
"incumbrances," as Mr. Scanlan often called
them were infinitely dearer to her than he.
She must save her children, but was she to do
it by forsaking their father ?
" Those whom God hath joined together, let
no man put asunder." Most true not man.
But there are cases when God Himself does it ;
when with His righteous sword of division He
parts the wicked from the innocent, the pure
from the impure. The difficulty is for our im-
perfect mortal vision to see this, to recognize
the glitter of that sharp, inevitable sword, and
acquiesce in the blow of the invisible Hand.
Josephine attempted it not. Nor do I at-
tempt to judge her either in what she did or
what she did not do ; I only state the result
that her communication with Priscilla Nunn
was never made ; and it was not until both
were dead that any one ever knew how near
she had been to quitting her husband forever.
For more than an hour Mrs. Scanlan sat
crouched under that furze-bush, open only to
the gaze of the stars, forever marching on in
their courses, irresistibly, remorselessly, taking
no heed of any one of us all. Then, impelled
by a vague consciousness that the night was
very chilly, that if she took cold she should be
ill, and if she were ill, what would become of
the household, she rose and went indoors.
106
A BRAVE LADY.
Not to the children, though she heard their
voices at play in the parlor, but up at once to
her own room. There, in passing, she rested
her hand upon the pillow where her husband's
head had lain for seventeen years, turned round,
stooped, and kissed it.
"I will not go," she said. " Who will hold
fast to him if I do not ? No, I'll not go."
CHAPTER XIII.
Mrs. Scanlan had full time for reconsider-
ing her determination, had she been so inclined,
for her husband did not return on the day he
had named. Not even though she sent on to
him a note from Mr. Langhorne, urgently re-
questing the settling of the school accounts.
Evidently he had put off to the last extremity
possible the fatal crisis, and was afraid to meet
it even now. She was not, though she knew
it must come, and soon ; but it only confirmed
her resolution not to quit him.
Women are strange creatures I, a woman,
say it. Men think they know us; but they
never do. They are at once above us and be-
low us, but always different from us, both in
our good points and our bad.
Josephine had never had any real happiness
in her husband ; neither comfort, nor trust, nor
rest. Fond of her he undoubtedly was, even
yet; but it was .a man's sort of fondness, be-
ginning and ending in himself, from the great
use and support she was to him. Unto her
he had been a perpetual grief, a never-ceasing
anxiety ; yet the idea of losing this, of letting
hin\ go and doing without him, or rather of
allowing him to do without her, presented it-
self to her now as a simple impossibility. The
tie which bound her was not love I should
profane the word if I called it so but a stern,
heroic, open-eyed faithfulness ; seeing every one
of the thorns of her most difficult way, yet de-
liberately following it out still. Her life hence-
forward must be one long battle ; no quiet, no
pause, no lying down to that longed-for rest.
"No peace for the wicked," said she mocking-
ly to herself oftentimes, but took little thought
whether it applied to her, whether she was
righteous or wicked. One thing she knew she
was, and must be bold. Courage was her
only chance now.
After discovering that as a married woman
she had no legal rights, and no help or aid was
possible from any one, she had determined to
take the law into her own hands, and protect
herself as well as she could both by boldness,
and, if necessary, by the quality which in wo-
man is called cunning, in man only diplomacy.
This was the easier, because, as she well knew,
her husband's prominent characteristic was cow-
ardice. He was always afraid of somebody or
something, and not unfrequently afraid of him-
self. He had no persistent will at all ; it was
a joke among the children that if ever papa
talked about a thing he was quite certain not
to do it, and whatever he did was done by ac-
cident. Thus his wife knew that when it came
to the point she was twice as strong as he.
Her plan of action had been very simple : to
leave home, as if for a short journey ; to cross
over at once to Paris, and there, assuming a
French name, to pass off herself and her chil-
dren as French returned refugees. If she ob-
tained work, and was unpursued, she meant to
remain in Paris ; otherwise to fly to the New
World, or Australia any where so that she
had her children, and could escape her hus-
band. Great as his power was over her and
them legally, morally it was but small ; for ty-
rant and victim change places when the one
has the soul of a lion and the other that of a
hare ; and a mother, driven to despair, with her
children to guard, has always something of the
lioness in her, which makes her rather a dan-
gerous animal to deal with.
Tragical as was the pass she had come to,
there was a certain comfort in it a power in her
hands of which she knew she could at any time
avail herself; her refuge was not her husband's
strength, but his cowardice. And now that she
had changed her mind, and resolved not to leave
him, but to stay and meet the worst, she hoped
that the same courage which would have thrown
him off, and withstood him at a distance, might
keep him in bounds while near. She could
trust him no more, believe in him no more ; she
stood quite alone, and must defend herself and
her children alone ; still, she thought she could
do it. She must look things boldly in the face,
and act accordingly. There must be no weak
yielding to what was doubtful or wrong ; no
pretense of wifely duty, to "love, honor, and
obey" because when the first two do not ex-
ist, the third becomes impossible a ridiculous,
unmeaning sham. Neither must there be, as
regarded the children, any setting up of super-
stitious filial fetiches, only to be kicked down
again, as all false gods ultimately are. If her
children found out, as they often did, that their
father had told them a lie, she must not mask
it, or modify it, as often she had done, to avoid
exposing him. She must say distinctly, " It is
a lie, but he can not help it ; it is his nature
not to be able to distinguish between truth and
falsehood. Pity him, and tell the truth your-
selves." The same in that terrible laxity of
principle he had as to money-matters, and the
hundred other crooked ways in which he was
always walking ; whei'e, rather than see her
children walk, she would see them she often
prayed that she might see them ! drop one
after the other into their quiet graves. (Did
God, not in anger, but in mercy, answer her
prayer ? I can not tell. Her lot was hard, but
it might have been harder.)
While resolving that, in any moral crisis of
this sort, she would have no hesitation what-
ever in opening her children's eyes to the er-
rors of their father, she still thought she should
be able to keep them to their strict duty, and
teach them to honor not the individual parent,
A BRAVE LADY.
107
that was impossible but the abstract bond of
parenthood; so beautiful, so divine, that the
merest relics of it should be kept in a certain
sort of sanctity to the last by every human
being.
It was a difficult, almost a superhuman task
that Mrs. Scanlan was setting herself; but it
was easier than the only two other alternatives
of succumbing entirely to evil, or, by flying
from it, forsaking her husband, and leaving him
to trouble, shame, sickness, death all alone.
That the collapse of his affairs must soon
come, she was certain. She hardly thought he
would be prosecuted, but he would be driven
from Ditchley a dishonest man, his clerical
work at an end forever. Therefore upon her
alone would thenceforward rest the maintenance
of the family; even as she had intended, but
with the additional burden of her husband.
What matter? She had long ceased to look
forward, at least in any happy way. Her hopes
had all turned to despair, her blessings to mis-
fortunes. Even that possible fortune, the pros-
pect of which had so long upheld her, had it
not been less a blessing than a curse? But for
it, and its numbing effect upon her, she might
have striven more against Mr. Scanlan's reck-
lessness, or have risen up with a strong will,
and taken into her own hands the reins which
his were too Aveak to hold. But the gnawing
of this secret at her heart had given her a sense
of guiltiness against him, which had made her
feeble of resistance, indifferent to the present
in the hope of the future. But why regret
these things ? It was all too late now.
She was sure trouble was at hand when, on
Sunday morning, Mr. Scanlan had not come
home, and she had at the last minute to send
Cesar about in all directions to get some friend-
ly clergyman as his substitute. That being
done, and her fears roused, lest, urged by the
pressure of circumstances, or some sudden fear
of discovery, he might actually have left the
country, the curate walked in crawled in,
would be the better word ; for he had an aspect
not unlike a whipped hound. Afraid lest the
children should notice him, their mother hur-
ried them off to church, and took him straight
up stairs ; where he thi-ew himself down upon
the bed in a state of utter despondency.
" It's all over with me ; I knew it would be.
You refused to help me, and so it has come to
this!"
*' Come to what ?" said Josephine. He had
not asked, nor she given, any welcoming caress,
but she had folL/.vcd him up stairs, and done
various little duties that be expected of her.
Now she stood beside him, pale, quiet, pre-
pared for whatever might happen.
" That fellow Langhorne will wait no longer.
He insists upon having the books, to go into
them next week. And the money is gone, and
I can't replace it. So I am ruined, that's all."
"Yes."
"I have done the best I could," added Mr.
Scanlan, in an injured tone. " I even took
your advice, and went to Dr. Waters about in-
suring my life, and he promised to inquire.
But he too has played me false. I have heard
no more from him. All the world has forsaken
me I am a lost man. And there you are,
dressed in all your best, looking so nice and
comfortable; I dare say you have been very
comfortable without me all week going to
church too, as if nothing was the matter. Well,
there, go ! Leave me to my misery, and go."
To all this, and more, Josephine made no
reply. She was too busy watching him, try-
ing to read in his face something which might
either confirm or refute Dr. Waters's opinion
concerning him. She did see, or fancied she
saw, in spite of his florid complexion, a certain
unwholesome grayness, and wondered, with a
sharp twinge of self-reproach, that she had
never noticed it before. It was no dearer to
her, no nobler, this handsome, good-natured,
and yet ignoble face ; but she regarded it with
an anxious pity, mingled with thankfulness,
that she alone bore, and had strength to bear,
the secret which would have overwhej^med him.
For though, in truth, it was no worse for him
than for all of us we every one carry withiil
us the seeds of death, and we are liable to it
at any minute still, to such a weak nature as
Edward Scanlan's, and one who, despite his
religious profession, shrank with dread from
every chance of that " glory" which he was al-
ways preaching, the knowledg^of such a fact
as heart-disease concerning himself wou^d al-
most have killed him with terror on the spot.
So once again his wife took up his burden,
and bore it for him bore it all alone, to the
very end. *
"Then you are not going to church, after
all ?" said he, when, lifting his head, he per-
ceived that her bonnet was laid aside, and she
was sitting quietly by him. "Now that's kind
of you, and I am glad. Only, will not the con-
gregation think your absence rather peculiar ?"
" Oh, I do not care for that."
"But you ought to care," said he, with sud-
den irritability. "I know I should have got
on twice as well in the world if I had had a
wife who minded outside things a little more."
Josephine flushed up in anger, then re-
strained herself. "Perhaps so," she answered.
"But, Edward, if I have not been a show
wife, I have been a very practical and useful
one, and I am willing to be of use now if you
will let me."
" That's my good Josephine ! Then we are
friends again ? You won't forsake me ? I
half thought you would. I have had such
horrible fancies every night, of being arrested
and sent to jail, and dying there, and never
seeing you any more. You won't let it come
that ? You wouldn't like to have your husband
shut up in a prison, among all sorts of nasty,
unpleasant people oh, it would be dreadful !
dreadful ! You'll try to save me from it, Jo-
sephine ?"
For ever so long he went maundering on
108
A BRAVE LADY.
thus, in an almost puerile fashion, not ven-
turing to look his wife in the face, but clinging
fast to her hand.
A man must be a man to compel, a woman's
love. For a moment Josephine turned aside,
and her sweet, proud, delicate mouth the De
Bougainville mouth, descending from genera-
tion to generation even Cesar had it assumed
a curl that Mr. Scanlan might not have liked
to see; except that he would never have un-
derstood it. But immediately that deep pity,
which long survives love, arose again in the
wife's heart.
" My dear, we will not talk of prisons ; per-
haps it will not come to that. I might be able
to devise some plan, if you would now tell me
every thing. Mind, Edward every thing!"
"I have told you every thing except, per-
haps, of my visit to Dr. Waters, which was
quite a sudden idea. But it came to nothing,
you see, as is always the case with me. Never
was there such an unlucky fellow in this world."
This was his constant cry; but she had ceased
arguing against it now. She had ceased even
to torture herself by counting up that large
measure of happiness that might have been
theirs youth, health, children, settled work,
and an income which, if small, was certain, and
would have sufficed them to live on in comfort ;
but for that fatal something the one rivet
loose in the wheel which her husband called
his "ill luck!"
" Weil, why are you silent ? What are you
thinking about ? What do you suggest ? For
I tell you, Josephine, we are come to the last ebb
all is over with me, unless I can arrange about
the assurance at once, say to-morrow. Come,
you shall have your wish. I'll go to the as-
surance office to-morrow."
Josephine's heart stood still. Then, looking
another way, she said, " It is not my wish now ;
I have changed my mind. I do not want you
to assure your life."
" Well, that is a good joke ! After worrying
me to death about it, abusing me like a pick-
pocket because I wouldn't do the thing, as soon
as I decide to do it, you turn round and say you
don't wish it at all! You are the most fickle,
changeable woman but you women always
are: there's no making you out."
Josephine was silent.
" Unless" with a sudden flash of that petty
cunning which small natures mistake for pene-
tration, and often fancy themselves very clever
in attributing to others motives they would
have had themselves "unless, indeed, you
have some deep-laid scheme of your own for
managing me. But I won't give in to it ; I
won't be managed."
"Oh, mon Dieu ! mon Dieu!" murmured
Josephine, using the exclamation not lightly,
as many Frenchwomen do she had been
brought up too strictly Huguenot for that still
using it without much meaning, only as a blind
cry of misery in a tongue that her husband did
not understand. "Listen tome, Edward," she
said, earnestly. " I have no deep-laid scheme,
no underhand design. How sliould I have ?
My whole thought is for your good. It is true
I have changed my mind ; but one may do that
sometimes, and find second thoughts best after
all. This life assurance would cause you so
much difficulty, so much trouble ; and you
know you don't like trouble."
"I hate it."
"And if I were to take the trouble from you
if I were to |ind a way of arranging the mat-
ter myself"
"Oh, I wish you would, and let me never
hear another word about it," said he, with a
look of great relief, all his oifended dignity
having subsided in the great comfort it was to
have his burden taken off his hands. "You
are the cleverest woman I ever knew. You
may have it all your own way, if you like ; I
won't interfere. Only just tell me, as a mere
matter of curiosity, my dear, ho\7 you mean to
accomplish it."
It was a way which had slowly dawned upon
her as the best absolutely the only way to meet
this crisis by the plain truth. She meant to
go over the accounts herself when first she
married she hardly knew that two and two made
four, but she was a very respectable arithmeti-
cian and book-keeper now discover the exact
deficit, and then confess it, simply and sorrow-
fully, to Mr. Langhorne. He was a very good
man : she believed, if dealt with frankly, 'he
would take the same view of things that she
did that her husband's act had been excessive
carelessness rather than deliberate dishonesty.
If it could be "hushed up" oh, the agony it
was to this honest woman that any thing con-
cerning liny one belonging to her required to be
hushed up! for a time, she might be able to
repay the money by settled monthly install-
ments out of her own earnings. Any thing,
every thing, that she could do herself, she felt
safe about ; but all else was like shifting sands.
Still, she thought Mr. Langhorne would trust
her, and, slender as her relations with him had
been, she had always found him kind and just :
the sort of man upon whose generosity she
might throw herself, and not feel it pierce her
like a reed.
But when she tried to explain all this to Mr.
Scanlan, he was perfectly horrified ! The di-
rect truth was the last ^ng he ever thought
of. Acknowledging a sin, and then resolving
to retrieve it the only way to reconcile justice
and mercy, without which forgiveness becomes
a sham, and charity mere weakness was an
idea quite beyond his comprehension. He only
wished to hide guilt, to plaster it over, to keep
it from the eye of the world ; and then go on
cheerfully as if it were not there. So as he
escaped punishment, he was quite satisfied.
" No, Josephine," said he, with the pig-head-
edness of all feeble souls ; " this won't do. The
notion is perfectly absurd ! What would Lang-
horne think of me? what would he think of
you, owning that your husband had taken the
A BRAVE LADY.
109
. money ? No no ! If you are to help me, as
you said you would, you must find out some
other way to do it."
" There is no other way," she answered, still
calmly, though she knotted her fingers together
in desperate self-control, and looked down at
them, not at the face beside her, lest perchance
she should loathe it or despise it, which is
worse eyen than loathing. " I have thought it
all over and over, till my head has gone nearly
wild, and it all comes to this : if you refuse to
do as I suggest, or rather let me do it, there is
nothing but ruin before you ruin and dis-
grace."
"The disgrace will not fall upon my head
alone," said he, almost triumphantly. "You
should think of that before you forsake me. It
will come upon you too, and the children."
"Ah! I know that!" groaned the unfortu-
nate wife ; and could have cursed the day when
she had been so mad as to marry could have
envied with her whole soul the childless women
whom she had once used to pity. They, at
least, had one consolation with them their
miseries would end. They need not fear en-
tailing upon innocent posterity the curse of a
moral taint worse than any physical disease.
Bridget Halloran once made to me a truly
Irish remark that, if she had the planning of
a n^v world, she would arrange it so that all
the men married and all the women remained
single. Could faithful Bridget that day have
looked through her kitchen ceiling at her dear
mistress, I think she would have been strength-
ened in her opinion. It is not good for man to
be alone, or woman either; but in that awful
leap in the dark which both make when they
marry, the precipice is much deeper on the wo-
man's side. A lonely life may be sad, but to
be tied to either a fool or a scoundrel is not
merely sad, it is maddening.
Josephine Scanlan looked half mad ; there
was a glare almost amounting to frenzy in her
black eyes, as she sat pulling to and fro, up and
down, till she almost pulled it ofi" her finger, the
thin gold circlet, origin and sign of so many
years of unhappiness past, of untold wretched-
ness to come. Once more the desperate chance
of retrieving all by flight flashed across her mind,
and vanished. To leave him there, in his low-
est pbb of ill fortune, forlorn, dishonored, un-
consciously doomed. It would be wliat to
Josephine seemed almost worse than wicked
cowardly.
" I can't go," she said to herself. " Perhaps,
if t have patience, I may see a way out of this.
Oh, if I had any one to show it to me, to help
me in the smallest degree! But there is no
one no one in this wide world."
And so, by a strange and sudden thought
on^of those divine promptings that none be-
lieve in but those who have them the misera-
ble woman was driven to seek for help beyond
this world. She covered her face with her
hands, and did what Josephine seldom did
for herself, though she taught it to her little
children as a sort of necessary duty every night
she " said her prayers ;" using her children's
formula, " Our Father which art in heaven." In
heaven and oh so far, so terribly, cruelly far,
as it seemed to her from this forlorn earth !
The doctrine of "answers to prayer," literal
and material, always appeared to me egregious
folly or conceited profanity. Is the great Ruler
of the universe to stop its machinery for me ?
Is the wise evolution of certain events from
certain causes, continuing unerringly its mys-
terious round, by which all things come alike
to all, and for the final good of all to be upset
in its workings for my individual benefit ? No ;
I would not, I dared not believe such a thing.
But I do believe in the Eternal Spirit's influ-
ence upon our spirits, in momentous crises, and
in a very distinct and solemn way, often remem-
bered for years* as Mrs. Scanlan afterward re-
membered this.
At the very moment when she sat hiding her
face, and trying to feel if there was any reality
in the prayers she had silently uttered, she
heard through the silence the far-olf sound of
Ditchley church bell. Not the church-going
bell it had ceased an hour or more ago but
the slow measured toll by which the parish was
accustomed to learn that one of their neighbors
had just departed gone into that world of which
we talk so much and know so little.
"That's the passing-bell!" cried Mr. Scan-
lan, starting up. "Who can it be for? Just
count the tolls."
For in Ditchley, as in some other parishes in
England, it was customary to ring out the num-
ber of tolls corresponding to the age of the per-
son who had died.
Josephine counted up to eighty ; past it.
There was scarcely any one in Ditchley of such
advanced years, except the rector. She sat
stupefied. Her husband also, with a certain
kind of awe in his face, again felt for her hand,
whispering, "Can it be Mr. Oldham ?"
Two minutes after she heard the children
come in, much too early, from church. Adri-
enne and Gabrielle were both in tears, and Ce-
sar, looking very grave, repeated the tidings
which had reached the church during sermon-
time, and been communicated from the pulpit,
sending a thrill of solemnity, if nothing more,
throughout the congregation.
Mrs. Scanlan heard, and sat down where she
stood, as white and still as a stone. The end
had come at last, of suffering to him, of suspense
to her : Mr. Oldham was dead.
He had died quite quietly and unexpectedly,
Ce'sar said ; for the boy, knowing his mother
was fond of their old friend, had had the
thoughtfulness to run up at once to the Rec-
tory and inquire all particulars. There was no
struggle, no apparent pain. The spirit had es-
caped, like a bird out of its cage spread its in-
visible wings, and flown away. Did it look
back, smiling, on that poor woman, come now
to the verj' last ebb of her despair ?
Actual grief for Mr. Oldham's death was im-
110
A BRAVE LADY.
possible. It was scarcely one of those depart-
ures when friends hang over the bed of the be-
loved lost,
*'Not thankful that his troubles are no more."
Here, even the tenderest friend must rejoice
that his troubles were no more ; that he was
released from the heavy clog of the body, and
from a life which could never be any joy or
use to himself or others only a miserable bur-
den and pain. For, sad as it is to see a still
youthful mind writhing in the fetters of a worn-
out, aged body, sadder still is the climax which
must soon have come to poor Mr. Oldham,
when the body outlives the mind, and the thing
we at last bury seems only a body, a mere clod
of the valley, a helpless corruption, better hid-
den out of sight. In such circumstances it is
difficult to regain the feeling*of still-existent
spirit, separate from clay. It is only after a
while, as the associations of sickness and mor-
tality grow fainter, that the dead seem to come
alive again, in all their old identity ; and the
farther years part us from them, the nearer
they appear. Not as dead and buried, but as
living dwellers in a far country, to which we
too are bound, and for which we wait patient-
ly, even cheerfully, hearing, louder and clear-
er as we approach thereto, the roll of the divid-
ing seas.
When the first awe was over the first nat-
ural tears shed for the dead who could return
no more an unwonted lightness crept into
Josephine's heart. Her present terror was at
any rate staved off; Mr. Langhorne would be
for some weeks too much engrossed in the
arrangement of Mr. Oldham's affairs to go into
the school accounts, and meantime what changes
might not come ? Might it not possibly be true,
that golden dream which had grown so dim
through long delay ? Could she be the rector's
heiress after all ?
A week ago she had thought her misery ren-
dered her indifferent to this, and all things else
that might befall ; but human nature has won-
derful powers of reaction, and Josephine's na-
tij/e especially. In her there was an irrepress-
ible hopefulness which nothing could kill. Still
this very hope made her suspense the more in-
tolerable.
Her promise to Mr. Oldham bound her lit-
erally only till his death ; she was therefore
free now to unburden all her hopes and fears
to her husband. But she never thought of do-
ing so. Even had there been no other reason,
the horrible strain it was upon her own mind
during the interval that elapsed between the
death and the funeral for Mr. Langhorne
and Dr. Waters, who, as executors, took every
thing into their hands, insisted upon waiting a
week for Lady Emma and Mr. Lascelles, nei-
ther of whom came after all this week of mis-
erable restlessness, during which she could do
nothing, think of nothing, but calculate the
chances of her fate, convinced Josephine that
she must preserve her secret to the last. If it
came to nothing, the shock would be more than
Mr. Scanlan could bear. If it were true, he
would be a little angry with her perhaps ; but
no the husband of an heiress, especially when
he is a man like Edward Scanlan, was not like-
ly to be very angry with his wife, or for very
long.
And during this interminable week, when
the rector lay dead nay, rather, as Josephine
often tenderly said, was truly alive again the
curate seemed to appear his best self, both at /,
home and abroad. Perhaps he was anxious to ^
cultivate his chances of the living, or perhaps ,
let us give him credit for the best motive
possible he was really touched by the death
which, he could not help seeing, affected his
wife so much. He was very little at Wren's
Nest, to her great thankfulness ; he had of
course much additional business to transact,
but whenever he did come home he was good
and kind. And he never made the least allusion
to the impending storm ; which, perhaps, being
temporarily lifted off, he deluded himself would
never come ; that, in his usual phrase, some-
thing would " turn up" to protect him from the
consequences of what he had done amiss. That
was all he cared for. His life was an appro-
priate carrying out in this world of the belief
he held regarding the other the all-importance
of what is termed " personal salvation" a doc-
trine held by many true and sincere Christians,
which only proves that they themselves are far
nobler than their doctrine, and that the spirit
of God within us is a diviner thing than any
external and nominal creed.
It showed the extreme self-control to which
Josephine, so impulsive and passionate in her
youth, had attained, that even the quick-sight-
ed Bridget noticed nothing remarkable in her
mistress during this momentous week, at least
nothing more than great quietness of manner,
and a wish to escape observation and be as
much alone as possible. She remained in the
closed house closed out of respect to the de-
parted ; and scarcely quitted it until after dark,
when she would rush for a hasty walk across
the common, refusing even her son Cesar's
company. Perhaps an eye more familiar than
the poor servant's with the signs of mental suf-
fering might have noticed how thin she grew
in those seven days what a tension there was
in her features what an unnatural metallic
ring in her voice ; but at the time no suspicion
was I'oused ; she kept her secret faithfully to
the last.
The week's end came at length. The final
night the night before the funeral Mrs. Scan-
lan slept as soundly as a child, or a criminal
before execution ; only she had no feeling of
guilt, whatever happened. Her act of con-
cealment had been deliberate, conscientious;
if it were all to do over again, she felt she
could but have done the same thing under the
same circumstances. Believing this, she was
utterly indifferent to praise or blame, either
from her neighbors, or those of her own house-
A BRAVE LADY.
]I1
hold. The only matter of moment which
troubled her was the fact itself so long a cer-
tainty though unknown but which in a few
hours must be known to herself and all the
world the little busy world of Ditchley.
She had been invited to the funeral, as com-
panion to Lady Emma, who at first had wished
to go, but afterward declined. Mr. Langhorne
had also expressed formally a wish that Mrs.
as well as Mr. Scanlan should be present at the
reading of the will; but at the last moment
her husband declared she should not go.
"Why not?" asked she.
"Oh, Lady Emma's absence shows she
thought it not decorous for ladies to attend
funerals, and I think so too," said the curate,
dogmatically ; and after a good deal of beat-
ing about the bush, he came out with his sec-
ond reason her mourning was not handsome
enough. Not daring to run into debt for a new
gown, she had made an old one do. As she
stood in it, its long folds clinging tightly to
her wasted, rather angular fi?ure, her husband
looked sharply, critically, at his once beautiful
wife. If her beauty had been the sole spell
that enchained him, Edward Scanlan was a free
man now.
"What a fright you do make of yourself
sometimes, Josephine ! I wish you wouldn't.
I wish you would remember it is my credit that
depends on your appearance. When you dress
shabbily it is a reflection upon me. Indeed
you can not go as you are to tlie funeral. It
would be a want of respect to Mr. Oldham."
" He would not feel it so ; he knew me bet-
ter," she answered, gently. "And I should
like to see him laid to rest ; should like to come
back with you to the Rectory and hear his will
read."
" Nonsense ; it can not concern ns. He
liked me so little of late, I doubt if he has even
left me ten pounds to buy a mourning-ring. I
must go, I suppose, as a mere matter of form,
but you need not. Women are far better out
of all these things."
Josephine grew seriously troubled. Her
presence at the funeral was not necessary, but
at the reading of the will undoubtedly it was.
Not to shorten her own suspense that mat-
tered little but to " take care," as Dr. Waters
had said, of her husband ; to whom any shock
of sudden tidings, either good or bad, would be
very injurious.
" Edward," she said, " I want to go. Don't
hinder me. It can not signify to you."
Yfes, he protested, it did signify. People
might make remarks ; might say that Mrs. Scan-
lan pushed herself where she had no business
to be, and that ^r. Scanlan was always tied to
his wife's apron-string. He insisted upon her
staying at home. There had come over him
one of those dogged fits, peculiar to
Man, prond man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,"
that his authority must be exercised. When
} he got into this mood common to human be-
ings and asses Edward Scanlan could neither
be led nor driven, but was bent upon taking his
own way, just because it was his own way.
Josephine sat down in despair. To thwart
her husband's will openly was impossible, to
submit to it most dangerous. As he dressed
himself carefully in his new black suit and un-
exceptionable white cravat whosoever went
shabby at Wren's Nest, its master never did
talking complacently all the while of his own
popularity, of the universal wish there was that
he should step into the dead man's shoes, his
wife was almost silent, absorbed in the immi-
nent crisis wherein it behooved her to be so cau-
tious and so calm.
Presently she made a last effort. " Edward,"
she said, as imploringly as if she had been the
meekest and weakest of women, " do take me
with you. I want to go."
But, upborne on his huge wave of self-con-
tent, Mr. Scanlan was immovable.
"I have said it, and I won't unsay it. Jo-
sephine, your going is perfect nonsense, and
you shall not go. I can not allow it."
"But"
"Am I master in my own house, or not ? If
not, henceforth I will be. Stop, not another
word !"
"Very well," said she, and let hiiji depart
without another word. Otherwise, she would
have lost all control of herself have flung des-
perately at him the secret which she had kept
so long perhaps even have betrayed that oth-
er, which, though only two weeks old, seemed
to have lasted for years. It was the only thing
which restrained her now.
What if any thing should happen any thing
which might harm him and she had let him
go from her in anger, had parted from him in
this great crisis without a word or a kiss ?
Present, her husband sometimes tormented her
to an unendurable degree ; but absent, the
poor heart went back, often self-reproachfully,
to its old fealty, and tried to think the best of
him that it could.
Sitting at her bedroom window, Josephine
listened to the funeral bell tolling across the
dreary common. It had rained all day, but
there was now a faint clearing up toward the
west, giving a hope that the ceremony which
had been put off as late in the day as possible,
to allow the poorer parishioners to follow to his
grave one who had been to them invariably
charitable and kind might be less gloomy than
a wet October funeral always is. She seemed
to see it all to hear the splash of the assem-
bling feet in the muddy church-yard, and the
sound of her husband's voice reading impress-
ively and sonorously, "I am the Resurrection
and the Life" words which to her as yet were
mere words, no more.
When the bell ceased, Bridget and the youn-
ger children, who had stood at the gate listen-
ing, came in, and Mrs. Scanlan was summoned
to tea. Mechanically she poured it out, hear-
112
A BRAVE LADY.
ing absently the talk around her, which was at
first rather subdued : the little people had al-
most forgotten him, still they knew their mo-
ther was fond of Mr. Oldham. But soon they
grew quite lively again ; they were always so
lively when papa was out. And thus time
passed, Josephine hardly knew how, till Bridg-
et entered to ask if she should bring in candles.
Then the intolerable suspense became too
much for human strength to fight against.
Come what would, she must go to the Rectory.
Her two eldest boys had returned, having watch-
ed the funeral from a distance, and had settled
to their evening's employment. The natural
thing would have been to say to them, " Chil-
dren, your papa has not come back ; I am go-
ing to meet him;" but then she knew her boy
Cesar, who had a great idea of protecting his
mother, would insist upon accompanying her.
So she stole out of the back-door like a thief,
avoiding evenBridget, though she fancied Bridg-
et saw her, and flew, rather than walked, in the
wind and rain and darkness, across the com-
mon and through Ditchley streets. No one was
abroad ; the day had been one of those funeral
holidays which seem like Sunday ; the shops
were still half-closed, and behind them Mrs.
Scanlan saw little groups sitting, discussing
their good old rector, no doubt, and wonder-
ing who would be their new one.
Presently she found herself at the Rectory
gate the same gate over which had leaned the
shrewd, kind old face when Mr. Oldham had
said those momentous words about her being
"his heiress." Were they true or not ? The
fact must be known by this time. And surely,
in that case, Mr. Scanlan would have come
straight home. Why had he not come home ?
Had any thing happened? And a forewarn-
ing of that daily fear which she must hence-
forth live in could tell to no one, could seek
help for from no one struck through her like a
bolt of ice.
There was but one road to the Rectory ; she
could not have missed him ; he must be still
there. But now she had come she dared not
go in. What reason could she give for her
coming? How explain, even to the servant
that should open the door, why she stood there,
drenched with rain, shivering with cold and
fear, looking, she was well aware, more like a
madwoman than the respectable curate's re-
spectable wife? No she must wait a little
longer. Nothing might have happened nei-
AT THE BEOTOBT 6ATB.
A BRAVE LADY.
113
ther good nor bad: Mr. Scanlan might have
just staid to hear the will read, and then gone
somewhere or other to spend the evening in-
stead of coming home.
There was a large tree which overhung the
gate : there Josephine sheltered and hid her-
self, till the soaking rain dropped through the
thin leaves. Years afterward, when she had
almost forgotten what it felt like to walk in the
cold and wet, when she went clad in silk and
furs, and trod daintily from carpeted halls to
cushioned carriages, hardly knowing what it
was to be unattended or alone, Josephine used
to recall, as in a sort of nightmare, that poor
creature scarcely herself at all who crouched
shivering under the tree at the Rectory gate ;
trembling lest any body should see her, won-
dering if even God Himself saw her, or whether
His eyes had not long been shut upon her and
her, misery. And the rain beat, and the wind
blew the wild, salt-tasted wind, coming west-
ward from the sea and, quarter after quarter,
the dull clang of Ditchley church-clock rang
out from over the rector's newly-closed grave
the hours that to him were nothing now to
her, every thing.
It was half past nine at least, and she was
wet through and through, yet still felt that
she could not go back, and that to go forward
was equally impossible, when she heard wheels
through the dark, driving slowly from the house
to the gate. When the light came, she saw it
was Dr. Waters's brougham. He was in it, and
some other gentleman, whom he seemed to be
supporting.
Josephine sprang to the carriage door, and
shook its closed windows with such eager ap-
peal that the doctor turned round angrily :
" Go away, woman ! Good God, Mrs. Scan-
lan ! is that you ?""
" Yes, it is I. Is not that my husband ?"
A feeble voice answered, and a still feebler
Iiand was put out: "Josephine, come in here.
I want you."
"Yes, come in at once. Take my place;
I will walk home," said Dr. Waters, getting
out, and then told her that Mr. Scanlan had
had a slight fainting-fit; something had oc-
curred which startled him very much ; but he
was much better now, and would be well di-
rectly.
Josephine looked from one to the other, half-
bewildered.
"My dear lady, I had better explain: it
was no ill news, quite the contrary ; and your
husband will soon get over the shock of it. I
wish you had been here," he added, a little
coldly ; " it was a pity, as Mr. Scanlan says,
that your feelings did not allow you to be pres-
ent at the funeral and the reading of the will,
as Langhome particularly desired ; and he was
the only person who knew about the matter.
Mrs. Scanlan, I have to congratulate you. You
are Mr. Oldham's heiress."
Josephine bent her head assentingly that
was all.
H
"It is a very large property; worth a hun-
dred thousand pounds, I should say. Except
a few legacies, it is all yours."
"Josephine, do you hear? all ours!" gasped
Mr. Scanlan, pressing forward. "A hundred
thousand pounds ! We are rich rich for life ! "
Again she assented ; but, in truth, hardly
did hear : she only saw that gray, pinched face,
drawn with pain, those shaking hands, which
seemed already to clutch eagerly at the imagin-
ary gold.
With gentle force Dr. Waters helped her into
the carriage, and was gone. Then she took her
husband's head on her shoulder, and his hands
in hers ; thus they sat, without speaking, as the
carriage slowly moved homeward.
It had come at last this golden dream. As
Edward had said, they were rich rich for life;
richer than in her wildest ambition she had ever
desired. She could hardly realize it at all.
The fortune had come; but what was the
worth of it to her, or hers ?
By-and-by her husband roused himself a lit-
tle. "Who would have thought it, Josephine?
I was so startled, it quite knocked me over;
however, I am better now, very much better.
Soon I shall come all right and enjoy every
thing,"
"I hope so."
" But you you speak so oddly ! Are you
not delighted with our good luck? or rather
yours, for Mr. Oldham has so tied his money
up that I can't touch it I have almost nothing
to do with it. He maintained his dislike to
me to the last. And to think of his saying
not a word about what he had done. Nobody
knew but Langhorne, unless " with a sudden
shrill suspicion in his tone, "unless you did?"
In her state of terrible suspense, Mrs. Scan-
lan had not paused to consider what course she
should pursue when the suspense ended, let it
end either way ; nor had decided whether or
not she should tell her husband the whole cir-
cumstances, which were so difficult of expla-
nation. Taken by surprise, she stammered
hesitated.
" You did know I am sure of it."
"Yes," she answered, slowly and humbly,
very humbly. "Mr. Oldham told me himself;
though I hardly believed it. Still, he did tell
me."
"When?"
"Seven years ago."
" Seven years ! You have kept this secret
from me your own husband for seven years I
Josephine, I'll never forgive you never believe
in you and more."
And she what could she say ? To ask his
pardon would be a mere pretense, for she felt
herself not guilty ; to explain her motives was
useless, since he could never understand them.
So this "lucky" husband and wife, whom all
Ditchley was now talking over, wondering at
or envying their good fortune, turned away from
one another, and drove home to Wren's Nest
together without exchanging another word.
lU
A BRAVE LADY.
CHAPTER XIV.
DiTCHLET opened its eyes wide with un-
feigned astonishment when it learned that
its sometime curate was suddenly transformed
into the Reverend Edward Scanlan of Oldham
Court, master of a fortune which, even allow-
ing for gossiping exaggerations, was still suf-
ficient to make him a county magnate for the
rest of his days. True, his position was in one
sense merely nominal, Mr. Oldham having tak-
en the precaution to tie the fortune safely up
in the hands of two trustees. Dr. Waters and
Mr. Langhorne, so that Mr. Scanlan had little
more to do than to receive twice a year his an-
nual income, while the principal was secured to
his wife and children. But these arrangements
were kept private, especially by himself; and
he burst out, full-blown, as the ostensible own-
er of one of the finest estates and most pictur-
esque mansions in the county.
Oldham Court, one of the few Elizabethan
houses now remaining in England, had re-
mained, almost unaltered, both within and
without, for generations. Its late possessor had
never lived in it tut had carefully preserved
it, just as it was letting the land round it to a
gentleman-farmer, and by good management
doubling the value of the property. The house
itself, with the little church adjoining, wherein
slept generations of Oldhams, was far away
from town or village : Ditchley, eleven miles
oiF, being its nearest link to civilization. But
it sat in the midst of a lovely country, hilly
though not bleak, solitary yet not dreary the
sort of region to which any lover of nature is
speedily attracted, and loves with a strong ad-
hesiveness that people who live in streets and
squares, or in neighborhoods without any sali-
ent characteristics, can not in the least under-
stand. And though Mr. Oldham had never
resided there at least never since he had in-
herited it from the wording of his last will he
had evidently loved it much.
In his will he expressly desired that the
Scanlans should immediately remove thither :
that, unless upon great emergency, it should
neither be sold nor rebuilt, but that Mrs. Scan-
lan should inhabit it just as it was as long as
she lived. That, in short, it should be made
into the family home of a new family, which
should replace the extinct Oldhams.
To account for his having chosen Mrs. Scan-
lan as his heiress, various old tales were raked
up, and added as excrescences to the obvious
truth such as Mr. Oldham's having been once
in love with a Frenchwoman, Mrs. Scanlan-s
mother, or aunt, or cousin nobody quite knew
which. There might or might not have been
a grain of fact at the bottom of these various
fictions ; but they were never verified ; and
common-sense people soon took the common-
sense view of the subject : namely, that when a
man has no heirs he is quite right in choosing
for himself what Providence has denied him,
and endowing with his fortune the most suit-
able person he can find : who is also the one to
whom it will do most good, and who will do
most good with it. And these qualifications
every one agreed were combined in Mrs.
Scanlan.
It was a curious fact, showing how in course
of years all people find their level even in the
eyes of the outside world that no surprise was
expressed at Ditchley because Mr. Oldham left
his fortune to Mrs. Scanlan rather than to her
husband ; indeed some people sagely remarked
"that it was just as well." This was all ; for
Mr. Scanlan still retained much of his old pop-
ularity; and, besides, many who would have
been ready enough to criticise the poor curate
at Wren's Nest, looked with lenient eyes on the
master of Oldham Court.
The migration was accomplished speedily ;
Mr. Scanlan himself taking little part therein.
He was in feeble health for some weeks after
the shock of his good fortune ; so that he had ,
to leave to his wife the management of every
thing. He left to her, almost without a single
inquiry, the management of one thing which,
with terrified haste, she accomplished within
the first few days of her new inheritance. She
got possession of the school accounts, went over
them, found the exact amount of her husband's
defalcations, and replaced it out of a sum which
she obtained from her trustees for her own im-
mediate use. Then she breathed freely. There
had been but a hair's-breadth between her and
ruin that utter ruin which lost honor brings ,
but the crisis was over, and she had escaped.
He had escaped, that is ; but she had ceased
to divide, even in thought, her own and her
husband's fortunes. The strong line which
needs to be drawn between deliberate wicked-
ness and mere weakness even though they
often arrive at the same sad end she now saw
clear. She never for a moment disguised from
herself what sort of a man Edward Scanlan was
but as long as she oould protect him from
himself, and protect her children from him, she
did not fear.
It was with a full heart fuller than any body
dreamed of that she left Wren's Nest and its
associations behind forever. The very words
"for ever" seemed to hallow them, and make
her shrink with pain when Mr. Scanlan declared
that he "shook the dust of it from off" his feet,
and hoped he might never again re-enter that
horrid hole." But she said nothing ; and drove
by her husband's side, in their own comfortable
carriage, across the smiling country, to the old
gateway of Oldham Court.
It so chanced she had never seen the place
before. Mr. Oldham had sometimes planned
to take her there, but the visit had never come
about ; now, at the very first sight, her heart
leaped to it, as to the ideal home for which she
had been craving all her days. Gray, quiet,
lonely with its quaint old-fashioned gables,
and long low Tudor windows no palatial res-
idence or baronial hall, but just a hou^ a^
house to live in ; and to live in conteniedly
A BRAVE LADY.
.116
till one died Josephine felt with a sudden
thrill of ineflable thankfulness that here indeed
was her rest-, where no storms could come, and
out of which no cruel hands would uproot Ker
again. For surely now her husband would be
satisfied. She asked him the question.
"Satisfied? Well yes. A nice house;
but rather queer-looking and old-fashioned.
What a pity we are obliged to keep it as it is,
and can not pull it down and build it up afresh
as a modern residence ! "
" Do you think so ?" was all Mrs. Scanlan re-
plied. She never argued with her husband now.
At the door stood all her children waiting
a goodly group ; justifying Mr. uldham's choice
of the family which should succeed his own.
Behind them was an array of new servants,
men and women, with Bridget at their head-'
Bridget, now promoted to "Mrs. Halloran,"
and having with true Irish adaptability taken
her place at once as confidential servant and
follower of the family. A position greatly
against her master's liking: indeed he had
proposed pensioning her off, and dispatching
her at once to Ireland, till he considered that
a "follower" implied a "family;" and to be
able to speak of "our housekeeper, who has
been with us twenty years," gave a certain
character of antique respectability to his estab-
lishment. Therefore, as he passed her in her
black silk dress and neat cap Bridget was,
especially in her latter days, that rare but not
impossible anomaly, a tidy Irishwoman he
acknowledged her courtesy with a patronizing
" How d'ye do ?" and said no more concerning
her proposed dismissal.
Theoretically and poetically, the sudden trans-
lation from poverty to riches is quite easy, nat-
ural, and agreeable ; practically it is not so.
Let a family be ever so refined and aristocratic,
still if it has been brought up in indigence, its
habits will have caught some tinge of the un-
toward circumstances through which it has had
to struggle. I once knew a lady who confessed
that slic found it difficult to learn to order her
servant to "bring candles," instead of "the
candle;" and no doubt the Scanlan family on
its first accession to wealth were exposed to
similar perplexities.
The younger branches, especially, found their
splendid new shoes rather troublesome wear. I
Accustomed to the glorious freedom of poverty, |
they writhed a little under their gilded chains. }
They quarreled with the new nurses, made fun
of the dignified butler and footman, and alto- j
gether gave so much trouble that it was a re-
lief when, Cesar having already gone to Oxford,
the two other boys were sent off to school, and
the three girls alone remained to brighten Old-
ham Court. But with these, despite all their
father's arguments about the propriety of send-
ing them to a fashionable London boarding-
school, the mother point-blank refused to part.
A governess was procured the best attainable :
and^ so the domestic chaos was gradually re-
duced to order.
This done, and when she grew accustomed
to see her children in their new position no
longer running wild like village boys and girls,
but well-dressed, well-taught, and comporting
themselves like a gentleman's sons and daugh-
ters their mother's heart swelled with exult-
ant joy. Her seven years of terrible suspense
seemed blotted out : and the future her chil-
dren's future, for she had long ceased to have
any other stretched itself out before her clear
as a sunshiny landscape. The happiness was
worth the pain.
It had only been her own pain after all.
Now, she sometimes smiled, half bitterly, to
think what useless pangs had wrung her tender
conscience about keeping that secret from her
husband. He himself did not seem to feel it
in the least. After the first outburst of wound-
ed vanity he had never once referred to the
subject ; seemed, indeed, to have quite lost
sight of it. To do him justice, he was not one
to "bear malice," as the phrase is; he forgot
his injuries as quickly as he did his blessings.
Besides, so many sensitive troubles are avoided,
and so many offenses condoned, by people whose
law of conduct is not what is right or wrong,
but what is expedient.
Therefore, as soon as he recovered full health,
which he did to all appearance ere long, Mr.
Scanlan begun to enjoy his changed fortunes
amazingly ; accepting them not so much as a
gift, but a debt long owed to him by a tardy
Providence. Within a few months nay, weeks
he had ignored his Ditchley life as complete-
ly as the butterfly does his chrysalis exuviae,
and burst out full-winged as the master of Old-
ham Court. He talked about " my place" as
if he had possessed it all his days ; only grum-
bling sometimes at the house itself its dullness,
its distance from any town, and, above all, its
old-fashionedness. Edward Scanlan, who had
been brought up in that phase of modern lux-
ury in which the cost of a thing constitutes its
sole value, did not approve of the Gothic style
at all. :
But to his wife, from the first minute she
crossed its threshold, Oldham Court felt like
home her home till death, and that of her de-
scendants after her. For she had come to that
time of life when we begin involuntarily to look
forward to our own secession in favor of the
young, coming lives, who will carry on into
futurity this dream of our life which already
begins to seem to us "like a shadow that de-
parteth" and backward on those past genera-
tions to whom we shall ere long descend. Thus,
even while thinking of her children and chil-
dren's children who would inherit this place,
Josephine, wandering about it, often saw it
peopled with innumerable gentle ghosts, into
whose empty seats her bright, living, young
flock had climbed. She felt a great tenderness
over these long-dead Oldhams ; and took pains
to identify and preserve the family portraits
which still hung in hall and staircase. In her
idle hours, only too numerous now, she liked to
116
A BRAVE LADY.
go and sit in the little church, which was so
close to the house that, much to her husband's
horror, one of the dining-room windows looked
on to the church-yard. He had it boarded up
immediately ; but still, from her bedroom case-
ment, Josephine would, of moonlight nights, or
in early sunrises, gaze upon that tiny God's acre,
and think, almost with a sense of pleasure, that
she should one day be buried there.
These vanished Oldhams, they slept in peace
from the cross-legged Crusader with his
hound at his feet, to the two medieval spouses,
kneeling, headless, side by side, and behind
each a long train of offspring ; and then on
through many generations to the last one Mr.
Oldham's father, over whom a very ugly angel,
leaning on a draperied arm, kept watch and
ward. Mrs. Scanlan often amused herself with
making out the inscriptions, old English or
I^tin she had taught herself Latin to teach
her boys. These epitaphs were touching me-
morials of a family which, though not exactly
noble, had been evidently honorable and hon-
ored to the last. Necessarily so, or it could
not have kept itself so long afloat on the deep
sea of oblivion ; for it is astonishing how quick-
ly a race which has in it the elements of degra-
dation and decay can dwindle down from no-
bility to obscurity.
As she pondered over these relics of an ex-
tinct but not degenerate race, Josephine felt
stirring strangely in her the blood of the old
De Bougainvilles. The desire to found, or to
revive, a family; to live again after death in
our unknown descendants ; to plan for them,
toil for them, and bequeath to them the fruit of
our toils a passion for which many men have
sacrificed so much came into this woman's
heart with a force such as few men could un-
derstand, because thereto was added the in-
stinct of motherhood. Her ambition for, as
I have said, she was ambitious quenched
inevitably as regarded the present, passed on
to the days when, she and their father sleeping
in peace together, her children should succeed
to those possessions which she herself could
never fully enjoy. Especially she used to dream
of the time "when Cesar, reigning in her stead,
should be master of Oldham Court.
"Yes," she thought, "my son" she usually
called her eldest boy " my son" " must marry
early: he will be able to afford it. And he
must choose some girl after my own heart, to
whom I will be such a good mother-in-law.
And oh ! how proud I shall be of the third
generation !"
Thus planned she thus dreamed she : look-
ing far into the future, with stone-blind eyes, as
we all of us look. Still, I think it made her hap-
py happier than she had been for many years.
One little cloud, however, soon rose on her
bright horizon : strangely bright now, for in
the sudden novelty of things, in the great relief
and ease of his present lot, and in his power of
getting every luxury he wished for, even Mr.
Kcanlan seemed to have taken a new turn, and
to give his wife no trouble whatever. He was
actually contented! He ceased to find fault
with any thing, became amenable to reason,
and absolutely affectionate. His good angel
who, I suppose, never quite deserts any man
stood behind him, shaking ambrosial odors over
him, and consequently over the whole family,
for at least three months after their change of
fortune.
And then the little cloud arose. The three
Misses Scanlan, now requiring to be educated
up to the level of the county families, among
whose young ladies they would have to take
their place, were put under a first-rate govern-
ess, who had, decessarily, a rather forcing sys-
tem. It worked well with Gabrielle and Cath-
erine clever, handsome, healthy creatures,
who learned wholesomely and fast but with
Adrienne, now nearly old enough to enter so-
ciety, the case was altogether different.
Alas, poor Adrienne ! she would never be a
show daughter to introduce into the world. She
was neither a bright girl nor a pretty girl ; nay,
her appearance was almost worse than insig-
nificant, for her poor weak spine had grown a
little awry, and stooping over her studies made
it much worse. Already she required to Ijave
her figure padded and disguised in various
ingenious ways, which took all her mother's
French skill to devise ; and already her gentle
pale face had that sad look peculiar to deformed
people.
Of that she herself was painfully conscious.
Beside her mother's stately dignity, and her
sister Gabrielle's reed-like grace, she knew well
how ill she looked, and this made her shy and
shrinking from society. Other things, which
she was only too quick to find out, added to
this feeling.
"I can't imagine why you are always want-
ing Adrienne in the drawing-room," her father
would say, not always out of the girl's hearing.
"She does not care to come, and really she is
not very ornamental. Keep her in the shade
by all means keep her in the shade."
And into the shade Adrienne instinctively
retired, even from the first day she set foot in
Oldham Court, especially when there happened
to be visitors a circumstance that occurred
seldom enough which much surprised and
displeased Mr. Scanlan.
" Of course every body will call upon us
all the county families, I mean," he kept say-
ing ; and impressed upon his wife that at cer-
tain hours every day she was to sit prepared
for their reception. Indeed, he was always
laying down the law of etiquette for her in mi-
nute things, and telling her that she did not
properly recognize her position. "For, my
dear, you have been so long out of the world
if, indeed, you were ever fairly in it that
you can not be expected to understand the
ways of society as I do."
"Possibly not," she would answer, half
amused, yet with a lurking sarcasm in her
smile. But she obeyed, for it really was not
A BRAVE LADY.
117
worth her while to disobey. She never cared
to quarrel over small things.
Visitors came : only, alas ! they were prin-
cipally Ditchley people, driving over in hired
flys and pony-chaises ; not a single carriage
and pair had as yet passed under the Gothic
gateway. Nevertheless, Mrs. Scanlan wel-
comed her guests with all sorts of kindly atten-
tions.
"Why should I not?" said she, when her
husband remonstrated ; "they were friendly to
me when I was poor. Bosides, they are all
worthy people, and I like them."
"Which are not sufficient reasons for culti-
vating them, and I desire that they may not be
cultiva*ted any more than you can help," said
Mr. Scanlan, with the slightly dictatorial tone
which he sometimes used now.
Josephine flushed up, but made no answer.
Indeed, she rarely did make answers now to
things oPwhich she disapproved. It was as-
tonishing Ijow little of actual conversation the
rational, pleasant, and improving talk which
even husbands and wives can sometimes find
time to indulge in, and which makes the quiet-
est life a continual entertainment passed be-
tween this husband and wife, who had been
married so many years.
Just when his eager expectation of visitors
suitable visitors had changed into angiy sur-
prise that they neVer came, Mr. Scanlan en-
tered the house one day in eager excitement.
He had met on the road the two young sons of
his nearest neighbor, the Earl of Turbei-ville,
coming to call, they said, and ask permission
to shoot over his preserves.
"I should have invited them to lunch, but
I feared you would not have it nice enough ;
however, they have promised to come to-mor-
row both Lord Cosmo and Lord Charles. So
be sure, Josephine, that you have every thing
in apple-pie order, and dress yourself elegant-
ly" (he still, when excited, pronounced it " ili-
gantly"). "For who knows but the Earl and
Countess themselves might come. Lord Cos-
mo said he knew his father had something very
particular to say to me."
And for the next twenty-four hours poor Mr.
Scanlan was in a perpetual fidget, worrying
his butler and footman, till they civilly hint-
ed that they had always lived in high families,
and knew their own business; and especially
worrying his wife, who did not participate in
this idolatrous worship of rank and title, which
had always been a strong characteristic of the
Irish curate. Long before luncheon time he
insisted upon her taking her seat in the draw-
ing-room : dressed with elegance, certainly
though with not half the splendor he desired.
"Ah!" said he, sighing; "you may take a
horse to the water, but yon can't make him
drink. I fear, Josephine, I shall never suc-
ceed in raising you to the level of your present
position. I give you up!"
The hour arrived, but not the guests ; and,
after waiting till three o'clock, Mrs. Scanlan
insisted on going in to luncheon. She had
scarcely taken her place there when the two
lads entered rather roughly-clad and roughly-
behaved lads, any thing but young lords, ap-
parently, until they caught sight of the lady at
the head of the table. Then their instinctive
good-breeding told them that they had been
guilty of a discourtesy and a mistake. They
were full of apologies, Lord Cosmo especially,
for being so unwarrantably late ; but they gave
no reason for their tardiness, and neither made
a single excuse for the non-appearance of the
Earl and Countess indeed, seemed not to have
an idea that these latter were expected. Nor
did Josephine refer to the fact, being long ac-
customed to her husband's great powers of im-
agination.
She rather liked the youths, who were fresh
from Eton pleasant, gentlemanly fellows, and
conversation soon became easy and general.
Lord Cosmo tried in various quiet ways to find
out who Mrs. Scanlan was, and how she came
to inherit Oldham Court. At last he put the
question whether she was not distantly related
to Mr. Oldham ; and when his curiosity gained
only a brief No, he covered his confusion by
darting into a long explanation of how the Old-
hams and Turbervilles were the two most an-
cient families in the county, and had gone on
quarreling, intermarrying, and quarreling again,
ever since William the Conqueror.
" They were Saxons and we Normans, so we
could not help fighting, you know."
"Of course not," said Mrs. Scanlan, and
turned the conversation by some unimportant
remark ; but Mr. Scanlan brought it back ea-
gerly.
" My wife also is of Norman descent. She
comes of the Vicomtes de Bougainville a very
old and honorable family."
"Oh!" replied the young man; and added,
with a slight bow, " Cela va sans dire."
"What was that your lordship said?" in-
quired the host, eagerly ; but the hostess, with
a hot cheek alas ! her cheeks burned very
often during that afternoon stopped the an-
swer by inquiring if Lord Cosmo had ever been
in France, and so leading the talk widely astray
from herself and her ancestors.
Calm as she sat looking, in her fine Gothic
dining-hall, like a medieval picture she sat,
nevertheless, upon thorns the whole time; for
it was the first time for many years that she
had seen her husband as he appeared in gen-
eral society, and the sight was not agreeable.
The court suit of prosperity is only becoming
to courtly figures. Many a man, decent enough
in common broadcloth, when dressed up in vel-
vet and point lace, looks painfully like a foot-
man. Corporeally or I should say sartorially
fate had denied Mr. Scanlan the pleasure of
wearing bright colors "Once a clergyman, al-
ways a clergyman" being, unfortunately, En-
glish law. But in his manners he assumed a
costume of startling vividness and variety. "All
things to all men," was his maxim, and he car
18
A BRAVE LADY.
ried it out with great unction ; appearing by
turns as the gentleman of fashion, of wealth,
and of family; never knowing exactly which
character to assume, for all were equally as-
sumptions, and equally unfamiliar. The sim-
ple plan of avoiding all difficulties, by being al-
ways one's own honest self, did not occur to this
ingenious Irishman.
He could not help it it was his nature. But
it was none the less painful to those belonging
to him. People tell of the penitential horse-
hair which lovely women have worn under their
velvet and minever, cambric and lawn. I think
I could tell of one woman who knew what it
was to wear it too.
When the guests and Mr. Scanlan had quit-
ted the drawing-room, Adrienne crept in there,
and her mother, who was standing at the win-
dow watching the shadows come and go over
the hill-sides, wistfully as we look at a view
that we hope to watch unchanged until we die
felt her daughter take her hand. She turned
round immediately.
"My little girl!" stroking her hair Adri-
enne had very pretty hair ; Bridget often used
to speak of it with sad pride " My little girl,
I wonder if you will ever be married ! I almost
hope not." Then she added, quickly, "Be-
cause I should miss you so ; and, besides, wo-
men can live quite happily without ever being
married."
" I know they can ; above all when they have
got such a dear mother to live for as mine,"
said Adrienne, tenderly, but turning rosy-red
as she spoke ; so that Mrs. Scanlan, a little
surprised at the child's sensitiveness, changed
the conversation immediately. She even re-
pented having alluded to a subject upon which
Adrienne could as yet only have theorized.
Though she was nearly seventeen, she Avas still
very childish ; and she had scarcely spoken to
a young man in her life except Mr. Summer-
hayes, who, compared with her, was not a young
man at all.
This Mr. Summerhayes, the great bugbear
of Josephine's married life, had apparently quite
disappeared from her horizon. Among the
congratulatory letters which had reached them
of late was one from him, but Mr. Scanlan had
read it and put it in the fire, and " wondered
how the fellow could presume," so no more was
said upon the matter. She learned accident-
ally that the artist was living from hand to
mouth at Rome, or some other Italian city, so
she had no fear that, in their present circum-
stances, he would be any longer a snare to her
husband. Nay, she felt a little sorry for him,
scamp as he was, remembering all his amusing
ways at Wren's Nest, when they were as poor
as he was now. In the almost preternatural
calm which brooded over her life now at least,
her external life she could afford to be pitiful
even to a poor scoundrel.
Mr. Scanlan came back in the highest spirits,
having seen his guests away on their horses, and
exhibited his own, which were far finer animals.
" And they owned it, too, both Lord Cosmo
and Lord Charles, and wished they had as
good ; but the Earl is as poor as a rat, every
body knows. Exceedingly nice young fellows
their lordships are ! and I hope we shall see a
great deal of them. You must be sure to be
at home, Josephine, when the Countess calls.
These are the sort of friends that we ought to
make. Not your horrid, commonplace. Ditch-
ley people ; who were well enough once, but
don't suit us now, and will suit us less and less,
I prophesy. Ha ha my dear, you don't know
what I know. HoV should you like me to get
a handle to my name ? What do you say to
being called ' My lady ?' "
He took his wife round the waist and 4vissed
her with considerable excitement.
" Edward," she answered, in her quietest and
gentlest tone, "sit down here and tell me what
you mean."
With difficulty, and at first entire increduli-
ty, ehe got out of him something which, though
it seeined to her too ridiculous seriously to be-
lieve, was yet a possibility; and a note, or
memorandum, which her husband showed her,
which at the last minute had been given him
by Lord Cosmo, confirmed it as a possibility.
Lord Turberville, though very poor, was a keen
politician, and deeply in the confidence of the
government, to whom, as well as to himself, it
was necessary to secure the influence of the
large landowners of the county. Among these,
almost the largest was the owner of the Oldham
Court estates. His lordship had, therefore, con-
cocted a scheme for selecting Mr. Scanlan as
the most suitable person to go up to London,
as head of a deputation to present an address
on a certain expected Royal event I am in-
tentionally obscure as to what that event was
the presenters of which address generally re-
ceived the honor of knighthood. It was a "job,"
of course ; but not worse than hundreds of po-
litical jobs which are perpetrated every day in
our free and independent country ; and Mr,
Scanlan was delighted with the idea, nor in the
least astonished that such a tribute should be
paid to his own exceeding merit.
"And what shall I answer the Earl?" said
he, when he had expended his raptures on the
advantages in store for him.
" Have you answered ?" his wife asked, with
a keen look.
" Well to tell the truth as I never imagined
you would be so foolish as to object to the thing,
I sent word to Lord Turberville "
"Yes, yes I understand. You have an-
swered. Then why go through the form of
consulting me on the subject ?"
It was one of his small shams, his petty cow-
ardlinesses, which so irritated this woman, who
would any day rather have been struck on the
cheek openly, than secretly stung to the heart.
But it had to be borne, and it was borne. As
to the thing itself the question as to whether
or not she should be called " my lady'' she did
not, in truth, care two straws about it. I think
A BRAVE LADY.
119
she would have been proud, exceedingly proud,
had her husband earned a title in some noble
way ; but in this way for she saw through the
mysteries of the matter at once it affected her
in no possible degree.
" Do as you like," she said. *' It is much the
same to me whether I am Mrs. or Lady Scanlan . "
"Scanlan! ah, that is the nuisance! Ours
is such a horrid common name. If Mr. Oldham
had only given us his own Lord Cosmo ex-
pressed surprise that he did not. Don't you
think, Josephine, we could assume it?"
Josephine regarded her husband with un-
feigned astonishment. "No; certainly not.
If he had wished it, he would certainly have
said so. Besides, to give up your own name
your father's name "
"Oh but the old man is dead; he'll never
know it. And what did well enough for my
father is diflferent for me. I have risen in the
world ; and who cares for my antecedents ?
Indeed, the less we speak of them the better."
"Do you think so?" said Josephine once
more. And there flashed upon her the remem-
brance of the kind old woman certainly not a
lady, but a true, kind woman, whose grandmo-
therly arms had received her own first-born
babe ; and of the old man, who, common and
vulgar as he was, had yet a heart, for it had
broken with grief at having reduced to poverty
his wife and only son. These two in their life-
time Josephine had not loved much ; had only
put up with them for the sake of her Edward ;
but she recalled them affectionately now. And
even for herself, the years she had borne the
name, through weal and woe alas ! more woe
than weal seemed to consecrate it in her eyes.
"No," she continued, after a pause, "do not
let us change our name: I could never fancy
myself any thing but Mrs. Scanlan."
"Josephine! how can you be so stupid?"
said her husband, irritably. " I hope I am at
least as wise as you, and this seems to me an
excellent scheme. In fact," he added, folding
juis hands and casting up his eyes those effect-
ive black eyes which did no pulpit-duty now
"I think that to let it go would be to fail in
my gratitude to Providence, and lose an op-
portunity of distinguishing myself in that sphere
of life to which, as our noble catechism says, it
has pleased God to call me. For I am com-
paratively a young man still ; much under fifty,
you know, and I may live to seventy, as my fa-
ther did. And your father, was he not seven-
ty-four or seventy-five? By-the-by" and he
started up, struck with an idea so sudden and
brilliant that he could not keep it to himself
one moment. "Since you so strongly object
to our taking this name of Oldham, what say
you, my darling wife, to our taking one that
actually does belong to us at least to you?
Suppose we were to call ourselves by your
maiden name, De Bougainville ?"
Josephine turned pale as death. All the
blood in' her heart seemed to stand still a mo-
ment, and then rush on in a frantic tide. She
tried to speak, but her throat contracted with
a sort of spasm.
"Wait. It is so sudden. Let me think."
And she sat down, a little apart, with her hand
over her eyes. These never sought her hus-
band's; they never did now, either for help,
counsel, or sympathy ; she knew it would be
only vain, seeking for what one can not hope
to find. All she did was to sit in silence, list-
ening, as to the noise of a stream of water, to
the flow of his voluminous talk. It harmed
her not ; she scarcely heard it.
But Mr. Scanlan's sudden suggestion had as
suddenly and powerfully affected her. There
was in Josephine a something hitherto con-
scientiously and sternly suppressed which her
husband never dreamed of; the strong '^' aristo-
cratic" feeling. Not in his sense the cringing
worship of a mere title but the prejudice in
favor of whatever is highest and best, in birth,
breeding, and manner of life. Though she
never spoke of it, her pride in these things, so
far as she herself possessed them, was extreme.
The last of the De Bougainvilles cherished her
name and family with a tenderness all the fond-
er because it was like love for the dead ; the
glory of the race had departed. To revive it
to transmit to her children, and through them
to distant descendants, not merely the blood,
but the name, was a pleasure so keen that it
thrilled her almost like pain.
"Well, Josephine? Bless me how j-ou
start ! You quite frightened me. Well ; and
what do you say, my dear ?"
"Don't tempt me!" she answered, with a
half-hysterical laugh. " As Bridget says, ' Let
sleeping dogs lie.' If once I begin thinking of
such a thing of seeing my boy Ce'sar another
Cesar de Bougainville there were six genera-
tions of them, all named Ce'sar, and all honest,
honorable men ; my father was the last. Ah,
mon Dieu! mon pere mon pere!" She burst
into tears.
Mr. Scanlan was a little discomposed, almost
displeased ; but, not being a sensitive man, or
quick to divine motives, he set down his wife's
extraordinary emotion to the excitement of
possibly becoming "my lady," to say nothing
of "Lady de Bougainville," which was such a
charmingly "genteel" name. He patted her
on the. back, and bade her " take things easily,
she would get used to them in time ;" and then,
as he especially disliked any thing like a scene,
he called Adrienne to attend to ber mother, and
took himself off immediately.
And his wife ?
She had no one to speak to, no one to take
counsel of. Unless her little daughter, who,
sitting at the further end of the room whither
Adrienne usually crept when her father ap-
peared had heard all, might be called a coun-
selor. The girl, so simple in some things, was
in others much wiser than her years eldest
daughters of sorely-tried women often are.
Adrienne, being called, said a few wise words
which influenced her mother more than at th
120
A BKAVE LADY.
MOTHEB AND DATTGHTEK.
time either were aware. And she told a few
things which her brothers had in confidence
told to her how Louis and Martin, in their
grand school "for noblemen and gentlemen,"
were taunted perpetually about the "Scanlan
and Co." porter-bottles; and even Cesar, fine
young fellow as he was, found that, until he
had established his character as a reading man,
so that nobody asked who his father was, all
his wealth failed to be a sufficient passport into
the best Oxford society. In short, the family
were suffering under the inevitable difficulties
of nouveaux riches, which of course they would
live down in time but still it would take time.
To shorten this especially for the boys, who
were of an age to feel such difficulties acutely
would be advisable if possible. And it was
possible that things might be easier for the
three lads, just entering the world, if they
entered it as the sons of Sir Edward and Lady
de Bougainville.
Weak reasoning, perhaps! It would have
been stronger and braver to hold fast to the
paternal name, ennobling and beautifying it by
such tender fidelity. And so doubtless Avould
have been done, by both wife and children,
liad the father been a different sort of father.
But as I have oftentimes repeated life is not
unlevel, and in it people usually get what they
earn. In this family, as in most others, things
were as they were, and nothing could make
them otherwise.
When the mother and daughter went down
stairs to dinner the matter was quite decided.
"Papa," said Adrienne, mustering up a
strange courage, for she saw her mother was
hardly able to speak, and going straight up to
her father as he stood on the hearth-rug with
a slightly ill-used and dignified air. "Papa,
mamma has told me every thing, and I am so
glad. I hope all will come about as you wish.
How nice it will be to hear you called ' Sir Ed-
ward !' And just look at mamma in that new
dress of hers ; she put it on to-night to please
you. Will she not make a beautiful Lady de
Bougainville?"
CHAPTER XV.
It was all settled at last, though after much
delay, ^nd very considerable expense. One
fine morning the Times newspaper announced,
in advertisement, to all the world that "the
Reverend Edward Scanlan, of Oldham Court,
meant thenceforward, in meihory of his wife's
father, the late Vicorate de Bougainville" (he
inserted this paragraph himself, and Josephine
first saw it in print when remonstrance was
idle), "to assume, instead of his own, the
name and arms of De Bougainville."' These
last he had already obtained with much trouble
and cost, and affixed them upon every avail-
able article within and without the house, from
letter-paper and carriage-panels down to din-
ner-plates and hall chairs. His wife did not
interfere : these were, after all, only outside
things.
A BRAVE LADY.
121
But when she saw, for the first time, her
new-old name on the address of a letter, and
had to sign once again, after this long interval
of years, "Josephine de Bougainville," the
same sudden constriction of heart seized her.
It seemed as if her youth were returned again,
but in a strange, ghostly fashion, and with one
vital ditFerence between the old days and the
new ; then her future lay all in herself, all in
this visible world ; now, did she, who had long
ceased to think of herself and her own personal
liappiness, ever look forward to the world in-
visible ?
I have said Josephine was not exactly a re-
ligious woman. The circumstances of her mar-
ried life had not been likely to make her such.
But we can not, at least some people can not,
live wholly without God in the world. Some-
times, in her long leisure hours among these
old tombs, or still oftener in the lovely country
around Oldham Court, where she wandered at
her will, feeling thankful that her lines had
fallen in pleasant places, the longing for God,
the seeking after Him, though in a blind,
heathen sort of way, came into her heart and
made it calmer and less desolate. Pure if al-
ways was, and the love of her children kept it
warm. But still it needed the great plow-share
of affliction solemn, sacred affliction, coming
direct from God, not man to go over it, so as
to make the ground fit for late harvest, all the
richer and lovelier because it was so late. As
yet, under that composed manner of hers, sed-
ulously as she did her duties, complaining of
nothing, and enjoying every thing as much as
she could, for it seemed to her absolutely a.
duty to enjoy, she was nevertheless conscious
of the perpetual feeling of "a stone in her
heart." Not a fire, as once used to be, an
ever-smouldering sense of hot indignation, ap-
prehension, or wrong, but a stone a cold dead
weight that never went away.
Dr. Waters had given her two permanent
private advices respecting her husband : to
keep him from all agitation, and never to let
him be alone for many hours at a time. To
carry out this without his discovering it, or the
necessity for it, was the principal business of
her life, and a difficult task too, requiring all
her patience and all her ingenuity. Mr. Scan-
Ian I beg his pardon, Mr. de Bougainville
was exceedingly well now; and, with care,
might remain so for many years. Still the
solemn cloud hung over him, which he saw
not, and never must be allowed to see, or his
weak nature would have succumbed at once.
But to his wife it was visible perpetually ; lev-
eling alike all her pleasures and all her pains ;
teaching her unlimited forbearance with him,
and yet a power of opposing him, when his
own good required it, which was almost re-
morseless in its strength. As the wifely love
departed, the motherly pity, as of a woman
over a sick or foolish child, which she has to
guard with restrictions that almost look like
cruelty, and yet are its only safety, rose up in
I
that poor, seared heart, which sometimes she
could hardly believe was the heart of the girl
Josephine de Bougainville. It would have
broken long ago, only it was a strong heart,
and it was that of the mother of six children.
She was sitting one day in the oriel window
of the drawing-room, writing to her boys at
school, when her husband rushed in and kissed
her in one of his bursts of demonstrative af-
fection.
"Give you joy, give you joy, my lady.
You'll be my lady this time next week. I have
just heard from Lord Turberville. The ad-
dress is quite settled at last, and the deputa-
tion, with myself at its head, starts to-morrow
for London."
" To-morrow ! That is soon, but I dare say.
I can manage to get ready," said Mrs. de
Bougainville, with a smile.
"You!" her husband replied, and his coun-
tenance fell at once ; " my dear Josephine,
there is not the slightest necessity for your go-
ing."
" But I should like to go. I want to be with
you; it is surely not an unnatural wish;" and
then she stopped, with a horrid consciousness
of hypocrisy. For she knew in her heart she
would much rather have been left at home with
her children. But with Dr. Waters's warning
ringing in her ears, there was no alternative.
She must go with her husband ; and once more
she said this.
Mr. de Bougainville looked extremely dis-
concerted, but the wholesome awe he had of
his wife, and his real affection for her, though
it was little deeper than that of the tame ani-
mal which licks the hand that feeds it and
makes it physically comfortable, kept his arro-
gance within bounds.
" I am sure, my dear Josephine, nothing is
more natural than for yoii to wish to be with
me, and I should be very glad of your company.
But you dislike London life so much, and I
shall have a great deal to do and much high
society to mix in, and you do riot like high so-
ciety. Really you had better stay at home."
" I can not stay at home," she said, and put-
ting aside all wounded feeling she looked up in
his face, which happened to be particularly
sickly that day, and saw only the creature she
had charge of, whose whole well-being, moral
and physical, depended upon her care. It was
a total and melancholy reversal of the natural
order of things between husband and wife ; but
Providence had made it so, and how could she
gairisay it ? She had only to bear it.
*' Edward," she entreated it was actual en-
treaty, so sharp was her necessity " take me
with you. I will be no burden to you, and I
do so want to go."
He made no resistance, it was too much
trouble ; but saying, with a vexed air, " Well,
do as you like, you always do," quitted the
room at once.
Doing as she liked ! I wonder how many
years it was since Josephine enjoyed that en-
122
A BRAVE LADY.
viaMe privilege or luxury, if indeed to any hu-
man being it long continues to be either. As
her husband slammed the door, she sighed
one long, pent-up, forlorn, passionate sigh : then
rose, and set about her preparations for depart-
ure.
She left her eldest daughter a delighted queen-
regent at Oldham Court, with Bridget as prime
minister, promising to be home again as soon
us she could. "And remember you'll come
back 'my lady,'" whispered Bridget, who of
course knew every thing. She had a dim im-
pression that this and all other worldly advant-
ages had accrued solely through the merits of
her beloved mistress : and was proud of them
accordingly.
Her mistress made no answer. Possibly she
thought that to be the wife of some honest, poor
man, who eai'ned his bread by the labor of his
brains or the sweat of his brow earned it hard-
ly, but cheerfully; denied himself, but took
tender, protecting care of his wife and children ;
told the truth, paid his debts, and kept his hon-
or unblemished in the face of God and man
was at least as happy a lot as that of Lady de
Bougainville.
The husband and wife started on their jour-
ney : actually their first journey together since
their honey-moon! Traveling en prince, with
valet and maid and a goodly array of luggage,
which greatly delighted Mr. de Bougainville.
Especially when they had to pass through Ditch-
ley, where he had never been since they left the
place, nor had she. She wanted to stop at
Priscilla Nunn's, but found the shop closed, the
good woman having given up business and gone
abroad.
" A good thing too, and then people will for-
get her ; and forget that you ever demeaned
yourself by being a common seamstress. I
wonder, Josephine, you were ever so silly as to
do such a thing."
"Do you?" said she, remembering some-
thing else which he little suspected she had
been on the very brink of doing, which she was
now thankful she had not done ; that almost by
miracle Providence had stood in her way and
hindered her. Now, sweeping along in her
carriage and pair, she recalled that forlorn, des-
perate woman who had hurried through the
dark streets one rainy night to Priscilla Nunn's
shop-door, bent on a purpose which she could
not even now conscientiously say was a sinful
purpose, though Heaven had saved her from
completing it. As she looked down on the
face by her side, which no prosperity could'ever
change into either a healthy or a happy face,
Josephine said to herself for the twentieth time,
"Yes; I am glad I did not forsake him. I
never will forsake him my poor husband!"
Not my dear, my honored only my "poor"
husband. But to such a woman this was
enough.
Their journey might have been bright as the
May morning itself, but there was always some
crumpled rose-leaf in the daily couch of Mr.
de Bougainville. This time it was the non-
appearance of the Earl and Countess of Turber-
ville, with whom he said he had arranged to
travel. True, he had never seen either of them,
nor had his wife ; the inhabitants of Turberville
Hall and Oldham Court having merely ex-
changed calls, both missing one another, and
there the acquaintance ended. Apparently,
Mr. de Bougainville asserted, his lordship's del-
icacy prevented his coming too prominently for-
ward in this affair at present, but when once
the knighthood was bestowed it would be all
right. And he was sure, from something Lord
Cosmo said, that the Earl wished tb travel with
him to London, starting from this station.
So he went about seeking him, or somebody
like what he supposed an earl to be, but in vain ;
and at last had to drop suddenly into a carriage
where were only a little old lady and gentle-
man, to whom, at first sight, he took a strong
antipathy, as he often did to plain or shabbily-
dressed persons. This couple having none of
the shows of wealth about them, must,, he
thought, be quite common people ; and he treat-
ed them accordingly.
It is a bad thing to fall in love at first sight
with your fellow-passengers in railway car-
riages or elsewhere ; but to hate them at first
sight is sometimes equally dangerous. Jo-
sephine tried vainly to soften matters, for she
had always a tender side to elderly people, and
this couple seemed very inoffensive, nay,- rath-
er pleasant people, the old lady having a shrewd,
kind face, and the old gentleman very courte-
ous manners. But Mr. de Bougainville was
barely civil to them : and even made sotto voce
remarks concerning them for a great part of
the journey. Till, reaching the London ter-
minus, he was utterly confounded by seeing the
guard of the train a Ditchley man rush u])
to the carriage door with an officious "Let me
help you, my lord," and a few minutes after,
picking up a book the old lady had left behiiui
her, he read on it the name of the Countess of
Turberville.
Poor Mr. de Bougainville! Like one of
those short-sighted mortals who walk with an-
gels unawares, he had been traveling for the
last three hours with the very persons whose
acquaintance he most wished to cultivate, and
had behaved himself in such a manner as, it
was plain to be seen, would not induce them to
reciprocate this feeling. No wonder the catas-
trophe quite upset him.
" If I had had the least idea who they were !
and it was very stupid of you, Josephine, not
to find out ; you were talking to her ladyship
for ever so long. If I had only known it was
his lordship, I would have introduced myself at
once. At any rate, I should have treated him
quite differently. How very unfortunate ! "
"Very," said Mrs. de Bougainville, dryly.
She said no more, for she was much tired,
and the noise of the London streets confused
her. They had taken a suit of apartments in
one of the most public and fashionable "fami-
A BRAVE LADY.
123
ly" hotels it had a homeless, dreary splendor,
:ind she disliked it much. But her husband
considered no other abode suitable for Sir Ed-
ward and Lady de Bougainville ; which person-
ages, in a few days, they became, and received
the congratulations, not too disinterested, of all
the hotel servants, and even of the master him-
self, who had learned the circumstance, togeth-
er with almost fabulous reports of the wealth of
Sir Edward in his own county.
Nevertheless, even the most important pro-
vincial magnate is a very small person in Lon-
don. Beyond the deputation which accompa-
nied him, Sir Edward had no visitors at all.
He knew nobody, and nobody knew him ; that
is, nobody of any consequence. One or two
of the Summerhayes set hunted him out, but
he turned a cold shoulder to them ; they were
not reputable acquaintances now. And as for
his other circle of ancient allies, though it was
the season of the May meetings, and he might
easily have found them out, he was so terribly
afraid of reviving any memories of the poor
Irish curate, and of identifying himself again
with the party to which he had formerly be-
longed, that he got out of their way as much
as possible. Hoiiores mutant mores, it is said ;
they certainly change opinions. That very pe-
culiarity of the Low Church at least of its best
and sincerest members which makes them take
up and associate with any one, rich or poor,
patrician or plebeian, who shares their opinions
this noble characteristic, which has resulted
in so much practical good, and earned for them
worthily their name of Evangelicals, was, in his
changed circumstances, the very last thing pal-
atable to the Reverend Sir Edward de Bougain-
ville.
So he ignored them all, and the " Reverend"
too, as mu?!h as he could ; and turned his whole
aspirations to politics and the Earl of Turber-
ville to whom, haunting as he did the lobby
of the House of Commons, he was at last in-
troduced, and from whom he obtained various
slight condescensions, of which he boasted
much.
But tlie Countess never called ; and day by
day the hope of the De Bougainvilles being in-
troduced into high society through her means
melted into thin air. Long, weary mornings
in the hotel drawing-rooi^, thrown entirely
upon each other, as they had not been for
years ; dull afternoon drives side by side round
Hyde Park ; dinner spun out to the utmost limit
of possible time, and then perhaps a theatre or
opera for Sir Edward had no objection to such
mundane dissipations now these made up the
round of the days. But still he refused to leave
London, or "bury himself," as he expressed it,
at Oldham Court, and thought it very hard that
his wife should expect it. One of the painful
things to her in this London visit was the in-
diflference her husband showed to her society,
and his eagerness to escape from it ; which fact
is not difficult to understand. I, who knew her
only in her old age, can guess well enough how
the small soul must have been encumbered,
shamed, and oppressed even to irritation by the
greater one. Many a woman has been blamed
for being " too good" for a bad husband too
pure, too sternly righteous ; but I for one am
inclined to tliink these allegations come from
the meaner half of the world. Lady de Bou-
gainville had a very high standard of moral
right, an intense pity for those who fell from it,
but an utter contempt for those who pretended
to it without practicing it. And to such she
was probably as obnoxious as Abdiel to Luci-
fer. And so she became shortly to a set of peo-
ple who, failing better society, gathered round
her husband, cultivating him in coffee-rooms
and theatres : new friends, new flatterers, and
those "old acquaintance" who always revive,
like frozen snakes, in the summer of prosperity,
and begin winding about the unfortunate man
of property with that oily affection which cynics
have well termed " the gratitude for favors
about to be received." These Lady de Bou-
gainville saw through at once ; they felt that
she did, and hated her accordingly. But have
we not sacred warrant for the consolation that
it is sometimes rather a good thing to be hated
by some people ?
Longing, nay, thirsting for home, Josephine
implored her husband to take her back thither;
and he consented, not for this reason, but be-
cause their weekly expenses were so large as to
frighten him ; for it was a curious thing, and
yet not contrary to human nature, that as he
grew rich he grew miserly. The money which,
when he had it not, he would have spent like
water, now, when he had it, he often grudged,
especially in small expenditures and in outlays
for the sake of other people. His "stingy"
wife was, strange to say, now becoming much
more extravagant than he.
"Yes, we'll go home, or I shall be ruined.
People are all rogues and thieves, and the rich-
er they believe a man to be the more they plun-
der him." And he would have departed tlie
very next day but for an unexpected hindrance.
Lady Turberville actually called ! that is,
they found her card lying on the tableland with
it an invitation to a large assembly which she
was in the habit of giving once in the season ;
thereby paying off her own social and her hus-
band's political debts. It was a fortnight dis-
tant, and Josephine would fain have declined,
but her husband looked horrified.
"Refuse! Refuse the Countess! What can
you be thinking of? Why, hers is just the set
in which we ought to move, where I am sure
to be properly appreciated. You too, my dear,
when people find out that you come of good
family if you would only get over your coun-
try ways, and learn to shine in society."
Josephine smiled, and there came again to
her lips the bitter warning, which she knew was
safe not to be comprehended, "Let sleeping
dogs lie!" For lately, thrust against her will
into this busy, brilliant, strong, intellectual life
such as every body must see more or less in
124
A BEAVE LADY.
London there liad arisen in her a dim, dor-
mant sense of what she was a woman with
eyes to see, brains to judge, and a heart to com-
jn-ehend it. Also, what she might have been,
and how much she might have done, both of
lierself and by means of her large fortune, if
she had been unmarried, or married to a differ-
ent sort of man. She felt dawning sometimes
.1 wild, womanly ambition, or rather the fore-
shadowing of what, under other circumstances,
that ambition might have been as passionate,
as tender, as that which she thought she per-
ceived one night in the eyes of a great states-
man's wife listening to her husband speaking in
the House of Commons. Even as she, Jose-
phine de Bougainville, could have listened, she
knew, had Heaven sent her such a man.
But these were wild, wicked thoughts. She
pressed them down, and turned her attention
to other things, especially to the new fashion-
able costume in which her husband insisted she
was to commence " shining in society."
When, on the momentous night, Sir Edward
handed his wife, rather ostentatiously, through
the knot of idlers in the hotel lobby, he declared
with truth that she looked " beautiful. " So she
did, with the beauty which is independent of
mere youth. She had made the best of her
beauty, too, as, when nigh upon forty, every
woman is bound to take extra pains in doing.
In defiance of the court milliner, she had in-
sisted upon veiling her faded neck and arms
with rich lace, and giving stateliness to her tall
thin figure by sweeping folds of black velvet.
Also, instead of foolish artificial flowers in her
gray hair, she wore a sort of head-dress, simple
yet regal, which made her look, as her maid
declared, '* like a picture." She did not try to
be young ; but she could not help being beau-
tiful.
Enchanted with her appearance, her husband
called her exuberantly "his jewel;" which no
doubt she was ; only he had no wish, like the
tender Scotch lover, to " wear her in his bosom"
he would much have preferred to plant her
in his cap-front, in a gorgeous setting, for all
the worM to gaze at. Her value to him was
not in herself, but what she appeared to other
people.
Therefore, when he saw her contrasted with
the brilliant crowd which straggled up the stair-
case of Turberville House, his enthusiastic ad-
miration of her a little cooled down.
" How dark you look in that black gown !
There's something not right about you, not like
these other ladies. I see what it is ; you dress
yourself in far too old-fashioned and too plain
a way. Very provoking ! when I wanted you
to appear your best before her ladyship."
"She will never see me in this crowd," was
all Josephine answered, or had time to answer,
being drifted apart from her husband, who dart-
ed after a face he thought he knew.
In the pause, while, half amused, half be-
wildered, she looked on at this her first speci-
men of whafSir Edward called " society," Lady
de Bougainville heard accidentally a few com-
ments on Sir Edward from two young men, who
apparently recognized him, but, naturally, not
her.
" That man is a fool a perfect fool. And
such a conceited fool too! you should hear
him in the lobby of the House, chattering about
his friend the Earl, to whom he thinks him-
self of such importance. Who is he do you
know ?"
"Oh, a country squire, just knighted. Not
a bad fellow. Lord Cosmo says, very rich, and
with such a charming wife! Might do well
enough among his familiar turnips but here ?
Why will he make himself such an ass !"
To be half conscious of a truth one's self, and
to hear it broadly stated by other people, are
two very different things. Josephine shrank
back, feeling for the moment as if whipped with
nettles ; till she remembered they were only
nettles, not swords. No moral delinquency had
been cast up against her husband ; and for the
rest, what did it matter? she knew it all be-
fore : and, in spite of her fine French sense of
comme il faut, and her pure high breeding, she
had learned to put up with it. She could do so
still.
Pushing with difficulty through the throng,
she rejoined Sir Edward. " Keep close to me,"
she said. "Don't leave me again, pray."
"Very well, my dear ; but Ah ! there are
two friends of mine!" And in his impulsive
way he introduced to her at once the very young
men who had been speaking of him.
Lady de Bougainville bowed, looking them
both right in the face with those stern unflinch-
ing eyes of hers ; and, young men of fashion as
they were, they both blushed scarlet. Then,
putting her arm through her husband's, she
walked deliberately on, carrying her head very
erect, to the select circle where, glittering un-
der a blaze of ancestral diamonds, and scarcely
recognizable as the old lady who had traveled
in such quiet, almost shabby simplicity, stood
the little, brown, withered, but still courtly and
dignified Countess of Turberville.
"Stop," whispered Sir Edward, in unwonted
timidity. "It is so very very awkward. I
do hope her ladyship has forgotten. Must I
apologize ? What in the world am I to say to
her? Josephine, do stop one minute."
Josephine obeyed.
And here let me too pause, lest I might be
misconstrued in the picture which I draw I
own in not too flattering colors of Sir Edward
de Bougainville.
It was not his low origin, not the shadow
of the Scanlan porter-bottles, which made him
what he was. I have known gentlemen whose
fathers were plowmen nay, the truest gen-
tleman I ever knew was the son of a working
mechanic. And I have seen boors who had
titles, and who, in spite of the noble lineage of
centuries, were boors still. What made this
man vulgar was the innate coarseness of his
nature, lacquered over with superficial refine-
A BRAVE LADY.
125
merit. He was, in fact, that which, in all ranks
of life, is the very opposite of a gentleman a
sham. I do not love him, but I will not be
unfair to him ; and if I hold him up to con-
tempt, I wish it clearly to be understood what
are the things I despise him for.
Did his wife despise him ? How can one
tell? We often meet men and their wives,
concerning whom we ask of ourselves the same
question, and wonder how they ever came to be
united; yet the wives move in society with
smiling countenances, and perform unshrink-
ingly their various duties, as Lady de Bougain-
ville performed hers.
"Shall we go on now?" she said, and led
her husband forward to the dreadful ordeal.
But it passed over quite harmlessly rather
worse than harmlessly ; for the Countess mere-
ly bowed, smiling upon them as upon all her
other guests, and apparently scarcely recogniz-
ing them, in that dense, ever-moving throng.
They went on with it, and never saw their
hostess again all the evening. The sole re-
ward they gained for three hours of pushing
and scrambling, heated rooms and an infinites-
imal quantity of refreshment, was the pleasure
of seeing their names in the paper next day
among the Countess of Turberville's four hun-
dred invited guests.
This was Lady de Bougainville's first and
last experience of "shining in society" that
is, London society, which alone Sir Edward
thought worth every thing. He paid for it
with several days of illness, brought on by the
heat and excitement, and perhaps the disap-
pointment too, though to the latter he never
owned. After that he was glad enough to go
home.
Oh, how Josephine's heart leaped when she
saw, nestling among the green hills, the gray
outline of Oldham Court ! She had, more than
any one I ever knew, the quality of adhesive-
ness, not only to persons but places. She had
loved Wren's Nest, though her husband's in-
cessant schemes for quitting it, and her own
constant terror for the future, made her never
feel settled there ; but Oldham Court, besides
being her ideal of a house to live in, was her
own house, her home, from which fate now
seemed powerless to uproot her. She clung to
it, as, had. she been one of those happy wives
who carry their home about \ytlh them, she
never might have clung; but things being as
they were, it was well she did do so well that
she could accept what she had, and rejoice in
it, without craving for the impossible.
After their return she had a wonderfully
quiet and happy summer. Her children came
about her, from school and college, enjoying
their holidays the more for the hard work be-
tween. And her husband found something to
do, something to amuse himself with ; he was
appointed a magistrate for the county, and de-
voted himself, with Wl his Irish eagerness after
novelty, to the administi-ation of justice upon
all offenders. Being not only a magistrate but
a clergyman, he considered himself bound to
lay on the moral whip as heavily as possible,
until his wife, who had long lost with him the
title of "Themis," sometimes found it necessa-
ry to go after him, not as Justice, but as Mercy,
binding up the wounds he made.
"You see," he said, "in my position, and
with the morality of the whole district in my
keeping, I must be severe. I must pass over
nothing, or people will think I am lax myself.'*
And many was the poor fellow he committed
to the county jail for having unfortunately a
fish in his hat or a young leveret in his pocket;
many was the case of petty larceny that he dealt
with according to the utmost rigor of fhe Taw.
It was his chief amusement, this rigid exercise
of authority, and he really enjoyed it exceed-
ingly.
Happily, it served to take off his attention
from his three sons, who were coming to that
age when to press the yoke of paternal rule too
tightly upon young growing shoulders is some-
times rather dangerous. All the boys, Cesar
especially, instinctively gave their father as wide
a berth as possible. Not that he ignored them
as he once used to do ; on the contrary, to stran-
gers he was rather fond of talking about "my
eldest son at Oxford," and "my two boys who
are just going to Rugby." But inside the house
he interfered little with them, and had no more
of their company than was inevitable.
With their mother it was quite different.
Now, as heretofore, she was all in all to them,
and they to her. Walking, riding, or driving
together, they had her quite to themselves : en-
joying with her the new-found luxuries of their
life.
"Mamma, how beautiful you look in that
nice gown ! the very picture of a Lady de
Bougainville!" they would say, in their fond
boyish admiration. And she, when she watched
them ride out on their pretty ponies, and was
able to give them dogs and guns, and every
thing that boys delight in, exulted in the for-
tunate wealth, and blessed Mr. Oldham in her
heart.
In truth, under this strong maternal influence,
and almost wholly maternal guidance, her sons
were growing up every thing that she desired to
see them. Making all allowance for the ten-
der exaggerations of memory I believe, even
from Bridget's account, that the young De Bou-
gainvilles must have been very good boys hon-
est, candid, generous, affectionate ; the comfort
and pride of their happy mother during this first
year of prosperity.
Even after she had dispatched them, each by
turn, to school and, college, she was not sad.
She had only sent them away to do their fitting
work in the world, and she knew they would do
it well. She trusted them, young as they were,
and oh ! the blessing of trust ! almost greater
than that of love. And she had plenty of love,
too, daily surrounding her, both from the boys
away and the three girls at home. With one or
other of her six children her time and thoughts
126
A BRAVE LADY.
LADY DE UODGAINYILLB AND TUE COUNTESS.
were incessantly occupied. Mothers, real mo-
thers, be they rich or poor, have seldom leisure
either to grow morbid or to grieve.
Of all the many portraits extant of her, per-
haps the one I like the best is a daguerreotype
by Claudet, taken during this bright year. It
is not a flattered likeness, of course the gray
hairs and wrinkles are plain to be seen but it
has a sweetness, a composed, placid content,
greater than any other of the various portraits
of Lady de Bougainville.
It came home from London, she once told
me, on a very momentous day, so much so that
it was put aside, locked up, and never looked
at for months and years.
Some hours before, she had parted from her
eldest boy, who was returning to Oxford, sorry
to leave his mother and his" home, but yet glad
to be at work again. She had seen him off,
driving his father, who had to take his place
for the first time on the bench of magistrates,
to the county town, and now she sat thinking
of her son how exactly he looked the charac-
ter of "the young heir," and how excessively
like he was to her own father outwardly and
inwardly every inch a De Bougainville. He
seemed to grow up day by day in her sight, as
Wordsworth's Young Romilly in that of his mo-
ther, "a delightful tree"
"And proudly did his branches wave."
She felt that under their shadow she might yet
rejoice, and have in her declining age many
blessed days. Days as calm and lovely as this
October afternoon ; when the hills lay quiet,
transfigured in golden light, and the old gray
house itself shone with a beauty as sweet and
yet solemn as that of an old woman's face ; the
face that sometimes, when she looked in the
glass, she tried to fancy, wondering how her
sons would look at it some of these days. Only
her sons. For the world outside, and its com-
ments upon her, Josephine, from first to last,
never cared two straws.
Yet she was not unsocial, and sometimes,
both for herself and her children's sake, would
have preferred a less lonely life than they had
at Oldham Court would have liked occasion-
ally to mix with persons of her own sphere and
on the level of her own cultivation. Now her
only friends were the poor people of the neigh-
borhood, among whom she went about a good
A BRAVE LADY.
127
deal, and who looked up to her as to the Lady
Bountiful of the whole country-side.
But that day she had enjoyed some pleasure
in a long talk with the last person she expected
to see or to fraternize with Lady Turberville.
They had met at the cottage of an old woman,
to whom Josephine had been very kind. The
Countess also ; only, as she herself owned, her
charities were necessarily limited. "You are
a much richer woman than I," she had said,
with a proud frankness, as she stood tucking
up her gown-skirt to walk back the three miles
to the Hall, and eyed with good-natured, but
half- satirical glance. Lady de Bougainville's
splendid carriage, which had just drawn up to
the cottage-door.
Josephine explained that she had intended
to take the paralytic old woman a drive.
" But, since it rains so fast, if Lady Turber-
ville would "
" If she would give you the chance of being
kind to one old woman instead of another?
Well, as I am rheumatic, and neighborly kind-
ness is pleasant, will you drive me home ?"
" Gladly," said Lady de Bougainville. And
they became quite friendly before they reached
the Halh
Altogether the strong shrewd simplicity of
the old Countess she was about sixty-five,
but looked older, from her worn face and plain,
almost common style of dress had refreshed
and amused Josephine very much. While
heartily despising the doctrine, that it is ad-
visable to pull one's self up in the world by
hanging on to the skirts of great people, she
yet had acuteness enough to see that, both for
one's self and one's children, it is well to cul-
tivate good, suitable, and pleasant society ; ,not
to hide one's head in a hole, but to see a little
of the world, and choose out of it those friends
or acquaintance from whom we can get, or to
whom we can give, the best, the most symjiiUhy
and companionship.
"My girls have no friends at all now,"thought
she, " and they will want some. Adrienne must
come out this winter; poor little Adrienne!"
And she sighed, reflecting that in their present
limited circle Miss de Bougainville's "coming
out," would be in a very moderate form in-
deed. "Still she must in time get to know a
few people, and she ought to learn to make
friends, as Lady Turberville said. If Lady
Susan and Lady Emily are like their mother,
they might be good companions for my poor
Adrienne!"
And then the mother's mind wandered off
in all sorts of directions, as mothers' minds and
hearts always do : to Ce'sar on his journey to
Oxford ; to Louis and Martin at school ; and
back again to her little girls at home. Catherine
was still " the baby," and treated as such ; but
Gabrielle at thirteen looked nearly as womanly
as Adrienne. And Gabrielle would certainly
grow up beautiful how beautiful, with her
coquettish and impulsive temperament, the mo-
ther was almost afraid to think. Still she was
secretly very proud of her, as she was of all her
children.
She sat a long time thinking of them all,
and watching the sun disappear behind the
hills, setting in glory upon what seemed to
have been the loveliest day of the whole season,
and the most enjoyable.
Alas ! it was her last day of enjoyment, her
last day of peace. .
CHAPTER XVL
Sir Edward did not come home till very
late that evening, at which his wife was not
surprised; he had said that his duties would
keep him late, and that he should very likely
dine with his brother magistrates afterward.
She concluded he had done so ; but when she
asked him, he said abruptly. No.
" Food ! give me some food. And wine too,
for I am quite exhausted. You seem as if you
took a pleasure in starving me."
Josephine looked up astonished, so irritable
was his tone, so wild and worried his look.
"Something has happened. What is it?
Is Cesar"
"You always think of Cesar first, never of
me. Yes, he is all right : he staid with me
and saw me off before his own train started."
"And you Edward, is there any thing
wrong with you ?" asked she, taking his hand
in a sort of remorse. But he flung hers off.
"Did I say there was any thing wrong?
Why do you look at me so ? There is nothing
the matter with me.'"
But there was ; and by-and-by she discov-
ered it. A thing which at first he made light
of, as of no importance whatever to a gentleman
in his position, but which, when little by little she
learned its whole bearing, and saw with fright-
fully clear eyes its possible results, was to Jose-
phine one of those sudden blows which seem oft-
en to come upon us poor mortals like thunder-
bolts, when the air is most still, and there had
seemed an hour ago not a cloud in the sky.
Be sure, soon or late, a man's sin will find
him out. He, and others for him, may sedu-
lously hide it a while; it may appear safely
buried, so that no evil consequences can possi-
bly ensue. But, by-and-by, a bird of the air
carries the matter, and in one form or another
retribution comes.
By some means how was never discovered,
for Josephine thought she had taken all precau-
tions against such a fatality that " little bird '
began to whisper abroad, not as a public accu-
sation but as a tale of private scandal, how the
Reverend Edward Scanlan had willfully falsi-
fied the accounts of the new school at Ditchley,
and used for his own benefit the money which
had been intrusted to him. And though the
charity had suffered no loss, the defalcations
being by some ingenious method or other dis-
covered and replaced in time, still the fact re-
mained ; and those people who are always ready
128
A BRAVE LADY.
to envy a man his sudden prosperity bruited it
about from mouth to mouth, till it became the
talk of the county.
Curiously enough, the scandal had been a
good while in reaching its victims. Sir Ed-
ward was not a sensitive man, quick to discover
any slight indications of coolness toward him-
self; and, besides, the report had lain smoul-
dering in Ditchley town, where he never went,
for weeks before it reached the ears of the
country gentlemen, who were mostly stanch old
Tories, too proud to listen to the gossip of the
lower classes. But having once heard it, and,
so far as they could, verified it, they resented in
a body this intrusion upon their order, and es-
pecially upon the magisterial bench, of a man
whom only a lucky chance had saved from the
disgrace of a public prosecution. He was in
no danger of this now, but as far as honorable
repute went, his character was gone.
"Only think, Josephine," said he, piteously,
when he had confessed all to his wife, " all my
neighbors gave me the cold shoulder ; and one
or two of them actually hinted the reason why.
Such a fuss about nothing! You paid the
money back, did you not ?"
"Yes."
" Then what did it matter? These English
people make money their god. Even Lord
Turberville, who I thought would protect me
lie had only just come home, and heard nothing
of this unfortunate report till to-day his lord-
siiip took no notice of me on the bench, and
said to Langhorne, that he thought the wisest
thing I could do would be to send in my resig-
nation immediately."
"I think so too," said, with white lips, Jo-
sephine de Bougainville.
It was no use weeping or complaining. The
miserable man before her needed all her sup-
port all her pity. Under the blow which had
fallen upon him he sank, as usual, utterly crush-
ed and weak weaker than any woman. Such
men always are.
" They will hunt me down like a hare, these
accursed country squires," moaned he. "I
shall never be able to hold up my head in the
county again. And just when I was getting on
so well, and the Turbervilles were come home ;
and they might have taken us by the hand and
helped us into society. It's very hard !"
"It is hard," said Josephine, beneath her
breath ; and as she looked round the cheerful
drawing-room, so handsome yet so home-like,
her whole external possessions, her money, her
title, her name, seemed to become valueless.
She would have given them all to secure to her
children that blessing which, though, thank God,
many families have struggled on without it, is
yet the safest strong-hold and dearest pride of any
family a father's unstained, honorable name.
" But what are we to do, Josephine ? Tell
me, what are we to do ?"
She turned and saw him crouched all but
kneeling at her feet the man who was tied to
her for life ; who, with all his faults, was not a
deliberate villain; and who now, as was his
wont, in his distress took refuge with her, and
her alone. For a moment she shrank from
him an expression of pain, unutterable pain
perhaps something worse than pain passed over
her face, and then she feebly smiled.
"I can not answer you at once. Give me
time to think."
" Very well. Only, Josephine, do remember
what your poor husband has suffered this day.
For God's sake, do not you be unkind to me!"
" No, I will not. It is for God's sake," she
repeated to herself, with a deep meaning; al-
most as deep and earnest as a prayer.
During her many hours of solitary musings
more numerous now than ever in her life
Josephine had learned much. That burning
sense of wrong wrong done to herself and her
children by their father, had in some measure
died out ; she looked upon him sorrowfully, as
being chiefly his own enemy : she could protect
both them and herself from him now. And in
another way her mind had changed ; she begun
dimly to guess at the solemn truth, without which
all life becomes a confused haze that what we
do for people is not for themselves, or for our-
selves, but for something higher. Thus, it was
for God's sake, not for his own, she resolved to
hold fast to her husband.
"Edward," she said, "indeed I never mean
to be unkind to you ; but this is a terrible grief
to me. To be sure, the thing is not much worse
known than unknown, except so far as it affects
the children. Had Cesar any idea of it, do
you think ?"
" Yes no. Well, yes ; I told him some-
thing of it," stammered Sir Edward. "I had
nobody else to speak to, and he saw how bro-
ken-down and upset I was. Poor fellow! he
insisted on seeing me safe off home before he
started himself for Oxford. I must say Cesar
behaved very well to me to-day."
" My good boy !" muttered the mother ; and
then with a thrill of maternal suffering at how
he might suffer " Oh, my poor Cesar!"
" Cesar always Cesar ! Can't you for one
moment think of me?"
Ay, that was the key to this man's life. He
had never thought but of himself, and himself
alone. Such a one and oh, what hundreds
there are like him! ought never to be either
husband or father.
Josephine turned grave, reproachful eyes
upon him the dead weight who had dragged
her doWn all her days. It always had been
so appirently it was to be so to the end.
" Edward, consider a little, and you will find
I do think of you ; but there is plenty of time.
We have no need to do any thing in haste if
indeed," with a sigh, "any thing remains to be
done."
And there came helplessly the thought upon
her of how little could be done. A lie she
could have fought against; but there was no
fighting against the truth. In a gentle way
she said as nmch.
A BRAVE LADY.
129
" True or not, Josephine, I'll not bear it. Am
I, with all my Irish talent, to be a by-word among
those clodhopping English squires ? They hate
me because I am Irish. I always knew that.
But I'll soon teach them difterently. I, with
my wealth, could take a position wherever I
pleased. We'll leave this place immediate-
ly."
"Leave this place?"
"And I shall be only too glad of the oppor-
tunity to quit this horrid old house ; you know
I always disliked it. We can't sell it, more's
the pity! but we could easily let it, and we
will."
*'We will not," said Josephine, roused to
desperation.
" But I say we will, and I am master here !"
cried Sir Edward, violently. "I have been
planning it the whole way home," added he,
more pacifically, as he saw that his wrath had
not the slightest effect upon his wife. It only
tightened the shut lips, and gave an added
paleness to the steady, firm features. "We
can give out that your health requires us to
winter abroad, and go quietly away in a week
or two. Once gone, we need never come
back any more."
"Never come back any more? When I
loved the place so; when I had settled down
here for life, and was so happy! so happy!
Husband, you are very cmel to me! And
Heaven is cruel too. My troubles are more
than I can bear."
She sat down, wringing her hands. A kind
of^espair came over her the sudden reaction
which we often feel when trouble follows a lull
of peace as sharp as the first chill of returning
winter. But we get accustomed to it presently.
So did she.
Against this scheme of her husband's-^ very
natural to him, for his first thought in any dif-
ficulty was to run away Lady de Bougainville
at first rebelled with all her might. She refused
point-blank to quit her home though she were
ignored by the whole county, and though the
arrows of evil tongues were to fly around her
head as thick as hail.
" I am not afraid ; I have done nothing," she
said, haughtily. "No possible blame can at-
tach to the children or me. And, even with
regard to what has been, siruje nobody was
really injured and it will never happen again,
would it not be possiUe t^ remain and live it
down?" /
So reasoned she with Mr. Langhorne/ who
was the only person whom in her extremity she
took counsel of: confessed the whole thing, and
asked him what he thought would be the wisest
course.
"For my children's sake my children, you
see," pleaded the poor mother. Of herself she
cared nothing ; would gladly have hidden her
head any where in merciful obscurity: " Had
I not better stay li^re and brave it out ? No-
body could bring up the tale so as to harm the
children."
Mr. Langhorne hesitated. He knew the
world better than she did. Still, she was so
bent upon remaining that she resisted him as
much as she did her husband, who, cowed by
her determined will, assumed the air of a much-
injured and most patient man, told her to "have
it all her own way , he should never say anoth-
er word on the subject."
But he did though : reverting to it day after
day with the worrying persistency of a weak soul
that tries by every underhand means to shake a
stronger one. Alas! only too often succeed-
ing.
For a few weeks Lady de Bougainville bore
all her misery at home, all her slights abroad
some imaginary, perhaps, but others real
enough. For the taint of " something dishon-
orable" attached to a family especially in a
thinly-populated country district, ignorant of
the tricks of trade, great or small, which are
practiced in larger communities is a thing not
easily removed. Long after its exact circum-
stances are forgotten the vague stigma remains.
In proportion to his former popularity, his old
parishioners, and indeed the whele county, now
viewed with extreme severity the Reverend Sir
Edward de Bougainville.
Several times Josephine drove purposely to
Ditchley, showing her ^ face to the world at
large, and calling upon the people she knew ;
but they were all rather cold to her, and some
barely civil. Lady Turberville, whom she one
day accidentally met, though not uncourteous
for the old lady stopped to speak to her, and
had a tone of sympathy in her voice still made
not the slightest inquiry after Sir Edward, and
gave no hint of the proposed visit of the Ladies
Susan and Emily to Oldham Court. In short,
that slight, untangible coolness, that " sending
to Coventry," which in a provincial neighbor-
hood is, socially, the ruin of any family, had
obviously befallen the De Bougainvilles. Once
begun, these things always increase rather than
diminish ; and however she might shut her
eyes to it, Josephine could not help seeing be-
fore her and hers a future of splendid loneliness,
duller and drearier even than poverty.
Then, too, an uncomfortable change, phys-
ical and mental, came over her husband. The
shock of his sudden fortunes had thrown him
into a rather excited condition. He had been
tgp-heavy with prosperity, so to speak, and
against this sudden bleak wind of adversity he
could not fight at all. He fell into a low way,
refused to do any thing or go any where, and
sat all day long shivering over the fire, bemoaning
his hard lot, and complaining that the world was
all against him, as it had been from his youth
up. He could not bear his wife out of his
sight, yet when she was in it he was always
scolding her, saying. she was killing him by
inches in keeping him at Oldham Court.
" Can it be really so ? What is the matter
with him ?" she asked of Dr. Waters, whom she
had at last secretly summoned for Sir Edward
refused all medical advice, saying that the sight
130
A BRAVE LADY.
of a doctor was as good, or as bad, as a death-
warrant.
Dr. Waters made no immediate reply. Per-
haps he really had none to give. That mys-
terious disease called softening of the brain,
which seems to attack the weakest and the
strongest brains letting the lucky mediocre
ones go free was then unnamed in medical
science ; yet I think, by all accounts, its earli-
est symptoms must even then have been devel-
oping in Josephine's husband. She knew it
not nobody knew it : but its results were pain-
ful enough, throwing a cloud of gloom over the
whole family. And upon this state of things
the younger boys planning their first Christ-
mas at Oldham Court, yule-logs and guisards,
according to the merry Christmas-keeping of
all the wealthy families in the county came
ignorantly home. Cesar too but Ce'sar was
not ignorant, though in all his letters he had
never yet said a word of what he knew. He
only held his mother's hand sometimes, and fol-
lowed her tenderly about the house, and made
things as easy for her as he could : but he
seemed to think it was his nature and had
been his grandfather's too, she remembered
that the easiest thing was silence.
" Perhaps, after all," said Dr. Waters, on his
second visit, "it would be better to go."
"To leave home, you mean, as my husband
wishes for a time ?"
" Yes, for a time," repeated the doctor, with
his eyes cast down. " Long or short, as may
be advisable. Change of scene, without de-
lay, is, I think, very necessary for Sir Edward.
And for the boys they have but a dull life
here. You will return in triumph," added he,
cheerfully, "in time to have an ox roasted
whole, and all sorts of rejoicings when Cesar
comes of age."
Lady de Bougainville turned sharply away.
How all her delights had crumbled down to
dust and ashes I Alas, to what sort of an in-
heritance would he come, her handsome young
heir? And who would stand up and wish him
the heir's best benediction, that he might tread
in his father's footsteps all his days ?
Nevertheless, she could but follow where fate
led, and do the best that seemed possible for
the time being. So standing at her favorite
oriel window, looking down the straight ever-
green alleys of her beloved garden, where tjje
holly berries shone scarlet in the winter sun,
and the arbutus-trees were glittering under the
first white dust of snow, she made up her mind
to leave Oldham Court ; to slip the dear, safe
anchor of home, and go drifting about upon the
wide world.
Some may count this a very small thing a
very infinitesimal sacrifice ; but I know better.
However, it was made ; and having once put
her hand to the plow she never looked back,
but drove it straight through her pleasant flow-
ers with a firm remorseless hand.
Of course, her husband was delighted. She
had come to her senses at last, and he congrat-
ulated her accordingly. He laid plan after
plan of what he should like best to do, what
would amuse him most ; and at last thought,
considering it was winter time, and rather too
early for the London season, it would be well
to adopt a suggestion which somebody or other
threw out, and take a tour through the cathe-
dral towns of England.
"You see, this will be particularly suitable
for me in my character of a clergyman." For
since politics and the Earl of Turberville had
lost their charm he went back upon that, and
became once more stricter than ever in his re-
ligious observances.
Josephine cared little where she went. So,
mostly by chance, the thing was decided. They
were to begin with Canterbury.
"But you don't want to take the children
with us, my dear?" said Sir Edward, queru-
lously. "I shall have no pleasure at all if I am
bothered with a lot of children at my heels."
So Josephine gave this up too.
Her last few days at Oldham Court appeared,
she herself once told me, to have fled exactly
like a dream. The whole thing was done sud-
denly leaving the children behind in charge
of the good governess and Bridget. She in-
tended to come back and shut up the house,
for she obstinately refused to let it; but still,
when the carriage slowly ascended the hUly
road, and she looked down on the gray gat)les-.
nestling in sunshine in the valley below, she
had a fatal foreboding that she should nevc'v
see Oldham Court again. She never did.
I do not mean to make any pathetic sc^ne
out of all this. Many persons might say that
all Lady de Bougainville's regrets on the sub-
ject were mere morbid imagination, when she
had so many tangible blessings left her to enjoy.
It might be, and yet I pity her, and can under-
stand how she fell into a kind of dull despond-
ency, very unusual for her, which lasted for
several days.
Out of it she was roused by a chance inci-
dent ; one of those small things which are often
the pivot upon which much greater things turn.
Wandering round Canterbury cathedral aim-
lessly enough for Sir Edward took little inter-
est in ecclesiastical architecture, and was much
more interested in finding out where the Dean-
ery was, and whether he ought not to call upon
the Dean, whom he had once met, and who
would probably ask them to dinner Lady de
Bougainville came upon thq queer old door
leading to that portion of the crypt which, ever
since the Vevocation of the Edict of Nantes
indeed, I believe, earlier still has been as-
signed by law and custom to the use of the
French Protestants whose forefathers had taken
refuge in England. While asking a question
or two of the verger, she dimly recollected hav-
ing heard of the place before. Her father had
once " assisted" at a Sunday service there, and
described it to her. Keenly interested, she
tried to peer through the cracks in the door and
the spidery windows. Little was to be seen ;
A BRAVE LADY.
131
OLDHAM OOUET.
l)ut she managed to catch a few glimpses of the
interior, the low-arched ceiling, whitewashed
like the walls ; the plain, common wooden pews
and pulpit, whereon lay a book, torn and worm-
eaten a centuries-old French Huguenot Bible
for she could read the words " Saincte Ecri-
ture" on the open title-page.
A strange contrast it was, this poor, plain
pathetically plain little conventicle, to the
magnificent cathedral overhead, where she had
just been hearing service ; but it suited her
present state of mind exactly. Sickened of
wealth, feeling the hollowness of the sham
pomps about her, her heart seemed to spring
back like an overbent bow to the noble poverty
of her childish days, to the rigid uncompromis-
ing faith of her French forefathers.
*' Every Sunday they have service here, you
say?" she asked of the verger. "Edward,
shall we go to-morrow ? I should like it very
much."
"I dare say: you always do like common
and ungenteel places. No, I would not be seen
there upon any account."
" No matter," she thought, " I will go alone."
And next day, while her husband was taking a
long sleep, she sallied forth through the rainy
streets ; wrapping herself up in her cloak, and
trudging on, almost as Mrs. Scanlan used to
trudge, in days gone by. No fear, she thought,
of her being recognized as Lady de Bougain-
ville.
And yet, when she passed under the low
door of the crypt, entering side by side with
that small and rather queer-looking congrega-
tion, chiefly French artificers of various sorts,
with their wives and families, descendants of
the early emigres or later comers into the town,
who, but for this ancient institution of service
under the cathedral, would probably long ago
have forgotten their religion and race, and be-
come altogether amalgamated with the Inhab-
itants of Canterbury ; when she looked at them,
and heard in faint whispers that tongue of an-
other land, as they noticed the rare presence of
a stranger among them Josephine began to
feel strange stirrings in her heart.
It is curious, as we advance in middle life,
especially when there is a great gulf between
that life and our childish one, how sharp and
distinct the latter grows! For years, except
in her children's caressing chatter, Josephine
had scarcely heard the sound of her native
tongue that is, her ancestors' tongue, for, as I
said, she herself had been born after her parents
quitted France ; nor since childhood had she
been in any place of worship like that which
her father used to take her to a bare meeting-
house, rough as this, of which it strongly re-
minded her. When she sat down, it almost
seemed as if the old Vicomte sat beside her
with his gentle " Soi sage, ma petite Jille.'"
And when the minister, in his high French in-
tonation, a little "singsong" and long drawn
out, began to read: ''- L' Evangile selon Saint
Jean, chapitre premier. La Parole tait au com-
mencement : la Parole ^tait avec Dieu, et la Pa-
role tait Dieu'' old times came back upon her
so forcibly that it was with diflSculty she could
restrain her tears.
132
A BRAVE LADY.
What the congregation thought of her she I
knew not, cared not. Possibly, for many Sun-
days after, those simple people talked of and
looked for the strange lady who that Sunday
had worshiped with them whether French-
woman or Englishwoman they could not tell,
only that she had left in the alms-box several
bright English sovereigns, which helped on the
poor of the flock through a very hard winter.
She came and she went, speaking to nobody,
and nobody venturing to speak to her, but the
influence of those two hours effected in her
mind a complete revolution.
"I will go home,'' she said to herself, as she
walked back through Canterbury streets, still
in the pelting rain ; " home to my father's faith
and my father's people, if any of them yet re-
main. I will bring up my children not En-
glish but French ; after the noble old Huguenot
pattern, such as my father used to tell me of,
and such as he was himself. Mon pere, mon
p'erer
It was a dream, of course, springing out of
her entire ignorance ; as Utopian as many an-
other fancy which she had cherished, only to
see it melt away like a breaking wave ; still at
present it was forced so strongly upon her mind
that it gave her a gleam of new hope. Almost
as soon as she returned to the hotel, she pro-
posed to her husband, with feigned careless-
ness, for he now generally objected to any thing
which he saAV she had set her heart upon that
instead of continuing their tour in this gloomy
weather, they should at once send for the chil-
dren, cross the Channel, and spend the New
Year in Paris, le jour de Van being such a very
amusing time.
"Is it?" said Sir Edward, catching at the
notion. "And I want amusing so much ! Yes,
I think I should like to go. How soon could
we start?"
"I think, within a week."
She despised herself for humoring him ; for
leading him by means of his whims instead of
his reason to needful ends, but she was often
obliged to do both now. A curious kind of
artfulness, and childish irritability mingled with
senile obstinacy, often seized him ; when he
was very difficult to manage ; he who as a
young man had been so pleasant and good-
tempered, in truth a better temper than she.
But things were different now.
Ere her husband could change his mind,
which he was apt to do, and ere the novelty of
the fresh idea wore off", Lady de Bougainville
hastily made all her arrangements, left Oldham
Court in the hands of Mr. Langhorne ; sent for
her children and some of her servants, and al-
most before she recognized the fact herself, was
in the land of her forefathers, the very city
where more than one of the last generation
of them had expiated on the guillotine the
crime of having been noble, in the best sense
of the word, for centuries. As Josephine drove
through the streets in the chilly winter dusk,
she thought with a curious fancy of how her
father must have looked, wakened early one
morning, a poor crying child, to see the death-
cart, with his father in it, go by ; and again,
Avith a shudder, how her beautiful great-aunt
must have felt when the cold steel first touched
her neck. Ah ! but those were terrible times,
to be so near behind us as seventy years !
Paris, such as Lady de Bougainville then
saw it, and as long afterward she used to de-
scribe it to me, lingering with the loving garm-
lousness of age upon things, and places, and
people, all swept away into the gulf of the past
ancient Paris exists no more. Imperial " im-
provements," so-called, have swept away nearly
all its historical landmarks, and made it, what
probably its present ruler most desired it should
be made, a city without a history. When I
visited it myself, wishful as I was to retrace the
steps of our dear old friend, and tell her on our
return about these places she knew, we could
find almost none of them. Except the quaint
old Rue St. Honore, where in an hotel, half
French, half English, which Sir Edward took a
fancy to, she lived during her whole residence
there.
I know not if it were the stirring of the mer-
curial ancestral blood, or merely the bright,
clear, sunshiny atmosphere, but Lady de Bou-
gainville felt her heart lighter as soon as she
entered Paris. She was not one to mourn over
the inevitable ; Oldham Court was left behind,
but she had many pleasant things surrounding
her still. She went sight-seeing almost every
morning with her happy children, and of after-
noons she took her daily drive with Sir Ed-
ward, showing him every thing she could think
of to amuse him and he really was amused,
for the time. His health and spirits revived ;
he confessed Paris was a pleasant place to win-
ter in, or would be, as soon as they came to
know people, and to be known. With this end
in view he haunted Galignani's, and was on the
qui vive for all the English visitors to the hotel,
in case some of their names might be familiar
to him.
But in Paris, as in London, came the same
difficulty inevitable under the circumstances.
Socially, the De Bougainvilles had not yet risen
to the level of their mpney, "and beyond a cer-
tain point it helped them little. They were
almost as lonely, and as entirely without ac-
quaintances, in the Rue St. Honore as they had
been in St. James's Street. Vainly did Sir Ed-
ward harry his wife's memory for the name of
every noble family with whom her father had
had to do, hoping to hunt them out, and thrust
himself upon them. Vainly, too, did he urge
her to leave a card at the British Embassy, or
even at the Tuileries, for one De Bougainville
had been about fifty years ago a very faithful
friend to one of the Orleans family. But some-
thing was it pride or was it shame or per-
haps merely natural reticence? made Jose-
phine steadily and firmly decline these back-
stairs methods of getting into society.
Cesar, too, who was nearly grown up now,
A BRAVE LADY
had a great dislike to the thing. "Mamma,"
he would say, "if people do not seek us of
their own accord, and for ourselves, I had rath-
er have no friends or acquaintance at all. "VVe
can do very well without them."
" I think so too," said Lady de Bougainville.
But she did not perplex herself much about the
matter. She knew the lack was only tempo-
raiy. Every time she looked at her son, who to
his natural grace was daily adding that air of
manliness and gentlemanliness which the asso-
ciations of University life give to almost every
young fellow, more or less, she smiled to her-
self with perfect content. There was no fear
of her Cesar's not making friends every where
by-and-by.
He was her consolation for a good many
things which she found difficult to bear. Not
great things ; she had no heavy troubles now ;
but little vexations. It was sometimes very
trying to watch the slight shrugs or covert
smiles with which the civil Frenchmen he met
at tables d'hote, theatres, etc., commented si-
lently on the brusquerie or " bumptiousness" of
the rich milord Aiiglais, who was always assert-
ing his right to the best of every thing. For
in a foreign country, more patent than ever be-
comes the fact that, however his rank or wealth,
no thoroughly selfish man ever is, or even ap-
pears, a gentleman.
Rich as Sir Edward was, he found that when
one's only key to society is a golden one, it
takes a good while to fit it in. He was grow-
ing weary of the delay, and speculating whether
it would not be well to leave Paris, when the
magic " open sesame" to his heart's desire ar-
rived in a very unexpected way.
With a vague yearning after her father's
faith, dimly as she understood it, a restless seek-
ing after something upon which to stay her soul,
sickened with the religious hollowness amidst
which she had lived so long, Josephine went,
Sunday after Sunday, to the French Protestant
Chapel. Not that the preacher could teach
much few preachers can, to hearers like her-
self, whose sharp experience of life mocks all
dogmatizing as mere idle words ; it is God only
who can bring faith to a soul which has lost all
faith in man. But she liked to listen to the
mellifluous French of the good old minister
liked too the simplicity of the service, and the
evident earnestness of the congregation. An
earnestness quite different from that of the wor-
shipers she saw in Catholic churches, though
this was touching too. She often envied those
poor kneeling women praying even to a Saint
or a Holy Virgin in whom they could believe.
But these French Protestants seemed to wor-
ship God a.i she thought He would best desire
to be worshiped open-eyed, fearless-hearted,
even as their forefathers and hers had done, in
valleys and caves, persecuted and hunted to
death, yet never renouncing Him. The differ-
ence, so difficult to understand, between faith
and superstition, was there still. She often
fancied that in these nineteenth-century faces
133
she could still detect gleams of the old Hugue-
not spirit, with its strength, its courage, its un-
paralleled self-devotion. A spirit as different
from that of Catholic France as that of the Pu-
ritans and Covenanters was from that corrupt
Court of the Stuarts.
She was in a dream of this kind, such as she
fell into almost every Sunday when, looking
up, she saw among these stranger faces a face
she knew ; and as soon as service was over
she hurried after the person, who was Priscilla
Nunn.
"How came you here? Who would have
expected it ? My good Priscilla, I am so glad
to see you so very glad ! "
The woman courtesied, looking pleased, said
she had watched " my Lady" for several Sun-
days, but thought perhaps my Lady did not
care to notice her. That she had given up
business and gone back to her old profession,
and was now living as nurse and humble com-
panion with Lady Emma Lascelles.
"She is very ill, my Lady will never be
better. She often speaks of you. Shall I tell
her I saw you ?"
" No yes," hesitated Josephine, for she had
been a little wounded by Lady Emma's long
silence, which, however, this illness explained.
She stood perplexed, but still cordially holding
Priscilla by the hand, when she saw her hus-
band waiting for her in the carriage, and watch-
ing her with astonished suspicious eyes. Hast-
ily she gave her address, and joined him ; for she
well knew what vials of wrath would be poured
out upon her devoted head. As was really the
case, until Sir Edward discovered with whom
the obnoxious Priscilla was living.
" Lady Emma ! Then you must at once
call upon her. She may be of the greatest
service to you. She used to be so very fond
of you. Where is she residing ?"
Josephine had never asked ; but her pride or
reticence was rendered needless by Mr. Las-
celles's appearing the very next day to entreat
her to visit his wife,' who was longing to see her.
So, without more ado, Lady de Bougainville
put on her bonnet as rapidly as Mrs. Scanlan
used to do, and went alone, a. street's length,
to the quiet faubourg, where, surrounded by all
Parisian elegance and luxurj', the young creat-
ure, who had once come to Ditchley as a bride,
lay fading away. She had lost child after
child hopes rising only to be blighted ; and
now, far gone in consumption, was slipping
peacefully out of a world which upon her had
opened so brightly and closed so soon. Yet
she still took her usual warm human interest in
it, and was exceedingly glad to see again Lady
de Bougainville.
"An old friend in a new face," she said,
smiling; " but nothing would ever much alter
you. I am glad my cousin left you all his
money; nobody else wanted it, and you can
make good use of it, and enjoy it too. You
have your children." And poor Lady Emma
burst into tears.
134
A BRAVE LADY.
After this the two women renewed all their
former intimacy; and as Mr. Lascelles knew
every body, and surrounded his wife with as
many pleasant people as he could think of, to
amuse her, it so happened that this mere
chance, occurring through such an humble me-
dium as Priscilla Nunn, furnished the means
by which the De Bougainvilles entered into
Parisian society. Really good society, such as
even Sir Edward approved ; for it included
people iof higher rank than, in his wildest am-
bition, he had ever expected to mix with.
The Court, then resident at Paris, must have
been, so long as it lasted, one of the best and
purest Courts which France has ever known.
Whatever its political mistakes or misfortunes,
domestically it . was without alloy. No one
could enter the household circle of the citizen-
king without admiring and loving it. High-
toned, yet simple; fond of art and literature,
yet rating moral worth above both these ; com-
bining the old aristocratic grace with the liber-
alism of the time, and assigning to rank, wealth,
talent, each its fitting place and due honor
though many years have elapsed since its dis-
persion and downfall, all those now living who
knew it speak tenderly of the Court of Louis
Philippe.
Lady de Bougainville did, to her very last
hour. Whether she " shone" therein, I can
not tell she never said so ; but she keenly
enjoyed it. More, certainly, than her husband,
who, after his first flush of delight, found him-
self a little out of his element there. He could
not understand the perfect simplicity of those
great people, who could associate with poor
authors and artists upon equal terms ; who
were friendly and kind to their servants ; and
who, instead of going about all day with alle-
gorical crowns on their heads, were in reality
very quiet persons, who would condescend to
the commonest things and pursuits such as
shocked much a grand personage like Sir Ed-
ward de Bougainville. He was altogether
puzzled, and sometimes a little uncomfortable ;
finally he held aloof, and let his wife go into
society alone, or with the companionship of her
daughter.
Adrienne " came out.'' Sitting beside her
beautiful mother, as shy and silent as any
French demoiselle, but much amused by what
she saw around her, she looked on, taking
little share in the gay world, until she saw her-
self put forward as a desirable '''' partie" by an
energetic French mother, when she turned in
frightened appeal to her own, and the '' preten-
(hC' was speedily extinguished. Nevertheless,
in spite of her plain looks and defect in figure,
the reported large " dot"" of Mademoiselle de
Bougainville attracted several chances of mar-
riage -fy to which Adrienne was as indifferent
and even amused as her mother could desire.
But henceforth Josephine often thought with
some anxiety of this dear child, so unlike her-
self, so unfit to battle with the world. Shrink-
ing, timid, easily led and influenced, Adrienne
inherited much from her father, and almost no-
thing from her mother, except her uprightness
and sincerity.
"If you do marry," Lady de Bougainville
sometimes said to her, "it must be some one
who will be very good to you, some one whom
I can entirely trust, or I shall break my heart,'
Sometimes I hope, my darling, that you will
not marry at all."
" Very likely not, mamma," Adrienne would
answer, blushing brightly. " I certainly would
rather not marry a Frenchman."
So the mother rested, content that none of
these gay young fellows, who, she felt sure,
only sought her for her money, had touched
the heart of her young daughter, whom she still
called fondly her "little" girl.
CHAPTER XVII.
When they had been a year at Paris, or
near it for in the fashionable season for "/a
campagne" they drifted with the usual Parisian
crowd to some place sufficiently in reach of the
city not to be dull Sir Edward began to sug-
gest moving On. There was a curious restless-
ness about him which made him never settle
any where. Back to Oldham Court he posi-
tively refused to go ; and when the subject was
fairly entered upon, Josephine found that her
son Cesar had the same repugnance. He and
she had never spoken together of that fatal
rumor which had been the secret cause of their
sudden departure ; but that the proud, hqnest,
reticent boy knew it, and felt it acutely, she
was well aware.
"No, mother," he said, when she consulted
with him, for she had already learned to rest
upon his premature wisdom and good sense ;
"don't let us go back to Oldham Court at
least not for some years. The house will take
no harm, and the land is well let ; Mr. Lang-
horne, last time he was at Oxford, told me that
you will be richer by letting it than living at it ;
and I don't want to live there never again I
Besides," hastening to heal up a wound he
thought he had made, "you see, I must be a
busy man, must enter a profession, work my
way up in the world, and earn my own fortune.
Then, mother darling, you shall have Oldham
Court for your dower-house, when you are an
old lady. "
She smiled, and ceased urging her point,
though she was pining for a settled resting-
place. At last Cesar saw this, and went hunt-
ing about England on pedestrian tours till he
succeeded in finding a place that he felt sure
she would like, and his father too a large, old-
fashioned mansion ; not Gothic, but belonging
to the time of Queen Anne ; fallen into much
disrepair, but still capable of being revived into
its original splendor.
"And you will have quite money enough to
do this, Mr. Langhorne says," added the pru-
dent boy. "And the doing of it would amuse
A BRAVE LADY.
135
papa so much. Besides, it is such a beautiful
old place ; and oh, what a park ! what trees !
Then the rooms are so lofty, and large, and
square. You might give such dinners and
balls I like a ball, you know. Dearest mo-
ther, please think twice before you throw over-
board our chance of Brierley Hall. "
She promised, though with little interest in
the matter as little interest as we sometimes
take in places or people which are to be our
destiny. And Oldham Court which she loved
so, which she had set her heart upon she fore-
saw only too clearly, would never be her home
any more.
Still, she would have done almost any thing
to please Cesar, who was growing up her heart's
delight. He only came to Paris on passing
visits, being quite taken up with his Oxford
life, in which his earnest perseverance atoned
for any lack of brilliant talents ; and he worked
for his degree like any poor lad, forgetting he
was heir to a wealthy gentleman, and scarcely
even remembering his twenty-first birthday,
which passed by without any oxen roasted
whole or other external rejoicings except the
joy of his mother that he was now a man, with
his career safe in his own hands.
Ce'sar was after all more of an Englishman
than a Frenchman, even in spite of his resem-
blance to his grandfather, so strong that more
than one old courtier had come up to him and
welcomed the descendant of M. le Vicomte de
Bougainville. But the young fellow added to
his English gravity that charming French grace
which we Britons often lack, and his tall figure
and handsome looks made him noticeable in
every salon where he appeared.
His proud mother had especially remarked
this on one evening which had a painful close.
It was a reception, whither she and her son
went alone together Sir Edward having de-
sired that Adrienne would remain at home and
play dominos with him since he had been in
France he had taken greatly to that harmless
game, which seemed to suit hun exactly. And
Adrienne had obeyed, a little reluctantly,. as
the reception was at a house where, timid as
she was, she liked to go. For the hostess was
a lady who, though too poor to "entertain" as
we English understand the word indeed. Sir
Edward complained bitterly that he never got
any thing at her reunions but biscuits and weak
raspberry vinegar yet, by her eifquisite tact
and cultivated grace, which is oftert better than
talent in a woman, succeeded in gathering
around her once a week all the notable people
in Paris. As 4Lady de Bougainville stood in
the midst of the assemblage, with Ce'sar at her
side, I could imagine that mother and son were
a good sight to behold, both by one another
and by the brilliant throng around them.
" Still, we ought to go home," she whispered
to him, more than once, even while giving her-
self up, half Frenchwoman as she was, to the
enjoyment of the minute, allowing herself to
rest, gay and at ease, on the summit of one of
those sunshiny waves which are forever rising
and falling in most human lives. "I should
like to return even sooner than we promised,
in case papa might be a little dull. He told
me that he was to be quite alone at home to-
night."
"Indeed!" said Ce'sar, dryly. "I thought
I overheard him giving orders about a little
supper that was to be prepared for some vis-
itor he expected. But," added the lad, with
meaning, "papa often forgets."
"Ce'sar!" said Lady de Bougainville, sharp-
ly ; and then, almost with a kind of entreaty,
"Do not be hard upon your father."
The mother and son came home at once,
though it was half an hour before they wereex-
pected and, apparently, wanted. For there,
sitting opposite to Sir Edward, playing domi-
nos with him, and amusing him till he burst
into shouts of laughter, which were faintly
echoed by Adrienne who hung about the two,
looking as happy and delighted as she had used
to do of evenings at Wren's Nest was the ob-
ject of Josephine's long dislike and dread Mr.
Summerhayes.
There are women, justifiably the aversion of
their husbands' male friends, rigidly righteous,
and putting virtue forward in such an obnox-
ious manner that vice seems less unpleasant by
comparison. These I do not uphold. But I
do uphold a woman who dares to call wicked-
ness by its right name, and shut her door upon
it, however charming it may be ; who, like Da-
vid, "hates all evil-doers," and will not let
them " continue in her sight." Poor King Da-
vid a sinner too ! But if he sinned, he also
repented. And, had he repented, I doubt not
Lady de Bougainville would have been the first
to hold out a kindly hand even to Mr. Summer-
hayes.
As it was, she made no pretense of the sort.
She stood her hand unextended, her eyes fixed
on her husband's guest with a grave astonish-
ment. So unmistakable was her manner, so
strong her determination, that Summerhayes
made no attempt to counteract either, but say-
ing, " I perceive I am intruding here," bowed
and departed.
His friend never attempted to detain him,
but burst into bitter complaint when he was
gone.
"Josephine, how can you be so unkind, so
rude ? You have driven away the only friend
I have the only fellow whose company is amus-
ing to me, or whom I care to see in all Paris."
" Have you seen him often ?"
"Why, yes no; not so very often. And
only at Galignani's. I never brought him here
before to-night."
"Then, I entreat you, do not bring him
again. You know what he is, and what I think
of him. Into this house, and among my young
sons and daughters, that man shall never come.
Another time, when I happen to be absent, will
you remember that, Edward ?"
She spoke strongly more strongly, perhaps.
136
A BRAVE LADY.
than she should have spoken to their father in
her children's presence ; but it was necessary.
Indecision might have been fatal. They were
too old to be left in the dark as to their asso-
ciates.
No one answered her. Cesar, who had look-
ed as vexed as she, took up a book and walked
away to bed 3 but Adrienne followed her mo-
ther to her room, greatly agitated.
"Indeed, mamma, I had no idea Mr. Sum-
merhayes was coming till he came. And I was
so pleased to see him. I did not know you dis-
liked him so much."
That was true, for she had said as little about
him as possible to her young daughter ; his de-
linqYiencies were of a kind not easy to open up
to a girl, and of a man known to the family as
their father's friend. Even now she hardly
knew how to explain with safety the motives of
her conduct.
" I do dislike him, Adrienne, and I have just
cause, as I will tell you by-and-by, if necessary.
At present let us put the matter aside. Mr.
Summerhayes is not likely to come here again ;
papa says he shall not invite him."
But she knew none the less that she would
have to take all imaginable precautions against
the thing she dreaded against the father, who
was no sort of guard over his own children
who, when he liked or wished a thing, would
stoop to any underhand means of accomplishing
it. For, as she afterward discovered, her husband
had all along kept up a desultory correspond-
ence with Mr. Summerhayes, whom, though
not actually supplying with money Sir Edward
since his accession to wealth having grown ex-
tremely parsimonious he had allowed to make
use of him in various ways which flattered his
vanity and his love of patronizing ; and at last
in one way which, when Josephine found it out,
she opened her eyes in horrified astonishment.
" He marry Adrienne ?" And when Sir Ed-
ward one day showed her, rather hesitatingly,
a letter making formally that request, she tore
it up in a fit of unrestrainable passion. " How
dare he ! Of course you refused him at once ?"
"I^I did not quite like to do that. He is
acquainted with all my affairs. Oh, Josephine,
pray pray be careful."
The old story! The strong, wicked man
knowing his power over the weak one, and using
it. At a glance Lady de Bougainville saw the
whole thing.
"Coward!" she was near saying, and then
her sudden blind fury died down : it was dan-
gerous. She needed to keep her eyes open, her
mind calm, and all her wits about her. In a
new and utterly unexpected form the old mis-
ery had risen up again. Once more she had to
protect her children, not only from Mr. Sum-
merhayes, but from their own father.
"And when did you receive this letter, Ed-
ward ?" she asked, not passionately now, and
he was blunt to any thing else.
" A week ago. But I was afraid you might
not approve : Adrienne is so young." '
" Adrienne will h^ve money. She would be
a very convenient wife for Mr. Summerhayes."
"And Summerhayes has talent, and is of
good family, and he has sown his wild oats, he
tells me, long ago. He might suit her very
well. You had better let him take her. It is
not every one who would marry poor Adrienne.
And all women ought to be married, you know."
"Ought they?"
"Come, come, I am glad to see you so rea-
sonable. Who shall answer the letter, you or
I?"
"I will."
" And you'll give the man a chance ? You'll
not make an enemy of him?"
" Has he ever spoken to the child? But no
Adrienne would have told. me she always
tells her mother every thing." And the com-
fort which always came with the thought of her
children soothed the mother's half-maddened
spirit. "If he has held his tongue, I I will
forgive him. But he must never see my daugh-
ter's face again."
And to this effect she wrote, her husband *
looking over her shoulder the while. ^
"Don't offend him, please don't offend him,"
was all Sir Edward said. When his wife look-
ed as she looked now, he was so utterly cowed
that he never risked any open opposition.
Whether to tell Adrienne what had happen-
ed, and how her parents, knowing what Mr.
Summerhayes was, had decided for her at once,
and so put her on her guard against him, or
else by complete silence avoid the risk of awak-
ening in the impressible heart of seventeen a
tender interest for a possibly ill-used and mere-
ly unfortunate man : this was the question
which the mother argued within herself twenty
times a day. At length she left it for circum-
stances to decide, and simply kept watch in-
cessant watch.
Mr. Summerhayes played his cards well. He
did not attempt to come to the house again ; he
made no open demonstrations of any kind, but
he followed Adrienne at a distance with that
silent, sedulous worship which even so innocent
a creature could hardly help perceiving. By
using the name and influence of Sir Edward,
he got the entree into several houses where the
De Bo.ugainvilles visited, and there, though he
never addressed her, he watched Adrienne
ceaselessly, with his melancholy, poetical eyes.
True, he was forty, and she seventeen; but
these ages are sometimes mutually attractive,
and as a child she had been very fond of Mr.
Summerhayes. Often, her mother recollected,
he had taken her on his knee and called her his
little wife. Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Now that the years had dwindled down between
them leaving him still attractive, still youth-
ful-looking for people with neither hearts nor
consciences are sometimes very slow in growing
old did Adrienne remember all this ?
She was so quiet, so exceedingly quiet, that
her mother had no means of guessing at her
feelings. Since she learned that he was dis-
A BRAVE LADY.
137
liked, Adrienne had never uttered Mr. Sum-
merhayes's name. When they met him in so-
ciety, they passed him with a mere bow of
recognition, for Lady de Bougainville did not
wish to go proclaiming him as a black sheep to
every body, and desired, above all, to avoid every
appearance of injustice or malice toward him :
only she guarded with ceaseless care her own
lamb from every advance of the smiling wolf.
Who gradually conducted himself so little like
a wolf, and so like an ordinary man of society,
that her fears died down, and she began to
hope that after all they had been exaggerated.
Until one day, when the climax came.
The man must have been mad or blind
blind with self-esteem, or maddened by the
desperation of his circumstances, before he did
such a thing ; but one Sunday morning he sent
to Miss de Bougainville a bouquet and a letter.
Not an actual offer of marriage, but something
so very near it, that the simplest maiden of
seventeen could be under no mistake as to
what he meant. Only, like many a man of the
world, he a little overshot his mark by calcu-
lating too much upon this simplicity ; for Adri-
enne, trembling, confused, hardly knowing
what she did, but yet impelled by her tender
conscience and her habit of perfect candor,
came at once and put the letter in her mother's
hands.
Lady de Bougainville read it through twice
before she spoke. It was a clever letter, very
clever; one of those which Mr. Summerhayes
was particularly apt at writing. It put forward
his devotion in the most humble, the most dis-
interested light ; it claimed for his love the
paternal sanction ; and, in the only thing
wherein he transgressed the bounds of decorum,
namely in asking her to meet him in the quiet
galleries of the Louvre, that Sunday forenoon
he put himself under the shelter of her father,
who had promised him, he said, to bring her
there.
Twice, as I said, in wrath that was utterly
dumb, Josephine read this letter, and then,
looking up, she caught sight of Adrienne's
burning face, agitated by a new and altogether
incomprehensible emotion.
' ' My child, " she cried ; "oh, my poor child ! "
To say that she would rather have seen
Adrienne in her grave than married to Mr.
Summerhayes, is a form of phrase which many
foolish parents have used and lived to repent
of. Lady de Bougainville was too wise to use
it at all, or to neutralize by any extravagance
of expression a truth which seemed to her
clear as daylight would be clear even to the
poor child herself, if only it were put before
her.
"Adrienne," she said, sorrowfully, "I am
glad you showed me this letter. It is, as you
may see, equivalent to an offer of marriage,
which you will refuse like the rest, I hope.
You do really care for Mr. Summerhayes ?"
Adrienne hung her head. " I have known
him all my life ; and he likes me so."
" But he is a bad man ; a worse man than
you know or have any idea of."
"He has been; but he tells me, you see,
that I should make him better. "
The old delusion ! Unfortunate child !
Adrienne's mother had now no alternative.
Terrible as it was to open her young daughter's
eyes, the thing must be done. Better a sharp
pain and over; better any present anguish
than years of life-long misery.
For, even granting there was one grain of
truth under the man's false words, Josephine
scouted altogether the theory of doing evil that
good may come. In the goodness of a man
who is only kept good by means of a gratified
passion, she altogether disbelieved. Strong as
the love of woman is to guide an erring man,
to settle and control a vacillating one, over a
thoroughly vicious one it has almost no effect,
or an effect so passing that the light flickers
into only blacker night. And here could
there be any light at all ?
It was a case almost the only one possible
in which the mother has a right to stand be-
tween her child and ruin : to prevent her mar-
rying a deliberate villain.
" Come to me, my darling," said she, tender-
ly ; and drawing Adrienne to her lap, and
sheltering her there almost as in the days when,
long after babyhood, she would come and " cud-
dle up" to her mother like a baby Lady de
Bougainville explained, without any reserve,
as from perfectly reliable sources she herself
had learned it, what sort of life Mr. Summer-
hayes had led : dissolute, unprincipled, selfish,
mean only saved from the condign punish-
ment that overtakes smaller scoundrels by the
exceeding charm which still lingered about him,
and would linger to the last ; a handsome per-
son, a brilliant intellect, and a frank fascina-
tion of manner, which made the very people he
was swindling and cheating ready to be cheated
over again for the mere pleasure of his society.
Such men exist we all have known them ;
and those people who possess no very keen /
moral sense often keep up acquaintance with
them for years ; in an easy surface way which,
they say, does no harm. But when it comes
to nearer ties marriage, for instance ! Mr.
Summerhayes had once a mother, who was
heard to say: "If Owen ever marries a wife,
God help her!"
"And," said Lady de Bougainville to her-
self, "God and her mother shall save my poor
child from ever being his wife, if possible."
Still she was very just. She allowed, can-
didly, that only till Adrienne was twenty-
one did her authority extend. "After that,
my daughter, you may marry any one you
please even Mr. Summerhayes. But until
then I will prevent you, even as I would pre-
vent you from falling into the fire blindfold if I
knew it. Do you understand ? Have I wound-
ed you very sore, my darling ?"
Adrienne made no reply. She lay back
with her head on Lady de Bougainville's shoul-
138
A BEAVE LADY.
der, her face hidden from her. She neither
sobbed nor wept, and offered not a single re-
monstrance or denial. At last, alarmed by her
silence, Josephine lifted up the poor white face.
It was blank : she had quietly fainted.
Lovers' agonies are sharp, and parents' cru-
elties many ; but I think something might be
said on the other side. And, as any thing suf-
fered for another is, in one sense, ten times
harder than any thing one suffere for one's self,
it seems to me that the keenest of lovers' pain,
the hottest of lovers' indignation, could hardly
be worse than the mingled grief and anger of
that poor mother, as she clasped her broken
lily to her breast, and hated, with a hatred as
passionate as it was righteous, the man who
had brought such misery upon her little Adri-
enne.
As for Adrienne's father But it was use-
less to go to him, to ask him questions, or ex-
act from him any promises. Nothing he said
or did could be in the smallest degree relied
upon. She must take the matter into her own
hands, and without delay.
It was Sunday morning, and the streets were
lying in that temporary quiescence, when re-
ligious Paris is gone to High Mass and irre-
ligious Paris idling away its hours in early
deshabille^ previous to blossoming out in bour-
geois splendor and gayety. The Louvre would
be, as Mr. Summerhayes had probably calcu-
lated, nearly empty ; an excellent trysting-place
for lovers, or for mortal foes for her enemy,
from first to last, this Owen Summerhayes had
been. That he hated her too, Josephine had
little doubt ; for she knew only too much of his
career. But face him she would at once, be-
fore he could do her any more harm.
Leaving Adrienne in Bridget's charge
Bridget, who was only too quick to detect how
matters stood, and might be trusted without
one word too many Lady de Bougainville, at
the appointed hour, went to meet her daugh-
ter's lover.
Sir Edward was not with him ; but Mr.
Summerhayes had already come, and was pac-
ing up and down the empty salon, inspecting
the pictures more with the cool eye of a con-
noisseur than the reckless impatience of an ex-
pectant lover. In a moment, the quick woman-
ly eye detected this fact, and in the indignant
womanly heart the last drop of pity or sympa-
thy was dried up for Mr. Summerhayes.
At sound of footsteps he turned round, with
a well-prepared and charming smile, and per-
ceived Lady de Bougainville. It could not
have been a pleasant meeting to him, man of
the world as he was, and accustomed, no doubt,
to a good many unpleasant things ; but ex-
ternally it was civil enough. He bowed, she
bowed, and then they stood facing one an-
other.
They were nearly of an age, and they had
personally almost equal advantages. Mentally,
too ; except that probably the man had more
brain than the woman, Lady de Bougainville
possessing good common-sense and general re-
tinement rather than intellect. In courage
they were both on a par, and they knew it.
The long warfare that had been waged between
them, a sort of permanent fight over that poor
weak soul, who was scarcely worth fighting for,
had taught them their mutual strength and
their mutual antipathy. Now the final contest
was at hand.
" This is an unexpected pleasure, Lady de
Bougainville ; I had no idea of meeting you
here."
"No, you intended to meet my daixghter;
but instead, I thought I would come myself.
There is nothing you can have to say to her
which you can not equally well say to her
mother. "
"Not exactly," returned Mr. Summerhayes.
"To be plain with you, as I see you mean to
be with me, my dear lady, you dislike me, and
I hope your daughter does not."
The smile on his lips made Josephine furious.
As I have often said, she was not naturally a
mild-tempered woman. It often cost her a
great effort to restrain herself, as now.
"May I ask, Mr. Summerhayes, what grounds
you have for supposing that Miss de Bougain-
ville does not dislike you, or has the smallest
feeling for you which could warrant your ad-
dressing to her such a letter as you sent her
this morning ?"
" You intercepted it, then ?"
"No, she gave it to me. She brought it to
me at once, as she will bring every letter you
may choose to send her. My daughter and I
have always been on terms of entire confi-
dence."
" Oh, indeed ! A most happy state of
things!"
Nevertheless Mr. Summerhayes looked a lit-
tle disconcerted. Apparently his experience
of women had been of a different nature, and
had not extended to these bread-and-butter
Misses, whose extraordinary candor and trust
in their mothers produce such inconvenient re-
sults. But he was not easily nonplused ; and
in the present instance his necessities were des-
perate, and admitted of no means being left
untried to attain his end. He advanced toward
his adversary with a frank and pleasant air.
"Mrs. Scanlon I beg pardon. Lady de
Bougainville, but we can not readily forget, nor
do I wish to forget, old times you do not like
me, I know, but you might at least be just to
me. You must perceive that I love your
daughter."
"Love !" she echoed, contemptuously.
"Well, I wish to marry her let us put it
so, without discussing the rest. She was fond
of me as a child, and I dare say she would be
now. The difference of age between us is not so
enormous. By-the-by, is it that you object to ?"
"No."
"Then what is it? My family? It is as
good as her own. My fortune ? That is small,
certainly ; but she is not poor. Myself person-
A BRAVE LADY.
139
LADY DE BOUGAINVILLB AND ADBIEiSfNE'S I.OVEE.
ally ? Well, such as I am you have known me
these fifteen years, and whether you approve
of me or not, your husband does. Let me re-
mind you, Lady de Bougainville, that it is the
father, not the mother, who disposes of a daugh-
ter's hand."
He was very cunning, this clever man ; he
knew exactly where to plant his arrows and
lay his pitfalls ; but for once a straightforward
woman was more than a match for him.
" Adrienne can not legally marry without her
father's consent ; but morally even his consent
would not satisfy her without mine. And mine
I never will give. You could not expect it."
"Why not? It is an odd thing for a gen-
tleman to have to ask, but no one likes to be
condemned unheard. May I inquire, Lady de
Bougainville, why I am so very objectionable
as a son-in-law ?"
His daring was greater than she had antici-
pated, but somehow it only roused her own.
The hackneyed simile of the lioness about to
be robbed of her whelps was not inappropriate
to Josephine's state of mind now. Every nerve
was quivering, every feature tense with excite-
ment. Her very fingers tingled with a fran-
tic desire to seize the man by the throat and
shake the life out of him.
Despite his critical position, Mr. Summer-
hayes must have found her sufiiciently interest-
ing as an artistic study to note down and re-
member ; for, the year afterward, he exhibited
in the Royal Academy a " Slaughter of the In-
nocents," in which the face of the half-mad
mother was not unlike Lady de Bougainville.
This cold, critical eye of his brought her to
her senses at once.
"I will not have you for my son-in-law,"
she said, in a slow, measured tone, " for a good
many reasons, none of which you will much
like to hear. But you shall hear them if you
choose."
" Proceed ; I am listening."
" First, you do not love my child ; it is her
money only you want. She is plain and not
clever, not attractive in any way, only good ;
how could a man like you be supposed to love
her? It is a thing incredible."
"Granted. Then take the other supposi-
tion, that I wish to marry her because she loves
me."
"If she were so unfortunate as to do so,
uo
A BRAVE LADY.
still she had better die than marry you. I
say this deliberately, knowing Avhat you are,
and you know that I know it too."
"I am neither better nor worse than my
neighbors," said he, carelessly. "But come,
pray inform me as to my own character. It
may be useful information in case I should
ever have the honor to call you mother-in-
law."
Josephine went close up to his ear, almost
whispering her words ; nevertheless, she said
them distinct and sharp as sword-cuts the
righteoes sword which few women, and fewer
men, ever dare to use. Perhaps the world
would be better and purer if they did dare.
"You are a thief, because you cheat poor
tradesmen by obtaining luxuries you can not
pay for ; a svi^indler, because you borrow mon-
ey from your friends on false pretenses, and
never return it; a liar, because you twist the
truth in any way to obtain your ends. These
are social offenses. As for your moral ones"
Josephine stopped, and blushed . all over her
matron face of forty years but still she vent
on unshrinking. "Do you think I have not
heard of poor Betsy Dale at the farm, and of
Mrs. Hewson, your landlord's wife ? And yet
you dare to enter my doors and ask for 7/our
wife my innocent daughter ! Shame upon you
seducer adulterer !"
Bold man as he was, Mr. Summerhayes did
look ashamed for a minute or so, but quickly
recovered himself.
"This is strong language, somewhat unex-
pected from the lips of a lady ; but I suppose
necessary to be endured. In such a position
what can a poor man do ? I must let you have
your own way as I noticed in old times you
generally had, Lady de Bougainville. Poor
Sir Edward!"
The sneer, which she bore in silence, did not,
however, prove sufficient safety-valve for his
suppressed wrath, which was certainly not un-
natural. He turned upon her in scarcely con-
cealed fierceness.
"Still, may I ask, madam, what right you
have thus to preach to me ? Are you yourself
so sublime in virtue, so superior to all human
weaknesses, that you can afford to condemn
the rest of the world ?"
His words smote Josephine with a sudden
humility, for she felt she had spoken strongly
more so, perhaps, than a woman ought to
speak. Besides, she had grown much hum-
bler in many ways than she used to be.
"God knows," she said, "I am but too well
aware of my short-comings. But whatever I
may be does not affect what you are. Nor
does it alter the abstract right and wrong of
the case, and no pity for you I have been sor-
ry for you sometimes can blind my eyes to it.
I must ' preach,' as you call it ; I must testify
against the wickedness of men like you so long
as I am alive."
"Then you will be a a rather courageous
personage. In fact, a lady more instructive
than agreeable. But let us come to the point,"
added he, casting off the faint gloss of polite-
ness in which he had veiled his manner, and
turning upon her a countenance which showed
him a man fierce, unscrupulous, dangerous
controlled by nothing except the two grand' re-
straints of self-interest and fear. "Lady de
Bougainville, you know me and I know you.
I also know your husband perhaps a little too
well ; or he may have cause to think so. It
is convenient for me to become his son-in-law,
and to him to have me as such ; for, in the ten-
der relations which would then exist between
us, I should hold my tongue. Otherwise I
shall not feel myself bound to do so. There-
fore, you and I, I think, had better be friends
than enemies."
It was possibly an empty threat his last
weapon in a losing fight. But in her uncer-
tainty of the extent of his relations with her
husband, in her total insecurity as to facts,
Josephine felt startled for a moment. Only for
a moment. If ever a woman lived in whom no
compromise with evil was possible, it was Jo-
sephine de Bougainville. Sir Edward used to
say, in old jocular days, that if his wife were to
meet the devil in person she might scorn him,
or pity him, but she would certainly never be
afraid of him. No more than she was now
afraid of Mr. Summerhayes.
"You think to frighten me," she said, stead-
ily ; " but that is quite useless. I have already
suffered as much as I can suffer. Do as you
will and I dare you to do it. I believe that
even in this world the right is always the stron-
gest. You shall not marry my daughter ! She
has been taught to love the right and hate the
wrong. She will never love you. If you urge
her, or annoy her in any way, I will set the
police after you."
"Youdai-enot."
"There is nothing I dare not do if it is to
save my child."
" And I suppose, to save your child, you will
go blackening me all over the world, crying out
from the house-tops what a villain is Owen Sum-
merhayes."
"No, that is not my affair. I do not attack
you ; I only resist you. If I saw a tiger roam-
ing about the forest, I should not interfere with
it ; it may live its life, as tigers do. But if I
saw it about to spring upon my child, or any
other woman's child, I would take my pistol
and shoot it dead."
"As I verily believe you would shoot me,"
muttered Owen Summerhayes.
He looked at her she looked at him. It
was in truth a battle hand to hand. Whether
any relic of conscience made the man fearful,
as an altogether clean conscience made the
woman brave, I can not tell ; but Mr. Summer-
hayes was silent. They stood just under one
of those heavenly Madonnas of some old mas-
ter I know not which ; but they are all heav-
enly. Is it not always a bit of heaven upon
earth, the sight of a mother and child ? Per-
A BRAVE LADY.
Ul
haps, vile as he was, Summerhayes remem-
bered his mother; or some first love whom in
his pure, early days he might have made the
happy mother of his lawful child ; possibly the
angel which, they say, never quite leaves the
wickedest heart stirred in his for he said re-
spectfully, nay, almost humbly, "Lady de Bou-
gainville, what do you wish me to do ?"
She never hesitated a moment. Pity for
him was ruin to the rest.
"I wish you to quit Paris immediately, and
never attempt to see my daughter more. "
" And if I dissent from this "
Josephine paused, weighing well her words
she had learned to be very prudent now. " I
make no threats," she said ; " I shall not speak,
but act. My daughter is not yet eighteen;
until twenty-one she is in my power. I shall
watch her night and day. Any letter you write
I shall intercept ; but there is no need of that,
she will give it to me at once. If you attempt
an interview with her, I shall give you into the
hands of the police. Besides this, no moral
persuasion, no maternal influence, that I am
possessed of, shall be spared to show you to her
in your true colors, till she hates you no, not
you, but your sins as I do now."
"You can hate, then?" And this clever
man for a moment seemed to forget himself
and his injuries in watching her ; just as a cu-
rious intellectual study, no more.
" Yes, I can hate ; Christian as I am, or am
trying to be. God can hate too."
He laughed out loud. " I do not believe in
a God do you ? In your husband's God, for
instance, who, as Burns neatly informs Him,
" 'Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
A' for Thy glory,
And no for onie guid or ill,
They've done afore Thee.'"
Josephine answered the profanity of the man
by dead silence. The great struggle of her in-
ward life now, the effort to tear from Heaven's
truth its swaddling-clothes of human lies, was
too sacred to be laid bare in the smallest de-
gree before Owen Summerhayes.
" We have drifted away from our subject of
conversation," she said, at last ; " indeed it has
almost come to an end. You know my inten-
tions and me."
"I believe I have that honor; more honor
than pleasure," he answered, with a satirical
bow.
" You ought also to know, though I name
it as a secondary fact, that it is upon me,
and me alone, that my children are depend-
ent; that I have power to make a will, and
leave, or not leave, as I choose, every half-pen-
ny of my fortune. "
"Indeed," said Mr. Summerhayes, a little
startled.
Lady de Bougainville smiled. " After this,
in bidding you adieu, I have not the slightest
fear but that our farewell will be a permanent
one."
He bowed again, rather absently, and then
his eyes, wandering round the room, lighted on
two ladies watching him.
"Excuse me, but I see a friend; 1 have so
many friends in Paris. Really it is quite Vem-
harras de ricliesse. May I take my leave of
you, Lady de Bougainville ?"
Thus they parted ; so hastily that she hardly
believed he was gone, till she saw him walking
round the next salon pointing out pictures to
the two French ladies, one of whom, it was
evident, admired the handsome Englishman
extremely. Ja I question not, Mr. Summer-
hayes found many persons, both men and wo-
men, to admire him to the end of his days.
But that is neither here nor there. I have
nothing to do with him, his course of life, or
the circumstances of his latter end. Person-
ally, he crossed no more, either for good or ill,
the path of Lady de Bougainville.
When she had parted from him, she turned
to walk homeward down the long cool gal-
leries, now gradually filling with their usual
Sunday stream of Parisian bourgeoisie, chatter-
ing merrily with one another, or occasionally
stopping to stare with ignorant but well-pleased
eyes at the Murillos, Titians, RafFaelles, wWch
cover these Louvre walls. Josephine let it
pass her by the cheerful crowd, taking its in-
nocent pleasure, " though," as some one said
of a lark singing "though it was Sunday."
Then, creeping toward the darkest and quietest
seat she could find, she sank there utterly ex-
hausted. Her strength had suddenly collapsed,
but it was no matter. The battle was done
and won.
CHAPTER XVIIL
As I have said, the battle was ended : but
there followed the usual results of victor}' of
ever so great a victory picking up the wounded
and burying the slain.
Lady de Bougainville had only too much of
this melancholy work on hand for some days
following her interview with Mr. Summerhayes.
A few hours after her fainting-fit, Adrienne
rose from bed, and appeared in the household
circle just as usual ; but for weeks her white
face was whiter, and her manner more listless
than ever. This love-fancy, begun in the mer-
est childhood, had taken deeper root in her
heart than even her mother was aware ; and
the tearing of it up tore some of the life away
with it.
She never blamed any one. " Mamma, you
were quite right," she said, the only time the
matter was referred to, and then she implored
it might never be spoken of again. "Mam-
ma, dearest ! I could not have married such a
man ; I shall not even love him not for very
long. Pray be quite content about me."
But for all that, poor Adrienne grew weak
and languid ; and the slender hold she eA'er
had on life seemed to slacken day by day.
She was always patient, always sweet ; but she
took very little interest in any thing.
142
A BRAVE LADY.
For Sir Edward, he seemed to have forgot-
ten all about Mr. Summerhayes, and the whole
affair of his daughter's projected marriage. He
became entirely absorbed in his own feelings
and sensations, imagining himself a victim to
one ailment after another, till his Wife never
knew whether to smile or to feel serious anxi-
ety. And that insidious disease which he
really had at least I think he must have had,
though nobody gave it a name was beginning
to show itself in lapses of memory so painful,
and so evidently involuntary, that no one ever
laughed at them now, or said, with sarcastic
emphasis, " Papa forgets." Then, too, he had
fits of irritability so extreme, mingled with cor-
responding depression and remorse, that even
his wife did not know what to do with him.
Nobody else ever attempted to do any thing
vnih him. He was thrown entirely upon her
charge, and clung to her with a helpless depend-
ence, engrossing her whole time and thoughts,
and being jealous of her paying the slightest
attention to any other than himself, even her
own children. By this time they had quitted
Paris, which he insisted upon doing, and set-
tled temporarily in London: where, between
him and Adrienne, who, in his weakness though
not in his selfishness, so pathetically resembled
her father, the wife and mother was completely
absorbed made into a perfect slave.
This annoyed extremely her son Cesar, whose
bright healthy youth had little pity for morbid
fancies ; and who, when he was told of the
Summerhayes affair, considered his mother had
done quite right, and was furious at the thought
of his favorite sister wasting one sigh over " that
old humbug." "I'll tell you what, mother
find Adrienne something to do. Depend upon
it, nothing keeps people straight like having
plenty to do. Let us buy Brierley Hall, and
then we will set to work and pull it down and
build it up again. Fine amusement that will
be grand occupation for both papa and Adri-
enne/"
Lady de Bougainville laughed at her son's
rude boyish way of settling matters, but allowed
that there was some common-sense in the plan
he suggested. Only it annihilated, perhaps for-
ever, her own dreams about Oldham Court.
"Oh, never mind that," reasoned the light-
hearted young fellow: "you shall go back
again some day. There are so many of us,
-some will be sure to want Oldham Court to
live at ; or you can have it yourself as a dower-
house. It is securely ours ; we can not get rid
of it ; Mr. Langhorne tells me it is entailed on
the family. Unless, indeed, you should hap-
pen to outlive us all, your six children, and
say sixty grandchildren, when you can sell it
if you choose, and do what you like with the
money."
Laughing at such a ridiculous possibility.
Lady de Bougainville patted her son's head,
told him he was a great goose, but nevertheless
yielded to his reasoning.
In this scheme, when formally consulted of
which formality he was now more tenacious
than ever Sir Edward also condescended to
agree; and Adrienne, when told of it, broke
into a faint, smile at the thought of changing
this dreary hotel life for a real country home
once more a beautiful old house with a park
and a lake, and a wood full of primroses and
violets : for Adrienne was a thorough country
girl, who would never be made into a town
lady.
So Brierley Hall was bought, and the resto-
rations begun, greatly to the interest of every
body, including the invalids, who brightened
up day by day. A furnished house was taken
in Brierley village, and thither the whole fami-
ly removed : to be on the spot, they said, so as
to watch the progress of their new house, the
rebuilding of which, Cesar declared, was as ex-
citing as the re-establishment of an empire.
True, this had not been done on the grand
scale which his youthful ambition planned, for
his wiser mother preferred leaving the fine old
exterior walls intact, and only remodeling the
interior of the mansion. But still it was an en-
tirely new home, and in a new neighborhood,
where not a soul knew any thing of them, nor
did they know a single soul.
This fact had its advantages, as Josephine,
half plcasurably, half painfully, recognized. It
was a relief to her to dwell among strangers,
and in places to which was attached not one
sad memory like that spot which some old
poet sings of, where
"No sod in all the Island green,
Has opened for a grave."
" This is capital !" Cesar would say, when he
and his mother took their confidential stroll un-
der the great elm avenue, or down the ivy walk,
after having spent hours in watching the pro-
ceedings of masons and carpenters, painters
and paper-hangers. "I think rebuilding a
house is as grand as founding a family which
I mean to do."
" Re-found it, as we are doing here," cor-
rected the mother with a smile, for her son was
growing out of her own conservative principles ;
he belonged to the new generation, and delight-
ed in every thing modern and fresh. They oft-
en had sharp, merry battles together, in which
she sometimes succumbed ; as many a strong-
minded mother will do to an eldest and favorite
son, and rather enjoy her defeat.
Cesar was very much at home this year, both
because it was an interregnum between his col-
lege life and his choice of a profession, which
still hung doubtful, and because his mother was
glad to have him about her, supplying the need
tacitly felt of " a man in the house" instead of
a fidgety and vacillating hypochondriac. No
one gave this name to Sir Edward, but all his
family understood the facts of the case, and
acted upon them. It was impossible to do
otherwise. He was quite incapable of govern-
ing, and therefore was silently and respectfully
deposed.
A BRAVE LADY.
143
Nevertheless, by the strong influence of his
ever-watchful guardian, his wife, the sacred
veil of sickness was gradually dropped over all
his imperfections; and though he was little
consulted or allowed to be troubled with any
thing, his comfort was made the first law of the
household, and every thing done for the amuse-
ment and gratification of "poor papa." With
which arrangement papa was quite satisfied ;
and, though he never did any thing, doubtless
considered himself as the central sun of the
whole establishment : that is, if he ever thought
about it at all, or about any thing beyond him-
self. It was as difficult to draw the line where
his selfishness ended and his real incapacity
began, as it is in some men to decide what is
madness and what actual badness. Some psy-
chologists have started the comfortable but rath-
er dangerous theory, that all badness must be
madness. God knows ! Meantime, may He
keep us all, or one day make us, sane and
sound !
This condition of the nominal head of the
household was a certain drawback when the
neighbors began to call ; and, as was natural,
ill the county opened its arms to Sir Edward
md Lady de Bougainville and their charming
family. For charming they were at once pro-
nounced to be, and with reason. Though lit-
tle was known of them beyond the obvious
facts of a title, a fortune, and the tales whis-
pered about by their servants of how they had
just come from Paris, where they had mingled
in aristocratic and even royal circles, still this
was enough. And the sight of them, at church,
and elsewhere, confirmed every favorable im-
pression. They were soon invited out in all
directions, and courted to an extent that even
Sir Edward might have been content with, in
the neighborhood which they had selected as
their future home.
But, strange to say. Sir Edward's thirst for
society had now entirely ceased. He consid-
ered it an intolerable bore to be asked out to
dinner; and when he did go, generally sat si-
lent, or made himself as disagreeable as he had
once been agreeable in company. The simple
liiw of good-manners that a man may stay at
home if he chooses, but if he does go out, he
ought to make himself as pleasant as he can
was not recognized by poor Sir Edward. Nor
would he have guests at his own house ; it was
too troublesome, he said, and he was sure no-
body ever came to see him, but only to see the
young people and their mother. He was not
going to put himself out in order to entertain
their visitors. So it came to pass, that in this
large establishment the family were soon afraid
even of asking an accidental friend to din-
ner.
But over these and other vagaries of her
master, which old Bridget used to tell me of,
let me keep silence the tender silence which
Lady de Bougainville scrupulously kept when-
ever she referred to this period of her life, ex-
ternally so rich, so prosperous, so happy. And,
I believe, looked back upon from the distance
of years, she herself felt it to have been so.
I think the same. I do not wish her to be
pitied overmuch, as if her life had been one
long tragedy ; for that was not true ; no lives
are. They are generally a mixture of tragedy
and comedy, ups and downs, risings and fall-
ings as upon sea-waves, or else a brief space
of sailing with the current over smooth sun-
shiny waters, as just now this family were sail-
ing. A gay, happy young family; for even
Adrienne began to lift up her head like a snow-
drop after frost, and go now and then to a
dance or an archery meeting ; while at the
same time she was steadily constant to the
occupations she liked best walking, basket-
laden, to the cottages about Brierley, wherever
there was any body sick, or poor, or old ; teach-
ing in the Sunday-school ; and being on the
friendliest terms with every child in the parish.
Some of these, become grown-up fathers and
mothers, had cherished, I found, such a tender
recollection of her her mild, pale face, and
her sweet ways that there are now in Brierley
several little girls called "Addy," or "Ador-
ine," which was their parents' corruption of the
quaint foreign name after which they had been
christened, the name of Miss de Bougainville.
Looking at her, her mother gradually be-
came content. There are worse things than
an unfortunate love a miserable marriage, for
instance. And with plenty of money, plenty
of time, and a moderate amount of health (not
much, alas ! for Adrienne's winter cough always
returned), an unmarried woman can fill up many
a small blank in others' lives, and, when she
dies, leave a wide blank for that hitherto un-
noticed life of her own.
They must, on the whole, have led a merry
existence, and been a goodly sight to see, these
young De Bougainvilles, during the two years
that Sir Edward was restoring Brierley Hall.
When they walked into church, filling th6
musty old pew with a perfect gush of y6uth
and bloom, hearty boyhood and beautiful girl-
hood ; or when in a battalion, half horse, half
foot, they attended archerj' parties, and cricket
meetings, and picnics, creating quite a sensa-
tion, and reviving all thegayety of the county
their mother must have been exceedingly proud
of them.
"Only three of us at a time, please," she
would answer, in amused deprecation, to the
heaps of invitations which came for dinners,
and dances, and what not. "We shall over-
run you like the Goths and Vandals, we are so
many. "
"We are so many!" Ah! poor fond mo-
ther, planning room after room in her large
house, and sometimes fearing that Brierley Hall
itself would not be big enough to contain her
children. "So many I" Well, they are again
the same number now.
By the time the Hall was finished, the De
Bougainvilles had fairly established their posi-
tion as one of the most attractive and popular
144
A BKAVE LADY.
femilies in the neighborhood. The young peo-
ple were pronounced delightful ; the mother in
her beautiful middle-age was almost as young
as any of them, always ready to share in and
advance the amusements of her children, and
keep them from feeling their father's condition
as any cloud upon themselves. She stood a
constant and safe barrier between him and
them ; a steady wall ; with sunshine on the
one side and shade oiji the other, but which nev-
er betrayed the mystery of either. Many a
time, after a sleepless night or a weary day, she
would quit her husband for an hour or two, and
come down among her children with the bright-
est face possible, ready to hear of all their pleas-
ures, share in their interests, and be courteous
and cordial to their new friends ; who, young
and old, were loud in admiration of Lady de
Bougainville. Also, so well did she maintain
his dignity, and shield his peculiarities by wise
excuses, that every body was exceedingly civil,
and even sympathetic, to Sir Edward. He
might have enjoyed his once favorite amuse-
ment of dining out every day, had he chosen ;
but he seldom did choose, and shut himself up
from society almost entirely.
At length the long-deserted mansion was an
inhabited house once more. Light, merry feet
ran up and down the noble staircase ; voices,
singing and calling, were heard in and out of
the Hall ; and every evening there was laugh-
ter, and chatter, and music without end in the
tapestry room, which the young De Bougain-
villes preferred to any other. It was " so fun-
ny," they said ; and when a house-warming was
proposed, a grand ball, to requite the innumer-
able hospitalities the family had received since
they came to the neighborhood, Cesar, and
Louis too so far as Louis condescended to such
mundane things, being a student and a youth of
poetical mind insisted that the dancing should
take place there.
" It would be grand," said they, " to see these
ghostly gentlemen and ladies^ looking down
upon us flesh and blood creatures, so full of
fun, and enjoying life so much. Mamma, you
must manage it for us. You can persuade papa
to any thing persuade him to let us have a
baU."
She promised, but doubtfully, and the ques-
tion long hung in the balance, until some acci-
dental caller happened to suggest to Sir Edward
that with his rank and fortune he ought to take
the lead in society, and give entertainments that
would outshine the whole county. So one day
he. turned suddenly round, not only gave his
consent to the ball, but desired that it might be
given in the greatest splendor, and with no
'.^paring of expense, so that the house-warming
at Brierley Hall might be talked of for years
in the neighborhood. It was.
"Now, really, papa has been very good in
this matter," said Cdsar, rather remorsefully, to
his sister, as they stood watching him creep
from room to room, leaning on his wife's arm,
and taking a momentary pleasure in the inspec-
tion of the preparations in ball-room and supper-
room. The young folks had now grown so used
to their father's self-engrossed valetudinarian-
ism that they took little notice of him, except
to pay him all respect when he did appear
among them, and get out of his way as soon as
they could. As ever, he was the "wet blank-
et" upon all their gayety the cloud in their
sunshiny young lives. But now he could not
help this ; once he could.
It was astonishing how little these young
people saw of their father, especially after he
came to Brierley Hall. He had his own apart-
ments, in which he spent most of his time, rare-
ly joining the family circle except at meals.
His children's company he never sought ; they
knew scarcely any thing of him and his ways,
and their mother was satisfied that it should be
so. The secrets of the life to which she had
once voluntarily linked her own, and with which
she had traveled on, easily or hardly, these many
years, were known to her, and her alone. Best
so. Though she was constantly with him, and
her whole thought seemed to be to minister to
his comforts and contribute to his amusement,
it was curious how little she ever talked to her
children about their father.
The day of the ball arrived. One or two
persons yet living, relics of the families then
belonging to the neighborhood, have told me
of it, and how splendid it was finer than any
entertainment of the kind ever remembered
about Brierley. Though it was winter time,
and the snow lay thick upon the ground, peo-
ple came to it for fifteen miles round the
grand people of the county. As for the poor
people Miss de Bougainville's poor they
were taken by herself beforehand to see the
beautiful sight, the supper-room glittering with
ci-ystal and plate, and the decorated ball-room, ^
which was really the tapestry room, both on
account of Cesar's wish, and because Sir Ed-
ward thought, as a small flight of stairs alone
divided it from his bedroom, he would be able
to go in and out and watch the dancers, retir-
ing when he pleased. He had declined ap-
pearing at supper, which would be far too much
trouble ; but he was gratified by the handsome
appearance "of every thing, and in so bland a
mood th^t he consented to his wife's desire that
there should be next day a second dance in the
servants' hall, where their humbler neighbors
might enjoy the femnants of the feast. And
as she arranged all this. Lady de Bougainville
felt in her heart that it was good to be rich
good to have power in her hands, so as to be
able to make her children and her friends hap-
py to spread for them a merry, hospitable
feast, and yet have enough left to fill many a
basket of fragments for the poor.
"When your father and I are gone," she
said to Cesar after telling him what he was to
do as the young host of the evening " when we
have slipped away and you reign here in our
stead, don't ever forget the poor ; we were poor
ourselves once."
A BRAVE LADY.
U-
No one would have thought it who saw her
now, moving about her large house, and gov-
erning it with a wise liberality. All her pet-
ty, pathetic economies had long ceased ; she
dressed well, kept her house well, and spared
no reasonable luxury to either herself or her
children. She took pleasure in this, the first
large hospitality she had ever exercised al-
most as much pleasure as her children ; until,
just at the last moment, a cloud was cast over
their mirth by Sir Edward's taking offense at
some trifle, becoming extremely irritable, and
declaring he would not appear at night at all
they might manage things all themselves, and
enjoy themselves without him, as they were in
the habit of doing. And he shut himself, and
his wife too, in his own room, whence she did
not emerge till quite late in the day.
"It is very vexing, certainly," she owned to
Cesar, who was lying in wait for her as she
came out ; *' but we must let him have his own
way. Poor papa!".
And after her boy left her for he was too
angry to say much Josephine stood for a min-
ute at the window of the ante-room which di-
vided her room from that of the girls, who were
all dressing and laughing together. Once or
twice she sighed, and looked out wistfully on
the clear moonlight shining on the snow. Was
she tired of this world, with all its vanities and
vexations of spirit? Or was her soul, which
had learned much of late, full only of pity, and
a certain remorseful sorrow that there should
be nothing else but pity left, for the man who
had been her husband all these years ? I know
not ; I can not sufficiently put myself in her
place to comprehend what her feelings must
have been. But whatever they were she kept
them to herself, and went with a smiling face
into her daughters' chambers.
There were two, one for the younger girls
a quaint apartment, hung with Chinese paper,
covered over with quaint birds, and fishes, and
flowers ; and another, the cheerfulest in the
house, where the fire-light shone upon crimson
curtains and a pretty French bed, and left in
shadow the grim worn face of John the Baptist
over the fire-place ; I know the room. Tliere
Bridget stood brushing the lovely curls of Miss
Adrienne, for whom her mother had carefully
chosen a ball-dress, enveloping her* defective
figure in clouds of white gauze, and putting
tender blush roses real sweet-scented hot-
house roses in her bosom aAd her hair ; so that
for once poor fragile Adrienne looked absolute-
ly pretty. For the two others, Gabrielle and
Catherine, they looked pretty in any thing.
If I remember right Bridget told me they wore
this night white muslin the loveliest dress for
any young girl with red camellias in their
bosoms, and 1 think ivy in their hair. Some-
thing real, I know it was, for their mother had
a dislike to artificial flowers as ornaments.
She dressed, first her daughters and then
herself; wearing her favorite black velvet, and
looking the handsomest of them all. She walk-
ed round her beautiful rooms, glittering with
wax-lights, and tried to put on a cheerful coun-
tenance.
"It is a great pity of course, papa's taking
this fancy; but we must frame some excuse
for him, and not fret about it. Let us make
ourselves and every body abput us as cheerful
as we can."
"Yes, mamma," said Adrienne, whose slight-
ly pensive but not unhappy face showed that,
somehow or other, she too had already learned
that lesson.
" Mamma," cried Ce'sar and Louis together,
"you are a wonderful woman!"
Whether wonderful or not, she was the wo-
man that God made her and meant her to be ;
nor had she wasted the gifts, such as they were.
When, in years long after, her children's fond
tongues being silent, others ventured to praise
her, this was the only thing to which Lady
de Bougainville would ever own. " I did my
best," she would answer her sweet, dim old
eyes growing dreamy, as if looking back calmly
upon that long tract of time " Yes, I believe
I did my best."
Most country balls are much alike ; so there
is no need minutely to describe this one. Its
most ncfticeable feature was the hostess and her
children, who were, every body agreed and
the circumstance was remembered for years
"quite a picture;" so seldom was it that a
lady, still young-looking enough to have passed
for her eldest son's sister instead of his mother,
should be surrounded by so goodly a^ family,
descending, step by step, to the youngest child,
with apparently not a single break or loss.
" You are a very fortunate and a very happy
woman," said to her one of her neighbors, who
had lost much husband, child, and worldly
wealth.
"Thank God, yes!" answered g%ntly Lady
de Bougainville.
Every body of course regretted Sir Edward's
absence and his " indisposition," which was the
reason assigned for it ; though perhaps he was
not so grievously missed as he would have
liked to be. But every body seemed wishful
to cheer the hostess by double attentions, and
congratulations on the admirable way in which
her son Cdsar supplied his father's place. And,
after supper, the rector of Brierley, who was
also the oldest inhabitant there, made a pretty
little speech, giving the health of their absent
host, and expressing the general satisfaction at
Sir Edward's taking up his residence in the
neighborhood, and the hope that the De Bou-
gainvilles of Brierley Hall might become an
important family in the county for many gen-
erations.
After supper the young folks began dancing
again, and the old folks looked on, sitting
round the room or standing in the doorway.
Lady de Bougainville looked on too, glancing
sometimes from the brilliantly lighted crowd
of moving figures to that other crowd of figures
on the tapestried wall, so silent and shado\^y.
146
A BRAVE LADY.
How lifelike was the one how phantom-like
the other ! Who would ever have thought
they would one day have changed places:
those all vanished, and these remained?
It was toward one o'clock in the morning
that a thing happened which made this ball
an event never forgotten in the neighborhood
while the generation that was present at it sur-
vived. Not only Bridget, but several extrane-
ous spectators, have described the scene to me
as one of the most startling and painful that it
was possible to witness.
The gayety was at its climax : cheered by
their good supper, the dancers were dancing
and the musicians were playing their very best :
all but a few guests, courteously waited for by
Cesar and Adrienne, had returned to the ball-
room; and Lady de Bougainville, supplying
her elder children's place, was moving brightly
hither and thither, smiling pleasantly on the
smiling crowd.
Suddenly a door was half opened-rthe door
at the further end leading by a short staircase
to Lady de Bougainville's bedchamber. Some
of the dancers shut it ; but in a minute more it
was again stealthily set ajar, and a face peered
out a weird white face, with long black hair
hanging from under a white tasseled night-cap.
It was followed by a figure, thin and spare,
wrapped in a white flannel dressing-gown.
The unstockinged feet were thrust into slippers,
and a cambric handkerchief strongly perfumed
was flourished in the sickly-looking hands.
Such an apparition, half sad, half ludicrous,
was never before seen in a ball-room.
At first it was only perceived by those near-
est the door, and they did not recognize it until
somebody whispered "Sir Edward." "He's
drunk, surely," was the next suggestion ; and
one or two gentlemen spoke to him and tried
to lure hin#'back out of the room.
No, he was not drunk ; whatever his failings,
intemperance had never been among them. It
was something far worse, if worse be possible.
The few who addressed him, and met in return
the vacant stare of that wild wandering eye,
saw at once that it was an eye out of which the
light of reason had departed, either temporari-
ly or forever.
The well-meant efforts to get him out of
the room proved fruitless. He broke away
with a look of terror from the hands which
detained him, and began to dart in and out
among the dancers like a hunted creature.
Girls screamed the quadrille was interrupted
the music stopped and in the sudden lull
of silence, Lady de Bougainville, standing talk-
ing at the further end of the room, heard a
shrill voice calling her.
" Josephine ! Josephine ! Where is my
wife ? Somebody has taken away my wife !"
Whether she had in some dim way forebod-
ed a similar catastrophe, and so when it came
was partially , prepared for it, or whether the
vital necessity of the moment compelled her
into almost miraculous self-control, I can not
tell ; but the testimony of all who were pres-
ent at that dreadful scene declares that Lady
de Bougainville's conduct throughout it was
something wonderful: even when, catching
sight of her through the throng, the poor de-
mented figure rushed up to her, and, as if fly-
ing there for refuge, clung with both arms
about her neck.
"Josephine, save me! These people are
hunting me down ; I know they are. Dear
wife, save me!"
She soothed him with quiet words, very
quiet, though they came out of lips blanched
dead-white. But she never lost her self-com-
mand for a moment. Taking no notice of any
body else and indeed the guests instinctively
shrunk back, leaving her and him together
she tried to draw her husband out of the room ;
but he violently resisted. Not until she said
imperatively, "Edward, you must come!" did
he allow her to lead him, by slow degrees,
through the ball-room, to the door by which he
had entered it.
It was a piteous sight a dreadful sight.
There was not even the subhmity of madness
about it : no noble mind overthrown, no
" Sweet bells jangled oat of tune and harsh."
Sir Edward's condition was that of mere fatuity
a weak soul sinking gradually into premature .
senility. And the way in which his wife, so
far from being startled and paralyzed by it,
seemed quite accustomed to his state, and un-
derstanding how to manage it, betrayed a se-
cret more terrible still, which had never before
been suspected by her guests and good neigh-
bors. They all looked at one another, and then
at her, with eyes of half-frightened compassion,
but not one of them attempted to interfere.
She stood a minute she, the tall, stately
woman, with her diamonds flashing and her
velvet gown trailing behind her, and that for-
lorn, tottering figure clinging to her arm and,
casting a look of mute appeal to those nearest
her, whispered: "Don't alarm my children,
please. Take no notice let the dancing go on
as before;" and was slipping out of sight with
her husband, when Sir Edward suddenly stopped.
" Wait a minutCy my dear," said he. A new
whim seemed to strike him ; he threw himself
into an attitude, wrapping the folds of his dress-
ing-gown about him something like a clergy-
man's gown, and flourishing his white pocket-
handkerchief with an air of elegant ease quite
ghastly to witness.
"Ladies and gentlemen no, I mean my
dear friends and brethren you see my wife, a
lady I am exceedingly proud of; she comes of
very high family, and has been the best and
kindest wife to me." The sentence was begun
ore rotimdo, in a strained, oratorical, pul])it
tone, gradually dwindling down almost to a
whine.
"She is v6ry kind to me still," he resumed,
but querulously and petulantly, like a complain-
ing child. "Only she worries me sometimes ;
A BRAVE LADY.
147
WAITING ON THE 6TAIB.
she makes me eatmy dinner when I don't want
it; and; would you believe it?" breaking into
a silly kind of laugh "she won't let me catch
flies ! Not that there are many flies left to
catch it is winter now. I saw the snow lying
on the ground, and I am so cold. Wrap me
up, Josephine ; I am so very cold !"
Shivering, the poor creature clung to her
once more, continuing his grumblings, which
had dropped down to a mere mutter, quite un-
intelligible to those around. They shrunk
away still further, with a mixture of awe and
pity, while his wife half drew, half carried him
up the few stairs that led to his bedroom door.
It closed upon the two ; and from that hour un-
til the day when they were invited to his funer-
al, none of his neighbors, nor indeed any one
out of his own immediate family, ever saw any
more of poor Sir Edward de Bougainville.
And they heard very little either. The Bri-
erley doctor, whom some one had sent for^ came
immediately, was admitted just as a matter of
form, reported that the patient was asleep, but
really seemed to know little or nothing about
his illness. Nor did the sick man's own chil-
dren, to whom every body, of course, spoke
delicately and with caution during the brief in-
terval that elapsed before the ball broke up and
the guests dispersed. They were very kindly
and considerate guests would have done any
thing in the world for their hostess and her fam-
ily ; but the case seemed one in which nobody
could do any thing. So, after a while, the last
carriage rolled away ; Cesar, left sole repre-
sentative of the hospitality of the family, saw
the visitors depart with due attention and many
apologies, but as few explanations as could pos-
sibly be made. He was his mother's OAvn son
already, both for reticence and self-control.
When the house was quiet, he insisted upon
all the servants and children going to bed ; but
he and Adrienne, who had at first terribly
broken down, and afterward recovered herself,
spent the remainder of the night the chilly
winter night sitting on the little stair outside
their parents' door.
- Once or twice the mother caitne^ont to them,
and insisted on their retiring to rest.
" Papa is fast asleep still he may sleep till
morning he often does. Indeed, I am quite
used to this, it never alarms me. Don't vex
your dear hearts about me, my children," she
148
A BRAVE LADY.
added, breaking into a faint smile as she stoop-
ed over them and patted their hair. "You
are too young for sorrow. It will come in
God's own time to you all."
So said she, with a sigh ; mourning over the
possible chance of her children's lives being as
hard as her own, nor knowing how vain was
the lamentation. Still, her feeling on this point
was so strong and immovable, that, say what
they would, nothing could induce her to let
either son or daughter share her forlorn watch ;
both then and afterward she firmly resisted all
attempts of the kind. I fancy, besides the rea-
son she gave, there were others equally strong
a pathetic kind of shame lest other eyes than
her own should see the wreck her husband had
become, and a wish to keep up to the last,
above all before her children, some shadowy
image of him in his best self, by which, and
not by the reality, he might be remembered
after he was gone.
The end, however, was by no means at hand,
and she knew it, or at least had good reason
for believing so. The most painful thing about
Sir Edward's illness was that the weaker his
mind became the stronger his body seemed to
grow. Mr. Oldham's state had been pitiable
enough, Josephine once thought, but here was
the reasoning brain, not merely imprisoned, but
slowly decaying within its bodily habitation,
the mere physical qualities long outlasting
and God only knew how many years they might
outlast the mental ones ; for Sir Edward was
still in the middle of life. When she looked
into futurity Josephine shivered ; and horrible
though the thought was to enter her mind, still
it did enter, when he suffered very much that
the heart-disease of which Dr. Waters had
warned her, and against which she had ever
since been constantly on her guard, might after
all be less a terror than a mercy.
He did suffer very much at times, poor Sir
Edward ! There were at intervals many fluc-
tuations, in which he was pathetically con-
scious of his own state, and to what it tended ;
nay, even, in a dim way, of the burden he was,
and was likely to become, to every body. And
he had an exceeding fear of death and dying
a terror so great that he could not bear the
words spoken in his presence. In his daily
drives with his wife often with the carriage-
blinds down, for he could not endure the light,
or the sight of chance people nothing would
induce him to pass Ditchley church-yard.
"It is very strange," Josephine would say
to Bridget, who now, as ever, either knew or
guessed more than any one her mistress's
cares. *' He is so afraid of dying ; when I
feel so tired! so tired! when I would so
gladly lay me down to rest, if it were not for
my children. I must try to live a little lon-
ger, if only for my children."
But yet, Bridget told me, she saw day by
day Lady de Bougainville slowly altering un-
d^r the weight of her anxieties, growing wasted,
aifd old, and pale, with constant confinement
to the one room, out of which Sir Edward
would scarcely let her stir by night or by day.
Seldom did she get an hour's refreshing talk
with her children, who were so entirely left to
themselves in that large empty house, where
of course no visitors were now possible. It
would have been a dull house to them, with all
its grandeur, had they not been, by all ac-
counts, such remarkably bright young people,
inheriting all the French liveliness and Irish
versatility, based upon that solid ground-work
of Conscientiousness which their mother had
implanted in them, implanted in her by the
centuries' old motto of her race, "Fais ce que
tu dois, advienne que pourra."
And so when that happened which she must
have long foreseen, and Sir Edward fell into
this state, sh. and they still did the best they
could, and especially for one another. The
children kept the house cheerful; the mother
hid her heaviest cares within the boundary of
that sad room. Oh, if rooms could tell their
history, what a tale to be told there! And
when she did cross its threshold, it was with a
steadfast, smiling countenance, ready to share
in any relaxation that her good children never
failed to have ready for her. And she took
care that all their studies and pursuits should
go on just the same, at home and at college,
except that Cesar, who had no special call else-
where, remained at Brierley Hall. She had
said to him, one day, " I can't do without you ,-
don't leave me;" and her son had ansAvered,
with his prompt decision, so like her own, " I
never will."
But as the summer advanced, and she felt
how dreary the young people's life was becom-
ing, with that brave motherly heart of hers she
determined to send some of them away, out of
sight and hearing of her own monotonous and
hopeless days. For she had no hope ; the best
physicians, who of course gave their best con-
sideration to the case of so wealthy a Ynan, and
so important a member of society (alas, the
mockery!) as Sir Edward de Bougainville,
could give her none. Cure was impossible ;
but the slow decay might go on for many years.
Nothing was left to her but endurance ; the hard-
est possible lesson to Josephine de Bougain-
ville. She could fight with fate, even yet ; but
to stand tamely with bound hands and feet,
waiting for the advancing tide, like the poor
condemned witches of old it was a horrible
trial. Yet this was her lot, and she must bear
it. In hers, as in many another life, she needed
to be taught by means least expected or de-
sired; had to accept the blessings which she
never sought, and lose those which she most
prayed for; yet long before the end came, she-
could say I have often heard her say not "I
have done my best," but "He has done His
best with me, and I know it." And the know-
ing of it was the lesson learned.
But just now it was very hard ; and she felt
often, as she owned to Bridget, "tired so
tired!" as if all the happiness that existence
A BRAVE LADY.
149
could offer would not be equivalent to the one
blessing of mere rest.
I have said little about Bridget lately; in-
deed, these latter years she had retired into
what was still called the nursery, as a sort of
amateur young ladies' maid, occupying no very
prominent position in the family. Her plain
looks had grown plainer with age ; Sir Edward
disliked to see her about the house, and nothing
but his wife's strong will and his own weak one
could have retained in her place the follower
of the family. In the sunshine of prosperity
poor Bridget retired into the shade, but when-
ever a cloud came over the family, her warm
Irish heart leaped up to comfort them all ; her
passionate Irish fidelity kept their secrets from
every eye ; and her large Irish generosity for-
got any little neglect of the past, and flung it-
self with entire self-devotion into the present.
(This little ebullition must be pardoned. I
was very fond of Bridget, who stood to me as
the type of all that is noble in the Irish charac-
ter, which is very noble sometimes at its core.)
During this sad summer, Bridget rose to the
emergencies of the time. She lightened her
mistress's hands as much as possible, becoming
a sort of housekeeper, and doing her duties
very cleverly, even in so large an establishment
as Brierley Hall. For there was no one else
to do it; Adrienijp was not able; it was as
much as Bridget's caution could do to conceal
from her mistress a care which would have
added heavily to all her other burdens, name-
ly, that things were not quite right with poor
Miss Adrienne. Her winter cough lingered
still. T^hat gay ball-dress in which she had
looked so pretty, proved a fatal splendor ; dur-
ing the long chilly night when she and Ce'sar
had sfvtr'at their mother's room door, the cold
had pierced in through her bare neck and arms.
She scarcely felt it ; her mind was full of other
things ; and when, in the gray dawn, she took
out of her bosom the dead hot-house roses gath-
ered by her mother with such care, she little
thought, nor did any one think, that under-
neath them Death himself had crept in and
struck her to the heart.
Not a creature suspected this. That strange
blindness which sometimes possesses a family
which for many years has known neither sick-
ness nor death, hung over them all even the
mother. She was so accustomed to Adrienne's
delicacy of health, and to Bridget's invariable
cheery comment upon it, "It's the cracked
pitcher goes longest to the well," that her eyes
detected no great change in the girl. And
Adrienne herself said nothing; sheAvas sb used
to feeling " a little ill," that she took her feeble-
ness quite as a matter of course, and only
wished to make it as little of a trouble as pos-
sible above all to her mother, who had so
many cares ; and she urged with unselfish earn-
estness a plan Lady de Bougainville arranged,
and at last brought about, that the three boys
should go with an Oxford tutor on a reading-
party to Switzerland for two months.
Cesar resisted it a long time. " I will not
leave you, mother. You said I never must. "
" I know that, my son, and I want you very
much, but I shall want you more by-and-by.
This kind of life may last for forty years
years ! I can bear it better when I see my
children happy. Besides," added she, more
lightly, " I oould not trust your brothers with-
out you you grave old fellow ! You are the
strong-hold of the house. Nevertheless, you
must do as your mother bids you a little
while longei;. Obey her now, my darling, and
go."
So Cdsar went.
The morning of departure was sunshiny and
bright, and the three lads were bright as the
day. It was natural they were so gay, and
healthy, and young ; their sisters too to whom
they promised heaps of things to be brought
home from Switzerland. Adrienne was the
only one who wept. She, clinging to Cesar,
always her favorite brother, implored him to
" take care of himself," and be sure to come
home at the two months' end.
" Ay, that I will ! Nothing in the world
shall stop me for a day," cried he, shaking his
long curls very long hair was the fashion then
and looking like a young fellow bound to
conquer fafe, and claim from fortune every
thing he desired.
* ' Very well, " said his mother, gayly. " Come
back on the 1st of October and youll find us
all standing here, just as you leave us. Now
be off! Good-by good-by."
She forced the lads away, with the laugh on
her lips and the tears in her eyes. Yet she
was not sad glad rather, to have driven her
children safe out of the gloomy atmosphere
which she herself had to dwell in, but which
could not fail to injure them more or less.
"The young should be happy," she said,
half sighing; "and, bless them! these boys
will be very happy. What a carriageful of
hope it is!"
She watched it drive away, amidst a grand
farewell waving of hats and handkerchiefs, and
then turned back with her three daughters into
the shadows of the quiet house, gulping down
a wild spasm at her throat, but still content
quite content. Women that are mothers will
understand 'it all.
CHAPTER XIX.
In this straightforward telling of the history
of my dear Lady de Bougainville, I pause, al-
most with apprehension. I am passing out
of the sunshiny day, or the checkered lights
and glooms which, viewed from a distance,
seem like sunshine, into the dark night as she
had now to pass. The events next to be re-
corded happened so suddenly, and in such rapid
succession, that in the recording of them they
seem a mountain of grief too huge for fate to
heap at once upon one individual. Yet is it
150
A BRAVE LADY.
not true to the experience of daily life that sor-
rows mostly come "in battalions ?"
Lady de Bougainville had had many per-
plexities, many trials, many sore afflictions ;
but one solemn Angel had always passed by her
door without setting his foot there, or taking
any treasures thence, except indeed her little
new-born babies. Now, on that glorious Au-
gust dayj he stood behind her, hiding his bright
still face with his black wings, on the very
threshold of Brierley Hall.
After the boys had departed, Bridget came
to her mistress, and hastily, with fewer words
than voluble Bridget was wont to use, asked if
she might go up to London with the young la-
dies and their governess for some little pleasur-
ing that had been planned.
" And I'm thinking, my lady, if afterward I
might just take Miss Adrienne to see the doc-
tor" (a physician of note who sometimes attend-
ed the family). "She's growing thin, and los-
ing her appetite of late : fretting a little, may-
be, at losing her brothers. But now they're
fairly gone, she'll soon get over it."
"Of course she will," said the mother, smil-
ing ; for Bridget spoke so carelessly that even
she was deceived. Doubly deceived next day
by her daughter's red cheeks and sparkling
eyes, caused by the excitement of this brief
two-hours' journey.
"You don't look as if you needed any doc-
tor, my child. However, you may go, just to
satisfy Bridget. Mind and tell me all he says
to you."
But when they came back there was nothing
to tell; at least Adrienne reported so: "All
the doctor's orders were given to Bridget in the
next room ; he only patted me on the shoulder,
and bade me go home and get strong as fast as
ever I could which I mean to do, mamma ;
it would be such a trouble to you if I were ill.
There's papa calling you ! run back to him
quick quick ! "
It happened to be one of Sir Edward's bad
days, and not till quite late at night had his
faithful nurse for he would have no other a
chance of leaving him and creeping down stairs
for a little rest in the cedar parlor. There she
found Bridget waiting for her, as was her fre-
quent habit, with a cup of tea, after all the rest
of the household was in bed.
" Thank you !" Josephine said, and no more
for she had no need to keep up a smiling face
before her faithful old servant and she was ut-
terly worn out with the lojig strain of the day.
Bridget once told me fhat as she stood be-
side her mistress that night, and watched her
take that cup of tea, she felt as if it were a cup
of poison which she herself had poured out for
her drinking.
"Now," continued Lady de Bougainville, a
little refreshed, "tell me, for I have just ten
minutes to spare, what the doctor said about
Miss Adrienne. Nothing much, it seems, ex-
cept telling her to go home and get strong.
She will be quite strong soon, then?"
The question was put as if it scarcely needed
an affirmative, and Bridget long remembered
her mistress's look, and even her attitude, sit-
ting comfortably at ease with her feet on the
fender and her gown a little lifted, displaying
her dainty silk stockings and black velvet shoes.
"Why don't you answer?" asked she, sud-
denly looking up. "There is nothing really
wrong with the child ?"
" There is a little," said Bridget, cautious-
ly. " I've thought so, my lady, a good while,, '
only I didn't like to tell you. But the doctor
said I must. He is coming down to-morrow
to speak to you himself."
"To speak to me!"
" It's her lungs, you see ; she caught cold tn
winter, and has coughed ever since. He wants
to bring a second doctor down to examine her
chest, and I thought you might be frightened,
and that I had better "
Frightened was not the word. In the mo-
ther's face was not terror, but a sort of inst^-
taneous stony despair, as if she accepted all,
and was surprised at nothing. Then it sud-
denly changed into fierce, incredulous resist-
ance.
"I abhor doctors. I will not have these
men coming down here and meddling with my
child : she should never have gone to town.
You take too much upon^ yourself, Bridget,
sometimes."
Bridget never answered ; the tears were roll-
ing fast down her cheeks, and the sight of them
seemed to alarm Lady de Bougainville more
than any words.
She held out her hand. " I did not mean to
be cross with you. I know I am very cross
sometitnes, but I have much to bear. Oh, if
any. thing were to go wrong with my child !
But tell me tell me the whole truth; it is
best."
Bridget knew it was best, for the doctor
would tell it all, in any case, to-morrow ; and
his opinion, as expressed to herself, had been
so decided as to leave scarcely a loophole of
hope. It was the common tale a neglected
cold, which, seizing upon Adrienne's feeble
constitution, had ended in consumption so
rapid that no remedies were possible : indeed
the physician suggested none. To the patient
herself he had betrayed nothing, of course,
sending her away with that light cheery speech ;
but to the nurse he had given distinctly and de-
cisively the fiat of doom. Within a few months,
perhaps even a few weeks, the tender young
life would be ended.
The whole thing was so sudden, so terrible,
that even Bridget herself, who had had some
hours to grow familiar with it, scarcely believed
the words she felt herself bound to speak. No
wonder, therefore, that the mother was utterly
and fiercely incredulous.
"It is not true! I know it is not true!"
she said. "Still something must be done. I
will take her abroad at once ah, no ! I can't
do that but you will take her, Bridget. She
A BRAVE LADY.
151
shall go any where do any thing thank God
we are so rich !"
" If the riches could save her, poor darling !"
broke in Bridget, with a sob. *'I never told
you how ill she was; she would not let me;
she said you had enough to bear. But when
you see how much she suffers daily and may
have to suffer, the doctor says oh, my lady !
you will let the child go."
"I will not!" was the fierce cry. "Any
thing but this ; oh, any thing but this !"
Josephine had known many sorrows a^fpaost
every kind of sorrow except death. True, she
had mourned for her lost babies, and for her
father ; though his decease, happening peace-
fully at a ripe old age and soon after her own
marriage, was scarcely felt at the time as a
real loss. But that supreme anguish which
sooner or later smites us all, when some one
well-beloved goes from us, never to return
leaving behind a deep heart-wound, which
closes and heals over in time, yet with a scar
in its place forever this Josephine had never
known nor understood till now.
Nor did she now even though, after the
doctors had been there, the truth was forced
upon her from the lips of her own child.
"Mamma," whispered Adricnne, one day,
when, in the pauses of sharp suffering which oft-
en troubled a decay that otherwise would have
been as beautiful as that of an autumn leaf, she
lay watching her two sisters amusing themselves
in her room, from which she seldom stirred
now, "Chere maman, I think, after all, Gabri-
elle will make the best Miss de Bougainville.
Hush!" laying her hand on her mother's lips,
and then reaching up to kiss them, they had
turned so white; "I know all; for I asked
Bridget, and she told me. And I am not
afraid. You may see I am not afraid."
She was not. Either from her long-con-
firmed ill health, and perhaps her early disap-
pointment, life had not been so, precious to poor
little Adrienne as they had thought it was ; or
else, in that wonderful way in which dying
people, though ever so young, grow reconciled
to dying, death had ceased to have any terrors
for her. Her simple soul looked forward to
" heaven," and the new existence there, with
the literal fuith and confidence of a child ; and
she talked of her own departure, of where she
would like to be buried, and of the flowers that
were to be planted over her "that I may
spring up again as daisies and primroses: I
was so fond of primroses" with a composure
that sometimes was startling to hear.
"You see, Bridget," she would say, "after
I am gone, mamma will not be left forlorn, as
if I were her only one. She will still have two
daughters, both much cleverer and prettier than
I, and her three sons oh such sons ! to carry
down the name to distant generations. I can
be the easiest spared of us all."
And in her utter unselfishness, which had
been Adrienne's characteristic from birth, she
would not have her brothers sent for, or even
told of her state, lest it might shorten their en-
joyments abroad, and bring them sooner back
to a dreary home.
" I can love them all the same," she said ;
"and I want them to remember me with love,
and not in any painful manner. If they just
come in time for me to say good-by to them, I
should like that it will do quite well. "
Thus, in the quietest and most matter-of-fact
way, her sole thought being how she could give
least trouble to any body, Adrienne prepared
for her solemn change.
Was her mother also prepared ? I can not
tell. Sometimes Bridget thought she seemed
to realize it perfectly, and was driven half fran-
tic by the difficulty she had in getting away
from her husband who remained in much the
same state to her poor child, with whom every
moment spent was so precious. Then again,
as if in total blindness of the future, she would
begin planning, as usual, her girls' winter dress-
.es her three girls ; or arranging with eagerness,
long beforehand, all the Christmas festivities
and Christmas charities which Adrienne was to
give to her poor people, who came in dozens
to ask after Miss de Bougainville, and brought
her little offerings of all sorts without end.
" See what a blessing it is to be rich !" Lady
de Bougainville would say. "When I was at
Ditchley I used to dread Christmas, because
we were so poor we could do nothing for any
body : now we can. How we shall enjoy it all ! "
Adrienne never contradicted her, and enter-
ed into her arrangements as if she herself were
certain to share them; but sometimes, when
Lady de Bougainville had quitted the room, she
would look after her with a sigh, saying, "Poor
mamma ! poor mamma !"
Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that
Adrienne's illness was altogether a miserable,
time. I think mere sickness nay, mere death
never is, unless the poor sufferer helps to /
make it so. By degrees the whole household
caught the reflection of Adrienne's wonderful
peace and contentment in dying. The leaves
that she watched falling and the flowers fading
it happened to be a remarkably beautiful au-
tumn did not fall and fade in a more sunshiny
calm than she.
"I know I shall never *get up May hill,' as
Bridget expresses it ; but I may have a few
months longer among you all. I should like
it, if I didn't trouble you very much."
By which she meant her own sufferings,
which were often very severe more so than
any one knew, except Bridget. The nurse with
her child, the wife with her husband, through-
out all that dreary time, shared and yet con-
cealed one another's cares ; and managed some-
how to keep cheery, more or less, for the sake
of Gabriello and Catherine, who were now the
only bit of sunshine left in Brierley Hall. It
began to feel chill and empty ; and every one
longed for, yet dreaded, the boys' return, when
one day, after the bright autumn had turned
almost to premature winter, Adrienne drew her
152
A BRAVE LADY.
mother's face down to hers, over which had
come a great atid sudden change, and whisper-
ed, "Write to my brothers : tell them to come
home."
So Lady de Bougainville wrote a letter in
which for the first time she broke to her sons
something of the truth, and why, by Adrienne's
desire, it had been hitherto concealed from
them.
"Come home quick," she wrote (I have
myself read the letter, for it was returned to
her, and found years after among her other pa-
pers). "Come, my sons, though your merry
days are done, and you are coming home to
sorrow. You have never known it before ; now
you must. Your mother can not save you from
it any longer. Come home, for I want you to
help me. My heart is breaking. I sometimes
feel as if I could not live another day, but for
the comfort I look forward to in my three dear
boys."
Thus wrote she, thus thought she at the time.
Years after, how strange it was to read those
words!
The letter sent, Adrienne seemed to revive a
little. It was the middle of September. "They
will be home, you'll see, on the 1st of October ;
Ce'sar never breaks his word. He will not find
me on the hall door steps as you promised him,
mamma; but he will find me, I feel sure of
that ; I shall just see them all and then "
Then?
That night, when forced to quit her daugh-
ter's cheerful side to keep watch in the gloomy
bedroom which Sir Edward had insisted upon
furnishing so sumptuously, v/ith a huge cata-
falque of a bed to sleep in, and tall mirrors to
reflect his figure, the miserable, little stooping
figure ! that night, and in that chamber, where
the blessedness of married solitude had become
a misery untold. Lady de Bougainville, for the
first time in her life, meditated solemnly upon
the other world, whither in how many days or
hours, who could tell ? Adrienne was so fear-
lessly going.
It might have been that in the cloud which
had fallen upon so many of her mortal delights,
the blankness that she found in her worldly
splendors, Josephine's mind had grown gradu-
ally prepared for what was coming upon her ;
or perhaps on that special day she had reason
to remember it the invisible world was actual-
ly nearer to her than she knew ; but she sat by
her fire long after her husband was asleep sat
thinking and thinking, until there seemed to be
more than herself in the room, and the portraits
of her children on the walls followed her wist-
fully about, as the eyes of portraits do. She
grew strangely composed, even though she knew
her daughter was dying. We never recognize
how we have been taught these kind of things,
nor who is teaching us, but to those who believe
in a spiritual world at all, there come many in-
fluences totally unaccounted for ; we may have
learned our lesson unawares, but we have learn-
ed it, and when the time comes we are ready.
It was one of the latter days of September
I think the 29th that the Times newspaper
communicated to all England, in a short para-
graph, one of those small tragedies in real life
which sometimes aff'ect us outsiders more than
any wholesale catastrophe, shipwreck, earth-
quake, or the like. The agony is so condensed
that it seems greater, and comes more closely
home to us. We begin to think how we should
feel if it happened to ourselves, and how those
feel to whom it has happened, so that our
heai^s are full of pity and sympathy.
Thus, on that 29th September, many a worthy
father of a family, enjoying his Tiynes and his
breakfast together, stopped to exclaim "How
shocking!" and to read aloud to wife or chil-
dren, mingled with sage reflections on the dan-
gers of Alpine exploits and of foreign traveling
in general, the account of an accident which
had lately befallen some Swiss tourists, in cross-
ing the Lake of Uri from Bauen to Tell's chap-
el. They had put up a small sail in their crowd-
ed boat, and one of the sudden squalls which,
coming down from the mountains all round it,
render this one of the most perilous of the Swis'S
lakes, had caught and capsized them. Two of
their number, said to be English Oxford men,
named Burgoyne were drowned.
Lower down, inserted as "From a Corre-
spondent," was another version of the catas-
trophe ; explaining that the number in the boat
was only five : three young men ; an elderly
gentleman, their tutor ; and the boatman. The
latter two had saved themselves by swimming,
and were picked up not far from Bauen ; but
the three young fellows, brothers, after making
inefiectual attempts to help one another, had
all gone down. They were sons of an English
gentleman of fortune, this account said ; and
their names were not Burgoyne, but De Bou-
gainville.
Twenty-five years ago there was no electric
telegraph, and a very uncertain foreign post ;
the Times couriers often outsped it, and news
appeared there before any private intelligence
was possible. Thus it happened that she of
whom many a kind-hearted English matron
thought compassionately that morning, won-
dering if those three poor lads had a mother,
how the news was broken to her, and how she
bore it had no warning.of the dreadful tidings
at all. She read them read them Avith her
own eyes, in the columns of the Times news-
paper !
Sir Edward's sole remaining interest in the
outside world was his daily paper. How much
of it his enfeebled mind took in was doubtful,
but he liked to hear it read to him in his wife's
pleasant monotonous voice; while to her this
was rather a relief than not, for it killed two
hours of the long dreary day. Besides, she got
into a habit of reading on and on, without com-
prehending a single sentence ; nay, often think-
ing of something else the Avhole time. As she
did this morning ; wondering if her boys had
reached Calais, and what sort of a crossing they
A BEAVE LADY.
153
would have, for the wind had been howling all
night in the chimneys of Brierley Hall. Not
that she was afraid of the sea, or indeed of any
thing ; none of those sudden misfortunes which
seem the portion of some lives had ever hap-
pened in hers. Though she had had no an-
swer to her letter, it never occurred to her to
be uneasy about her sons. They were sure
to come home again, and in good health, for,
except Adrienne, all her children inherited her
own excellent constitution. That very morn-
ing she had said to Bridget, half sadly, "Oh
yes. I am quite well always am well. I
think nothing could ever kill me."
She had just finished the leading articles and
was turning to the police reports any thing
did for reading when this fatal paragraph
caught her eye. It might not have done so,
so preoccupied was she, but for the word
"Switzerland," which reminded her of her
boys. So she paused to glance over it, just to
herself; read it once twice thrice before
she could in the least take it in. When she
did, her strong soul and- body alike gave way.
She threw up her arms with a wild shriek, and
fell flat on the floor like a stone.
Admission to Sir Edward's room was rare.
Sometimes whole days passed without the
younger girls being sent for even to say good-
morning or good-night to papa all they ever
did ; and it was weeks since Adrienne had seen
her father. He made no inquiry after her;
seemed scarcely aware of her state, except to
grudge her mother's absence in her room.
Thus, after the morning visit to her sick child,
it was so usual for Lady de Bougainville to
spend the whole forenoon shut up with her hus-
band, that nobody inquired for her, or thought
of inquiring, until Bridget, noticing that among
the letters which came in by the post was a
foreign one, and not in any of the boys' hand-
writing, thought she would take it in to her
mistress herself, and so bring sooner to Miss
Adrienne, who was ver}' feeble that day, the
news of her brothers' arrival, and the hour.
Bridget knocked several times, but no one
answered. Then, terribly alarmed, she pushed
open the double doors of green baize, which
shut off" all sounds in that room from the rest
of the house, and ventured in. There, the
sight she saw almost confirmed a dreadful pos-
sibility which she had never dared to breathe
to mortal, but which haunteU poor Bridget
night and day.
Sir Edward sat with his wife's head upon his
knees ; she lying as if she were dead, and he
stroking, with a miserable sort of moan, her
hands and her hair.
"Come here, Bridget; tell me what is the
matter with her ! I haven't hurt her, indeed I
have not. I never even said one unkind word.
She was just quietly reading the newspaper,
when down she dropped as if somebody had
shot her. Is she killed, I wonder? Then peo-
ple will be sure to say I killed her. Take her,
Bridget, for I must run and hide."
He shifted the poor head from his own lap
to Bridget's, and the movement brought a sigh
of returning life to the breast of the unfortu-
nate mother.
Josephine had said to her eldest son in the
letter which never reached him, for it came
back to her unopened, that "her heart was
breaking." But hers was not one of the hearts
that break.
She opened her eyes, lifted herself up on her
elbow, and stared wildly around.
"Something has happened. Is it Adri-
enne?" And then she caught sight of the
newspaper on the floor. " Ah, no! It is my
boys!" she shrieked. "Bridget, my boys are
dead drowned in the lake ! the newspaper
says so."
"Newspapers don't always tell the truth,"
cried Bridget, and, terrified and bewildered as
she was, bethought herself of the letter in her
hand. Together the two women managed to
break it open and read it, spelling it out with
horrible exactness, word by word.
Alas, no! There was no refutation, nor
even modification of the truth. In mercy,
perhaps, came the speedy confirmation of ir,
before any maddening gleam of hope could
arise. Her three sons were all dead drowned
and dead. Before this letter of the tutor's
was written, the "bodies" ghastly word!
had been recovered from the lake, identified,
and buried ; half the population of Bauen, and
all the English strangers for miles round, fol-
lowing them to the grave. The three brothers
slept side by side in a little out-of-the-way
Swiss church-yard, and the name of De Bou-
gainville was ended.
To realize the blow in all its extent was im-
possible. Josephine did not, or her reason
would have left her. As it was, for an hour
or more poor Bridget thought sfhe had gone
quite insane. She did not faint or in any way
lose her consciousness again, but kept walking
up and down the room, rapidly calling upon
her sons by name one after the other, then
falling on her knees and calling upon God.
It was an awful agony ; the more so as, ex-
cept by her poor servant, who watched her
terrified, but attempted no consolation, it was
an agony necessarily unshared. Sir Edward
had crept away into a corner, muttering, "Jo-
sephine, be quiet pray be quiet;" and then
relapsing into his customary childish moan.
At first she took no notice of him whatever ;
then, catching sight of him, with a sudden im-
pulse, or perhaps a vague hope of giving or get-
ting consolation, she went up to him, put her
arms about his neck, and laid her head on his
shoulder.
"Edward, dear husband," she cried, in a wail-
ing voice, " Edward, our sons are dead! Do
you understand ? Dead all dead. You will
never see one of them any more."
lie patted her cheek, and kissed her with
his vacant smile. "There now, I knew you'd
soon be quiet. And don't cry, Josephine; I
154
A BRAVE LADY.
can't bear to see you cry. Wliat were you
saying about the boys ? Dead ? Oh, nonsense I
They were to be home to-night. Bridget, just
ring the bell and ask one of the servants if the
young gentlemen are come home."
Josephine rose up, unlocked her arms from
her husband's neck, and stood looking at him
a minute. Then she turned away, and walk-
ing steadily to the middle of the room, stood
there again, for ever so long dumb and pas-
sive as a rock with all her waves of misery
breaking over her.
"My lady," said Bridget, at length ventur-
ing to touch her.
"Well?"
"I must go. I dare not leave Miss Adri-
enne any longer."
"Adrienne, did you say?" And the mo-
ther's heart suddenly turned as perhaps Bridg-
et had meant it should turn from her dead
sons to her still living daughter.
" Miss Adrienne is sinking fast, I think."
*' Sinking ! That means, dying. "
Lady de Bougainville said the word as if it
had been quite familiar, long-expected, pain-
less. Hearing it, Bridget wondered if her mis-
tress's mind were not astray again ; but she
looked "rational like," and even smiled as she
clasped her faithful servant's hand.
"Do not be afraid, Bridget ; I am quite my-
self now. And I have been thinking Adri-
enne was so fond of her brothers. I don't
know where they are" and the wild, bewil-
dered stare came into her eyes again " but I
suppose, wherever they are, she will go to them ;
and soon, very soon. "Why need we tell her
of their death at all?"
"My lady, you could not bear it," cried
Bridget, bursting into tears. " To go in and
out of her room all day and all to-morrow for
she says she will stay till the day after to-mor-
row and hear her talk so beautifully about you
and them, you could not bear it."
^' I think I could ; if it were easier for my
child. Let us try."
Without another word Josephine went and
washed her face, combed out her long gray
hair, which had fallen down disheveled from
under her cap, arranged her collar and brooch,
and then came and stood before Bridget with
a steadfast, almost smiling countenance.
"Look at me now. Would she think any
thing was wrong with me ?"
"No, no," sobbed Bridget, choking down
her full Irish heart, half bursting with its im-
pulsive grief. But when she looked at her
mistress she could not weep ; she felt ashamed.
Lady de Bougainville took her old servant's
hand. "You can trust me, and I can trust
you. Go in first, Bridget, and tell my child
her mother is coming."
And, a few minutes after, the mother came.
All that long day, and the next, she went about
her dying child moving in and out between
Adrienne's room and her husband's (for Sir
Edward had taken to his bed, declaring he was
"very ill," and kept sending for her every ten
minutes) but never by word or look did she be-
tray the calamity which had fallen upon her,
and upon the household.
Adrienne said often during that time, " Mam-
ma, I am such a trouble to you ! " but no ; her
brief young life remained a blessing to the last.
While the rest of the house was shut up, and
the servants went about noiselessly with fright-
ened faces, awed by the sorrow which had fall-
en upon the family within Adrienne's room
all was peace. While every other room was
darkened, there her mother would not have the
blinds drawn down, and the soft yellow sun-
shine fell cheerfully across the bed, where, quiet
as a baby and almost as pretty, in her frilled
night-gown and close cap, she slept that ex-
hausted sleep the forerunner of a deeper slum-
ber, of which she was equally unafraid.
Nothing seemed to trouble her now. Once
only she referred to her brothers. "Mamma,
there are twenty-four hours still" to the 1st
of October she evidently meant. " I may not
stay with you so long. "
"Never mind, my darling."
"No, I do not mind not much. You will
give my love to the boys; and tell them to
be good to you, and to Gabrielle and Cathe-
rine. They will ; they were always such good
boys."
"Always always !"
Here Bridget came forward, and suggested
that the mother had better go and lie down for
a little.
"No ; let her go to bed properly she looks
so tired. Good-night, mamma," and Adrienne
held up her face to be kissed. " You will come
to me the first thing to-morrow morning."
"Yes, my child."
She tottered out, and between her daugh-
ter's room and her husband's Josephine dropped
insensible on the floor where Bridget found
her some minutes afterward. But nobody else
knew.
To Adrienne the morning and the mother's
morning kiss never came. In the middle of
the night Bridget who lay by her side asleep,
"sleeping for sorrow" woke, with a feeble
touch trying to rouse her.
" I feel so strange, Bridget. I wonder what
it is. Is it dying ? No, no" (as Bridget start-
ed up) ; " don't go and wake mamma at least
not yet. She was so very tired."
The mother was not wakened ; for in a few
minutes more, before Bridget dared to stir
with her head on her nurse's shoulder and her
hand holding hers, like a little child, Adrienne
died.
******
As I said a while ago, I hardly know how to
make credible the events which followed so rap-
idly after one another, making Brierley Hall
within six months an empty, desolate, childless
house. And yet they all happened quite natu-
rally, and by a regular chain of circumstances
such as sometimes befalls, in the most strik-
A BRAVE LADY.
issu-
ing way, a family from which death has been
long absent, or has never entered at all.
At the time of Adrienne's illness there was
raging in Brierley village a virulent form of
scarlet -fever. Lady de Bougainville had not
heard of this ; or if she had, her own afflictions
made her not heed it. When, before the fu-
neral, a numbe!^ of Miss de Bougainville's poor
children, and parents too, begged permission to
look once more at her sweet face as it lay in
the coffin, the mother consented, and even gave
orders that these, her child's friends, should be
taken in and fed and comforted, though it was
a house of mourning. And so it happened that
the death they came to see they left behind
them. The fever, just fading out of the cot-
tages, took firm hold at the Hall. First a serv-
ant sickened, a girl who waited on the young
ladies ; and then the two children themselves.
The disease was of the most malignant and
rapid form. Almost before their mother was
aware of their danger, both Gabrielle and Cath-
erine had followed their brothers and sister to
the unknown land. They died within a few
hours of one another, and were buried on the
same day.
" How can you live ?" said Dr. Waters and
Mr. Langhorne, coming back from the funeral,
where, the father being incapable, they had
acted as chief mourners. " How will you ever
live ?" And the two old men wept like chil-
dren.
"I must live," answered Josephine, without
the shadow of a tear upon her impassive, im-
movable face; "look at him!" She pointed
to her husband, who slfeod at the window, ab-
sorbed in his favorite amusement of catching
flies the last solitary fly that buzzed about the
pane. " You see, I must live on a little longer."
She did live ; ay, until, as I once heard her
say and the words have followed, and will fol-
low me all my life, like a benediction she had
been made to "enjoy" living.
But that was long, long afterward. Now,
for many months, nay years, the desolate wo-
man fell into that stupefied state which is scarce-
ly living at all. I will not, I dare not describe
it, but many people have known it the condi-
tion when every thiilg about us seems a painted
show, among which wc move like automaton
figures, fulfilling scrupulously our daily duties,
eating, drinking, and sleeping ; answering when
we are addressed, perhaps even smiling back
when we are smiled upon, but no more really
alive, as regards the warm, breathing, pleasure-
giving, pleasurable world, than the dead forms
we have lately buried, and with whom half our
own life has gone down into the tomb.
It was so it could not but be with the
childless mother, left alone in her empty house,
or worse than alone.
How much Sir Edward felt the death of his
children, or whether he missed them at all, it
was impossible to say. OutAvardly, their loss
seemed to affect him very little, except that he
sometimes exulted in having his wife's contin-
ual company, and getting her " all to himself,'*
as he said.
He was very fond of her, no doubt of that
fonder than ever, it appeared ; and as if in some
sort of compensation, he became much less
trouble to her, and far easier to manage. His
fits of obstinacy and violence ceased ; in any
difficulty she had unlimited influence over him.
His inherent sweet temper returned in the shut-
up life he led ; no temptations from outside
ever assailed him, so that all Josephine's old
anxieties from her husband's folly or impru-
dence were forever at an end. He never in-
terfered with her in the smallest degree ; allowed
her to manage within and without the house
exactly as she chose ; was content just to be al-
ways beside her, and carry on from day to day
an existence as harmless as that of a child, or
what they call in Ireland a " natural." He was
never really mad, I believe, so as to require re-
straint merely silly; and the constant surveil-
lance of his wife, together with her perfect in-
dependence of him in business matters, prevent-
ed the necessity of even this fact becoming pub-
lic. Upon the secrets of his melancholy illness
no outside eye ever gazed, and no ear heard
them afterward.
The forlorn pair still lived on at Brierleyt
Hall. Sir Edward could not, and, fortunately,
would not, be removed from thence : nor did
Lady de Bougainville desire it. If she had
any feeling at all in her frozen heart, it was the
craving to see, morning after morning, when
she rose to begin the dreary day, the sun shin-
ing on the tall spire of Brierley Church, *under
the shadow of which her three daughters lay :
her three sons, likewise, in time ; for after some
years she had them brought home from Switz-
erland, and laid there too, to sleep all together
under the honey -scented, bee -haunted lime-
trees which we are so proud of in our Brierley
church-yard.
In the early days of her desolation she had
parted with Oldham Court, according to the
conditions which she and her son Cesar* had
once laughed at as ridiculously impossible Kf
Mr. Oldham's will. She sold the estate, but
not to a stranger ; for another impossibility, as
was thought, also happened. Lady Emma, so
tenderly cherished, lingered several years, and
before she died left a son a living son for
whom his father bought the ancestral property,
and who, taking his mother's maiden name, be-
came in time Mr. Oldham of Oldham Court.
When Lady de Bougainville heard of this, she
smiled, saying, " It is well ;" but she never saw
the place again, nor expressed the slightest de-
sire to do so. Indeed, fiom that time forward
she never was ten miles distant from, nor slept
a single night out of, Brierley Hall.
She and Sir Edward lived there in total se-
clusion. No guests ever crossed the threshold
of their beautiful house; their wide gardens
and pleasure-grounds they had all to themselves.
In summer time they lived very much out of
doors ; it amused Sir Edward ; and there were
156
A BRAVE LADY.
SHE USED SOMETIMES TO HEAB HEE CHILDREN'S VOICES ABOUT THE EMPTY HOUSE.
neither children nor children's friends to hide
his infirmities from, so that his wife let him
wandei* wherever he chose. He followed her
about like a dog, and if left a minute wailed
after her like a deserted infant. His entire and
childlike dependence upon her was perhaps a
balm to the empty mother - heart. Bridget
sometimes thought so.
It was needed. Otherwise, in the blank mo-
notony of her days, with nothing to dread, no-
thing to hope for, nothing to do, in the forced
self-containedness of her stony grief, and in the
constant companionship of that half -insane
mind, Josephine's own might have tottered
from its balance. She used sometimes to have
the strangest fancies to hear her children's
voices about the empty house, to see them mov-
ing in her room at night. And she would sit
for hours, motionless as a statue, with her now
constantly idle hands crossed on her lap ; living
over and over again the old life at Wren's Nest,
with the impression that presently she should
go back to it again, and find the narrow, noisy,
poverty-haunted cottage just as before, with no-
thing and no one changed. At such times, if
Bridget, who kept as close to her as Sir Ed-
ward's presence rendered possible, and kept ev-
ery one else sedulously away, suddenly disturb-
ed her dream, Lady de Bougainville would
wonder which was the dream and which the
reality; whether she were alive and her chil-
dren gone, or they living and she dead.
To rouse her, there came after a while some
salutary suffering. In the slow progress of his
disease. Sir Edward's failing mind took a new
turn. That extreme terror of death which he
had always had became his rooted and domi-
nant idea. He magnified every little ache and
pain, and whenever he was really ill fell into a
condition of frantic fear. All religious conso-
lations failed him. That peculiar form of doc-
trine which he professed or rather, that cor-
ruption of it, such as is received by narrow and
weak natures did not support him in the least.
He grew uncertain of what he was once so com-
placently sure of his being one of the " elect ;"
and, in any case, the thought of approaching
mortality, of being dragged away from the com-
fortable world he knew into one he did not
know, and, despite his own poetical pictures of
glory hereafter, he did not seem too sure of,
filled him with a morbid terror that was the
most painful phase of his illness. He fancied
himself doomed to eternal perdition ; and the
well-arranged "scheme of salvation," which he
used to discuss so glibly, as if it were a mere
mathematical problem, and he knew it all,
faded out from his confused brain, leaving only
a fearful image of the Father as such preach-
ers describe Him an angry God,''more terri-
ble than any likeness of revengeful man, pur-
suing all His creatures who will not, or can not,
accept His mercy, into the lowest deep of judg-
ment the hell which He has made. For this,
put plainly God forbid I should put it pro-
fanely ! is the awful doctrine which such so-
called Christians hold also, strange to say,
many most real and earnest Christians, loving
A BRAVE LADY.
157
and tender, pitiful and just ; who would not for
worlds act like the God they believe in. Which
mystery we can only solve by hoping that, un-
der its external corruption, there is a perma-
nent divineness in human nature which makes
it independent of even the most atrocious creed.
But Sir Edward's religion was of the head,
not of the heart ; a creed, and nothirtg more.
".Vhen, in his day of distress, he leaned upon it,
it broke like a reed. His feeble mind went
swinging to and fro in wild uncertainty, and he
clung to his wife with a desperation pitiful to
see.
"Don't leave me! not for a minute," he
would say, during their long weary days and
dreadful nights, "and pray for me keep al-
ways praying, that I may not die, that I may
be allowed to live a little longer. "
Poor wretch ! as if in the Life-giver and Life-
taker omniponent as benign he saw only an
avenging demon, lower even than the God
whom, after his small material notions, he had
so eloquently described, and so patronizingly
served. At this time, if she had not had her
six dead children to think of her children, so
loving and loved, whom God could not have
taken in anger; who, when the first shock of
their death had passed away, began to live
again to her, as it were ; to wander about her
like ministering angels, whispering, "God is
good, God is good still" but for this, I doubt,
Josephine would have turned infidel or athe-
ist.
As it was, the spectacle of that miserable
soul, still retaining consciousness enough to be
aware of its miseiy, roused her into a clear,
bold, steady searching out of religious truth, so
far as finite creatures can ever reach it. And
she found it by what means it is useless here
to relate, nor indeed would it avail any human
being, for every human being must search out
truth for himself. Out of the untenable nega-
tion to which her husband's state of mind led,
there forced itself upon hers a vital affirmative ;
the only alternative possible to souls such as
that which God had given her a soul which
longs after Him, can not exist without Him, is
eager to know and serve Him, if He only will
show it the way ; but whether or not, determin-
ately loving Him ; which love is, to itself, the
most conclusive evidence of His own.
I do not pretend to say that Lady de Bou-
gainville was ever an "orthodox" Christian;
indeed, unlike most Christians, she never took
upon herself to decide what was orthodox and
what heterodox ; but a Christian she became ;
in faith and life, and also in due outward^ere-
monial ; while in her own spirit she grew whol-
ly at peace. Out of the clouds and thick dark-
ness in which He had veiled Himself, she had
seen* God God manifest in Christ, and she was
satisfied.
" It is strange," she would say to Bridget,
when coming for a moment's breathing space
out of the atmosphere of religious despair which
surrounded poor Sir Edward "strange, but
this gloom only seems to make my light grow
stronger. I used to talk about it we all do
but never ijptil my darlings Avere there did I
really believe in the other world."
And slowly, slowly, in the fluctuations of his
lingering illness, did she try to make it as clear
to her husband as it was to herself. Some-
times she succeeded for a little, and then the
shadows darkened down again. But I can not,
would not even if I could, dilate on the history
of this terrible time, wherein day by day, week
by week, and month by month, Josephine was
taught the hardest lesson possible to a woman
of her temperament patiently and without hope
to endure.
There is a song which of all others my dear
old lady used most to like hearing me sing ; it
is in Mendelssohn's Oratorio of "St. Paul:"
"Be thou faithful until death, and I will give
thee a crown of life." I never hear it, with
its sweet, clear tenor notes dying away in the
words "Be thou faithful be thou faithful un-
til death," without thinking of her. She was
"faithful."
Sir Edward had a long season of failing
health ; but at last the death of which he was
frightened came upon him unawares. The old
heart-disease, which had once been so carefully
concealed from him, after lying dormant for
years, till his wife herself had almost forgolj;en
it, reappeared, and advanced quicker than the
disease of the brain. It was well. That final
time of complete idiocy, which the doctors
warned her must be, and to which, though she
kept up her strength to meet it, she sometimes
looked forward with indescribable dread, would
never come.
Her husband woke up one night, oppressed
with strange sensations, and asked, as his daugh-
ter Adrienne had asked, but oh, with what a
different face "Can this be dying?"
It was ; his wife knew it, and she had to tell
him so.
Let me cover over that awful scene. Bridget
was witness to it, until even she was gently
thrust away by her beloved mistress, who for
more than an hour afterward, until seclusion
was no longer possible, locked the door.
Toward morning, the mental horrors as well
as the bodily sufferings of the dying man abated
a little ; but still he kept fixed upon his wife
that frightened gaze, as If she, and she only,
could save him.
"Josephine!" he cried continually, "come
near me nearer still ; hold me fast ; take care
of me!"
"I will," she said, and lay down beside him
on the bed her poor husband, all she had left
in the world ! almost praying that it might be
the will of God to lengthen out a little longer
his hopeless, useless life, even though this might
prove to herself a torture and a burden greater
than she could bear. But all the while she felt
her wish was vain ; that he must go was al-
ready going.
"Edward," she whispered, and took firm
158
A BRAVE LADY.
hold of the nen^eless hand which more than
thirty years ago had placed the wedding-ring
upon her finger " Edward, do nq^ be afraid ;
I am close beside you to the very last."
"Yes," he said, "but afterward? Where
am I going ? Tell me, where am I going ? Or
go with me. Can you not go with me ?"
"I wish I could!" she sobbed. "Oh, Ed-
ward, I wish I could ! "
Then again she told him not to be afraid.
"Say 'Our Father,' just as the children used
to do at night. He is our Father. He will
not harm you. He will only touch you though
how, I do not know ; but surely, surely He will !
Edward husband," pressing closer to his ear
as the first struggles of death came on, and the
blindness of death began to creep over his eyes.
*' There is nothing to be afraid of ; God is good."
And then, when speech had quite failed him,
Josephine crept down on her knees beside the
bed, and repeated in her sweet, clear voice,
" Our Father, which art in heaven," to the end.
The words, comprehensible to the feeblest
intellect, yet all that the sublimest faith can
arrive at, might have reached him, or might
not, God knows ! but the dying man's strug-
gles ceased, and a quiet look, not unlike his
daughter Adrienne the one of his children
who most resembled him came over his face.
In that sudden "lightening before death" so
often seen, he opened his eyes, and fixed them
on his wife with the gaze almost of her young
lover Edward Scanlan. She stooped and kissed
him ; and while she was kissing him he slipped
away, where she could not "take care" of him
any more.
Thither it is not I who dare follow and
judge him. Poor Sir Edward de Bougain-
YiUe!
'^ THE EPILOGUE,
Which perhaps none will listen to. They
may say, "The curtain has fallen; the play is
played Out. No more !"
But the play was not played out. Who dare
say, "My work is done," till the breath fails
wherewith to say it? Thus, if after her sad
and stormy life it pleased Heaven to give a sun-
shiny sunset to my dear Lady de Bougainville,
why should I not tell it ? even though the tell-
ing involves more than people may care to hear
of this insignificant life of mine which only be-
came of value after I fell in love with her. But
there was once a little mouse who gnawed the
net-meshes of an imprisoned lion ; and though
the creature never pretended to be any thing
but a mouse, I think it must have been a very
happy-minded mouse ever afterward.
Where shall I take up my story ? From the
day when she turned the key of the little hair-
trunk, thereby silently locking up as, child
almost as I was, I felt that I myself 'would have
locked up the treasure-house of the past ? I
asked her no questions, and she gave me no
explanations; but from that hour there arose
an unspoken tenderness and a sympathy stron-
ger even than that which not seldom draws to-
gether the old and the young, in spite of nay,
rather on account of the great difference be-
tween them. Contrast without contrariety is
one of the great laws of harmonious Nature ;
and two' people, however unhke, who have the
same ideal, will probably suit one another bet-
ter than many who seem more akin. It was
just as when, on reading some great poe"t so
great, yet so simple I used to be astonished
and yet pleased that I could comprehend him.
So, I grew worthier and better in my own sight
to find I could in a dim, feeble way understand
Lady de Bougainville.
Are no love- vows registered except by lov-
ers ? I think there are, I could tell of a cer-
tain little maid who lay awake half the night,
thinking of caliphs and viziers, and oW trunks
with dead children's clothes ; and of what King
David said about the term of mortal life being
threescore years and ten, "and if by reason
of strength we attain unto fourscore years."
Ten years more, then. Ten years to try and
fill up a blank life ; to make a dull life cheer-
ful, perhaps even happy. Ten years for a mo-
therless child to give passionate, adoring filial
duty to the mother of six dead children ; re-
ceiving well, perhaps nothing ; but it mat-
tered not. The delight was in the duty, not
its reward : in the vow and its fulfillment, rath-
er than in the way it might be accepted by its
object. This, time would show. Meanwhile,
in the dead of night, with the last flicker of
flame lighting up the wax figure of John the
Baptist, and the white owl which had brought
up her young, I heard, year after year in the
ivied court-yard below hooting mournfully
under the window, the vow was made. And,
thank God ! I have kept it to this day.
When I came down at eight o'clock, it was
to an everyday breakfast-table, where sat no,
not an everyday old lady, talking to an old wo-
man, as broad as she was long, with a kind,
good, ugly face, who stood behind her chair.
Mistress and servant were, I believe, nearly the
same age, but the former looked much the old-
er. They were talking together with that re-
spectful tenderness on one side, and friendly
confidence on the other, which mark at once
two people who in this relation have spent to-
gether nearly all their lives.
Lady de Bougainville looked up as I entered,
and turned upon me a little suddenly, as if she
had momentarily forgotten me her beautiful
smillK
I began this book by a picture of her, as near
as I could draw it, as she first ajDpeared to me.
Now, when I have since tried to paint her in
different shape, will the likeness be recogniz-
able ? Will any one trace in the stately lady
of seventy, sitting placidly at her lonely break-
fast-table, the passionate Josephine Scanlan of
Wren's Nest ? Still less will there be read in
the sweet old face the cheeks of which were
A BRAVE LADY.
159.
pink and fresh as a child's, for she had been
out in her garden, she told me, since seven in
the morning those years of anguish and trial,
ending in the total desolation of the widowed
wife and childless mother, from whom God had
taken every thing every thing! leaving her
alive, and that was all.
Strange inconceivably strange ! and yet
most true. Sometimes as she showed me
that day in one of her favorite laurels when a
healthy tree has been blighted by frost, if it
still retains a fragment of vitality it will shoot
up again, not in its old shape, but in a differ-
ent one, and thus live on. So did she.
" Bridget," said Lady de Bougainville, " this
is Miss Weston, who has been so very ill, and
is come to us to be made well again. Bridget
will look after you and take care of you, my
dear. She is wonderful at nursing, and rather
likes having somebody to make a fuss over."
Bridget courtesied, with a fond look at her
lady; and then, softening a little, I suppose,
at my white face for I was very weak still
hoped with true Irish politeness that I should
soon get better ; every body must feel the bet-
ter for coming to Brierley Hall. In which sen-
timent I cordially agreed with her. And per-
haps she was sharp enough to see my heart in
my eyes, for she gradually became mild toward
me, and we grew capital friends, Bridget and I.
And Bridget's mistress ?
I have a distinct recollection of every hour
of that day, the first whole day that I spent
with her, and which was the type of many other
days ; for they were all alike. Existence went
on like clock-work in that great, lonely, peace-
ful, beautiful house. At seven winter and
summer the mistress was in her garden, where
she had a personal acquaintance with every
flower and bush and tree, and with every liv-
ing thing that inhabited them.
'*I think," she said to me one day, " I am
fonder of my garden than even of my house,
because, you see, it is alive. And it is always
busy always growing. Even at my time of
life I like to see things busy and growing."
She was always busy, certainly. To my sur-
prise, directly after breakfast she sat down to
her "work ;" and very hard work it was, too.
First, the management of her household, into
the details of which she entered with the minut-
est accuracy : liberal, but allowing no waste ;
trustful," but keeping a careful observation of
every thing. Next, the " stewardship," as she
called it, of her large fortune, which entailed
much correspondence ; for her public and pri-
vate charities seemed endless. She was the
best woman of business I ever knew. She an-
swered her letters every day, and paid her bills
every week : " For," she said, " I wish those
that come after me to have, when I die, as lit-
tle trouble as possible."
This solitary living solitary dying which
she referred to so continually and so calmly
at first seemed to me very terrible. Yet beau-
tiful too ; for it was a life utterly out of herself.
Sitting at her little writing-table, in her comer
by the fire, she seemed forever planning how,
by purse or influence or kindly thoughtfulness,
she could help others. " I have nothing else
to do," she said, when I noticed this ; and then,
as if shrinking from having said too much, or
betrayed too much by the sigh which accom-
panied the words, she began hastily to tell me
the history of a letter she was then writing to
a certain Priscilla Nunn, for whom she had just
bought an annuity.
*' I paid it myself for several years, and then
I began to think, suppose I were to die first,
what would become of Priscilla? So I have
made all safe to-day ; I am so glad."
. She looked glad, with the pure joy that has
nothing personal in it ; and then, in that pretty
garrulousness which was almost the only sign
of age about her, began to tell me more of this
Priscilla Nunn, and how she, Lady de Bougain-
ville, had once sewed for her.
"For money, Winifred. For, as I told you
last night, I was once very poor."
*'But you are not sorry to be rich? Not
sorry to be able to do such things as you have
just now been doing. Oh, it must be grand
grand ! To sit in your quiet corner here, and
stretch invisible comforting hands half over the
world, just like Providence itself. How I envy
you ! What it must be to have power, unlimit-
ed power, to make people happy ! "
" God only can do that," she said, gravely.
"Yes ; but He uses you to do it for Him."
I know not how the words came into my
mouth, but they did come, and they seemed to
please Lady de Bougainville. She laid her hand
upon mine, very kindly.
"You speak 'wiser than you are ware of;'
and even an old woman is not too old to learn
wisdom from the lips of a child."
Then she rose, and saying her work was done
for to-day, took me with her into the library.
That library, what a world of wealth it was !
an ancient and modern literature, down to
last month's reviews and magazines.
" I took to reading twenty years ago, to keep
myself from thinking," said Lady de Bougain-
ville ; "and in my long evenings I have tauglit
myself a little of modern languages. But I
never was an educated woman. No doubt,"
she added, with a smile, "you, a modern young
lady, know a great deal more than I."
Perhaps I did, having swallowed an enor-
mous quantity of unassimilated mental food ;
but I was a starved young pedant still, and I
had not lived three days with Lady de Bougain- **
ville before she taught me the wholesomcst les-
son a girl of my age could learn my own enor-
mous ignorance.
Taught it me quite unconsciously, in daylight
walks and fireside talks ; when, after her long
lack of any companionship, even mine, such as
it was, proved not unwelcome to that strong,
clear brain, which had come to the rescue of the
empty heart and saved it from breaking.
Yet there was a, good deal of eccentricity
160
A BRAVE LADY.
about her too, and about her way of life, which
had long fallen into such a mechanical round
that she disliked the slightest change therein.
To press one hour's duties into the next one, to
delay or alter a meal, to rise later or go to bed
earlier than usual, was to her an actual pain.
But these were only the little spots in my sun.
She shone still, the centre of her peaceful world ;
flora her radiated all the light it had ; and, in its
harmony and regularity, I, poor little wandering
star that I was ! first learned, in great things and
small, the comfort, the beauty, the actual divine-
ness of heaven's first law Order.
Yet when I lived longer with her, and, my
visit over, found some excuse, often so shallow
that she actually smiled, ibr coming to see her
nearly every day, it was impossible not to allow
that Brierley was right in calling Lady de Bou-
gainville " peculiar." She had some crotchets,
absolute crotchets, which one would have smiled
at but for the causes which had originated them,
too sad for any smile. She never would enter
a single house in Brierley that is, a well-to-do
house, though she often crossed the thresholds
of the poor. Nor would she have any visitors
of her own rank ; she shut her doors, as I once
told her, laughing, upon all "respectable" peo-
ple. Even my father, except for his formal
clerical visits, was not admitted there any more
than the old rector had been. She seemed to
shrink from all association with the outside
world that is, personal association though she
knew all that was going on therein, and liked
to hear of events and people, near and remote,
in which I tried to interest her. But though
she listened, it was always with a gentle indif-
ference, as if that long frozen-up heart, which
was kind to all living things, was capable only
of kindness, nothing more ; the warm throb of
responsive human affection being stilled in it
forever. *
I often thought so. And when I, in my im-
petuous youth, used day after day to spring up
the entrance steps, guarded by their two huge
stone vases, and, with an expectation eager
as any of the " fellows" (as Lady G. in " Sir
Charles Grandison" calls them) that used to
come a-courting to the young gentlewomen in
hoops and farthingales who once inhabited Bri-
erley Hall I went in search of my beautiful old
lady, my silly heart often sank down like lead.
For, though she always paused in whatever she
was doing, to give me the gentle "Is that you,
my dear ? how kind of you to come and see
me, " I felt, by her very use of the word, that
her heart toward me was only "kind" that
was all.
Well ! how could it be otherwise ? What a
foolish girl was I to expect it to be. otherwise !
And yet it sometimes made me a little sad to
think I had only the stubble end of her life,
while she reaped the whole rich harvest of mine.
" Ridiculous !" most people would say ; " Con-
temptible!" I think she would have said, who
of all women most understood what that love is
which loves freely, hoping for nothing again.
Yet I fretted a good deal about it, until chance
brought my trouble to a climax, and me to my
right senses for evermore.
Somebody hinted to my father that I was go-
ing too much to Brierley Hall ; that people
would say I had designs upon the old lady, who
had a large fortune and no heirs. So he, being
a proud man, dear heart ! and a sorrowful, hard
life had made him prouder still, when my next
invitation came, forbade my going thither.
I rebelled. For the first time in our lives my
father and I had words and bitter words, too.
I was not a child now ; I was past seventeen,
with a strong will of my own ; and it was not
only my own pleasure that I grieved to lose.
Summer had gone by, that long, bright summer
when I had been made so happy at Brierley
Hall, and grown familiar with every nook within
and without it. Now, the bare trees stretched
empty arms up to the leaden winter sky, and
within the house the large, chilly, gloomy
house where the Christmas holly smiled for-
lornly upon the vacant rooms, sat one lonely old
woman, who, rich as she was, sweet and lova-
ble as every day I found her more and more to
be, was still only a woman, lonely and old.
"I will go to her, whatever you say!" cried
I, in a passion of tears, and rushed from my
father, hardly knoAving what I was doing, or
what I meant to do rushed through the stormy
afternoon to Brierley Hall.
Lady de Bougainville was sitting in the cedar
parlor, the smallest and least dreary of all the
rooms. For a wonder she was doing nothing,
only looking into the fire, which had dropped
into hollow blackness, as if long unstirred.
" How good of you, Winny, to come all
through the rain ! I am quite idle, you see,
though I have plenty of work to do. Perhaps
it is the fault of my eyes, and not the dark day,
but I can not manage to thread my needle."
She spoke a little sadly. I knew, if she had
a dread in this world it was of her sight failing
her, of growing "dark," as Bridget called it,
which to one so independent in her ways, and
disliking dependence more even than old people
usually do, would have been darkness indeed.
" Still, if it comes," added she, sighing again
(I knew what "it" meant), "I hope I shall be
able to bear it."
"It will not come, and if it did, you would
bear it," said I, passionately, as I sat down on
the foot-stool beside her, and took possession
of her dear old hand, playing ostensibly with
the emeralds and diamonds which covered it.
But it was the hand I loved, soft and warm,
strong and delicate, lovely to look at, lovely to
feel; as I can see and feel it still, though
No, I will have none of these tears. We may
weep over the blasted, withered corn, the grain
trodden under foot, or scattered unreaped to
the winds of heaven ; but when the ripe sheaf
is gathered into the garner, then who grieves ?
Let me remember her as she sat in her casy-
chair and I sat at her feet, trying to amuse her
all I oould ; with tales of the village, of the
A BRAVE LADY.
161
neighbors, of various Christmas treats in the
school-rooms and the alms-houses, and so on.
To all of which she listened with her usual smile ;
I and I kept up mine too as well as I could. But
' I was not good at deception, I suppose, for she
said, suddenly:
"Winifred, there is something on your mind ;
tell me what it is. I should be sorry if any trou-
ble were to come near my merry little Mouse."
(Mouse was a name she had for me from my
smallness, my bright eyes yes, I fancy they
were bright, being like my father's and the
brown of my hair.)
The kind words so unexpected touched
me to the quick. Bursting into tears, I poured
out to her my grievous woe and wrong.
" Is that all ? What mountains of mole-hills
we do make at seventeen ! To be in such de-
spair from a lost visit ! My silly little girl !"
I drew back in sensitive pain. Evidently,
the real cause of my grief, the dread I had of
being separated from her, and the fact that the
chief happiness of my life consisted in being
with her, had never occurred to my dear old lady.
It was hard : even now I recognize that it
Vas hard. And I do not hate poor Winny
Weston, that the bitterness and anguish of her
heart found vent in exaggerated words.
"Silly am I! I know that, and no wonder
you thinlc so. It is no matter to you how sel-
dom I see you, or if I am never allowed to see
you again. I am nothing to you, while you
are every thing to me."
A declaration as impetuous as that of any
young man in love nay, I have taunted one
young man with its being more so ! No wonder
Lady de Bougainville was a little astonished by
it until, perceiving how real my emotion was,
she, with a curious sort of look
"Half smiling, half sorry,
Gazed down, like the angels in separate glory,"
upon poor, foolish, miserable me.
Then she spoke seriously, even sadly : "Win-
ny, I had no idea you cared for me so much ;
I thought no one ever would care for me again
in this world."
While she spoke a quiver ran across her feat-
ures, and a dimness I could hardly believe it
tears, for I had never seen her shed one gath-
ered in her eyes.
" You are very good," she said again "very
good to an old woman like me ; and I am grate-
ful."
Grateful! Lady de Bougainville grateful to
me? And telling me so with that sweet dig-
nity which made me more than ever ashamed
of myself; for had I not heard her say more
than once, that the love which worries its ob-
ject with jealous exactions is not love, but the
merest selfishness ?
I hung my head. I begged her pardon.
"But," I said, "this is hard for me harder
than you think. What chance have I of learn-
ing to be good, and sensible, and womanly, ex-
cepting through you? I thought you would
have ' grown' me, as you do your young serv-
ants and your cabbages."
I had made her smile, which was what I
wanted ; also, perhaps, to wipe out with a silli-
er jest the remembrance of my romantic folly.
"And then, as you told me once, no sooner
do they get hearts in them than some young
man of Brierley finds it out and carries them
off. It would be just the same with you, Win-
ny !"
"Never!" I cried, indignantly; "I wish for
nothing better than to spend my whole life be-
side you."
"Ah! that is what children often say to
their parents, yet they marry for all that."
" I never would, if I were a child of yours."
"A child of mine!" The words seemed to
pierce her like sharp steel. "You forget I
have no children that is, all my children are
in heaven. No one on earth can ever replace
them to me."
I had gone too far; I recognized it now.
Recognized, too, with a passionate sympathy
that almost took away the personal pain, what
tenacity of faithfulness was in this strong heart
of hers, which admitted no substitutes. Other
interests might cluster round it outside, but its
inner, empty niches would remain empty for-
ever.
"No," I said, gently not even attempting to
repossess myself of her dear hand, which had
slid from mine somehow "neither I nor any
one could ever dream of replacing to you your
children. But you will let me be your little
servant? I love you so."
She was touched, I saw. Even through the
frost of age, and of those many desolate years,
she felt the warmth of this warm young love of
mine. Stooping down she kissed me affection-
ately ; and giving me one of her hands, sat, with
the other shading her face, for ever so long.
We made no mutual protestations indeed I
think we hardly exchanged another word on the
subject^-but from that hour our relations seem-
ed to rest on quite a different footing, and we
understood tacitly that they were to last for
life.
I could have sat forever at her feet, catching
glimpses of her face in the fire-light, and won-
dering how it felt to have had every thing and
lost every thing, and to come to sit at seventy
years of age by a vacant hearth, with all one's
treasures in heaven ; and, as the Bible says,
"where one's treasure is, there will one's heart
be also." Wondering, too, whether it was that
which caused the peace that I saw gradually
growing in her face, as at last removing her
hand she left it for me to gaze at. It was
quite bright now.
" I have made up my little plans, Winny,"
said she, cheerfully, " and you shall hear from
me to-morrow that is, your father shnll. Now
go home to him, for it is growing dark, and he
will be anxious. Happy you to have a father
who is anxious over you ! We must not vex
him. Parents first, always."
162
A BRAVE LADY.
"Yes," I answered, but it might have been
a little dolefully, and more lingeringly even
than usual I might have taken my departure ;
for just at the door Lady de Bougainville called
me back.
" Child" and the hand she laid on my shoul-
der was firm as that of youth, and her eyes
blazed as they might have done thirty or forty
yeai's ago. "Child, be wise! Before you
sleep, make friends with your father, and be
thankful that he is such a father a prudent,
tender, honorable man. All men are not so.
Sometimes it is the will of God to tie together,
by relationship or marriage, people who are so
unlike that, if not thus tied, they would fly from
one another to the world's end. And some-
times" her voice sank lower "it is right so
to fly. They have to choose between good and
evil, between God and man. Pity them, but
let no one dare to ju,dge them no one can
except the Judge of all."
She stopped, trembling violently. Why, I
knew not then ; I do now. But very soon she
recovered herself the sooner, I think, because
she saw that I understood nothing below the
mere words she was saying. All I did was to
stand shamefaced before her she, who was so
wise, so good ; so infinitely wiser and better
than I could ever hope to be. I said so.
"No," she answered, sadly; "neither good
nor wise. Only one can not live seventy years
and learn nothing. Therefore, Winifred, listen
to me. Never say to any one what you said to
me to-day that you wished you could leave
your father. Some have to do it, as I said :
children from parents, wives from husbands,
must turn and depart. And if it has to be
done" and she drew herself erect, and her
eyes flashed, almost fiercely, till I could under-
stand what a fierce woman she must have been
in her youth "if it must be done, I say, Do
it ! unflinchingly, without remorse. Cut off"
the rotten branch ; fly from the plague-stricken
house. Save your soul, and fly. But, oh ! not
till the last extremity, not till all hope is gone
if it ever is quite gone : we can not tell. Child,
those whom God has given you, have patience
with them ; He has.. Hold fast by them, if it
be possible, to the end."
And as she looked at me I saw all her fierce-
ness ebb away, and a tenderness, deeper than
even its usual peaceful look, grow on her dear
face.
"Now go, my dear. I have said enough,
perhaps too much, but I want you to be friends
again with your father. I think," she added
, (was it with a natural fear at having betrayed
any thing, which I understood not then, but do
now ?) " I think I am sensitive on the subject
of fathers mine was very dear to me. He
died let me see full fifty years ago ; yet I re-
member him, and all about that time, more
clearly than I remember many nearer things.
We were very happy together, my father and I."
She spoke calmly and cheerfully, as it seems
people do learn to speak of their dead after fifty
years ; and, kissing me, sat down again once
more in her quiet arm-chair by her solitary
fire.
Next day my father showed me a letter which
he had just received from Lady de Bougainville,
asking his permission for me to be her reader
and amanuensis for two hours every forenoon.
She needed such help, she said, because of her
failing eyesight, and preferred mine because
she was used to me, and "loved" me.
" Not that I wish to monopolize your daugh-
ter. " (I smiled to see how boldly her noble can-
dor cut the knot that would have perplexed a
feebler hand.) "Still less do I intend, as I
hear is reported in Brierley, to leave her my
fortune. It has been left, for many years, to.
a charity. But I wish to make her independent,
to put in her hand what every woman ought to
have a weapon wherewith, if necessary, to fight
the world."
She therefore proposed, instead of salary, to
give me first-rate masters of every kind, and
that I should take my lessons of afternoons, at
Brierley Hall. This would make all easy, she
said, during my father's frequent absence from
home all day long. "And you may trust me
to take care of your child," she added. "I
was a mother once."
This last touch went to my father's heart '-a
tender heart, for all its pride.
" Poor lady poor lady ! " said he. And aft-
er reading the letter over once again, with the
comment, " She is a wise old woman, this grand
friend of yours," consented to it without re-
serve.
Thus my life was made plain to me plain
and clear busy and bright ; nay, brighter than
I ever expected. Por my father himself, on
his own account, began to admire Lady de
Bougainville.
Hitherto they had held aloof, for they differed
widely theologically. She listened to his ser-
mons never commenting^ never criticising
and that was all. But, as she slowly found
out, whether or not he preached it, he lived
"the Gospel." " Winny," said she to me one
day, when she had watched him into one of
those miserable cottages which were the dis-
grace of our parish, where, like most increasing
parishes, the new-built palatial residences of
our rich neighbors drove our poor neighbors to
herd together like pigs in a sty " Winny, some
of these days I should like to see a little more
of your father. Once, I believed in the Church
in spite of the minister ; now, I believe in the
Church and the minister." ^
And when I told him this, again he said,
"Poor lady!" For my father, like the Uitc
Reverend Sir Edward de Bougainville of whom
he had chanced to hear a good deal, since lie
came here, from an Irish dean he kne^ was a
Low-Church clergyman.
Low-Church, High-Church, Broad-Church
what insane distinctions ! Oh, that I could ob-
literate them all ! Oh, that I could make every
one who serves at the altar like this dear father
A BRAVE LADY.
163
of mine whom I do not paint here, for he is
mine, and he lives still, thank God ! He and I
do not agree entirely ; like many another child,
I fancy Heaven has granted to me clearer light
and purer air than to my father; but I love him!
I love him ! and I believe God loves us both.
And we both of us lived and grew together in
love more and more, under the shadow of that
beautiful and benign old age of Lady de Bou-
gainville. I can not picture it who could ?
but it was most like one of those November
days which always remind me of her ; when the
whole world seems spiritualized into a sunshiny
tranquillity, so that we notice neither sodden
leaves nor withered flowers, nor silent gardens
empty of birds, but delight ourselves in the ce-
lestial beauty of the departing year, as if it were
to remain with us forever.
On just such a day, the 18th of November (for
though I did riot note the date, others did),
something happened which was the first break
in the heavenly monotony of our lives, and which
therefore, I suppose, I ought to set down, though
tome then, and long afterward, it seemed a mat-
ter of little moment.
We had been sitting. Lady de Bougainville
and I, in the summer-house by the lake, where
we still spent every fine afternoon. She had
two "crotchets," she called them, being quite
aware of every weakness she had, and now and
then half apologizing for some of them ; she
liked to live like a bird in the open air, and
every day to see the last of the sun. He was
setting now, gorgeously, as he often does in No-
vember, in front of us, and making a second
sunset glow in the yellowing elm-leaves which
still hung on the boughs of the wood behind.
For the park round Brierley Hall was full of
magnificent trees the relics of the old chase
and its mistress barricaded herself with them
against; those honible villas which were rising
a J), like red and yellow fungi, on every side. It
was her weak point, that and the niew railway,
now crawling like a snake every day nearer and
nearer, till as we sat here we could hear the
navvies hammering in the cutting below.
It vexed her even in her calm old age, it
vexed her. She saw no beauty in these mod-
ern improvements, which were making our pretty
village like a London suburb ; and she hated,
with an almost amusing wrath which I rather
delighted in, since it brought her down to the
level of common mortals every new-built house
that lifted up its ugly head, chimney-laden, to
V stare into her green domain.
"There is another, I declare!" she cried,
catching a sight which I had noticed days be-
fore, but kept to myself Now the thinned
trees discovfered it all top plain. "Look, Win-
ifred, your eyes are better than mine. Is there
not building a great, yellow-brick house, with a
turret to it, which will overlook us where we
nit ? Honible ! I never infringe on my neigh-
l)ors' rights, but I must preserve my own. This
must be seen to immediately."
I encouraged her wrath, I fear, for it did my
heart good to see it to find her so much "of
the earth earthy." Since these three days she
had been kept indoors with one of the slight
illnesses which sometimes came even to her
healthy old age, and wliich she called, with the
quaint phraseology she often used, " her mes-
sages from home."
So I followed her, smiling to myself, as with
a firm, indignant step she walked home, fast
as any young woman, and sent a message to
the owner, builder, foreman, or whoever was in
charge of the obnoxious house, that Lady de
Bougainville wished to speak to him immedi-
ately. (
I smiled then. I smile now, with a strange,
half-sad content, to think how little we know
what is before us, and upon what merest trifles
hang all the momentous things of our lives.
Immediately, as she had requested indeed
so soon that we had hardly time to recover our
equilibrium, since even such a small thing as
this was An event in our quiet days appeared
a gentleman yes ; Bridget, who saw him wait-
ing in the hall, was certain he was a gentleman
who sent up his card, saying he was the archi-
tect of the house opposite.
"Mr. Edward Donelly! An Irish name,"
said Lady de Bougainville, shrinking back with
vainly suppressed repugnance. "I think I would
rather not see him. I have not seen a stranger
for so many years. Winifred, will you speak to
him?"
I might have reasoned, but had long ceased
to reason, against those dear, pathetic " pecul-
iarities" of hers may others have patience with
mine when I am seventy years old ! So, unhes-
itatingly thinking only to save her from any
annoyance, and furious against house, owner,
architect, any one who should presume to an-
noy her her, before whom I would have laid
myself down as a mat for her feet to walk over
I marched into the cedar parlor.
There stood a yes, he was a gentleman,
though not an elderly one, as I had expected.
He seemed about five or six and twenty, tall
six feet and more which gave him a most un-
pleasant advantage over me, poor furious pigmy
that I was ! A worse advantage was his look
of exceeding good-humor, his apparent uncon-
sciousness of having offended me or any body
else in the world. Such a bright, honest, cheer-
ful face, such a pleasant manner ! It was irri-
tating to the last degree.
'* Lady de Bougainville, I presume ? No I
beg your pardon," and he actually smiled, the
wretch! "She is, I hear, an elderly lady.
What does she want with me? Is there any
thing something about this new house, her mes-
senger thought in which I can oblige her ?"
" Only by pulling it down every brick of it,"
cried I, throwing down the gauntlet and rush-
ing into battle at once. "You ought to do
this, for it overlooks her property, and annoys
her excessively. And nobody ought to annoy
her, at her age, and so good as she is. JS^obody
ever should, if I could help it."
164
A BEAVE LADY.
"Are you her daughter, or niece?" said Mr.
Donelly, looking at me in a curious way ; no
doubt my anger amused him excessively, but
he was too polite to show it. And then with-
out waiting for the answer to his question, which
perhaps he felt he had no right to put he went
on to explain to me, very quietly and courteous-
ly, that his employer, having bought the ground,
had a perfect right to build upon it any house he
chose, provided it was not obnoxious to his neigh-
bors.
"Which is, indeed, the last thing he would
desire ; for, though only a plebeian, as you call
him in fact a retired tradjesman he is a very
worthy fellow. I feel with him, for I also am
a self-made man ; my father was a mechanic."
Mr. Donelly said this with a composure that
quite startled me. "But I can feel, too, for
Lady de Bougainville, who, I suppose, belongs
to the aristocratic class, and is well on in years
besides. It must be very trying to her preju-
dices I beg your pardon, her opinions to
have to put up with many things of our mod-
ern time, which are nevertheless quite inevita-
ble, as they form part of the necessary progress
of the world."
" Thank you," said I, "but I did not wish a
sermon." Certainly not from a mechanic's son,
I was just on the point of adding, with that bit-
ter little tongue of mine ; but when I looked at
the young man, something in his frank honesty,
combined with a way he had of putting unpleas-
ant ti-uths in the least unpleasant manner, and
of never saying a rough word where a smooth
one would do, disarmed me. Ay, even though
he was an Irishman, had an Irish accent, and
an Irish Avay with him, not exactly "blarney,"
but that faculty which both French and Irish
have of turning toward you the sunshiny side
of the plum oiling the wheels of life so as to
make them run easily and without grating.
And when the plum is thoroughly ripe, and
the machinery sound and good, what harm?
As Lady de Bougainville once said to me,
"You English are very, very good; would it
cost you much to be a little more what we
French call agrahle f
He was decidedly agreeable, both in the
French and English sense, this Mr. Donelly;
and before we parted he made me a promise
very earnestly, too that he would use his best
endeavors with his principal to avoid all annoy-
ance to Lady de Bougainville.
When I told her this she shook her head.
" Was he an Irishman, my dear ?"
"I think so."
" Then trust him not ;" and she grew a shade
paler, and set her lips together in their hardest
line. "I say nothing against Irishwomen
look at my Bridget, for instance but I believe
it to be almost impossible for an Irishman either
to speak the truth or keep a promise."
Is that quite just? thought I, and should
have said so for I never was afraid of speak-
ing my pnind to her now ; she liked me all the
better for it but by this time I had heard a
good deal, and guessed more, of her history,
and knew from what a bitter soil this rank
growth had sprung ; so I held my tongue. Was
it for me to begin to lesson Lady de Bougain-
ville?
Only, with my strong resistance to injustice,
even though it were hers, I took some precau-
tion against the fulfillment of her prophecy,
and also against her being troubled in any way
by the intrusive house. I got my father to go
and speak to the owner himself, who was of
course his parishioner, about it. And this re-
sulted in more than 1 intended ; for in the great
dearth of educated and companionable men in
Brierley, my father and the architect, who was
lodging in the village, struck up an acquaint-
ance ; and one day Mr. Donelly was actually
invited to tea, entirely without my knowledge
indeed I was much annoyed at it at the time,
and complained bitterly to Lady de Bougain-
ville at having to entertain a mere mechanic's
son.
"You terrible little Tory," said she; "but
you will grow wiser in time. Is he an honest
man's son ? For that is the real question al-
ways: and yet not always; good fruit some-
times springs from a worthless tree. Still it is
a great mystery, my dear, a great mystery,"
continued she, falling into that tone of gentle
moralizing, which was not unnatural at her age,
when life's doing is all done, and its placid
thinking alone remains. But she seemed to
dislike both thinking and speaking of this Mr.
Donelly ; I well knew why, and so I ceased to
refer to him any more.
Of which, by-and-by, I was only too glad.
Let me, without either sentiment or egotism,
get over as fast as I can the next event in my
quiet life a life which, looked back on now,
seems so perfect, that a whole year was but as
one long sunshiny day.
Mr. Donelly came to our house very often,
and just as I used to come to Brierley Hall
on every excuse he could. My father liked
him. So, in degree, did I. That is, I thought
him very honest, kind, and intelligent, and was
grateful to him for taking such pains to gratify
and amuse my father. That was all. As to
his thinking of me, in any way but the merest
civility, I never suspected it for a moment.
Otherwise, I should have kept out of his way, and
thereby saved myself many a conscience-smite
the innocent pangs that any girl must feel
when she has unwittingly made a man misera-
ble. One day, meeting me in the soft August
twilight, as I was walking home from the Hall,
having staid later than my wont for she was
not well, my dear old lady; I was very sad
about her he joined me, and told me he was
summoned away that night, probably to go
abroad, on some work he had long been seek-
ing, and would I "remember" him until he
came back ? I was so little aware of his mean-
ing that I only laughed and said, "Yes, that I
will, and recommend you too, as the very best
architect I know." And this unhappAspeech
A BRAVE LADY.
165
MB. DONBLLY's WOOINO.
brought about what, he said, he had not other-
wise meant to tell me until he had a home to
oflFer "worthy of me" that he wished me to
share it.
I suppose men mostly say the same things :
thank God, I never had but one man's wooing,
and that was sad enough to hear ; because, of
course, as I did not love him, I could only tell
him so ; and refuse him point-blank, which now
I fear was done ungently and with some dis-
dainful words, for I was taken by surprise.
Marriage was not much in my plan of life at
all ; my own home experience did not incline
me in its favor ; while at the Hall, Bridget in-
veighed perpetually against the whole race of
men ; and her mistress kept on the subject a
total silence. If I ever did think of being mar-
ried, it was to some imaginary personage like
the preux chevaliers of old. Though, I was
forced to confess, no medieval knight could
have behaved himself more knightly, with more
true courtesy, consideration, and respect, than
did this builder of houses, this overseer of brick-
layers and carpenters, who perhaps had been
one of them himself not so many years ago.
Ay, even when I said my last decisive word,
looking firmly in his face, for I wished him to
make no possible mistake. He was excessive-
ly pale, but he pleaded no more, and took his
pain with such manly courage that I felt almost
sorry for him, and in some roundabout way
begged his pardon.
*' You need not," he answered, holding our
wicket gate open for me to pass in. "A wo-
man's love is quite free, but so is a man's.
You are not to blame for having refused me,
any more than I am for having asked you. I
shall never ask you again, but I shall love you
to the day of my death."
So we parted ; and I saw and heard no more
of him. I never told any body what had hap-
pened ; it was only my own aftair, and it was
better forgotten. Nor, after the first week or
so, did I think much about it. except that when
I was tired or sorrowful, or the troubles of life
came upon me, as they did just then, thick and
fast though, as they only concerned my father
and me, and not this history, I need not specify
them Mr. Donelly's voice used to come back
to me, ahnost like a voice in a dream, saying his
farewell words, " I shall love you to the day of
mv death." And sometimes, looking in her
V
166
A BRAVE LADY.
calm aged face, far, far beyond all youth's
passions and turmoils and cares, I wondered
whether any body that Irish husband, for in-
stance, who, Bridget hinted, had made her so
miserable had ever said the same words, with
the same determination and sincerity of tone,
to Lady de Bougainville.
Those years, which changed me from a girl
into a woman, made in her the change natural
at her time of life. She had none of Mrs.
Thrale's "three warnings;" her "messages
from home" came still, but softly, tenderly, as
such messages should come to one whose life
was so valuable to every body about her, so in-
expressibly precious, as she saw, to me. Also,
my love seemed to develop in her another qual-
ity, which Bridget said had not been shown
since she was a girl wife and mother, but girl
still in Merrion Square ; that charming gaiete
de coeur^ essentially French, which made her
conversation and her company like that of a
woman of thirty rather than seventy. And
when I was with her I often forgot entirely how
old she was, and reckoned on her future and
my own as if they had been one and the
same.
For we were now permanently settled, my
Either being no longer curate, but rector of
Brierley. One of Lady de Bougainville's old
acquaintances, belonging to the Turberville
family, an Honorable somebody, who wrote her
sometimes the most cordial and even affection-
ate letters, happened to be in the Ministry, and
the living was a Crown living ; so we always
suspected her of having some hand in its dis-
posal. But she never owned this, nor any other
kind act that it was possible to do in secret.
This change made mine, as well as my fa-
ther's, the busiest life possible. Nay, in our
large and growing parish, with my youth and
his delicate health, we might both have broken
down under our work, save for our neighbor
at the Hall. Oh, the blessing of riches, guided
by a heart as warm as youth, and a judgment
wide and clear with the wisdom and experience
of age !
"And are you not happy in all this?" I
once said to her. " Is it not well to have lived
on to such a blessed and blessing old age ?"
She answered, "Yes."
She was a little less active now than she used
to be ; had to give up one by one, sometimes
with a slight touch of restlessness and regret,
some .of her own peculiar pleasures, such as the
walk before breakfast, and the habit of doing
every thing for herself, not asking, nay, often
disliking, either help or the appearance of help,
from those about her. But she let me help her
now a little. And sometimes, when I fetched
her her bonnet or fastened her shawl, she would
say to me, smiling, " My dear, I think I am
something like the Apostle Peter : when I was
young, I girded myself and walked whither I
would; now I am old, another girds me and
leads me whither I would not. No, nobody
could do that;" and, half laughing, she drew
herself up erect. "I am afraid I shall have a
pretty strong will to the last."
Now and then people said to me those who
saw her at church, and the poor folk who came
about the Hall that "my lady" was looking
much older. But I could not, and I would not
see it. Whatever change came, was so grad-
ual, so beautiful, like the fading of that Vir-
ginian creeper which we admired every autumn
upon the walls of her house, that it seemed only
change, not decay. And every feebleness of
hers was as dear to me as the helplessness of a
child is to its young mother, who, the more she
has to do for it, loves it the better.
Oh, why is it not always thus ? Why can
not we all so live ? I think we could if we
tried that we may be as much missed at eighty
as at eighteen.
Though herbodily activity was circumscribed.
Lady de Bougainville's mental energy was as
keen as ever. She and my father laid their
heads together over all the remediable evils in
the parish, and some which had hitherto been
thought irremediable : one I must name, for it
brought about another event, which I had good
need to remember.
One day my father came to the Hall in per-
fect despair upon an old grievance of his, the
want of house accommodation for his poor.
"What chance have I?" said he, half in an-
ger, half in grief. " How can I take care of
my people's souls when nobody looks after their
bodies? What use is it to preach to them in
the pulpit and leave tracts at their doors, and
expect them to be clean and tidy, honest and
virtuous, when they are packed together like
herrings in a barrel, in dwellings ill-drained,
ill- ventilated, with the damp running in streams
down the walls, and the rain dropping through
the holes in the roof? For the old houses go
unrepaired, and the new-built ones, few as tljey
are, are almost worse than the old. I declare
to you I would not put an old horse or even a
dog of mine into some I have seen to-day."
"Will nobody build?" asked quietly Lady
de Bougainville.
"I have put that question to every land-
owner in the place, and they all say ' No ; '\i.
would increase the poor-rates. Besides, cot-
tage property is sunk capital; it never pays.'
Yet they go on living in their ' elegant man-
sions' and their 'commodious villa residences.'
Oh you rich ! you rich ! how you do grind the
faces of the poor!"
"Hush, father," I whispered, for in his ex-
citement he had quite forgotten himself. But
Lady de Bougainville only smiled.
"You are right, Mr. Weston; that is, right
in the main, though there may be something to
be said on the opposite side there usually is.
But I thank you for speaking so plainly ; tell
me a little more."
" There is nothing to be told. It is a hope-
less matter. Oh that I had an acre of ground,
or a thousand pounds in my pocket, that I
might build, if only three cottages, where decent
A BRAVE LADY.
167
working-men might live and work ! For chari-
ty begins in small things, and, to my thinking,
it generally begins at home."
Again she said, " You are right," and sat for
some minutes thinking ; then called me. " Win-
ny, how much was that money you put into the
bank for me yesterday ? I forget : I am afraid I
often do forget things now."
I told her the sura, a good large one, which
had given her much pleasure at the time, for it
was a debt unexpectedly repaid. I had en-
treated her to spend it on building a new con-
servatory, for the old one was too far from the
house in wintry weather, and she was so fond
of her flowers. But she had pertinaciously re-
fused. "What, build at my age, and for my
own pleasure ? Let us think of something else
to do. Opportunity will soon come." And it
did.
" Mr. Weston, I thank you for putting this
into my mind for showing me what I ought to
do. I wonder I never thought of it before.
But," and she sighed, "I have been thinking
too much and doing too little this many a year.
Well, one lives aad learns lives and learns.
If you like, you shall have that two-acre field
behind my stable -yard, and Winny will pay
you that money ; she knows all about it ; so that
you may build your cottages at once."
I knew better than my father how costly the
gift was, to her who was so tenacious of her
privacy, who liked to hide behind her park and
trees, keeping the whole world at bay : but hav-
ing once decided, the thing was over and done.
She entered into the scheme with all the ener-
gy of her nature ; and wished to set about it
immediately, "for," she said, "at my age I
have no time to lose." Lengthy was the dis-
cussion betweea her and my delighted father
how best to carry out their plans, doing most
good and avoiding most evil.
" For the gi-eatest evil in this sort of scheme,"
she said, "is making it a matter of charity.
Remember, Mr. Weston, ray tenants must pay
me their rent. I shall exact it punctually, or I
shall turn them out. I ara, or I have some-
times been called, a hard woman : that is, I
help only those who help themselves, or those
whom Providence forbids to help themselves.
The intermediate class, who can help themselves
and will not, the idle spendthrift, the willing
borrower, the debtor who is as bad as a thief,
against tliese I set my face as a flint. For them
expect of me no mercy ; I have none."
As she spoke the fierce flash, so seldom seen
now, came again into her eyes. She was much
agitated ; more so than the matter in question
required, and my father regarded her in some
sui-prise. Then he seemed all at once to re-
member, and said, gently, " No, you will not be
tried. There is justice in what you say. ' He
that will not work neither shall he eat,' for he
would only take the bread out of the mouths of
those that do work. It is God alone who is so
perfect that Ho can send His sun to shine upon
both the evil and the good."
Lady de Bougainville was silent ; but a slight
blush, so pretty in an old lady, grew upon her
cheek, and she looked at my father with that
tenderness with which she often regarded him,
even when doctrinally she differed from him
most.
They went on planning, and I reading ;
though my mind often wandered away, as young
folks' will. I do not know if the mention of
building houses carried it away in any particu-
lar direction, but I was considerably startled
when I heard from my father's lips a certain
name which had been unuttered among us for
more than two years.
" Winny, have you any idea what has become
of that young man Donnell, wasn't his name?
no, Donelly who built Mr. Jones's house ?"
" No," I said, feeling hot all over, and thank-
ful it was twilight.
" Because, Lady de Bougainville, he would
be the very man to design your cottages. He
was full of the subject. Sprung from the peo-
ple, he knew all about them. And he was so
clever, so honest, so conscientious. Winny, do
try to think how we could get at him."
"He went abroad," I said.
" But he may be back by this time, and
Jones might know his address. In any case I
should like to hear of him again such a fine
young fellow. And a rising, not a risen man,
which you know you would like best, Lady de
Bougainville."
Here was a predicament ! To explain the
whole truth, and hinder a young man's obtain-
ing employment because he had once dared to
make love to me ; the thing was ridiculous I
And yet to have him coraing here, to meet him
again, as I raust, for I was Lady de Bougain-
ville's right hand in every thing ; what should I
do ? While I sat considering, whether for half
a rainute or half an hour I knew not, being so
painfully confused, the decision was taken out
of my hands. Lady de Bougainville, in her
quigk mode of settling things she never "let
grass grow under her feet" rang the bell.
"Take my card across to Mr. Jones and say
I should be much obliged if he would write on
it the address of his architect, Mr. Donelly."
Well ! it was she who did it, she and Fate ;
I had no hand in the matter, and whether I was
glad or sorry for it I did not quite know.
Nor did I when, two days after, Lady de
Bougainville told me she had had a letter from
him.
"A capital, sensible, practical letter; you can
read it, my dear. And he loses no time too,
which I like. He says he will be down here in
an hour from now. I suppose I must see him
myself and yet "
She was visibly nervous had been so all the
morning, Bridget said ; and no wonder. " My
lady has not had a stranger in the house for
twenty no, it's five-and-twenty years."
A stranger and an Irishman ; which latter
fact seemed to recur to Lady de Bougainville,
and haunt her uncomfortably till the minute
168
A BRAVE LADY.
Mr. Donelly was announced. Then, repeating
to herself, "This is unjust unjust," she rose
from her chair, and taking my arm ("You will
come too," she had said; "I dislike strangers"),
she crossed with feebler steps than usual the
hall, and ascended the beautiful staircase to the
tapestry chamber. There, looking grayer and
more shadowy than ever in the dimness of the
rainy morning, the painted knights and ladies
reined in their faded steeds, and the spectral
Columbus pointed out forever, to an equally
ghostlv Queen Isabella, his discovery of the
New World.
Standing beneath it investigating it appar-
ently with the keenness of a young man to
whom the whole world was new, with every
thing in it to win stood Edward Donelly.
He was a good deal altered older, graver,
browner; but it was the same face pleasant,
honest, kind. I did not like to look at it much,
but merely bowed as he did likewise, without
oflFering to shake hands with me and then I
crept away into the farthest window-seat I could
find.
Thence I watched him and Lady de Bougain-
ville as they stood talking together, for they fell
into conversation almost immediately. At first
it was about the tapestry, which he excessively
admired, and she took him round to examine,
piece by piece, before she entered into business
talk at all. Then they sat down opposite to
one another, and launched into the great cot-
tage question at once.
She liked him, I could see, even though the
Irish accent seemed now and then to make her
wince, and bring a grave, sad, absent look to
her dear face ; until some word of his, wise and
generous, honest and manly and the subject in
hand called out a good many of the like made
her turn back to him, inquisitively, but not un-
kindly, and listen once more. He had a good
deal to say, and he said it well ; earnestly too,
as if his whole heart were in it. His energy
and enthusiasm seemed not to displease her,
but rather to arouse in her a certain sympathy,
reminding her of something which had once
been in herself, but was no longer.
They talked, I think, for nearly two hours ;
by that time the matter was quite settled ; and
he departed.
"Yes, I like him," she said, when he was
gone ; and he lingered not a minute after their
business talk was ended. " Your father was
right ; I will trust Mr. Donelly, though he is an
Irishman."
So he came, all that spring, whenever sent
for, and oftener when necessary, to Brierley
Hall. Never to Brierley Rectory. My father's
cordially given invitations were as cordially but
invariably declined. When he and I chanced
to meet, his manner was distant, courteous, yet
so self-possessed that I began to doubt whether
he had not forgotten all about that painful lit-
tle episode, and whether it was necessary for
me to keep so carefully out of his way. He
seemed to be absorbingly full of his work per-
haps also he was married. Should I have been
glad to hear he was married? I dare not tell.
Nay, had she, who was my visible conscience,
and before M'hom I often now felt a sad hypo-
crite had Lady de Bougainville herself asked
me the question, I could not have told.
But she asked me no questions at all ; ap-
parently never thought about me, being so en-
grossed in her cottages. They grew day by
day under our eyes, as fast as a child or any
other living thing, and she took as much pleas-
ure in them. For they were, as she sometimes
said, not dull dead bricks and mortar, but tan-
gible blessings, and would be so to many after
she was gone. To make them such, she en-
tered, in concert with Mr. Donelly, into the
dryest details saw that windows would open
and doors shut that walls were solid and roofs
substantial that the poor man should have,
according to his needs, as many comforts as
the rich.
"I don't expect to gain much by my invest-
ment," she said to her aixhitect one day, "but
I hope not to lose. For I mean, as you say,
to do nothing for mere charity. The honest,
steady, deserving, who pay me their rent regu-
larly, shall be made as happy as I can make
them ; the drunken, idle, and reckless may go.
Mercy to them is injustice to the rest."
"I know that," he answered. "And yet,"
turning to her as she stood, and looking right
in her face with his honest eyes, "if things
came to the worst, in you, of all others, I think
would be found that charity which 'suffereth
long, and is kind.'"
They often talked on this wise, on other than
mere business topics ; and I stood listening ;
quite apart, perhaps even a little jealous, yet
not altogether miserable. One likes to feel
that a man. who has once cared for one is not,
at any rate, a man to be ashamed of.
It was on this day, if I remember right
when they had talked until he had missed his
train that Lady de Bougainville first invited
Mr. Donelly to lunch. What made her do it
I can not guess, for it was twenty years and
more since any guest, save*myself, had taken a
meal at her table. He accepted, though with
hesitation ; and we found ourselves sitting all
three in the cedar parlor, and doing our best
to talk unconstrainedly. She, most ; though I
saw by her face the expression of which I
knew so well that every word was painful to
her, and that she would have rescindedUhe in-
vitation if she could.
Nevertheless, when lunch was announced,
she, with a smile of half apology to me, took
the arm of her guest, and proceeded to the
dining-room.
I like to remember these little things, and
how I followed those two as they walked slow-
ly across the hall between the green scagliola
pillars. A goodly pair they were for she was,
proportionately, almost as tall as lie, and as
upright. They might have been mother and
son, or grandmother and grandson ; had her
A BRAVE LADY.
169
elder children lived, she would probably have
had a grandson just his age. I wondered, did
she think of this ? Or, when she took the head
of her long table with him and me on either
side, for the seat at the foot was never filled
did she recall the days when the empty board
was full, the great silent room noisy with laugh-
ter? But whatever she felt, she showed no-
thing. I can see her this minute, sitting grave
and sweQt in her place which it had pleased
Heaven she should occupy so long leaning
over from one to the other of us two, so late-
ly strangers, and talking as she might have
leaned and talked to us out of the other world,
to which it often seemed as if she already half
belonged.
Mr. Donelly had the most of her talk, of
course ; and it ranged over all subjects ex-
cept " shop" which for the nonce she delicate-
ly ignored. Close as they were to her heart,
she never once referied to her cottages. Her
conversation with him was simply that of a
lady with a gentleman, who, however differing
from her in opinion and he held amazingly
fast to his own was a gentleman, and should
be treated as such. And he treated her well,
I doubt if any of the old De Bougainvilles could
have shown more chivalric deference, more ten-
der respect, than Mr. Donelly always paid to
my dear old lady.
But they fought a good deal, these two can-
did people ; and at last, in their lively battles,
they got upon a topic which half frightened me.
It was about Mr. Jones, the retired trades-
man, from whom, of all the inhabitants of the
obnoxious villa residences. Lady de Bougain-
ville seemed most to shrink.
"Nor do I wonder at it," said Mr. Donelly.
"He is a rough, coarse, illiterate man, who
tries to hide his deficiencies under great show
of wealth. But he is an honest-meaning man
for all that, and carefully gives to his children
the advantages he misses in himself. The girls
are well-educated ; the boys will all be sent to
college. A generation hence the Joneses may
be a notable family ; they will certainly be an
accomplished and refined one."
" Do you think so ?"
" I think it because I feel it. Yon will see."
" I shall not see," said Lady de Bougainville,
gently; "but I am glad to believe it. In my
old age I believe many things which I doubted
when I was young. And I will believe this,"
with one of her slight bends of old-fashioned
compliment, "just because Mr. Donelly says it."
The pretty civility was lost upon him. Alas !
he was too much in earnest.
" Do not mistake me, Lady de Bougainville.
Do not suppose I undervalue birth or breeding.
To be well-born and gently nurtured must be"
here he sighed " on^ of the greatest bless-
ings that can happen to a man. But it is only
a chance blessing ; and he to whose lot it does
not fall must learn to do without it. I think
he can. Perhaps or, at least, I used to dream
so when a boy perhaps the next best thing to
being the descendant of an ancient and honora-
ble family is to be the founder of one."
"A better thing, it seems to me," said Lady
de Bougainville.
"We had risen from table, and were standing
in the doorway. He, as he spoke, had drawn
himself up to every inch of his excellent height,
throwing his shoulders back a trick he had
and looking out half sadly, yet quite fearlessly,
as if right into the unknown future, with those
clear good eyes of his. She paused a minute,
met them, and then for the first time (they had
hitherto only bowed, French fashion) she ex-
tended to him her hand. It was taken rev-
erently, gratefully, almost tenderly; and they
again passed on before me arm in arm down
the long hall.
As they went I overheard I hardly know
how, for it was evidently not meant for me to
hear, only I was so painfully alive to all their
words the following conversation.
She said to him apologizing slightly for the
curiosity which an old lady may show, not un-
gracefully, in a young man's affairs "You
speak of founding a family : are you married ?"
"No."
"But, perhaps, you expect to be?"
" I do not." He hesitated a little, then add-
ed : " Since the matter concerns no one but my-
self, I will be candid with you. I once asked
a lady, and she refused me. I shall never ask
again. My profession must be to me in the
stead of a wife."
" That is a pity. The lady has had a loss ;
you would have made a good husband."
"Thank you."
They said no more, and she respected his
confidence; for in discussing him afterward
with me, freely as was her habit, this was the
only part of Mr. Donelly's conversation which
she omitted to speak of. But she spoke very
kindly of him ; and next time he came her
manner was* sweet and gracious as it had nev-
er been before; "Because," she said, "young
as he is, I respect him. He has taught me an-
other of my lessons. Child, as I once told
you, I think we have never done learning."
Was I learning, too ? I know not. I seemed
to live week after week in a curious sort of
dream sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy
in which I was always expecting or dreading
something, and not knowing one day what
might happen the next.
At last something did happen, though I was
ignorant of it at the time.
Mr. Donelly was again invited to lunch and
spend the day indeed, I had to write the note
of invitation. Lady de Bougainville just signing
it, as was her way with much of her corre-
spondence now. For the first time he failed
in an appointment, but next day sent her a let-
ter, a rather long letter, which, instead of show-
ing to me, she put in her pocket, saying she
would tell me about it another time. That
time never arrived, though I remained with her
till evening.
170
A BRAVE LADY.
All day she was distrait and anxious-look-
ing, falling into her old moods of absence and
silence. Nay, the slight "peculiarities" lit-
tle restlessnesses, obstinacies, and irritabilities
which she had had when first I knew her, and
which had since been smothered down into the
exceeding serenity of her lovely old age, re-
vived again. That new, vivid interest of her
life, her pet cottages, seemed almost forgot-
ten, and she kept dwelling continually upon
things long gone by.
It was that day she told me, for the first
time, the story of her seven years' secret, and
how much the keeping of it had cost her.
"Not that I regret any thing, my dear, or
doubt that I was right in keeping it. But even
a righteous secret is a heavy burden, and I am
sorry for all who have to bear it,"
She looked at me and looked away, then re-
ferred to herself again, and began speaking of
her early poverty, and of other portions of her
life at Ditchley, after a fashion that she had
never done before, half accounting for this by
saying that I was not a child now, and that she
liked to talk of the past to me, if I did not
mind.
"I had no youth myself, you know, I mar-
ried so early. Early marriages are not always
safe things ; nay, as Bridget would tell you a
thorough raisogamist is poor Bridget ! all mar-
riages are a great risk. My wonder is, not
that they are sometimes unhappy, but that they
are ever happy at all. I should counsel no
young girl to change her state unless she thor-
oughly knows, and deeply loves, the man she
marries ; and" patting my cheek " I should
be so sorry to see any trouble come to my little
Winifred, that I am glad she cares for no man,
and will not marry just yet, perhaps never at all."
" Never at all !" I cried, with the utmost sin-
cerity, believing I could love no man alive as I
loved her who bent over me. Her dear old face
grew peaceful again and tender, with the ten-
derness that only strong natures know. She
smiled, and went on talking in a desultory way ;
chiefly about herself, betraying rather than con-
fessing how bright her girlish dreams had been,
and how they had melted away like morning
clouds ; and she had to take up the fragments
of her broken life, and carry it on through rain
and storm, heat and frost, till she came, a lone-
ly old woman, to the evening gray.
"No, not gray," I said, "but a rosy sun-
set, like that one" and I pointed westward,
whence, through all the six windows of the
tapestry chamber, streamed a flood of yellow
light, in which the dim figures looked almost
alive. "You are like Columbus, sailing to-
ward the sunset, and seeing it before you oh,
Sebright!"
"Yes, and when be had sailed far, far west
do you remember? and he and his crew
were almost exhausted, they perceived, a long
way oflf", across the sea, the scent of the yet in-
visible spice-grounds. And they took courage,
for they knew they were not far from land."
She spoke half to herself, with that wistful
look, not of this world at all, in her eyes.
Frightened, I clung to her, and begged her
"riot to talk like that, for I almost saw her
wings growing." And for days after then, in
the anxiety of watching her for something had
vexed her, Bridget said, and brought on one of
her brief attacks of illness I forgot all about
Mr. Donelly and the letter.
Nor for some weeks did any thing revive the
subject. He came but little to the Hall, and
never when I was there ; though, as I discov-
ered accidentally, he and Lady de Bougainville
met frequently at the now nearly-finished cot-
tages, and were the best friends in the world.
"I never thought my lady would have taken
so to any young man," commented Bridget,
" and he an Irishman too. Well, wonders will
never cease !" But as my dear old lady never
said a word to me about him, of course I held
my tongue.
Gradually a queer sort of jealousy came over
me. Jealousy of whom, or why ? I could not
clearly tell only it made me thoroughly mis-
erable. Something, or some one, seemed to
have come between me and her, whom I had
been used to engross entirely, and I could not
bear it. I never complained, being too proud
for that ; but all the brightness seemed taken
out of my life. I moped about ; even my fa-
ther noticed how ill I was looking ; and then I
tried an unnatural cheerfulness. For I felt not
only ill but wicked, hating every body about
me, and most of all myself. And I sufi'ered
oh, how we do suffer when we are young !
Did Lady de Bougainville notice it ? or did
she, in her calm old age, think nothing of it,
concluding my troubles would soon pass away ?
Hers were all over now. At times I fancied so,
and almost envied her, and those whose life is
completed, whose story is told for whom no
more sorrow is possible any more.
"No," she said, one day, when I had crept
to her foot-stool and laid her hand on my hot
head, "it is quite true; nothing does grieve
me now not very much. In old age one sees
farther and clearer than younger people do. It
is like living on a hill-top, from whence the ups
and downs of life appear in their just propor-
tions, and every way one looks one beholds, as
it were, 'the crooked straight, and the rough
places plain.' "
A good deal more she said to the same ef-
fect, which made me weep a little, but not so
as to trouble her. And we sat a long time to-
gether, feeling nearer than we had done for
some time, when our talk was broken in upon
by a sudden visitor Mr. Donelly.
Evidently Lady de Bougainville had not ex-
pected him, for she started almost as much as
he did at the sight of her and me together ; and
both nay, we all three looked extremely un-
comfortable.
He apologized hurriedly for his intrusion,
saying it was inevitable. "I have got that
work abroad I told you of, and ought to be oflf
A BRAVE LADY.
171
to India in four days, if you will allow me to
transfer to a friend the completion of your cot-
tages. They are nearly done now. It is a se-
rious matter this engagement ; it would last ten
years. Will you set me free to accept it ?"
" Certainly," she replied. " Come with me
into the cedar parlor, and explain all."
The explanation took very long, or it seemed
so. I scarcely stirred from my seat, I remem-
ber, but stupidly watched the light fade, and
the merry spring-birds drop into silence until
Lady de Bougainville came back and told me
he was gone ; and I recognized that, in all hu-
man probability, I should never see him again
in this world. Never ! since he had only left a
formal message of farewell to my father and to
me. Lady de Bougainville delivered it, and
then sat down, silent and sorry.
"Yes, I am sorry he is gone," she owned.
*'I like him. Latterly, I have taken great
pains to make friends with him, so as to
know him well, and I like him. He has the
true, warm Irish heart, and a conscience be-
sides ; the winning Irish pleasantness, and sin-
cerity underneath it. I tested him, and he has
. not disappointed me. Nay, he has taught me
a lesson which, old as I am, I had need to
learn."
What it was I did not ask; it was, indeed,
impossible to speak, for I began crying. She
drew my head against her shoulder. "Poor
little girl!" then breathed, rather than whis-
pered, in my ear, "You need tell me nothing.
He told me all!"
" Did he ? How dared he ?" I cried, in hot
indignation ; for I was not myself, and knew
not how 1 felt or what I was doing. " He has
told you, and you think "
"I think my little girl did exactly what was
right, and so does he. How could he expect
my Winifred to drop into a man's mouth all in
a minute, like a ripe peach from a wall ? He
was a very foolish fellow, and I told him so. "
I was silent.
"But I also think," she continued, gently,
" that he is a very good fellow, generous and
faithful, honest and true. I have found out all
about him, from his birth upward, and found
out nothing ill. If you really knew him, pos-
sibly you might love him ; I don't say you
would, but you might ; for he is a man you
could trust which is the beginning and end of
all real love."
She sighed, and tried to look into my face,
but I hid it carefully.
" What is your objection against him ? His
being a working-man's son ?"
"No, that would not matter," said I, with an
earnestness that surprised myself. But I had
grown Ayiser since I had left my teens behind.
" You are right, Winny : his birth could not
matter, and ought not, of itself; for he is thor-
oughly well educated and refined. Though, I
own, having not quite got over my class-preju-
dices, it might matter if he had a tribe of un-
pleasant relations belonging to him. But he
has none. He is quite alone in the world
too much alone for such a warm heart. And
he has set it irretrievably upon a certain little
girl I know. I will not urge you, Winifred :
love must come freely, or it is worthless; and
if you do not love him, let him go. He will
bear it somehow ; busy men seldom break their
hearts. Only, if he does not mai-ry you, I
think he will never marry any body."
She ceased. The gentle, slow speech the
soft, told touch of the little hand, what a con-
trast to the whirl that was going on in my poor
heart and head, making me feel as if the room
were turning round and round !
" Do I wound or vex you, my dear, by speak-
ing of this ? Forgive me : it was only because
you have no mother to speak to ; a mother,
when she can be trusted, is the best friend
always. I remember, my own daughter"
she stopped suddenly : a sort of convulsion
passed over her face, as if, even now, the re-
membrance was too bitter to bear. "I had
rather not tell you of that. My daughter is
long since with God."
Yet no mother could be more tender, more
sympathizing than she was with me, another
woman's child, with not the slightest claim upon
her of blood, at least ; as, putting aside en-
tirely her own past, she tried to help me to un-
ravel my passionate, troubled present. For
even then I hardly knew my own heart was
cruelly uncertain as to what I had best do, or
what I wished to do, except to do right. One
thing only I was clear about my intense anxie-
ty never to be parted from her.
"But you must be parted some time," said
she, softly ; " and before I go, it would be a
comfort to me to give my little girl into safe-
keeping to some one who will take care of
her, without tyrannizing over her ; who is a
gentle and good man, without being a weak
man. Child ! if you knew what it is to have
the mere sham of a husband the mockery of a
protector, against whom one has to protect one's
self, and more than one's self; above all, the
misery of bearing and bringing up children, in
whom one's utmost terror is to see any likeness
to their father ! Yet" here she broke oft" in an
altogether changed tone "yet, my dear, many
women have borne this. I have seen several
instances of it in my long life, and I should like
to be quite certain before I die that no such lot
will befall my little Winifred as it never will
if she marries Edward Donelly."
And then she said a good deal more for him
(I find myself always writing "him" and " her,"
as if they were the only two people in the world).
All her words were true, and I knew it.
" Suppose," she whispered, at last, in the
playful manner which sat so prettily upon her,
" that, instead of an old woman making love to
you by proxy in this fashion, the young man
were to come back and do it himself?"
"He can not," I said, half amused and yet
dolefully; "it is quite too late. He has gone
away forever."
172
A BRAVE LADY.
"Not not exactly," and her smile broadened
into actual mischievousness. "I told him to
take a good hour's walk across country, and
come here again after I had sent you away,
you obnoxious little person, whom he has been
so afraid of offending that I have seen not half
enough of him, to have a quiet cup of tea and a
farewell chat with an old lady whom I think he
is rather fond of, and who is never likely to see
him again in this world. Hark !"
For we heard a step on the gravel belfcw a
step which could be only a man's, and a young
man's firm and strong like himself, and yet a
little uncertain too. I don't know how or why,
but every footfall went into my heart.
" Shall I tell him to go away ? or shall I send
him in here ? Choose. Just one word, my lit-
tle Winny ! Yes, or No ?"
I did not say either, but I clung to her, sob-
bing. She kissed and blessed me, not very far
from sobbing herself, and went away.
That evening two young people instead of
one took tea with Lady de Bougainville ; but
I can not be expected to remember much that
passed at that memorable meal. I am afraid
the conversation was very desultory, and not in
the least improving. I can only recall the image
of her who sat there at the head of her dining-
table, for she made it a composite repast a
*' hungry" tea out of compliment to a gentle-
man who could not be supposed to live entirely
upon love. She sat in her pretty old lady's
dress black silk and pure white cambric, and
with her sweet old lady's face beaming down
upon us, with the happy look that people wear
who have helped to create happiness long after
their own has slipped away.
My Ned we agreed between us that I should
call him Ned instead of Edward, which name
seemed to grate upon ears that we would not
have wounded for the world my Ned was, as
Lady de Bougainville well knew, the most ac-
ceptable son-in-law my father could have found ;
especially as, not to part me from the two dear
ones who said they could not possibly do with-
out me, we agreed, for the first year or two, to
come and live at the Rectory. Not without a
struggle, I think, on Ned's part, and the uncom-
fortable feeling of a man who comes and hangs
up his hat in his wife's father's house ; but still
my father was such an exceptional person, that
it was not really a humiliation or vexation ; and
Edward Donelly was too honest a man to care
for the mere appearance of things. He says,
if he ever adopts a crest or a motto, it shall be
this: "Never mind the outside."
Of course he did not go to India. Putting
aside all other considerations, there happened
to' be a little girl at hand who would rather
have been a poor man's wife all her days than
allowed him to risk health, life, and every thing
that makes life dear and valuable, in the strug-
gle after fortune that he would have had out
there. He declined the appointment, and has
never regretted doing so.
Our courtship days were not long; and we
spent a good mtiny of them at Brierley Hall,
often close beside its dear mistress. She said
she did not mind our love-making; indeed,
rather enjoyed it, as all the time she had two
people making love to herself! For indeed
Ned did it, in his chivalric way, quite as much
as I.
He used to come to Brierley every Saturday
and stay till Monday, the only time he could
spare from his active, busy life. Oh those heav-
enly Sundays ! a peaceful, church-going morn-
ing, a long afternoon strolling about under the
cool green shadow of the trees, or sitting in the
summer-house by the lake ; whence we used to
catch peeps of the house he had built, which he
declared was the best bit of architecture he ever
planned in his life ! Above all, those still twi-
lights in the tapestry room ; for we never left
her alone of evenings, but sat with her and list-
ened to her talk charming as ever, fresh and
youthful and bright. She was more clever and
amusing by far than I, and Ned once actually
acknowledged this.
Soon sooner than I liked ; but she insisted
upon it, saying she wished to see it with her
own eyes came our quiet, simple wedding, at
which the only festivities were a dinner to my
poor people and a tea-party to my school-chil-
dren in the grounds of the Hall. My father
married us ; and, seeing that it is not defined
in the Prayer-book whether a man or a woman
should give the bride away, Lady de Bougain-
ville undertook that office herself. I see her
now, in her long, sweeping dress of gray silk
worn for the first and only time her black vel-
vet cloak, and close white crape bonnet, under
which the faded face looked beautiful still. And
I feel the touch of the soft, aged hand that put
mine into the young and strong one, which will
hold it safe through life. Afterward, as my
husband and I walked down the church to-
gether, I noticed and wondered if she did too
the sun shining on the white tablet over the
Brierley Hall pew, where, after the long list of
names, came the brief line, "They all rest
here!"
All all ! Every one of her own flesh and
blood, upon whom she had built her hope and
joy. Yet she had lived on, and God had given
her rest too rest and peace, even in this world.
Ay, and blessedness, poor childless mother, in
blessing other people's children.
It was her earnest wish that she might live to
hold on her knees a child of mine, but we were
a year and a half without one ; and that year
and a half drew thinner and thinner the slender
thread of life which Time was now winding up
so fast. She was past eighty how much we
could not tell, nor could she, for she said she
had long lost count of her birthdays ; and that
we should have to guess at her age when it re-
quired to be noted down she did not say where,
having quite given up the habit she once had
of constantly referring to her own decease.
And life, even yet, was not only tolerable, but
even pleasant to her : her few bodily infirmities
A BRAVE LADY.
173
she bore so sweetly, and her mind was so ex-
ceedingly youthful still. Only at times, when
recurring with a memory wonderfully vivid to
events and persons of her youth, now become
historical, she would suddenly recognize how
long she had lived, and how she stood, a soli-
tary landmark of gone-by years, in the midst
of this busy, bustling world.
" I scarcely belong to this age," she would
say. " It is almost time we were away, I and
Bridget, before we give any body trouble."
And poor Bridget, who had far more of the
weaknesses of age mental and bodily than
her mistress, was often tended and soothed by
her in a half pathetic, half humorous way, and
laughed at, not unkindly, as a "dear, grum-
bling old woman," which made Bridget laugh
too, and, recovering all her Irish good-humor,
strive to bear more patiently the inevitable bur-
den of old age, saying, as she watched the be-
loved figure moving about graceful even yet,
though active no longer "Sure enough, my
lady isn't young herself, and has a deal to put
up with without being bothered by me. But
she always did take care of every body except
herself."
And when the time came that I was rather
helpless too. Lady de Bougainville turned the
tables, and insisted upon taking care of me.
She arranged my whole paraphernalia of little
clothes, cutting out most of them with her own
clever hands, which had once fabricated so
many. And her latest skill and latest eye-
sight were expended upon a wonderfully-em-
broidered christening -robe for little "Jose-
phine," as we were determined to call her from
the very first, resolutely ignoring the possibility
of her being "Joseph." We used to sit and
talk of her for hours, until she grew to us an
actual existence.
" I never was a godmother in my life," Lady
de Bougainville said one day, when we sat to-
gether with Qur basket of work between us.
" I mean to be quite proud of my god-daughter
and name-child. But I shall not leave her a
fortune, you know that neither her nor her
mother ; I shall only leave you enough always
to keep the wolf from the door," and she smiled.
"The rest your husband must earn; he can,
and he will. It does a man good, too makes
twice a man of him to feel he is working for
wife and child, and that upon him rests the fu-
ture of both. Mr. Doiielly said so to me only
yesterday. "
"Did he?" cried I, with my heart in my
eyes the heart so hard to win ; but Ned had
it wholly now. " I don't very much care for
his making a great fortune, but I know he will
earn a great name some of these days. And
he is so good, so good ! Oh, it's a grand thing
to be every day more and more proud of one's
husband !"
I had forgotten to whom I was speaking
forgotten the painted face over the fire-place
behind me the poor, weak, handsome face,
with its self-satisfied smirk, which, wherever
she sat, she never looked at, though sometimes
it haunted me dreadfully still.
"Yes," she answered, in a grave, calm tone,
neither glancing at it though it was just oppo-
site to her nor away from it. " Yes ; it is a
good thing to be proud as you are justly proud
of your husband."
I was silent; but I recognized I, a wife,
and nearly a mother as I had never done be-
fore, how terrible must have been the burden
the heaviest that can be laid upon any wo-
man which this woman had had to take up
and bear all her life. Ay, and had borne, un-
shrinkingly, to the end.
It was this day, I remember for I seem now
to remember vividly every day of these last
weeks that a strange thing happened, which
I am glad now did happen, and in time for me
to know of it, because it proved that, though she
was, as she said, "a hard woman" and all the
honest tenants of her cottages and the faithful
servants in her house blessed her hardness, for
they declared it saved them from being victims
to the drunken, the idle, and the dissolute
still. Lady de Bougainville was not pitiless,
even to those she most abhorred.
The afternoon post brought her a letter, the
sight of which made her start and turn it over
and over again incredulously. I, in passing it
on to her, had just noticed that it was a hand
unknown to me a large, remarkable hand,
though careless and enfeebled-looking, like an
old man's writing. As she opened it an ex-
pression came across her face that, in all the
years I had known her now, I had never seen
before. Anger, defiance, contempt, repugnance,
all were there. With hands violently trem-
bling, she put on her spectacles and went to the
window to read it alone. Then she came back
and touched Bridget on the shoulder.
"He is alive yet; I thought he was dead
long ago did not you ? But he is alive yet.
All my own dead, and he only alive ! He has
written to Hpe."
"Who, my lady?"
"Mr. Summerhayes."
Bridget's half-stupid old age seemed sudden-
ly roused into fury. She snatched the letter
from the table, dashed it down, and trampled
upon it.
" Never heed him, my lady. Don't vex your-
self; he isn't worth it. How diye he trouble
you ? What does he want ?"
"What he always wanted money," and a
slight sneer moved her lips. "I have refused
it to him, you know, more than once ; but now
he is dying, he writes, dying in a work-house.
And he is old, just my age. Who would have
thought that we two, ho and I, should have
lived so long? Well, he begs me, for the love
of God, and for the sake of old times, not to let
him die in a work-house. Must I, Bridget?"
But Bridget, frightened at her mistress's
looks, made no answer.
" I should have done it, a few years ago ; I
know I should ; but now "
174
A BRAVE LADY.
She hesitated ; and then, turning to me, said
more quietly, "I can not judge the thing my-
self. Winifred, you are a good woman ; you
may. This man has been the curse of my life.
He helped to ruin my husband he blasted the
happiness of my daughter. He was a liar, a
profligate, a swindler every thing I most
hated, and hate still ! Why he has been left
to cumber the earth these eighty years a
blessing to no human being, and a torment to
whosoever had to do with him God knows!
I have thought sometimes, were I Providence,
he should have died long ago, or better, never
been born."
She spoke passionately ay, in spite of her
years and her feebleness and her faded eyes
glowed with all the indignation of youth ; only
hers was no personal anger, or desire of venge-
ance, but that righteous wrath against evil and
the doers of it, which we believe to be one of the
attributes of Divinity itself.
"What do you say, Winifred? Tell me
for I dare not judge the matter myself shall I
leave him where he is, to die the death of the
wicked, or have pity upon him? Justice or
mercy which shall it be ?"
I could not tell ; I was utterly bewildered.
Only one thing came into my mind to say, and
I said it : " Was any body fond of him ? Was
she fond of him ?"
Oh, the look of her dead Adrienne's mo-
ther! I shall never forget it. Agony bit-
terness -^ tender remembrance the struggle
to be just, but not unmerciful ; in all these I
could trace the faint reflection of what that
terrible grief, buried so long, must once have
been.
At length she said, calmly, "You are right ;
I see it now. Yes, I will own the truth ; she
was fond of him. And that decides the ques-
tion."
It was decided in a very few minutes more,
for she evidently could not brook much discus-
sion of the matter. We arranged that m}"^ hus-
band should take upon himself the whole trouble
of discovering how far Mr. Summerhayes's letter
was true " He may not be telling the truth even
yet," Lady de Bougainville said, bitterly and
then put him into some decent lodging where
he might be taken care of till he died.
" Think, Winifred," she said, reading his let-
ter over again before she gave it to me to give
to my husband, " think what it must be to have
reached the bridge and shrink in terror from
crossing it; to have come to the end of life
and be afraid of dying. That is his case. Poor
soul! I ought, perhaps, even to be sorry for
liim ; and I am."
She said no more, and I believe this was the
last time except in one or two brief business
(rommunications with Mr. Donelly that she
ever mentioned the name of Owen Summer-
hayes. He lived a pensioner on her charity
for some weeks ; then he died and was buried.
That is all.
The rest of the afternoon, I remember, we
spent very peacefully. Her agitation seemed
to have entirely passed away, leaving her more
gentle, even more cheerful, than usual. She
talked no more about the past, but wholly of
the future my future, and that of the little
one that was coming to me. Many wise and
good words she said as from a mother to a
mother about the bringing up, for God's glo-
ry and its parents' blessing, of that best gift of
Heaven, and best teacher under heaven, a lit-
tle, white-souled, innocent child.
Then she insisted on walking with me to the
park gates, her first walk for many days. It
had been an inclement winter, and for weeks
she had been unable to cross the threshold,
even to go to church. But to-day was so
mild and bright that she thought she would
venture.
"Only don't tell Bridget; for I can walk
back quite well^lone, with the help of my
capital stick," wifliout which she never walked
a step now. At first she had disliked using it
very much; but now she called it "her good
friend." .
On it she leaned, gently declining my arm,
saying I was the invalid, and she must rather
take care of me ; and so we walked together,
slowly and contentedly, down the elm avenue.
It was quite bare of leaves, but beautiful still;
the fine tracery of the branches outlined sharp
against the sky that special loveliness of win-
ter trees which summer never shows. She no-
ticed it : noticed, too, with her quick eye for
all these things, the first beginning of spring
a little February daisy peeping up through the
grass. And then she stood and listened to a
vociferous robin redbreast, opening his mouth
and singing aloud, as winter robins always
seem to do, from the elm-bough overhead.
"I like a robin," she said. "He is such a
brave bird."
When we reached the park gates she turned
a little paler, and leaned heavier on her stick.
I was afraid she was very tired, and said so.
" My dear, I am always tired now." Then,
patting my hand with a bright smile nay, more
than bright, actually radiant she added, "Nev-
er mind ; I shall be all right soon."
I watched her, after we had parted just as
we always parted with a tender kiss, and a
warning to " take great care of myself:" watch-
ed her, I knew not why, except that I so loved
to do it, untjil she was out of sight, and then
went satisfied home ; ignorant oh, how igno-
rant! that it was my last sight of her, con-
sciously, in this world.
That night my trouble came upon me una-
wares. We had a sore struggle for our lives,
my baby and I. I remember nothing about ^
her birtli poor little lamb! nor for weeks
after it. My head went wrong; and I had
rather not think any more than I can help,
even now, of that dreadful time.
Daring my delirium, among all the horrible
figures that filled my room, I recall one not
horrible, but sweet which came and stood at
A BRAVE LADY.
175
DOWN TUB ELM AVENUE.
ray bedside, looking at me with the saddest,
tenderest eyes. I took it, they tell me, for
the Virgin Mary, of whom I had just read
some Catholic legend that the Mother of Christ
comes herself to fetch the souls of all women
who die in childbirth. I thought she had come
for mine. Only she was not the young Madon-
na, fair and calm ; she was Mary grown old, in-
ured to many sorrows, heart-pierced with many
swords, yet living still; Mary, mother of the
Lord, human and full of frailty, yet, like her
Son, " made perfect through suffering," as,
please God ! we all may be made. And when
the vision departed, they tell me, I missed it,
and mourned for it, and raved for days about
"my Virgin Mary;'* but she never came again.
When I woke up from my illness I was not
at home, but in a quiet lodging by the sea, with
kind though strange faces about me, and my
husband constantly at my side. He had never
left me, indeed, but I did not know him; I
hardly did, even in my right mind. He had
grown so much older, and some of his pretty
curly locks little Josephine's are just like
them had turned quite gray.
It was he who told me, cautiously and by
slow degrees, how ill I had been, and how I
had still, by the mercy of God, a little Jose-
phine a healthy, living dairghter waiting for
me at. home at Brierley.
"But who has taken charge of her all this
while^" I asked. And gradually, as the in-
terests and needs of life came back upon me
again, I became excessively anxious and un-
happy, until a new thought struck me : " Oh,
her godmother ; she would send for baby and
take care of her. Then she would be quite
safe, I know."
My husband was silent.
"Has her godmother seen her?"
"Once."
"Only once!" a little disappointed, till I
remembered how feeble Lady de Bougainville
was. "She has not got my little lamb with
her, then. But she has seen her. When will
she see her again when ?"
" Some day," Edward said, gently, tighten-
ing his hold of my hand. "Some day, my
wife. But her godmother does not want her
now. She has her own children again."
And so I learned, as tenderly as my husband
could break it to me, that Lady de Bougainville
had, according to the word she used of her own
dear ones, " gone away ;" and that when I went
httme to my little Josephine I should find her
place vacant ; that on this side the grave I
should see the face I loved no more.
It seemed that my vision of the Virgin Mary
was reality ; that, hearing of my extreme dan-
ger, Lady.de Bougainville had risen from her
bed in the middle of the night a wild, stormy
winter's night and come to me ; had sat by
me, tended me, and with her indomitable hope
and courage kept from sinking into utter de-
spair my poor husband and my father, until the
trial was over, and mine and baby's life were
safe. Then she went home, troubling no one,
complaining to no one, and lay down on her
bed, to rise up no more.
She was ill a few days only a few; and
176
A BKAVE LADY.
every one thought she would be better very
soon, until she was actually dying. It was
just about midnight, and all her faithful and
attached servants hastily gathered round her,
but too late. She knew no one, and said not
a single word to any one, but just lay, sleeping
into death, as it were, as quiet as an hour-old
child. Only once, a few minutes before her de-
parture, catching suddenly at the hand which
held hers, and opening her eyes wide, she fixed
them steadily upon the empty space at the foot
of her bed.
"Look, Bridget!" she said, in a joyful voice.
*'LookI the children the children!"
It might have been God knows !
******
It was spring full, bright, cheerful May
when, carrying our little daughter in his arras,
my husband took me for the first time to see
the new grave which had risen up beside the
others in Brierley church-yard. I sat down by
it ; put its pretty primroses, already so numer-
ous, into my baby's hands, and talked to her
unheeding ears about her godmother.
But all the while I had no feeling whatever,
and I never have had since, that it was really
herself who lay sled|)ing there : she who to the
last day of her long term of years was such a
brave lady ; so full of energy, activity, courage,
and strength whose whole thoughts were not
for herself but for others who was forever busy
doing good. She was doing the same some-
where else, I was certain; carrying out the
same heroic life, loving with the same warm
heart, rejoicing with a keener and more per-
fect joy.
And so I think of her still ; and I will think
of her, and I will not grieve. But I know that
on earth I shall never again behold the like of
my dear Lady de Bougainville.