“but the child that is born on a sabbath day
is blithe and bonny and wise and gay.”
in consequence of the family dinner at mrs. baxter’s, and the impression there made upon the master of the house by the discovery of mrs. baldwin’s antecedents, that young lade received the honour of morning calls from some half dozen, more or less distinguished, millington matrons. for a short time indeed, marion ran some chance of becoming the fashion, but as the prospect was not a tempting one and the horrors of being patronised did not diminish on nearer view, she managed, quietly, though without giving offence, to let her new acquaintances understand that she and her husband were of one mind as to the expediency of living in a perfectly retired manner.
“quite out of the world,” mrs. baxter called it, and though marion smiled inwardly at the millington lady’s notion of society, she had the good sense to say nothing which could have uselessly irritated the wife of geoffrey’s superior.
“nor indeed would it be right not to seem to appreciate what they think so attractive,” said she to her husband, “for after all, though our ways of looking at things may be utterly different, they are in their own way worthy people, and i suppose they mean to be kind to us.”
“i suppose they do,” said geoffrey, “but i couldn’t stand many of those dreadfully heavy dinners. even if we could afford the cabs, which we can’t.”
“in the bottom of her heart i think mrs. baxter is by no means sorry that we have decided against ‘visiting,’ ” said marion. “i can’t make her out. she has been so wonderfully civil to me since we dined there, notwithstanding the dreadful revelation of my teaching mrs. allen’s boys. but yet i am certain she is not sincere in so urging us to accept her friend’s invitations.”
“she is a nasty little cat,” said geoffrey; “she’s ready to scratch your eyes out because old baxter has gone about praising you. he’s an old goose, (not for admiring you, i don’t mean that) but he talks in such an absurd pompous way. all the same, he’s a long way better than his wife, for he’s honest and she’s not. what a nice girl that little niece was we met there! the tall thin girl i mean.”
“very,” assented marion, and then her thoughts recurred to what had been little absent from them for some days—the tidings which had so strangely reached her of gentle sybil’s death. she had not told geoffrey about it. he had never heard any particulars of her life at altes, and had she told him any she must have told him all, which on the whole she felt convinced was better not.
there was nothing really to be concealed, nothing of which she was ashamed. years hence, some day when they had left all the past further behind, she would perhaps tell him the whole story. but not just yet. she had wounded him once so deeply, that even now, there were times at which she doubted if all was thoroughly healed; though for the last six months each day had but served to draw them closer together, in a way that, but for their loss of wealth, it might have taken years to achieve.
they were very happy together. still, geoffrey was at times dull and depressed almost to morbidness, and though marion, correctly enough, attributed these moody fits greatly to outside circumstances, she yet could not but fear that to some extent they arose from misgivings as to her happiness, exaggerated self-reproach for what he had brought upon her.
at such times she found it best to ignore, in great measure, his depression. protestations of affection did not come naturally to her, nor would they have convinced him of what, if he did doubt it, time alone would prove genuine. her devotion to him in practical matters at such times even seemed to deepen his gloom.
“you are too good to me, far too good,” he would say, but with a tone as of disclaiming his right to such goodness, inexpressibly painful to her.
at other times again he would brighten up wonderfully, and marion’s anxiety about him, physically and mentally, would temporarily slumber.
so the days wore on, till it grew to be within about three weeks of christmas. the engagement with mrs. allen, which had been punctually fulfilled, was drawing to a close, much to marion’s regret; for the five guineas a month had proved a very acceptable addition to geoffrey’s modest salary, and the task till latterly, had seemed a light and pleasant one. mrs. allen had shown herself most consistently kind and considerate; many a day she had suddenly discovered a pressing errand at the other side of millington obliging her to drive in the direction of brewer street, where mrs. appleby’s mansion was situated, curiously enough at the very hour of mrs. baldwin’s return thither.
“so as it happens, my dear,” the worthy lad would say, “i can give you a lift home without taking me five yards about.”
the little boys were very nice children, gentle and teachable. the youngest one indeed rather unusually and precociously intelligent; but as is generally the case with such children, physically speaking, fragile to a degree. they were the youngest and only remaining of a large family, all of whom had dropped off, one by one, as the mother expressed it, like buds with no life in them.
“though how it should be the young ones come to be so delicate considering how strong papa and i are, i can’t understand,” said mrs. allen to marion, as she wiped away a few tears one day when she had been relating the history of her successive bereavements.
as the weather grew colder geoffrey seemed to feel stronger. the long walk to and from mr. baxter’s warehouse was not half so trying to him in winter as in the close oppressive days of their first coming to millington. but it was not so with marion. day after day she felt her strength mysteriously diminishing, and as the last week of her daily lessons’ giving approached, she felt thankful that the engagement was so near its termination; for easy as the task had been, she felt that it was growing too much for her.
one morning the boys had been a little more troublesome than usual, and she herself by the close of the lesson felt utterly exhausted. the children had run out to their play, she was alone in the school-room putting on her bonnet and cloak preparatory to her long walk home to brewer street, when the door opened suddenly and mrs. allen appeared. she had come, good soul, with her usual transparent little fib about having to drive in mrs. baldwin’s direction; but before she had time to explain her errand, to her surprise and alarm, marion burst into a violent fit of weeping.
“what is the matter, dear mrs. baldwin? tell me, i pray you,” said the kind-hearted woman. “have the boys been teasing you, or are you not feeling well this morning?”
marion tried to answer her enquiries, but for some minutes could not control her voice sufficiently to do so. mrs. allen fetched a glass of wine which she made her drink part of, and in a short time the poor girl was well enough to speak as quietly as usual, and smile at her own “silly fit of crying.”
“truly,” she assured mrs. allen, “i had no reason for crying. alfred was rather slower than usual at his sums, but he was perfectly good, poor little fellow. i may have been a little tired by that, however; it is the only thing i can think of. only”—and she hesitated.
“only what, my dear?” urged mrs. allen.
marion looked up at the kind, motherly face. its expression invited confidence.
“don’t tell anyone what i am going to say, dear mrs. allen,” said she, laying her hand appealingly on her friend’s arm. i cannot help feeling it would be a relief to tell some-body. do you know i am afraid i am getting ill. sometimes i feel as if i must really be going to die. i am so dreadfully weak, and every day i feel more so. it is making the very miserable, for i don’t know how geoffrey could live without me. and my falling ill would be such a fearful aggravation of all his troubles.”
she looked as if she were ready to burst out crying again. mrs. allen made her finish her wine, and then said very kindly,
“i don’t think you are going to die, dear mrs. baldwin, but i certainly think you must take more care of yourself, for i am sure you need it. you are very young and inexperienced, my dear. i should like you to see a doctor.”
“i don’t think it would be any use,” said marion, sadly. “besides,” she added, her face flushing, “doctors are so expensive, and my seeing one would alarm geoffrey so. of all things i wish to avoid doing so till i am obliged. i may get round again gradually, when the weather is better.”
“no, my dear,” persisted mrs. allen. “it does not do to trust to ‘may get wells.’ you must see a doctor. and if you don’t want to alarm your husband, i’ll tell you how we’ll manage it. if you will stay just now to early dinner with me and the boys, whenever it’s over i’ll take you to our own doctor. as nice a man as ever lived. you’ll go with me you know in an easy sort of way. nothing to pay this time any way. i’ll tell him i brought you, a little against your will, feelin’ anxious about you. if he goes to see you at your own house again that’ll be another affair. to-day you’ll be like as might be my daughter.”
marion gratefully agreed to the arrangement so thoughtfully proposed, which was accordingly carried out. nothing could exceed mrs. allen’s motherly kindness, and marion felt not a little thankful for her presence and sympathy, for wholly unexpected and somewhat overwhelming was dr. hamley’s solution of her mysterious loss of strength.
was she sorry or glad? she asked herself, when, set down at her own door by her friend, she had an hour or two’s quiet to think over this little looked-for intelligence, before the usual time for geoffrey’s return from business.
she could not tell. if they had still been rich, she thought to herself, this new prospect before her would have been one of unalloyed rejoicing. but now? they were so poor, and she feared much, the thought of another help-less being dependent on his unaided exertions would sadly deepen the lines already creeping round geoffrey’s fair, boyish face, would quickly mingle grey hairs with the golden ones she had learnt to love so fondly. and then there came back to her recollection the words of lady anne, that day at copley wood when she had been so frightened about geoffrey, and had yet been cruel enough to chill him by her affected indifference to his safe return.
“geoffrey is so fond of children,” had said lady anne.
“would he still feel so?” marion asked herself. she could not make up her mind.
so she kept her news to herself for a while.
but when at last one day she confided it to her husband, she almost repented not having done so before. the relief to him was so immense of having a satisfactory explanation of marion’s failing health and wearied looks, that all other considerations faded into insignificance. he had been watching her, though silently, with the most intense anxiety, and though fearful of distressing her by objecting to the fulfilment of her engagement with mrs. allen, had been counting the days till it should be at an end.
“oh, my darling!” he said; “i am so thankful, so very thankful it is this and not worse. for the last week or two i have been in such misery about you. i saw how ill you were—saw you growing weaker and weaker before my eyes without knowing what to do. i seemed paralyzed when i first realized that it was not only my fancy, and yet i dreaded startling you by noticing it. only to-day i had made up my mind to write to veronica and ask her to arrange for your going to her for the rest of the winter. i thought this place was killing you, and yet i could not endure the thought of parting with you.”
“and do you think i would have left you, geoffrey?” she whispered.
“i feared you would object to it, in your unselfishness, my darling—your generous pity for the man that has ruined your life.”
“don’t, don’t,” she interrupted, laying her hand on his mouth. “it pains me so terribly when you speak so. it isn’t pity, geoffrey. it is far, far more.”
he did not contradict her in her words; he looked at her fondly, with mingled reverence and tenderness. but she did not feel satisfied that he quite believed her.
“you are the whole world to me,” he murmured. “surely i am not selfish in wishing to keep you all to myself for a time. it may not, will not, i think, be for very long. and then—heaven grant i may have strength to work for her while she has no one else to look to.”
he spoke too low, for marion, who had moved across the room, to catch his words. when she had got her work she came back and sat down beside him.
“it is frightfully hard upon you,” he said anxiously. no comforts, no anything. if only we had a little house of our own, however small. but we must not think of that just yet. in a few months i hope we shall get the two thousand pounds, which is all we shall ever see of the old bank. then, perhaps, we might think of furnishing a little house here.”
“we should be dreadfully rich then,” said marion cheerfully. “another hundred a year! oh, yes, we might quite furnish a house then, and keep, perhaps, two servants.”
“but furnishing would make a hole in the capital, and then we shouldn’t have as much as a hundred additional,” said geoffrey, dolefully.
“not at all,” exclaimed his wife. “you are forgetting the three hundred pounds ready money we have already. it is with that, or part of it, i intend to furnish.”
“well, we must see,” he said, unwilling to damp her pleasure in these plans, but mentally resolving that in the meantime at least the precious three hundred must not be trenched upon. “we must see,” he repeated. “one thing i am thankful for, and that is, there can be no more question of your doing anything but take care of yourself. no more trampings to mrs. allen’s, or still more horrible omnibus drives.”
“it wasn’t horrible at all,” said marion, brightly. “i am really very sorry it is over. they are dear little boys, and mrs. allen herself is the best and kindest creature possible. and as for sitting at home and taking care of myself, i can assure you i have no idea of doing anything of the sort. i have lots of things to do,” she went on, her face flushing a little. “just think of all the sewing i must get through. i shall spend five pounds of the money i have earned in materials, and i shall make everything myself.”
geoffrey smiled. a smile more piteous than tears.
“my poor darling,” he said, “to think that you should have to work your pretty fingers sore! i am afraid i don’t feel very amiably inclined to the little——”
“you are very wicked,” said marion, laughing in spite of herself.
“i am not, indeed,” he pleaded. “how can i feel amiably disposed to anything that will cause you so much trouble. but i won’t say it if it vexes you. i dare say you think me horribly unnatural, but how can i care for anything as i do for you?”
“never mind,” she replied. “you’ll care quite enough when the time comes. and i never said i was going to work my fingers sore, you exaggerating creature.”
then she brought out the five pound note she had that day received from mrs. allen, and set to work to calculate how far was the farthest to which the hundred shillings could be persuaded to extend themselves in her contemplated purchases.
geoffrey’s millington experience was applied to as a competent authority on the probable prices of various materials; but, to tell the truth, though he gave his most solemn attention to the subject under consideration, he failed to distinguish himself as might have been expected, and ended by getting himself called “a great stupid, who didn’t know the difference between linen and cotton, valenciennes and crochet.”
it was laughable enough in its way, this little domestic scene, i dare say. but pathetic too. marion, through all her cheerfulness, was yet conscious of the peculiar loneliness of her position. motherless, sisterless, her only confidante in these essentially womanly matters a man, whom, at first sight, one would hardly have selected as likely to excel in delicate adaptation of his strength to her weakness, his thorough manliness to her shrinking refinement. yet, great rough ploughman as he called himself, few men were better fitted than geoffrey baldwin to be mother, sister, and friend, as well as husband, to the solitary girl who had no one but him to look to.
christmas brought a letter from harry, enclosing a cheque for ten pounds, “to buy marion a winter bonnet,” he said. since the news of their misfortune had reached him, harry’s conduct had been beyond all praise. not only had he at once cut down his already moderate personal expenses, but, by the strictest economy, he had succeeded in saving the little surplus he now sent to his sister as a christmas-box. how welcome a one he little guessed! for it was, of course, at once appropriated to be spent in the same direction as the obstinate five pounds, which so resolutely-refused to behave themselves as ten.
“don’t be unhappy about me,” wrote marion’s brother. “i only wish i could see that you and baldwin are as jolly as i. my pay is, as you see, more than enough for my expenses, and if all goes well, by the time we come home again, i have a very good chance of being made adjutant, which will enable me to manage without difficulty in england. by another christmas i shall hope to be with you at home; millington or anywhere, it doesn’t matter—wherever you two are is home to me.”
some tears were shed over this letter. it was not in woman-nature—sister-nature—that it should be otherwise. nevertheless, it added not a little to the cheerfulness of mrs. appleby’s two lodgers as they ate their modest christmas dinner in the sitting-room looking into brewer street. a ponderous invitation to perform that same important ceremony in the presence and at the board of mr. and mrs. baxter, had been received but civilly declined.
“let us have a nice quiet christmas-day together, in our own little room,” pleaded marion; and geoffrey was by no means loth to comply with the request.
christmas past, the new year soon began. january, february, and march, three ugly, dirty, slushy months, in millington at least, followed each other in gloomy succession. with april things began to mend a little. fresh sprouts made their appearance, with infinite labour and patience, even on the few smoke-dried shrubs and trees in brewer street. and in-doors at no. 32, there was comfort and content; for mrs. baldwin had been far from idle these last few months, and surveyed with no small satisfaction the piles of neatly-fingered little garments which bore witness to her industry.
then came may, sweet, fickle, provoking may! mois de marie, which still we dream of as loveliest of all the twelve; though seldom, if ever, are our fond visions realised. but this year may was, for once, true to her legendary character, and the end of the month was fresh and sweet and genial, as we all fancy may used to be, long ago, when we were children: in the times when christmas was always clear and frosty, seen through a brilliant vista of holly and mistletoe, plum-pudding and mince-pie; and midsummer’s-day a suitable fairy carnival of sunshine and flowers, dances on the green, or picnics in the wood.
what has come over the world in these later days? why is christmas, as often as not, muddy and foggy and raw, ending in uneatable plum-pudding or deplorably indigestible mince-pies? is it in us, or in it, this extraordinary change? where have they all gone to—the beautiful winters and summers of long ago? the lovely, hot, sunny days, when the nights seemed years apart, and the deep green woods the proper place to live in—when we made daisy-chains and cowslip-balls, and all manner of sweet, silly, summer things, whose very names now sound as the dreams of a former existence. the spring with its blossoms, the autumn with its fruit. the bright sparkling winter, with its snow-balls and skates, roast chestnuts and fire-side games, surely the most delightful of all! what has come over them all?
now-a-days, all the year round, with few if any exceptions, the days have a uniform shade of grey. with the exception of certain physical sensations, certain practical and not unwelcome suggestions from the housemaid, to the effect that “it is getting time to begin fires again,” many a week would go by without my thinking of, or realising the change of the seasons. then again some trifle will bring it all back to me—the first snow-drop head peeping through the soil, a cluster of red berries on the hedge some early autumn day, the children’s voices passing my door, intent on a summer day’s ramble, as beautiful to them, i suppose, as it once was to me; or, more tender still, the sweet, quaint words of the christmas carols in the village street—with any of these, the old wonderful feeling surges over me to overwhelming; and i ask myself if indeed my youth is gone for ever, or but veiled for a time, to be found again with all the beauty and truth, the essentially everlasting, in the far-off land we must all believe in, or cease to exist?
but i have wandered from brewer street, and what happened there one sunday morning a bright, lovely may morning, the last day but one of the capricious month.
a daughter was born to the young couple, with whom fortune had played such malicious tricks. a sweet, tiny, soft, blue-eyed doll of a thing. truly the very nicest of babies! healthy as heart could wish, comfortable and content.
“a real sunday child, is she not?” said marion to geoffrey, as with tremendous precaution and solemnity he bent down to kiss the funny pink nose emerging from the nest of flannel by her side. “a nice, good, happy sunday child. i am very glad she is not a boy. a girl will be far more of a comfort to us, won’t she, geoffrey? and may i call her ‘mary?’ ”
“of course you may, my darling,” he replied, “or any name you choose.”
he would not have objected to “kerenhappuch,” or “aurora borealis,” as a small friend of mine once suggested at a family consultation of the kind. he was perfectly satisfied with the baby, whatever its sex or name, seeing that its mother, the light of his eyes, the being for whose happiness he was willing, nay, ready at any moment to die, was well and strong, and pronounced by the authorities to be in a fair way towards a speedy and prosperous recovery.
