THE next afternoon was appointed by Lady Mary as the time at which Edgar should accompany her to Harbour Green, and be made acquainted with at least a portion of his future pupils. As I have said, this was a safe sort of resource, and he could not but feel that a compassionate understanding of his probable feelings, and difficulties of a more intimate kind, had something to do with Lady Mary’s effort to enlist him so promptly and thoroughly in the service of her scheme. Both husband and wife, however, in this curious house were so thoroughly intent upon their philanthropical schemes, that it was probably mere supererogation to add a more delicate unexpressed motive to the all-sufficing enthusiasm which carried them forward. Shortly, however, before the hour appointed, a little twisted note was brought to him, postponing till the next day the proposed visit to the village, and Edgar was left to himself to pursue his own studies on Phil’s behalf, whose education he felt was quite enough responsibility for one so little trained in the art of conveying instruction as he was. Phil had already favoured him with one of those engrossing and devoted attachments which are so pleasant, yet sometimes so fatiguing to the object. He followed Edgar about wherever he went, watched whatever he did with devout admiration, and copied him in such minute matters as were easily practicable, with the blindest adoration. The persistence with which he quoted Mr. Earnshaw had already become the joke of the house, and with a devotion which was somewhat embarrassing he gave Edgar his company continually, hanging about him wherever he was. As Edgar read Lady Mary’s note which the boy brought to him, Phil volunteered explanations.
“I know why mamma wrote you that note,” he said, “it’s because Aunt Augusta is there. I heard them saying—
“Never mind what you heard them saying,” said Edgar; and then he yielded to a movement of nature. “Was your aunt alone, Phil?” he asked—then grew crimson, feeling his weakness.
“How red your face is, Mr. Earnshaw, are you angry? No, I don’t think she was alone; some of the girls were with her. Mamma said she was engaged to you, and they made her give it up.”
“Naturally,” said Edgar, “any day will do for me. What do you say now, Phil, as I am free for the afternoon, to a long walk?”
“Hurrah!” cried the boy, “I wanted so much to go up to the gamekeeper’s, up through the woods to see the last lot of puppies. Do you mind walking that way? Oh, thanks, awfully! I am so much obliged to Aunt Augusta for stopping mamma.”
“Come along then,” said Edgar. He was glad to turn his back on the house, though he could not but look back as he left, wondering whether, at any moment at any door or window, the face might appear which he had not seen for so long—the face of his little love, whom he had once loved but lightly, yet which seemed to fix itself more vividly in his recollection every day. He could not sit still and permit himself to think that possibly she was in the same house with him, within reach, that he might hear at any moment the sound of her voice. No, rather, since he had given his voluntary promise to her mother, and since he was so far separated from her by circumstances, rather hurry out of the house and turn his back upon a possibility which raised such a tumult in his heart. He breathed more freely when he was out of doors, in the damp wintry woods, with Phil, who kept close by his side, carrying on a monologue very different in subject, but not so different in character from his father’s steady strain of talk. There is a certain charm in these wintry woods, the wet greenness of the banks, the mournful stillness of the atmosphere, the crackle of here and there a dropping branch, the slow sailing through the air now and then of a leaf, falling yellow and stiff from the top of a bough. Edgar liked the covert and the companionship of trees, which were denuded like himself of all that had made life brave and fair. The oaks and beeches, stiffening in their faded russet and yellow, stood against the deep green of the pine and firs, like forlorn old beauties in rustling court dresses of a worn-out fashion; the great elms and spare tall poplars spread their intricate lacework of branches against the sky; far in the west the sun was still shining, giving a deep background of red and gold to the crowded groups of dry boughs. The rustle of some little woodland animal warmly furred among the fallen leaves and decaying husks, the crackling of that branch which always breaks somewhere in the silence, the trickle of water, betraying itself by the treacherous greenness of the mossy grass—these were all the sounds about, except their own footsteps, and the clear somewhat shrill voice of the boy, talking with cheerful din against time, and almost making up for the want of the birds, so much did his cheerful aimless chatter resemble their sweet confusion of song and speech, the ordinary language of the woods.
“I could hit that squirrel as easy as look at him. I bet you a shilling I could! only just look here, cocking his shining eye at us, the cheeky little brute! Here goes!”
“Don’t,” said Edgar, “how should you like it if some Brobdingnagian being took a shot at you? What do you think, Phil—were those ladies going to stay?”
“Those ladies?” cried Phil in amazement, for indeed they were dragged in without rhyme or reason in the middle of the woods and of their walk. “Do you mean Aunt Augusta and the girls? Oh, is that all? No, I don’t suppose so. Should you mind? They’re jolly enough you know, after all, not bad sort of girls, as girls go.”
“I am glad you give so good an account of them,” said Edgar, amused in spite of himself.
“Oh, not half bad sort of girls! nicer a great deal than the ones from the Green, who come up sometimes. But, I say, Myra Witherington’s an exception. She is fun; you should see her do old Jones, or the Rector; how you would laugh! Once I saw her do papa. I don’t think she meant it; she just caught his very tone, and the way he turns his head, all in a moment; and then she flushed up like fire and was in such a fright lest we should notice. Nobody noticed but me.”
“Your cousins, I suppose, are not so clever as that,” said Edgar, humouring the boy, and feeling himself as he did so, the meanest of household spies.
“It depends upon which it is. Mary is fun, the one that’s going to be married,” said Phil, “I suppose that will spoil her; and Bee is not bad. She ain’t so clever as Mary, but she’s not bad. Then there’s Gussy, is a great one for telling stories; she’s capital when it rains and one can’t get out. She’s almost as good as the lady with the funny name in the Arabian Nights.”
“Does she often come here?” said Edgar with a tremble in his voice.
“They say she’s going to be a nun,” said Phil; “how funny people are! I can’t fancy Cousin Gussy shut up in a convent, can you? I’d rather marry, like Mary, some great swell; though they are never any fun after they’re married,” Phil added parenthetically with profound gravity. As for Edgar he was in no humour to laugh at this precocious wisdom. He went straight on, taking the wrong way, and scarcely hearing the shouts of the boy who called him back. “This is the way to the gamekeeper’s,” cried Phil, “Mr. Earnshaw, where were you going? You look as if you had been set thinking and could not see the way.”
How true it was; he had been set thinking, and he knew no more what road he was going than if he had been blindfolded. Years after, the damp greenness of the fading year, the songless season, the bare branches against the sky, would bring to Edgar’s mind the moment when he shot off blankly across the path in the wood at Tottenham’s, not knowing and not caring where he went.
Next day Lady Mary fulfilled her promise. She drove him down in her own pony carriage to the village, and there took him upon a little round of calls. They went to the Rectory, and to Mrs. Witherington’s, and to the Miss Bakers who were great authorities at Harbour Green. The Rector was a large heavy old man, with heavy eyes, who had two daughters, and had come by degrees (though it was secretly said not without a struggle) to be very obedient to them. He said, “Ah, yes, I dare say you are right,” to everything Lady Mary said, and gave Edgar a little admonition as to the seriousness of the work he was undertaking. “Nothing is more responsible, or more delicate than instructing youth,” said the Rector, “for my part I am not at all sure what it is to come to. The maids know as much now as their mistresses used to do, and as for the mistresses I do not know where they are to stop.”
“But you would not have us condemned to ignorance, papa,” said one of his daughters.
“Oh, no, I should not take it upon me to condemn you to anything,” said the old man with his quavering voice, “I hope only that you may not find you’ve gone further than you had any intention of going, before you’ve done.”
This somewhat vague threat was all he ventured upon in the way of remonstrance; but he did not give any encouragement, and was greatly afraid of the whole proceeding as revolutionary, and of Lady Mary herself, as a dangerous and seditious person sowing seeds of rebellion. Mrs. Witherington, to whom they went next, was scarcely more encouraging. Her house was a large Queen Anne house, red brick, with a pediment surmounting a great many rows of twinkling windows. It fronted to the Green, without any grassplot or ornamental shrubs in front; but with a large well-walled garden behind, out of which rich branches of lilac and laburnum drooped in spring, and many scents enriched the air. The rooms inside were large, but not very lofty, and the two drawing-rooms occupied the whole breadth of the house, one room looking to the Green and the other to the garden. There were, or ought to have been folding doors between, but these were never used, and the opening was hung with curtains instead, curtains which were too heavy, and over-weighted the rooms. But otherwise the interior was pretty, with that homely gracefulness, familiar and friendly, which belongs to the dwelling of a large family where everyone has his, or rather her, habitual concerns and occupations. The front part was the most cheerful, the back the finest. There a great mirror was over the mantelpiece, but here the late Colonel’s swords, crossed, held the place of honour. The visitors entered through this plainer room, which acted as ante-chamber to the other, and where Mrs. Witherington was discovered, as in a scene at the theatre, seated at a writing table with a pile of tradesmen’s books before her. She was a tall spare woman, having much more the aspect which is associated with the opprobrious epithet, old maid, than that which traditionally ought to belong to the mother of nine children—all except the four daughters who remained at home—out and about in the world. She had three sons who were scattered in the different corners of the earth, and two daughters married, one of whom was in India, and the other a consul’s wife in Spain. The young ladies at home were the youngest of the family, and were, the two married daughters said to each other when they met, which was very seldom, “very differently brought up from what we were, and allowed a great deal too much of their own way.” Neither of these ladies could understand what mamma could be thinking of to indulge those girls so; but Mrs. Witherington was by no means an over-indulgent person by nature, and I think she must have made up her mind that to indulge the vagaries of the girls was safest on the whole and most conducive to domestic peace.
Fortunately each of these young women had a “way” of her own, except Myra, the youngest, who was the funny one, whom Phil and most boys admired. The others were—Sissy, who was understood to have a suspended love affair, suspended in consequence of the poverty of her lover, from which she derived both pain and pleasure, so to speak; for her sisters, not to speak of the other young ladies of the Green, undoubtedly looked up to her in consequence, and gave her a much more important place in their little world than would have been hers by nature; and Marian, who was the musical sister, who played “anything” at sight, and was good for any amount of accompaniments, and made an excellent second in a duet; and Emma, who was the useful one of the family, and possessed the handsome little sewing-machine in the corner, at which she executed yards upon yards of stitching every day, and made and mended for the establishment. Sissy, in addition to having a love affair, drew; so that these three sisters were all well defined, and distinct. Only Myra was good for nothing in particular. She was the youngest, long the baby, the pet of the rest, who had never quite realized the fact that she was no longer a child. Myra was saucy and clever, and rather impertinent, and considered a wit in her own family. Indeed they all had been accustomed to laugh at Myra’s jokes, almost as long as they could recollect, and there is nothing that establishes the reputation of a wit like this. Mrs. Witherington was alone in the ante-room, as I have said, when Lady Mary entered, followed by Edgar. She rose somewhat stiffly to meet her visitors, for she too being of the old school disapproved of Lady Mary, who was emphatically of the new school, and a leader of all innovations; though from the fact of being Lady Mary, she was judged more leniently than a less distinguished revolutionary would have been. Mrs. Witherington made her greetings sufficiently loud to call the attention of all the daughters, who came in a little crowd, each rising from her corner to hail the great lady. One of them drew the cosiest chair near the fire for her, another gave her an embroidered hand-screen to shield her face from its glow, and the third hung about her in silent admiration, eagerly looking for some similar service to render. Myra followed last of all, rushing audibly downstairs, and bursting into the room with eager exclamations of pleasure.
“I saw the pony-carriage at the Rectory gate, and I hoped you were coming here,” cried Myra; who stopped short suddenly, however, and blushed and laughed at sight of the stranger whom she had not perceived.
“This is Mr. Earnshaw, Myra,” said Lady Mary, “whom I told you of—who is going to be so good as to teach us. I am taking him to see some of the ladies whom he is to help to educate.”
“Please don’t convey a false impression,” said Edgar. “You are all a hundred times better educated than I am. I don’t make any such pretensions.”
“We are not educated at all,” said Sissy Witherington, folding her hands, with a soft sigh. She said it because Lady Mary said it, and because soft sighs were the natural expression of a young heart blighted; but I don’t think she would have liked to hear the same sentiment from any one else.
“Indeed, I think it is extremely disagreeable of you all to say so,” said Mrs. Witherington, “and a reflection on your parents, who did the very best they could for you. I am sure your education, which you despise so, cost quite as much, at least for the last year or two, as the boys’ did. I beg your pardon, Lady Mary—but I do think it is a little hard upon the older people, all these fine ideas that are being put into the girls’ heads.”
“But, dear Mrs. Witherington, how could you help it?” said the rebel chief. “The very idea of educating women is a modern invention; nobody so much as thought of it in the last generation. Women have never been educated. My mother thought exactly the same as you do. There was absolutely no education for women in her day.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Witherington, more erect than ever, “I had an idea once that I myself was an educated person, and I daresay so had the countess—till my children taught me better.”
“I declare it is hard on mamma,” cried Myra; “the only one among us who can write a decent hand, or do anything that’s useful.”
“Of course nobody means that,” said Lady Mary. “What I say is that every generation ought to improve and make progress, if there is to be any amelioration in the world at all; and as, fortunately, there has sprung up in our day an increased perception of the advantages of education—”
Here Emma’s sewing-machine came to a little knot, and there was a sharp click, and the thread broke. “Oh, that comes of talking!” said Emma, as she set herself to pull out the ravelled thread and set it right again. She was not accustomed to take much share in the conversation, and this was her sole contribution to it while the visitors remained.
“Well, a sewing-machine is a wonderful invention,” said Mrs. Witherington; “don’t you think so, Mr. Earnshaw? Not that I like the work much myself. It is always coarse and rough on the wrong side, and you can’t use it for fine things, such as baby’s things, for instance; but certainly the number of tucks and flounces that you can allow yourself, knowing that the machine will do dozens in a day, is extraordinary. And in a house where there are so many girls!—Emma does a great deal more with her machine, I am sure, than ever Penelope did, who was one of your classical friends, Lady Mary.”
“And she can undo her work still more quickly,” cried Myra, with an outburst of laughter, “as it’s only chain-stitch. What a pity Penelope did not know of it.”
“But then the question is,” said Sissy, “whether we are so very much the better for having more tucks and flounces. (By the way, no one wears tucks now, mamma.) The good of a sewing machine is that it leaves one much more time for improving one’s mind.”
“In my day,” said Mrs. Witherington, going on with her private argument, “we had our things all made of fine linen, instead of the cotton you wear now, and trimmed with real lace instead of the cheap imitation trash that everybody has. We had not so much ornament, but what there was, was good. My wedding things were all trimmed with real Mechlin that broad—”
“That must have been very charming,” said Lady Mary; “but in the meantime we must settle about our work. Mr. Earnshaw is willing to give us an hour on Tuesdays. Should you all come? You must not undertake it, if it will interfere with other work.”
“Oh yes, I want to know German better,” said Sissy. “It would be very nice to be able to speak a little, especially if mamma goes abroad next summer as she promises. To know a language pretty well is so very useful.”
Lady Mary made a little gesture of despair with her pretty hands. “Oh, my dear girls,” she said, “how are you ever to be thoroughly educated if you go on thinking only of what’s useful, and to speak a little German when you go abroad? What is wanted is to make you think—to train your minds into good methods of work—to improve you altogether mentally, and give you the exactness of properly cultivated intellects; just the thing that we women never have.”
Myra was the only one who had courage enough to reply, which she did with such a good hearty ringing peal of laughter as betrayed Edgar out of the gravity becoming the situation. Myra thought Lady Mary’s address the best joke in the world.