“WHAT is it, father? do you want me?”
The girl spoke to her father, but her eyes were caught instantly by the unusual apparition of the lady in the shop. Who was she? not an ordinary customer, not anybody with an order for picture frames. A flutter awoke in Janet’s breast. Was it perhaps somebody sent from the shop to offer that situation which was the dream of her fancy? a situation, she did not quite know what, varying as her hopes and sense of self-importance varied from that of a companion (which, the forewoman of the shop had told her, her manners and look were equal to—not to speak of her education) to that of a lady’s maid. Emigration was not an idea which pleased Janet. She was afraid of the sea, afraid of the unknown, and not at all desirous of being always at home, shut up within the circle of family duties and companionship. She wanted to see the world, as all young people had, she thought, a right to do. To go into the wilds had no charm for her. She had grown up in the close presence of all her father’s theories without being affected by one of them. She had heard him speak by the hour and had paid no attention. All his moral independence, the haughtiness of his determination to be his own master, and stand under subjection to no man, affected his child no more than to make her wish the more fervently for that “situation,” which would deliver her from the monotony of these “holdings forth.” Janet’s ideal of a happy existence was that of a large “establishment” where there would be a crowd of servants, elegant valets and splendid butlers at the feet of the pretty maid whom nobody would be able to tell from a lady—or perhaps a chance of catching the eye of the master of one of these fine gentlemen, who would make her a lady in earnest, with servants of her own. Nobody knew of these secret dreams which occupied her fancy, and grew and flourished in the atmosphere of the shop; but when her father called her suddenly, and she came down to see Lady Markham standing so exactly like (she thought) a lady whom the forewoman might have sent with the offer of a situation, her heart began to beat, and her head to turn round with excitement—excitement only not so great as that of the woman who stood gazing at her with wistful eyes, asking herself if this was the woman whom Paul preferred to all the world.
Janet was tall, and possessed what the people at the shop called “a lovely figure;” the mantles and jackets never looked so well as upon her. The habit of putting these garments on, and making a little parade in front of the glass to show them, which was her daily duty, had given a certain ease of carriage not usual in her class. When you are accustomed to be gazed at, whether for yourself, or what you carry on your shoulders, it takes away the native embarrassment of the self-conscious creature. She was dressed in that gown of black alpaca which is the uniform of the shops, and which did full justice to the fine lines of her form. These were not the mere slim outlines of a girlish figure which might turn to anything, but really beautiful, finely proportioned, and imposing. She came down into her father’s shop, into the line of sunshine that crossed it, with the air of a young queen. Her face, however, was not so fine. She was pale, her nose not quite so delicate, her mouth not so small as beauty demanded. Her hair was fair, with little colour in it, and affording but little relief to the forehead upon which it clustered in a wild but careful disorder, according to the fashion of the time. Lady Markham took in every line and every feature as the girl advanced: far more critically than if she had been, as Janet thought, an intending employer did she examine this new unknown being who (was it possible?) had Paul’s future in her hands. They gazed at each other, forgetting the man who stood by watching their mutual interest with what would have been amusement had he been less indignant and curious. Men and women are always so strange to each other. He looked at these two with a half-despairing, half-comic (notwithstanding his seriousness) consciousness that the ideas that were going through their minds were to him a sealed book. He did not know, poor man, that the lady, who was a stranger, was the one of the two that was comprehensible to him, and that stranger than all Greek or Latin, more mysterious than philosophy, would have been to him, had he been able to see them, the thoughts in the mind of his own child.
“I want to ask you a question, Janet. Don’t be alarmed, it is not anything to frighten you,” he said. “In the first place this is Lady Markham, the mother of Mr. Markham whom you have so often seen here.”
Janet made a curtsey to the lady, uttering a little confused “Oh!” of wonder, and opening her eyes, and even her mouth, in surprise. Could Mr. Markham have recommended her? Mr. Markham! She did not know what to think. Why should he wish her to be under his mother’s care? Thought goes quick at all times, quickest of all in such a crisis, when the next word may change all your prospects in life. Her mind plunged forward in a moment into a world of possibilities, while her eyelids quivered with that expression, and her mouth kept the form of the “Oh!” tremulous and astonished. The quiver communicated itself to her whole frame—what might come next?
“You must understand,” said Lady Markham quickly, “that I have nothing to do with the question your father is going to ask you. It is not put in consequence of anything I have told him—nor is it put at my desire.”
Spears gave a little laugh, elevating his eyebrows. Yes, this was the sort of thing to be expected. She had led him on to it, and now she protested that she had nothing to do with it—was not this the kind of tactics pursued by her class in all ages? To push the frank and honest man of the people into a corner and then to disown him. He laughed, though he had not much inclination to laugh.
“Quite right, quite true,” he said; “it is for my own satisfaction entirely. Janet, nobody has ever come between you and me,” the man added with a certain pathos. He looked at his daughter with a mist of honest affection and trust in his eyes, and without an idea, without a suspicion, that between him and her lay a whole world of difference, indescribable by ordinary words. “I have been father and mother both to you. Answer me, my girl, without any fear. Mr. Markham has told his family that he is going with us to Queensland. Janet, answer me plainly, is it out of love for you?”
“Father!” Janet, whose face was turned towards him, gave a sudden cry. In a moment a flame of colour went over her. She opened her eyes still wider, and her mouth, with dismay. “Oh, father! father!” she cried, in a tone of warning and alarm.
It seemed to Lady Markham that nothing more was necessary. Her limbs refused to support her any longer. She sank upon the seat which she had abandoned. The girl was afraid to speak the truth before her; but yet what doubt could there be of the meaning in her voice.
“I ask you to tell me plainly—to speak out as between you and me,” said Spears. He was not slow to perceive what her tone implied, and the warning in it made him angry. “There is no reason why you should hesitate to say it. If so it is, there is nothing wrong in it as far as I can see. Blush you must, I suppose—girls cannot help it; but tell me, like an innocent creature as you are, tell me the truth. I tell you there is nothing to be ashamed of. Is it out of love for you?”
Her thoughts rushed, tumbling over each other in a wild dance, a feverish Bacchic procession, through Janet’s head. She did not mean to say, or even to imply what was not true. But such questioning could only mean one thing, that Mr. Markham had confessed to his mother that he was “in love” for her—that unthought-of, bewildering promotion was within her reach. She did not mean to tell a lie. She blushed more hotly than ever.
“Oh, father, how can you ask me such a thing—before a lady?” she said.
“Then it is true?”
Janet did not make any reply; she dropped her head with a modest grace, twisting her fingers together nervously, her whole frame quivering. It was not she that had told them anything: they had told her. Ah! she remembered now a score of little nothings. Had not he picked up her thimble for her when she let it fall? Had not he opened the door for her when she came and went? How often she had wondered how he could come night after night and day after day—for what?—to talk to father, to listen to father! Many and many a time she had wondered at, and in her heart despised, her father’s disciples. It was “bosh” that he was saying, and yet these others would sit round him and take it all in. But here was something altogether different. That a young man should only have pretended to listen to father, should have come for herself all the time, was quite comprehensible to Janet. There was nothing strange even—nothing out of the way in it. It was what lovers had done from the beginning of time.
“Is that all you have got to say?” said her father. “Can’t you give us any more satisfaction? Speak out when I tell you, Janet. All this time that he has been coming here, not saying a word to you, pretending to be my disciple—” A little sting of wounded vanity was in Spears too. He did not quite like to feel that he had been deceived, that his most fervent follower was nothing but the lover of his daughter. “All this time,” he repeated, “has it been for you he has been coming? That is what we want to know.”
Still Janet said nothing. She stood with her eyes cast down, interlacing her fingers in and out, out and in—her mind in such a sudden heat of active operation that she had not leisure to speak. It was not the first time that the idea had presented itself to her. She had thought of it as a very desirable thing that Mr. Markham (or one of the others) should fall in love with her. But up to this moment she had not been able to see any likelihood of her desire realising itself. However, her mind leaped into instant action, supporting with a whole array of proof the suggestion so suddenly placed before her, of the truth of which she did not entertain a moment’s doubt. How could she doubt it? If he had told his mother, certainly it must be true; and the other facts adapted themselves as by magic to this great central fact. As soon as she had got possession of that as a foundation, the details seemed to come at a wish, and a whole superstructure of blessedness sprang upwards towards the skies.
“I don’t know what you wish me to say, father,” she answered, at last, after another peremptory call. She spoke with all the modesty of conviction, for she felt now that every word was true. “There are things as a girl cannot speak about. There are a deal of things as are nothing in themselves; but still a girl knows what they mean.”
These modest words gave an indescribable pang to both her hearers. As for Spears, it was all he could do not to cry out with anger and pain. To think that at this great crisis, at a moment when so much depended upon it, she should speak with such disregard of grammar, notwithstanding all the care he had taken of her education.
“There are things as a girl cannot speak about.”
He knew that this would catch Lady Markham’s ears, and he felt himself humbled before her—not because of the fact, which there was no harm in, which was indeed natural enough; but that his girl should tell it in such grammar occupied Spears to the exclusion of deeper sentiment. He turned to his visitor with a conciliatory tone, and a look of deprecation as if asking her pardon.
“Well!” he said, “my lady! there does not seem to be much doubt on that point. We will have to make up our minds to it, though it is not what I could have wished, any more than you.”
The very light seemed darkened in Lady Markham’s eyes, the room went round with her, and she saw nothing clearly. Oh, why had she come here to make sure! Why had she not let it alone, all vague as it was! An hour ago she had thought anything better than uncertainty—but now uncertainty itself would have been a boon. She looked at Spears, catching the tone of deprecation in his voice, which seemed so natural, and made a sudden appeal to him.
“Make up, our minds to it,” she cried. “How is that possible? Oh, Mr. Spears, I have always thought you so superior to anything of the kind. You would not take advantage of the confidence placed in you; you would not allow my boy, because of his admiration for your talents, to ruin himself, to compromise his position, to disappoint all our hopes!”
She rose up and put out her hands, appealing—in the forgetfulness of personal despair—to his generosity, though it was against himself and his own child. The most courteous, the most considerate person will forget when it is their own dearest interests which are concerned.
His fantastic distress about the grammar went out of the man’s mind. His forehead contracted, a gleam of anger came from his eyes. But he had no doubt as to having right on his side, and he answered with dignity. “Madam,” he said, “we had better understand each other. I don’t want your son any more than you want my daughter; but they have their rights, and if they like each other I will not interfere.”
She was driven almost wild by this reply. “Sir William will never consent—he will never consent to it,” she cried.
“That’s none of my business—nor my child’s,” said Spears. He forgot the respect with which she had inspired him. “Here’s the difference between your class and mine, my lady,” he said with some scorn. “I consider the one thing needful in a marriage is love—on both sides. In our rank of life we don’t consider much more. We don’t ask questions about a girl’s ancestors or her fortune. Most likely there’s none of either sort, as in this case—but where there is love, what more is wanting? You will never persuade me to interfere.”
“Marriage!” she repeated, in a voice of dismay. Of course that was what it must come to. She cast a look of dismay and almost horror at the girl who would, if this were so, take her own place, and hold her position in the world. She rose up suddenly from her rude seat, feeling that her limbs still failed her, but that in any case she could stay no longer here. “Oh, there is a great deal more wanting—a great deal more,” she cried. “Life is not so simple for us. A woman should know what she undertakes—what weight she will have on her shoulders. There are other things to be taken into consideration in such a life as ours.”
“You think so,” said Spears. What he intended to be a superior smile dwindled into something like a sneer. He did not like this assertion, which he could not contradict. After all, it was true enough that his own existence was far more elementary and primitive than the other, and he did not like the thought.
“You do not know,” said Lady Markham, “you cannot understand the difficulties of people who are looked up to by a whole district, who have the comfort of others, the very life of many in their hands. But why should I speak of this?” she said. “I thought you understood, but you do not understand. Now it is war between us, as you said. I want to harm no one, but I must do what I can for my boy.”
She made them a curtsey which (for she could not be uncivil) included both father and daughter, then drew down her veil with a trembling hand and hurried away.
Spears went after her to the door. He was furious at this calm assertion of something higher, larger, and more elevated in her different rank; yet he could not help a certain reverence, an unwilling worship of the lady, of whom he had once said regretfully that nothing like her was ever produced in his own. He went to the door, and gazed after her as she went along, her steps still hurried and agitated, but her natural grace coming back to her. “Looked up to by a whole district—the comfort of others, their very life in her hands.” Ah! there might be something in that after all. He felt in his own veins a fulness, a swell of rising blood as of a man able to bear others upon his shoulders, and fearing no responsibility. That should come in the new world to which he was bound. There he too would cease to be a single unit among other isolated individuals, and would become a head also, a leader, the first of a community. He felt as if she had dared him to it, and he would achieve it. But as he stood there half-angry, half-stimulated, he was aware of his daughter behind him, straining on tiptoe to look over his shoulder—and turned round, looking at her with a new principle of judgment and discrimination in his eyes.
“Was it really Lady Markham? Is she Mr. Markham’s mother?” said Janet, breathless with excitement. “Oh, how pretty she must have been, father! She’s not a bit nicely dressed, not what I would call equal to her situation. But she looks a real lady. Don’t you think you would know she was a real lady, whatever she had on?”
“I don’t know what you mean by a real lady. You are quite as silly as the rest, you little fool.”
“Oh, but you do know,” cried Janet. “Miss Stichel puts on lovely things, but she never has that look. Was that the lady that was so kind to you in the country?—in that beautiful grand house?”
“Did I say she was kind to me?” said Spears, melting a little. “Well, yes, I suppose she was.”
“And was it really,” said Janet, drooping her head, after she had cast one keen glance at her father’s face, “really—about nothing but Mr. Markham’s nonsense that she came here?”
“Janet,” said her father, taking her by the hand—his mind had wandered from the great question of the moment, but her words brought it suddenly back. He looked tenderly and anxiously into the girl’s face, which sank before his gaze, but only with an easy blush and pleasant embarrassment. “I don’t want to be inquisitorial. I don’t want to pry into what is perhaps too delicate for a man’s ear. But tell me if you can what you mean by Mr. Markham’s nonsense? He has always seemed very serious to me. Try and tell me if you can—try and speak to me as you would have spoken if your mother had been here.”
This touched her heart, for she was not a bad girl. She began to cry a little. “She would not have asked me—she would have understood,” she said. “Oh, father, what can I tell you beyond what I have told you? Besides, what does it matter what I say? He must have spoke himself, or what brought the lady here?”
This seemed conclusive to Spears too. It did not occur to him that “Mr. Markham’s nonsense” must mean something more than what Paul had said to his mother. He put his arm round his child, and drew her close to him. “You should not say ‘he must have spoke,’ Janet—though it would seem indeed as if he had said something. She wanted me to order him off. Tell me, my girl, are you really—fond of this young fellow?” he said, with persuasive tenderness. “Don’t turn your face away, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I thought you were but a child, and lo! you are a woman with lovers after you,” he went on, with a smile that was pathetic. “I can’t say I like it, but it’s nature, and I won’t complain.”
“Oh don’t, father,” said Janet, drawing herself away. “Don’t! How can I tell you—or any one?” There was just enough of feeling to give a natural air of pretty reserve and delicacy to the girlish shrinking, the quick movement she made to conceal her face from his eyes. Her voice was tremulous, her cheeks suffused with the blush of excitement and pleasant confusion. After a pause she turned half round and asked, as if avoiding a more difficult question, “Is it a very grand house? Will it come to him after? Will he be a Sir too?”
“If it lasts till his time,” said the revolutionary, “which let us hope it will not. The chances are, that all these detestable distinctions will be swept away long before, and the wrongs of the poor be made an end of. The country will not bear it much longer.”
“Oh!” cried Janet, forgetting her bashfulness, and turning upon him a face full of eager vehemence and indignation. “I am sick of hearing of the country! What harm does it do the country? Will they have a penny the more for taking away his money? Why shouldn’t I be a lady as well as any one else? To have a grand house, and a man in livery to walk behind me is what I should like above everything! I hope it will last till our time. I don’t believe there will be any difference. Oh, father, won’t you just give up making speeches and holding meetings, and let things be?”
“Janet!” he cried, with a flash of anger; but it seemed ludicrous, after all, to attach any importance to what such a child said. He laughed a confused and disconcerted laugh. “That doesn’t come well from my daughter! And what do you know about such things? You are a little goose, and that is all about it. Besides, what does it matter? We are all going to Queensland—he, too. There will not be many grand houses, or men in livery, you baby! to be found there.”
“Oh!” cried Janet, growing pale with disappointment and dismay; “but you don’t think he will have to go there now?”
“Why not now? There is more reason than ever now, it appears to me.”
“Oh!” cried Janet again—that stock English monosyllable expressing a whole gamut of dissatisfaction and surprise. “I thought that would only be because he thought his people would object, and didn’t know what we—I—would say. He would rather go than be separated—rather than lose—us; it is easy to understand. But when he’s been and told, and when his mother has come here, and when it’s all in the way of being settled—Oh!” cried Janet again, with natural vehemence, “what in all the world should he go for now? Would any one go that could help it? and him that has everything he can set his face to, and sure to come into a fortune, and all made easy for him. What in all the world should he go for now?”
Spears stood and looked at her with a confusion that was almost stupidity. He was indeed stupefied by this extraordinary speech. Was it really what it seemed to be, a revelation of an unknown character, a new creation altogether—or was it merely the silly babble of a child?
“My girl,” he said, with a tone of severity, yet still keeping the half of his smile, so confused and uncertain was he, not knowing what to think; “what is this you are saying? It is not like a child of mine. What if I were to say—as I have a good right—he shall come to Queensland or he shall not have you?”
“You would not have any right to say such a thing,” said Janet, with decision. “Don’t you tell us we’ve all got the right, both men and girls, to do what is best for ourselves and to judge for ourselves? and would you be the tyrant to take that from us? Oh, no, father, no! I never would have said a word but for this. Many a one has said to me, ‘What are you going for? I wouldn’t go a step in your place. I’d take a situation, and stay where all my friends are.’ That’s been said to me—times and times; and I’ve always said ‘No. Where father goes I must go.’ But, all the same, I always hated going. For one thing, I know I should be ill all the way. I hate a ship; and I hate living in the country, where you would never see so much as a street-lamp, nor hear anything but cows mooing, and sheep baaing; but I would have gone and never said a word. Only now,” cried Janet, with rising vehemence, “what would be the good of me going, or of him going? If I was married I shouldn’t be of no use to you; and what in all the world should take him there, if it wasn’t following after me?”
Her father stood and gazed at her stupefied. His very jaw dropped with wonder. She had never made so long a speech in her life; but now that she had spoken, it was all as clear, as definitely settled and arranged, as pitiless in its reasonableness, as if, instead of a girl of twenty, she had been a philosopher laying down the law. All her timidity was gone. She looked him full in the face while she ended her lengthened argument. As for Spears, the very power of speech seemed to be taken from him. A sound like a laugh, harsh and jarring, came from him when she ended.
“So that’s how it is?” he said, and turned and went back to his bench like a man who did not know what he was doing. Janet was glad enough to be thus released. She who had known her own sentiments all along was not startled by them as he was; but she felt that it was best now she had uttered them to let them have time and quiet to work their necessary effect. She turned to the eight-day clock, which had been ticking solemnly all this time in the corner, with a half shriek.
“Good gracious!” she cried, “it’s past nine, and me still here. Whatever will Miss Stichel say?”