"You will be better when you have made the effort, mother," said Marian Ashurst to the widow, one day, when the beauty of the summer was at its height, and death and grief seemed very hard to bear, in the face of the unsympathising sunshine. "Don't think I underrate the effort, for indeed I don't, but you will be better when you have made it."
"Perhaps so, my dear," said Mrs. Ashurst, with reluctant submissiveness. "You are right; I am sure you always are right; but it is so little use to go to any place where one can't enjoy one's self, and where everybody must see that it is impossible; and you have--you know----" Her lips trembled, her voice broke. Her little hands, still soft and pretty, twined themselves together, with an expression of pain. Then she said no more.
Marian had been standing by the open window, looking out, the side of her head turned to her mother, who was glancing at her timidly. Now she crossed the room, with a quick steady step, and knelt down by Mrs. Ashurst's chair, clasping her hands upon the arm.
"Listen to me, dear," she said, with her clear eyes fixed on her mother's face, and her voice, though softened to a tone of the utmost tenderness, firm and decided. "You must never forget that I know exactly what and how much you feel, and that I share it all" (there was a forlornness in the girl's face which bore ample testimony to the truth of what she said) "when I tell you, in my practical way, what we must do. You remember, once, then, you spoke to me about the Creswells, and I made light of them and their importance and influence. I would not admit it; I did not understand it. I had not fully thought about it then; but I admit it now. I understand it now, and it is my turn to tell you, my dearest mother, that we must be civil to them; we must take, or seem to take, their offers of kindness, of protection, of intimacy, as they are made. We cannot afford to do otherwise, and they are just the sort of people to be offended with us irreparably, if we did not allow them to extend their hospitality to us. It is rather officious, rather ostentatious; it has all the bitterness of making us remember more keenly what they might have done for us, but it is hospitality, and we need it; it is the promise of further services which we shall require urgently. You must rouse yourself, mother; this must be your share of helpfulness to me in the burden of our life. And, after all, what does it matter? What real difference does it make? My father is as much present to you and to me in one place as in another. Nothing can alter, or modify, or soften; nothing can deepen or embitter that truth. Come with me--the effort will repay itself."
Mrs. Ashurst had begun to look more resolved, before her daughter, who had spoken with more than her usual earnestness and decision, had come to an end of her argument. She put her arm round the girl's neck, and gave her a timid squeeze, and then half rose, as though she were ready to go with her, anywhere she chose, that very minute. Then Marian, without asking another word on the subject, busied herself about her mother's dress, arranging the widow's heavy sombre drapery with a deft hand, and talking about the weather, the pleasantness of their projected walk, and the daily dole of Helmingham gossip. Marian cared little for gossip of any kind herself, but it was a godsend to her sometimes, when she had particular reasons for not talking to her mother of the things that were in her mind, and did not find it easy to invent other things to talk to her about.
The object which Marian had in view just now, and which she had had some difficulty in attaining, was the inducing of her mother, who had passed the time since her bereavement in utter seclusion, to accept the invitation of Mr. Creswell, the owner of Woolgreaves, the local grandee par excellence,the person whose absence Marian had so lamented on the occasion of her father's illness, to pass "a long day" with him and his nieces. It was not the first time such an invitation had reached Mrs. Ashurst. Their rich neighbour, the dead schoolmaster's friend, had not been neglectful of the widow and her daughter, but it was the first time Marian had made up her mind that this advance on his part must be met and welcomed. She had as much reluctance to break through the seclusion of their life as her mother, though of a somewhat different stamp; but she had been pondering and calculating, while her mother had been only thinking and suffering, and she had decided that it must be done. She did not doubt that she should suffer more in the acting upon this decision than her mother; but it was made, and must be acted upon. So Marian took her mother to Woolgreaves. Mr. Creswell had offered to send a carriage (he rather liked the use of the indefinite article, which implied the extent of his establishment) to fetch the ladies, but Marian had declined this. The walk would do her mother good, and brace her nerves; she meant to talk to her easily, with seeming carelessness, of the possibilities of the future, on the way. At length Mrs. Ashurst was ready, and her daughter and she set forth, in the direction of the distressingly modern, but really imposing, mansion, which, for the first time, they approached, unsupported by him, in whose presence it had never occurred to them to suffer from any feeling of inferiority of position or means, or to believe that any one could regard them in a slighting manner.
Mr. Creswell, of Woolgreaves, had entertained a sincere regard, built on profound respect, for Mr. Ashurst. He knew the inferiority of his own mind, and his own education, to those of the man who had contentedly and laboriously filled so humble a position--one so unworthy of his talents, as well as he knew the superiority of his own business abilities, the difference which had made him a rich man, and which would, under any circumstances, have kept Mr. Ashurst poor. He was a man possessed of much candour of mind and sound judgment; and though he preferred, quite sincerely, the practical ability which had made him what he was, and heartily enjoyed all the material advantages and pleasures of his life, he was capable of profound admiration for such unattainable things as taste, learning, and the indefinable moral and personal elements which combine to form a scholar and a gentleman. He was a commonplace man in every other respect than this, that he most sincerely despised and detested flattery, and was incapable of being deceived by it. He had not failed to understand that it would have been as impossible to James Ashurst to flatter as to rob him; and for this reason, as well as for the superiority he had so fully recognised, he had felt warm and abiding friendship for him, and lamented his death, as he had not mourned any accident of mortality since the day which had seen his pretty young wife laid in her early grave. Mr. Creswell, a poor man in those days, struggling manfully very far down on the ladder, which he had since climbed with the ease which not unfrequently attends effort, when something has happened to decrease the value of success, had loved his pretty, uneducated, merry little wife very much, and had felt for a while after she died, that he was not sure whether anything was worth working or striving for. But his constitutional activity of mind and body had got the better of that sort of feeling, and he had worked and striven to remarkably good purpose; but he had never asked another woman to share his fortunes.
This was not altogether occasioned by lingering regret for his pretty Jenny. He was not of a sentimental turn of mind, and he might even have been brought to acknowledge, reluctantly, that his wife would probably have been much out of place in the fine house, and at the head of the luxurious establishment which his wealth had formed. She was humbly born, like himself, had not been ambitious, except of love and happiness, and had had no better education than enabled her to read and write, not so perfectly as to foster in her a taste for either occupation. If Mr. Creswell had a sorrowful remembrance of her sometimes, it died away with the reflection that she had been happy while she lived, and would not have been so happy now. His continued bachelor estate was occasioned rather by his close and engrossing attention to the interests of his business, and, perhaps, also to the narrow social circle in which he lived. Pretty, uneducated, simple young country women will retain their power of pleasing men who have acquired education, and made money, and so elevated themselves far above their original station; but the influence of education and wealth upon the tastes of men of this sort is inimical to the chances of the young women of the classes in society among which they habitually find their associates. The women of the "well-to-do" world are unattractive to those men, who have not been born in it. Such men either retain the predilections of their youth for women like those whose girlhood they remember, or cherish ambitious aspirations towards the inimitable, not to be borrowed or imported, refinement of the women of social spheres far above them.
The former was Mr. Creswell's case, in as far as anything except business can be said to have been active in his affairs. The "ladies" in the Helmingham district were utterly uninteresting to him, and he had made that fact so evident long ago that they had accepted it; of course regarding him as an "oddity," and much to be pitied; and since his nieces had taken up their abode, on the death of their father, Mr. Creswell's only brother, at Woolgreaves, a matrimonial development in Mr. Creswell's career had been regarded as an impossibility. The owner of Woolgreaves was voted by general feminine consent "a dear old thing," and a very good neighbour, and the ladies only hoped he might not have trouble before him with "that pickle, young Tom," and were glad to think no poor woman had been induced to put herself in for such a life as that of Tom's step-mother would have been.
Mr. Creswell's only brother had belonged, not to the "well-to-do" community, but, on the contrary, to that of the "neer-do-weels," and he had died without a shilling, heavily in debt, and leaving two helpless girls--sufficiently delicately nurtured to feel their destitution with keenness amounting to despair, and sufficiently "fashionably," i.e. ill, educated to be wholly incapable of helping themselves--to the mercy of the world. The contemplation of this contingency, for which he had plenty of leisure, for he died of a lingering illness, did not appear to have distressed Tom Creswell. He had believed in "luck" all his life, with the touching devotion of a selfish man who defines "luck" as the making of things comfortable for himself, and is not troubled with visions of, after him, the modern version of the deluge, which takes the squalid form of the pawnbroker's and the poor-house; and "luck" had lasted his time. It had even survived him, so far as his children were concerned, for his brother, who had quarrelled with him, more from policy and of deliberate interest, regarding him as a hopeless spendthrift, the helping of whom was a useless extravagance, than from anger or disgust, came to the aid of the widow and her children, when he found that things were very much worse than he had supposed they would prove to be.
Mrs. Tom Creswell afforded a living example of her husband's "luck." She was a mild, gentle, very silly, very self-denying, estimable woman, who laved the "ne'er-do-weal" so literally with all her heart that when he died she had not enough of that organ left to go on living with. She did not see why she should try, and she did not try, but quietly died in a few months, to the astonishment of rational people, who declared that Tom Creswell was a "good loss," and had never been of the least use either to himself or any other human being. What on earth was the woman about? Was she such an idiot as not to see his faults? Did she not know what a selfish, idle, extravagant, worthless fellow he was, and that he had left her to either pauperism or dependence on any one who would support her, quite complacently? If such a husband as he was--what she had seen in him beyond his handsome face and his pleasant manner, they could not tell--was to be honoured in this way, gone quite daft about, in fact, they really could not perceive the advantage to men in being active, industrious, saving, prudent, and domestic. Nothing could be more true, more reasonable, more unanswerable, or more ineffectual. Mrs. Tom Creswell did not dispute it; she patiently endured much bullying by strong-minded, tract-dropping females of the spinster persuasion; she was quite satisfied to be told she had proved herself unworthy of a better husband. She did not murmur as it was proved to her, in the fiercest forms of accurate arithmetic, that her Tom had squandered sums which might have provided for her and her children decently, and had not even practised the poor self-denial of paying for an insurance on his life. She contradicted no one, she rebuked no one, she asked forbearance and pity from no one; she merely wept and said she was sure her brother-in-law would be kind to the girls, and that she would not like to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell herself, and was sure her Tom would not have liked her to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell.
On this point the brother of the "departed saint," as the widow called the amiable idler of whose presence she considered the world unworthy, by no means agreed with her. Mr. Creswell was of opinion that so long as trouble kept clear of Tom, Tom would have been perfectly indifferent as to where it lighted. But he did not say so. He had not much respect for his sister-in-law's intellect, but he pitied her, and he was not only generous to her distress, but also merciful to her weakness. He offered her a home at Woolgreaves, and it was arranged that she should "try" to go there, after a while. But she never tried, and she never went; she "did not see the good of" anything; and in six months after Tom Creswell's death his daughters were settled at Woolgreaves, and it is doubtful whether the state of orphanhood was ever in any case a more tempered, modified misfortune than in theirs.
Thus the family party at the handsome house, which Mrs. Ashurst and her daughter were about to visit, was composed of Mr. Creswell, his son Tom, a specimen of the schoolboy class, of whom this history has already afforded a glimpse, and the Misses Creswell, the Maude and Gertrude of whom Marian had, in her grief, spoken in terms of sharp and contemptuous disparagement which, though not entirely censurable, judged from her point of view, were certainly not altogether deserved.
Mr. Creswell earnestly desired to befriend the visitor and her daughter. Gertrude Creswell thought it would be very "nice" to be "great friends" with that clever Miss Ashurst, and had, with all the impulsiveness of generous girlhood, exulted in the idea of being, in her turn, able to extend kindness to people in need of it, even as she and her sister had been. But Maude, who, though her actual experience of life had been identical with her sister's, had more natural intuition and caution, checked the enthusiasm with which Gertrude drew this picture.
"We must be very careful, Gerty dear," she said; "I fancy this clever Miss Ashurst is very proud. People say you never find out the nature of any one until trouble brings it to the light. It would never do to let her think one had any notion of doing her services, you know. She might not like it from us; uncle's kindness to them is a different thing; but we must remember that we are, in reality, no better off than she is."
Gertrude reddened. She had not spoken with the remotest idea of patronage of Miss Ashurst in her mind, and her sister's warning pained her. Gertrude had a dash of her father's insouciance in her, though in him it had been selfish joviality, and in her it as only happy thoughtlessness. It had occurred to Gertrude, more than once before to-day, to think she should like to be married to some one whom she could love very much indeed, and away from this fine place, which did not belong to them, though her uncle was very kind, in a home of her awn. Maude had a habit of saying and looking things which made Gertrude entertain such notions; and now she had, with the best intentions, injured her pleasure in the anticipation of the visit of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian.
It was probably this little incident which lent the slight touch of coldness and restraint to the manner of Gertrude Creswell which Marian instantly felt, and which she erroneously interpreted. When they had met formerly, there had been none of this hesitating formality.
"These girls don't want us here?" said Marian to herself; "they grudge us their uncle's friendship, lest it should take a form which would deprive them of any of his money."
Perhaps Marian was not aware of the resolve, lurking in her heart even then, that such was precisely the form which that friendship should be made to take. The evil warp in her otherwise frank and noble mind told in this. Gertrude Creswell, to whom in particular she imputed mercenary feeling, and the forethought of a calculating jealousy, was entirely incapable of anything of the kind, and was actuated wholly by her dread that Marian should misinterpret any premature advance towards intimacy on her part as an impertinence. Thus the foundation of a misunderstanding between the two was laid.
Marian's thoughts had been busy with the history of the sisters, as she and her mother approached Woolgreaves. She had heard her father describe Tom Creswell and his wife, and dwell upon the fortunate destiny which had transferred Maude and Gertrude to their uncle's care. She thought of all that now with bitterness. The contrast between her father's character, life, and fate, and the character, life, and fate of Tom Creswell, was a problem difficult to solve, hard to endure. Why had the measure been so differently--she would, she must say so unjustly--meted to these two men? Her fancy dwelt on every point in that terrible difference, lingered around the two deathbeds, pictured the happy, sheltered, luxurious, unearned security of those whom the spendthrift had left uncared for, and the harsh, gloomy future before her mother and herself, in which only two things, hard work and scanty means, were certain, which had been the vision her father must have seen of the fate of those he loved, when he, so fitted to adorn an honoured and conspicuous position, had died, worn out in the long vain strife with poverty. Here were the children of the man who had lived utterly for self, and the widow and child of the "righteous," who had done his duty manfully from first to last. Hard and bitter were Marian's reflections on this contrast, and earnestly did she wish that some speedy means of accelerating by efforts of her own the fulfilment of those promises of Providence, in which she felt sometimes tempted to put little faith, might arise.
"I suppose he was not exactly 'forsaken,'" said the girl in her mind as she approached the grand gates of Woolgreaves, whose ironmongery displayed itself in the utmost profusion, allied with artistic designs more sumptuous than elegant, "and that no one will see us 'begging our bread;' but there is only meagre consolation to me in this, since he had not what might--or all their service is a pretence, all their 'opinions' are lies--have saved him, and I see little to rejoice in in being just above the begging of bread."
"They have done a great deal to the place since we were here, Marian," said Mrs. Ashurst, looking round admiringly upon the skilful gardening and rich display of shrubs and flowers and outdoor decorations of all kinds. "It must take a great many hands to keep this in order. Not so much as a leaf or a pebble out of its place."
"They say there are four gardeners always employed," said Marian. "I wish we had the money it costs; we needn't wish Midsummer-day further off then. But here is Mr. Creswell, coming to meet us."
Marian Ashurst was much more attractive in her early womanhood than she had promised to be as a very young girl, and the style of her face and figure was of the kind which is assisted in its effect by a somewhat severe order of costume. She was not beautiful, not even positively handsome, and it is possible she might have looked commonplace in the ordinary dress of young women of limited means, where cheap material and coarse colouring must necessarily be used. In her plain attire of deep mourning, with no ornament save one or two trinkets of jet which had been her mother's, Marian Ashurst looked far from commonplace, and remarkably ladylike. The strongly defined character in her face, the composure of her manner, the quietness of her movements, were not the charms which are usually associated with youth, but they were charms, and her host was a person to whom they were calculated to prove especially charming. Except in his generally benevolent way of entertaining a kindly regard for his friend's daughter, Mr. Creswell had never noted nor taken any particular notice of Marian Ashurst; but she had not been an hour in his house before she impressed herself upon him as being very different from all the other girls of his acquaintance, and much more interesting than his nieces.
Mr. Creswell felt rather annoyed with his nieces. They were civil, certainly; but they did not seem to understand the art of making the young lady who was visiting them happy and "at home." There was none of the freemasonry of "the young person" about them. After a while, Mr. Creswell found that the order of things he had been prepared for--what he certainly would have taken to be the natural order of things--was altered, set aside, he did not know how, and that he was walking along the trim garden-paths, after luncheon, with Miss Ashurst, while Maude and Gertrude took charge of the visitor to whom he had meant to devote himself, and were making themselves as amiable and pleasant to her as they had failed to make themselves to Marian. Perhaps the fault or the reason was as much on Miss Ashurst's side as on theirs. Before he had conducted his visitor over all the "show" portions of the grounds and gardens, Mr. Creswell had arrived at the conclusion that Marian was a remarkable young woman, with strong powers of observation, and a decided aptitude for solid and sensible conversation, which probably explained the coldness towards her of Maude and Gertrude, who were not remarkable, except for fine complexions, and hair to correspond, and whose talk was of the most vapid description, so far as he had had the opportunity of observing.
There was not much of importance in appearance to relate about the occurrences of a day which was destined to be remembered as very important by all who passed its hours at Woolgreaves. It had the usual features of a "long day," spasmodic attacks of animation and lapses of weariness, a great deal of good eating and drinking, much looking at pictures and parade-books, some real gratification, and not a little imperfectly disguised fatigue. It differed in one respect, however, from the usual history of a "long day." There was one person who was not glad when it came to an end. That person was Mr. Creswell.
Poor Mrs. Ashurst had found her visit to Woolgreaves much more endurable than she expected. She had indeed found it almost pleasurable. She had been amused--the time had passed, the young ladies had been kind to her. She praised them to Marian.
"They are nice creatures," she said; "really tender-hearted and sincere. Of course, they are not clever like you, my dear; but then all girls cannot be expected to be that."
"They are very fortunate," said Marian, moodily. "Just think of the safe and happy life they lead. Living like that is living; we only exist. They have no want for the present; no anxiety for the future. Everything they see and touch, all the food they eat, everything they wear means money."
"Yes," said Mrs. Ashurst; "and after all, money is a great thing. Not, indeed," she added, with tears in her eyes, "that I could care much for it now, for it could not, if we had it, restore what we have lost."
"No," said Marian, frowning, "but it could have saved us from losing it; it could have preserved love and care, home, position, and happiness to us. True, mother, money is a great thing."
But Marian's mother was not listening to her. Her mind had returned to its familiar train of thought again.
Something had been said that day about Mrs. Ashurst's paying Woolgreaves a longer visit, going for a week or two, of course accompanied by Marian. Mrs. Ashurst had not decidedly accepted or negatived the proposition. She felt rather nervous about it herself, and uncertain as to Marian's sentiments, and her daughter had not aided her by word or look. Nor did Marian recur to the subject when she found themselves at home again in the evening. But she remembered it, and discussed it with herself in the night. Would it be well that her mother should be habituated to the comforts, the luxuries of such a house, so unattainable to her at home, so desirable in her state of broken health and spirits? This was the great difficulty which beset Marian, and she felt she could not decide it then.
Her long waking reverie of that night did not concern itself with the people she had been with. It was fully occupied with the place. Her mind mounted from floor to floor of the handsome house, which represented so much money, reviewing and appraising the furniture, speculating on the separate and collective value of the plate, the mirrors, the hangings, the decorations. Thousands and thousands of pounds, she thought, hundreds and hundreds of times more money than she had ever seen, and nothing to do for it all. Those girls who lived among it, what had they done that they should have all of it? Why had she, whose mother needed it so much, who could so well appreciate it, none of it? Marian's last thought 'before she fell asleep that night was, not only that money was a great thing, but that almost anything would be worth doing to get money.