_ CHAPTER II - ROSES AND THORNS
'By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played;
By the household tree, thro' which thine eye
First looked in love to the summer sky.'
MRS. HEMANS.
Margaret was once more in her morning dress, travelling quietly
home with her father, who had come up to assist at the wedding.
Her mother had been detained at home by a multitude of
half-reasons, none of which anybody fully understood, except Mr.
Hale, who was perfectly aware that all his arguments in favour of
a grey satin gown, which was midway between oldness and newness,
had proved unavailing; and that, as he had not the money to equip
his wife afresh, from top to toe, she would not show herself at
her only sister's only child's wedding. If Mrs. Shaw had guessed
at the real reason why Mrs. Hale did not accompany her husband,
she would have showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly
twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss
Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except
that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married
life, on which she could descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria
had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than
herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one
so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers
she had ever heard, and a perfect model of a parish priest.
Perhaps it was not quite a logical deduction from all these
premises, but it was still Mrs. Shaw's characteristic conclusion,
as she thought over her sister's lot: 'Married for love, what can
dearest Maria have to wish for in this world?' Mrs. Hale, if she
spoke truth, might have answered with a ready-made list, 'a
silver-grey glace silk, a white chip bonnet, oh! dozens of things
for the wedding, and hundreds of things for the house.' Margaret
only knew that her mother had not found it convenient to come,
and she was not sorry to think that their meeting and greeting
would take place at Helstone parsonage, rather than, during the
confusion of the last two or three days, in the house in Harley
Street, where she herself had had to play the part of Figaro, and
was wanted everywhere at one and the same time. Her mind and body
ached now with the recollection of all she had done and said
within the last forty-eight hours. The farewells so hurriedly
taken, amongst all the other good-byes, of those she had lived
with so long, oppressed her now with a sad regret for the times
that were no more; it did not signify what those times had been,
they were gone never to return. Margaret's heart felt more heavy
than she could ever have thought it possible in going to her own
dear home, the place and the life she had longed for for
years--at that time of all times for yearning and longing, just
before the sharp senses lose their outlines in sleep. She took
her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to
the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future. Her eyes
began to see, not visions of what had been, but the sight
actually before her; her dear father leaning back asleep in the
railway carriage. His blue-black hair was grey now, and lay
thinly over his brows. The bones of his face were plainly to be
seen--too plainly for beauty, if his features had been less
finely cut; as it was, they had a grace if not a comeliness of
their own. The face was in repose; but it was rather rest after
weariness, than the serene calm of the countenance of one who led
a placid, contented life. Margaret was painfully struck by the
worn, anxious expression; and she went back over the open and
avowed circumstances of her father's life, to find the cause for
the lines that spoke so plainly of habitual distress and
depression.
'Poor Frederick!' thought she, sighing. 'Oh! if Frederick had but
been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy, and being lost
to us all! I wish I knew all about it. I never understood it from
Aunt Shaw; I only knew he could not come back to England because
of that terrible affair. Poor dear papa! how sad he looks! I am
so glad I am going home, to be at hand to comfort him and mamma.
She was ready with a bright smile, in which there was not a trace
of fatigue, to greet her father when he awakened. He smiled back
again, but faintly, as if it were an unusual exertion. His face
returned into its lines of habitual anxiety. He had a trick of
half-opening his mouth as if to speak, which constantly unsettled
the form of the lips, and gave the face an undecided expression.
But he had the same large, soft eyes as his daughter,--eyes which
moved slowly and almost grandly round in their orbits, and were
well veiled by their transparent white eyelids. Margaret was more
like him than like her mother. Sometimes people wondered that
parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from
regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said.
Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just' enough
to let out a 'yes' and 'no,' and 'an't please you, sir.' But the
wide mouth was one soft curve of rich red lips; and the skin, if
not white and fair, was of an ivory smoothness and delicacy. If
the look on her face was, in general, too dignified and reserved
for one so young, now, talking to her father, it was bright as
the morning,--full of dimples, and glances that spoke of childish
gladness, and boundless hope in the future.
It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The
forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below
them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and
broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father's
side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it
yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to
it,--out on the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing
multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the
sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth. This
life--at least these walks--realised all Margaret's
anticipations. She took a pride in her forest. Its people were
her people. She made hearty friends with them; learned and
delighted in using their peculiar words; took up her freedom
amongst them; nursed their babies; talked or read with slow
distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their
sick; resolved before long to teach at the school, where her
father went every day as to an appointed task, but she was
continually tempted off to go and see some individual
friend--man, woman, or child--in some cottage in the green shade
of the forest. Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors
life had its drawbacks. With the healthy shame of a child, she
blamed herself for her keenness of sight, in perceiving that all
was not as it should be there. Her mother--her mother always so
kind and tender towards her--seemed now and then so much
discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop
strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale
a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he
could not bring himself to say that he wished to leave the
parish, and undertake the charge of a larger. He would sigh aloud
as he answered, that if he could do what he ought in little
Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more
overpowered; the world became more bewildering. At each repeated
urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way of
seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more
and more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to
Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many
trees affected her health; and Margaret would try to tempt her
forth on to the beautiful, broad, upland, sun-streaked,
cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure that her mother had
accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life, seldom extending
her walks beyond the church, the school, and the neighbouring
cottages. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on,
and the weather became more changeable, her mother's idea of the
unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more
frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume,
a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met
with the preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs
had done.
This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent,
was what Margaret was unprepared for. She knew, and had rather
revelled in the idea, that she should have to give up many
luxuries, which had only been troubles and trammels to her
freedom in Harley Street. Her keen enjoyment of every sensuous
pleasure, was balanced finely, if not overbalanced, by her
conscious pride in being able to do without them all, if need
were. But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon
from which we watch for it. There had been slight complaints and
passing regrets on her mother's part, over some trifle connected
with Helstone, and her father's position there, when Margaret had
been spending her holidays at home before; but in the general
happiness of the recollection of those times, she had forgotten
the small details which were not so pleasant. In the latter half
of September, the autumnal rains and storms came on, and Margaret
was obliged to remain more in the house than she had hitherto
done. Helstone was at some distance from any neighbours of their
own standard of cultivation.
'It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in
England,' said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods. 'I can't
help regretting constantly that papa has really no one to
associate with here; he is so thrown away; seeing no one but
farmers and labourers from week's end to week's end. If we only
lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something;
there we should be almost within walking distance of the
Stansfields; certainly the Gormans would be within a walk.'
'Gormans,' said Margaret. 'Are those the Gormans who made their
fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit
them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off,
knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without
pretence.'
'You must not be so fastidious, Margaret, dear!' said her mother,
secretly thinking of a young and handsome Mr. Gorman whom she had
once met at Mr. Hume's.
'No! I call mine a very comprehensive taste; I like all people
whose occupations have to do with land; I like soldiers and
sailors, and the three learned professions, as they call them.
I'm sure you don't want me to admire butchers and bakers, and
candlestick-makers, do you, mamma?'
'But the Gormans were neither butchers nor bakers, but very
respectable coach-builders.'
'Very well. Coach-building is a trade all the same, and I think a
much more useless one than that of butchers or bakers. Oh! how
tired I used to be of the drives every day in Aunt Shaw's
carriage, and how I longed to walk!'
And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy
out of doors, at her father's side, that she almost danced; and
with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she
crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly
and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the
autumnal breeze. But the evenings were rather difficult to fill
up agreeably. Immediately after tea her father withdrew into his
small library, and she and her mother were left alone. Mrs. Hale
had never cared much for books, and had discouraged her husband,
very early in their married life, in his desire of reading aloud
to her, while she worked. At one time they had tried backgammon
as a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing
interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the
interruptions which arose out of these duties were regarded as
hardships by his wife, not to be accepted as the natural
conditions of his profession, but to be regretted and struggled
against by her as they severally arose. So he withdrew, while the
children were yet young, into his library, to spend his evenings
(if he were at home), in reading the speculative and metaphysical
books which were his delight.
When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her
a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and
had found the summer's day all too short to get through the
reading she had to do before her return to town. Now there were
only the well-bound little-read English Classics, which were
weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small
book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Seasons, Hayley's
Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and
most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource.
Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to
all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused
and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her
sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower
means at Helstone vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to
stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the
rain upon the leads of the little bow-window. Once or twice
Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of
the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to
put a question on a subject very near to her heart, and ask where
Frederick was now; what he was doing; how long it was since they
had heard from him. But a consciousness that her mother's
delicate health, and positive dislike to Helstone, all dated from
the time of the mutiny in which Frederick had been engaged,--the
full account of which Margaret had never heard, and which now
seemed doomed to be buried in sad oblivion,--made her pause and
turn away from the subject each time she approached it. When she
was with her mother, her father seemed the best person to apply
to for information; and when with him, she thought that she could
speak more easily to her mother. Probably there was nothing much
to be heard that was new. In one of the letters she had received
before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they
had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in
health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but
not the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always
spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as
'Poor Frederick.' His room was kept exactly as he had left it;
and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs.
Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but
always remembered the day when she had been engaged by Lady
Beresford as ladies' maid to Sir John's wards, the pretty Miss
Beresfords, the belles of Rutlandshire. Dixon had always
considered Mr. Hale as the blight which had fallen upon her young
lady's prospects in life. If Miss Beresford had not been in such
a hurry to marry a poor country clergyman, there was no knowing
what she might not have become. But Dixon was too loyal to desert
her in her affliction and downfall (alias her married life). She
remained with her, and was devoted to her interests; always
considering herself as the good and protecting fairy, whose duty
it was to baffle the malignant giant, Mr. Hale. Master Frederick
had been her favorite and pride; and it was with a little
softening of her dignified look and manner, that she went in
weekly to arrange the chamber as carefully as if he might be
coming home that very evening. Margaret could not help believing
that there had been some late intelligence of Frederick, unknown
to her mother, which was making her father anxious and uneasy.
Mrs. Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration in her
husband's looks or ways. His spirits were always tender and
gentle, readily affected by any small piece of intelligence
concerning the welfare of others. He would be depressed for many
days after witnessing a death-bed, or hearing of any crime. But
now Margaret noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts were
pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression of which could not
be relieved by any daily action, such as comforting the
survivors, or teaching at the school in hope of lessening the
evils in the generation to come. Mr. Hale did not go out among
his parishioners as much as usual; he was more shut up in his
study; was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the
house-hold was a rap on the back-kitchen window-shutter--a signal
which at one time had often to be repeated before any one was
sufficiently alive to the hour of the day to understand what it
was, and attend to him. Now Mr. Hale loitered about the garden if
the morning was fine, and if not, stood dreamily by the study
window until the postman had called, or gone down the lane,
giving a half-respectful, half-confidential shake of the head to
the parson, who watched him away beyond the sweet-briar hedge,
and past the great arbutus, before he turned into the room to
begin his day's work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an
occupied mind.
But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely
based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a
bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when
the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares
were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of
nothing but the glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was over,
and now that the rain was gone, many a deep glade was accessible,
into which Margaret had only peeped in July and August weather.
She had learnt drawing with Edith; and she had sufficiently
regretted, during the gloom of the bad weather, her idle
revelling in the beauty of the woodlands while it had yet been
fine, to make her determined to sketch what she could before
winter fairly set in. Accordingly, she was busy preparing her
board one morning, when Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the
drawing-room door and announced, 'Mr. Henry Lennox.' _