A Dark Night's Work (2 page)

Edward was annoyed at all this; Lettice resented it. She loved her
husband dearly, and was proud of him, for she had discernment enough to
see how superior he was in every way to her cousins, the young Holsters,
who borrowed his horses, drank his wines, and yet had caught their
father's habit of sneering at his profession. Lettice wished that Edward
would content himself with a purely domestic life, would let himself drop
out of the company of the —shire squirearchy, and find his relaxation
with her, in their luxurious library, or lovely drawing-room, so full of
white gleaming statues, and gems of pictures. But, perhaps, this was too
much to expect of any man, especially of one who felt himself fitted in
many ways to shine in society, and who was social by nature. Sociality
in that county at that time meant conviviality. Edward did not care for
wine, and yet he was obliged to drink—and by-and-by he grew to pique
himself on his character as a judge of wine. His father by this time was
dead; dead, happy old man, with a contented heart—his affairs
flourishing, his poorer neighbours loving him, his richer respecting him,
his son and daughter-in-law, the most affectionate and devoted that ever
man had, and his healthy conscience at peace with his God.

Lettice could have lived to herself and her husband and children. Edward
daily required more and more the stimulus of society. His wife wondered
how he could care to accept dinner invitations from people who treated
him as "Wilkins the attorney, a very good sort of fellow," as they
introduced him to strangers who might be staying in the country, but who
had no power to appreciate the taste, the talents, the impulsive artistic
nature which she held so dear. She forgot that by accepting such
invitations Edward was occasionally brought into contact with people not
merely of high conventional, but of high intellectual rank; that when a
certain amount of wine had dissipated his sense of inferiority of rank
and position, he was a brilliant talker, a man to be listened to and
admired even by wandering London statesmen, professional diners-out, or
any great authors who might find themselves visitors in a —shire
country-house. What she would have had him share from the pride of her
heart, she should have warned him to avoid from the temptations to sinful
extravagance which it led him into. He had begun to spend more than he
ought, not in intellectual—though that would have been wrong—but in
purely sensual things. His wines, his table, should be such as no
squire's purse or palate could command. His dinner-parties—small in
number, the viands rare and delicate in quality, and sent up to table by
an Italian cook—should be such as even the London stars should notice
with admiration. He would have Lettice dressed in the richest materials,
the most delicate lace; jewellery, he said, was beyond their means;
glancing with proud humility at the diamonds of the elder ladies, and the
alloyed gold of the younger. But he managed to spend as much on his
wife's lace as would have bought many a set of inferior jewellery.
Lettice well became it all. If as people said, her father had been
nothing but a French adventurer, she bore traces of her nature in her
grace, her delicacy, her fascinating and elegant ways of doing all
things. She was made for society; and yet she hated it. And one day she
went out of it altogether and for evermore. She had been well in the
morning when Edward went down to his office in Hamley. At noon he was
sent for by hurried trembling messengers. When he got home breathless
and uncomprehending, she was past speech. One glance from her lovely
loving black eyes showed that she recognised him with the passionate
yearning that had been one of the characteristics of her love through
life. There was no word passed between them. He could not speak, any
more than could she. He knelt down by her. She was dying; she was dead;
and he knelt on immovable. They brought him his eldest child, Ellinor,
in utter despair what to do in order to rouse him. They had no thought
as to the effect on her, hitherto shut up in the nursery during this busy
day of confusion and alarm. The child had no idea of death, and her
father, kneeling and tearless, was far less an object of surprise or
interest to her than her mother, lying still and white, and not turning
her head to smile at her darling.

"Mamma! mamma!" cried the child, in shapeless terror. But the mother
never stirred; and the father hid his face yet deeper in the bedclothes,
to stifle a cry as if a sharp knife had pierced his heart. The child
forced her impetuous way from her attendants, and rushed to the bed.
Undeterred by deadly cold or stony immobility, she kissed the lips and
stroked the glossy raven hair, murmuring sweet words of wild love, such
as had passed between the mother and child often and often when no
witnesses were by; and altogether seemed so nearly beside herself in an
agony of love and terror, that Edward arose, and softly taking her in his
arms, bore her away, lying back like one dead (so exhausted was she by
the terrible emotion they had forced on her childish heart), into his
study, a little room opening out of the grand library, where on happy
evenings, never to come again, he and his wife were wont to retire to
have coffee together, and then perhaps stroll out of the glass-door into
the open air, the shrubbery, the fields—never more to be trodden by
those dear feet. What passed between father and child in this seclusion
none could tell. Late in the evening Ellinor's supper was sent for, and
the servant who brought it in saw the child lying as one dead in her
father's arms, and before he left the room watched his master feeding
her, the girl of six years of age, with as tender care as if she had been
a baby of six months.

From that time the tie between father and daughter grew very strong and
tender indeed. Ellinor, it is true, divided her affection between her
baby sister and her papa; but he, caring little for babies, had only a
theoretic regard for his younger child, while the elder absorbed all his
love. Every day that he dined at home Ellinor was placed opposite to him
while he ate his late dinner; she sat where her mother had done during
the meal, although she had dined and even supped some time before on the
more primitive nursery fare. It was half pitiful, half amusing, to see
the little girl's grave, thoughtful ways and modes of speech, as if
trying to act up to the dignity of her place as her father's companion,
till sometimes the little head nodded off to slumber in the middle of
lisping some wise little speech. "Old-fashioned," the nurses called her,
and prophesied that she would not live long in consequence of her old-
fashionedness. But instead of the fulfilment of this prophecy, the fat
bright baby was seized with fits, and was well, ill, and dead in a day!
Ellinor's grief was something alarming, from its quietness and
concealment. She waited till she was left—as she thought—alone at
nights, and then sobbed and cried her passionate cry for "Baby, baby,
come back to me—come back;" till every one feared for the health of the
frail little girl whose childish affections had had to stand two such
shocks. Her father put aside all business, all pleasure of every kind,
to win his darling from her grief. No mother could have done more, no
tenderest nurse done half so much as Mr. Wilkins then did for Ellinor.

If it had not been for him she would have just died of her grief. As it
was, she overcame it—but slowly, wearily—hardly letting herself love
anyone for some time, as if she instinctively feared lest all her strong
attachments should find a sudden end in death. Her love—thus dammed up
into a small space—at last burst its banks, and overflowed on her
father. It was a rich reward to him for all his care of her, and he took
delight—perhaps a selfish delight—in all the many pretty ways she
perpetually found of convincing him, if he had needed conviction, that he
was ever the first object with her. The nurse told him that half an hour
or so before the earliest time at which he could be expected home in the
evenings, Miss Ellinor began to fold up her doll's things and lull the
inanimate treasure to sleep. Then she would sit and listen with an
intensity of attention for his footstep. Once the nurse had expressed
some wonder at the distance at which Ellinor could hear her father's
approach, saying that she had listened and could not hear a sound, to
which Ellinor had replied:

"Of course you cannot; he is not your papa!"

Then, when he went away in the morning, after he had kissed her, Ellinor
would run to a certain window from which she could watch him up the lane,
now hidden behind a hedge, now reappearing through an open space, again
out of sight, till he reached a great old beech-tree, where for an
instant more she saw him. And then she would turn away with a sigh,
sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by saying softly to herself,

"He will come again to-night."

Mr. Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent on him for all her
pleasures. He was even a little jealous of anyone who devised a treat or
conferred a present, the first news of which did not come from or through
him.

At last it was necessary that Ellinor should have some more instruction
than her good old nurse could give. Her father did not care to take upon
himself the office of teacher, which he thought he foresaw would
necessitate occasional blame, an occasional exercise of authority, which
might possibly render him less idolized by his little girl; so he
commissioned Lady Holster to choose out one among her many
protegees
for a governess to his daughter. Now, Lady Holster, who kept a sort of
amateur county register-office, was only too glad to be made of use in
this way; but when she inquired a little further as to the sort of person
required, all she could extract from Mr. Wilkins was:

"You know the kind of education a lady should have, and will, I am sure,
choose a governess for Ellinor better than I could direct you. Only,
please, choose some one who will not marry me, and who will let Ellinor
go on making my tea, and doing pretty much what she likes, for she is so
good they need not try to make her better, only to teach her what a lady
should know."

Miss Monro was selected—a plain, intelligent, quiet woman of forty—and
it was difficult to decide whether she or Mr. Wilkins took the most pains
to avoid each other, acting with regard to Ellinor, pretty much like the
famous Adam and Eve in the weather-glass: when the one came out the other
went in. Miss Monro had been tossed about and overworked quite enough in
her life not to value the privilege and indulgence of her evenings to
herself, her comfortable schoolroom, her quiet cozy teas, her book, or
her letter-writing afterwards. By mutual agreement she did not interfere
with Ellinor and her ways and occupations on the evenings when the girl
had not her father for companion; and these occasions became more and
more frequent as years passed on, and the deep shadow was lightened which
the sudden death that had visited his household had cast over him. As I
have said before, he was always a popular man at dinner-parties. His
amount of intelligence and accomplishment was rare in —shire, and if it
required more wine than formerly to bring his conversation up to the
desired point of range and brilliancy, wine was not an article spared or
grudged at the county dinner-tables. Occasionally his business took him
up to London. Hurried as these journeys might be, he never returned
without a new game, a new toy of some kind, to "make home pleasant to his
little maid," as he expressed himself.

He liked, too, to see what was doing in art, or in literature; and as he
gave pretty extensive orders for anything he admired, he was almost sure
to be followed down to Hamley by one or two packages or parcels, the
arrival and opening of which began soon to form the pleasant epochs in
Ellinor's grave though happy life.

The only person of his own standing with whom Mr. Wilkins kept up any
intercourse in Hamley was the new clergyman, a bachelor, about his own
age, a learned man, a fellow of his college, whose first claim on Mr.
Wilkins's attention was the fact that he had been travelling-bachelor for
his university, and had consequently been on the Continent about the very
same two years that Mr. Wilkins had been there; and although they had
never met, yet they had many common acquaintances and common
recollections to talk over of this period, which, after all, had been
about the most bright and hopeful of Mr. Wilkins's life.

Mr. Ness had an occasional pupil; that is to say, he never put himself
out of the way to obtain pupils, but did not refuse the entreaties
sometimes made to him that he would prepare a young man for college, by
allowing the said young man to reside and read with him. "Ness's men"
took rather high honours, for the tutor, too indolent to find out work
for himself, had a certain pride in doing well the work that was found
for him.

When Ellinor was somewhere about fourteen, a young Mr. Corbet came to be
pupil to Mr. Ness. Her father always called on the young men reading
with the clergyman, and asked them to his house. His hospitality had in
course of time lost its
recherche
and elegant character, but was always
generous, and often profuse. Besides, it was in his character to like
the joyous, thoughtless company of the young better than that of the
old—given the same amount of refinement and education in both.

Mr. Corbet was a young man of very good family, from a distant county. If
his character had not been so grave and deliberate, his years would only
have entitled him to be called a boy, for he was but eighteen at the time
when he came to read with Mr. Ness. But many men of five-and-twenty have
not reflected so deeply as this young Mr. Corbet already had. He had
considered and almost matured his plan for life; had ascertained what
objects he desired most to accomplish in the dim future, which is to many
at his age only a shapeless mist; and had resolved on certain steady
courses of action by which such objects were most likely to be secured. A
younger son, his family connections and family interest pre-arranged a
legal career for him; and it was in accordance with his own tastes and
talents. All, however, which his father hoped for him was, that he might
be able to make an income sufficient for a gentleman to live on. Old Mr.
Corbet was hardly to be called ambitious, or, if he were, his ambition
was limited to views for the eldest son. But Ralph intended to be a
distinguished lawyer, not so much for the vision of the woolsack, which I
suppose dances before the imagination of every young lawyer, as for the
grand intellectual exercise, and consequent power over mankind, that
distinguished lawyers may always possess if they choose. A seat in
Parliament, statesmanship, and all the great scope for a powerful and
active mind that lay on each side of such a career—these were the
objects which Ralph Corbet set before himself. To take high honours at
college was the first step to be accomplished; and in order to achieve
this Ralph had, not persuaded—persuasion was a weak instrument which he
despised—but gravely reasoned his father into consenting to pay the
large sum which Mr. Ness expected with a pupil. The good-natured old
squire was rather pressed for ready money, but sooner than listen to an
argument instead of taking his nap after dinner he would have yielded
anything. But this did not satisfy Ralph; his father's reason must be
convinced of the desirability of the step, as well as his weak will give
way. The squire listened, looked wise, sighed; spoke of Edward's
extravagance and the girls' expenses, grew sleepy, and said, "Very true,"
"That is but reasonable, certainly," glanced at the door, and wondered
when his son would have ended his talking and go into the drawing-room;
and at length found himself writing the desired letter to Mr. Ness,
consenting to everything, terms and all. Mr. Ness never had a more
satisfactory pupil; one whom he could treat more as an intellectual
equal.