Chapter III

IT was a kind but careworn face which looked down upon me as I alighted from the vehicle that brought me from Hillstowe Station. The trap was a borrowed one, for the vicar kept none. But his parishioners were very neighbourly, and were always ready to place a conveyance of some kind at his disposal, without fee or reward.

The kind motherly face was that of Mrs. Barr, and it was very sweet to a weary girl amongst strangers and far from all her old surroundings, to see those gentle eyes shining upon her. I shall never forget what I felt when she bade me welcome, not only with words but in sweeter ways still. She clasped my hand, outstretched to meet hers, and then putting her left arm round me, she drew me towards her and kissed me more than once.

No salute, no just touching of my cheek, but warm, repeated motherly kisses fell on my quivering lips, whilst the gentle pressure of that kind arm seemed to say that I was no longer without shield or shelter on the rugged path of life.

My arms went up and round her neck. I could not help it. I returned those kind kisses with interest, and despite every effort at self-control, I wept on her shoulder, as I had never wept since I closed my father's eyes in death.

Mrs. Barr gave quick directions about the placing of my luggage; then drew me into a room which I saw must be the vicar's study.

"Sit here for a moment, my dear," she said, drawing me to a broad window seat and taking her place by my side, while still holding me in that motherly clasp. "Tears are blessed things sometimes, and knowing what I do of your late trials, I am glad for you that you can weep freely. But we shall try and help you to dry your tears. I hope you will be happy with us, and find in your daily occupations one remedy for your trouble."

I tried to tell her that I was not broken down by the memory of past trouble, but by the kindness of her welcome. I told her so, and she smiled at my words, gave me another little hug, and left me to recover myself. Soon she returned and led me to my room. It was simply furnished, but there was nothing lacking; and in position, it was one of pleasantest in the vicarage.

My possessions were neatly arranged for unpacking; straps were loosed and little helps rendered which well-taught servants see to when a guest arrives. I knew afterwards that Mrs. Barr's hands had been busy on my behalf. On going down, I found tea ready and saw the young people, and Mr. Barr, who passed my future pupils in array before me.

Mary Baxendell came first. A sweet, refined, loving girl, towards whom my heart went out at once; then Margaret Barr, who was thirteen, and had an air of quiet determination that almost made me quake to begin with. Lilian came next, bright-faced and suggestive of fun and mischief; then twin boys, Harry and Ned, seven years old, Saxon-faced and sheepish; these were my pupils.

"You shall see the other two—Dot and Baby," said Mr. Barr; and in trotted Dot, otherwise Dorothy, as her name was mentioned. She was a dear little dumpling of a child; blue-eyed and flaxen-curled, and she planted herself in front of me, evidently to take my measure. She surveyed me calmly from head to foot and back again, pondered for a moment, then extended her plump arms, was lifted on to my knee, and with a sigh of content, nestled her curly head on my breast.

"Poor Dot can do with any amount of cosseting and petting," said Mr. Barr. "She cannot forgive Baby Flossy for having superseded her, and will be baby herself for a long while yet. She still sleeps in a little cot by her mother's side, which arrangement is hardly conducive to rest. One baby wakes the other sometimes."

Mrs. Barr laughed as she stroked Dot's curly head, but I thought the somewhat worn look on her face was not difficult to understand. Surely these two babies must often wake the mother.

I do not want to tell much about my life at Hillstowe Vicarage, but I must give a few particulars, or I shall do scant justice to the good pastor and his wife. If ever two people united the truest refinement of manners and the most thoughtful Christian courtesy, and manifested sweetest patience and consideration towards all with whom they had to do, they were the vicar of Hillstowe and his true helpmeet.

They had such scanty means and lived such hardworking lives, the mother in her home, the pastor in ministering to his flock, that it was wonderful to me how they could find time to think and care so well for all.

I used to think, as I saw Mrs. Barr in the most simply-made cotton gown, and actively engaged from morning to night, that, in spite of all the sordid cares which beset her, her gracious dignity of carriage would have well become a duchess. What stitching and contriving she got through! What making down of garments from elder to younger, not only of girls, but boys! All the masculine garments, those of Mr. Barr only excepted, were made by her busy fingers. She told me this very simply, saying she had bought paper patterns and cut and fitted the clothes unassisted by any tailor.

"My husband's stipend is small," she said, "and though I have a little income, we can only make ends meet by much stretching. My tailoring would not bear town criticism, but here it is seen only by country eyes, and passes muster."

I thought the children's garments models of neatness and suitability, and said I should be very proud of turning out such work. I offered to help her, but for some time I could not induce Mrs. Barr to accept my aid. She and her husband held high views as to the dignity of a governess's work, and said that they felt it alike a duty and a pleasure to give the instructress of their children a place next only to that filled by themselves, as parents. The governess at Hillstowe Vicarage was not regarded as a stop-gap, to fill any household place that chanced to be vacant.

My need of quiet for reading and rest was duly considered. The room used for teaching in was really intended for the drawing-room, but was the only apartment that could be spared for the purpose. With true wisdom, Mr. and Mrs. Barr decided on giving up their drawing-room, and instead of having a useless show apartment, gave their children a large, bright room for lessons. After seven in the evening it was my own, and no one intruded upon me without invitation. At the same time, I was free to join Mrs. Barr and the elder children in the dining-room if I chose; the pastor was always in his study then. If the little ones were restfully inclined and the mother's arms free, this evening hour was a very pleasant time.

By degrees, I coaxed Mrs. Barr into letting me help her, by representing the benefit it would be for me to learn the many lessons she was so competent to teach. Then, when her fingers were freed from the needle, she would take a book and read aloud to us.

Our party usually consisted, besides our two selves, of Mary Baxendell and Margaret Barr, though the latter generally withdrew into a separate corner, and stopping her ears, chose her own book, in preference to listening whilst her mother read. Mary Baxendell would sit on a low chair or on the rug, and take in with eager ears the word-pictures or wise lessons which came so musically from those cultured lips. I could not help sighing at times, as I thought how large a portion of Mrs. Barr's daily life was taken up with things so far beneath her, and I pictured her amidst different scenes and adorning by her gracious presence some stately home with all the appliances of wealth around her.

Was I right, I wonder, in regretting that her lot was cast where it was? Did she not there shed happiness on all around her? Were these little cares and calculations unbecoming to this true wife and mother, who had deliberately chosen to share the lot of the good man to whom she had given her heart? Her life was a thoroughly womanly life, her example a noble one, which must influence others for good. Would wealth and ease have developed such a character as Mrs. Barr's?

After asking myself all these questions, I came to the same conclusion about her that I had done about myself. The discipline must have been needed, and for some wise end, the All-wise had permitted her to occupy this particular niche, so different from that to which she had once been accustomed. For Mrs. Barr had been, like myself, brought up in a luxurious home, and had never known a care about money matters until the children increased around her, while the pastor's income remained the same and much of her own had been lost.

Each day passed at Hillstowe showed me how my choice of this sphere of work had been Divinely directed in answer to prayer. Could I be with this dear woman, so patient, industrious, uncomplaining, and so cultured, without learning in some degree to imitate the virtues I admired? If nothing had come of my being at Hillstowe beyond the fact that I derived hourly benefit from the influences around me and earned my own bread, I should have infinite cause for thankfulness to God for having sent me there.

But, in the end, the current of my whole after life was changed, through my choosing the home in preference to the hall as the scene of my labours.

Our winter evenings were not always like what I have described. Baby Flossy's teething time made her fractious, and then the mother's care was given to the most helpless. She would not have me in company with a crying child, so I was gently dismissed to my room, Mary Baxendell's mute appeal being always answered by me with an invitation to accompany me. Lilian always went early to bed from choice, and Margaret, the determined, thought it infra dig to sit in the schoolroom after hours.

She was a clever, but rather hard girl, from whom her mother had little sympathy or help. She disliked babies, openly called them little nuisances, and declined to touch one if she could help it. But she would neither go to the nursery with the twin boys and Lilian, nor to the schoolroom with me. She was the eldest daughter, and insisted on her privileges.

These meant sitting with her mother, though she might have to fill her ears with cotton, whilst she pored over a book, on account of the crying baby, and having tea and bread and butter for breakfast, whilst the rest, Mr. Barr included, took porridge and milk. Still, I had my comfort out of Margaret. She had great abilities, was an omnivorous student, did credit to her teacher, and obliged me to work hard to increase my stores of knowledge for her to draw upon.

In Mary Baxendell I had a tender, sympathetic girl friend; in the three bright children, plenty of objects of interest; in Mrs. Barr, mother and sister combined; in Dot, a precious baby.

It was almost immediately after I went to Hillstowe that Dot announced her intention of being "Miss Anstey's baby," and took every opportunity of stealing away from nursery to schoolroom, and nestling in my arms. Many a lesson I gave with the little head resting on my breast, as the child, weary with play, slept peacefully.

The second little cot in Mrs. Barr's room was vacant within a week after my arrival at Hillstowe for, hearing the baby begin to cry, and Dot—roused suddenly—take up the chorus, I stole into the too-populous chamber before the mother could get upstairs, and carried off Dorothy to my own.

"Dot will stop here," said the sobbing mite. "Dot will be Miss Anstey's night baby, too." And such she was during my stay at the vicarage.

I explained to Mrs. Barr that I had been acting the child-stealer, and pleaded for Dot's nightly company.

"Let me have her. She will so comfort me, for you know, dear Mrs. Barr, I have lost all who used to love me."

She saw I meant this, though at first she thought I only wanted to leave her hands a little freer and was taking Dot away for her sake. It was for hers and my own too, and when she consented, and I lay down with the sleeping darling on my breast, I felt, oh! So rich and so thankful, though my purse held but that solitary half-crown.

In spite of past troubles, I was very happy at the vicarage. There were few visitors, but I had the benefit of whatever society there was, and it was always of an enjoyable kind. As the days grew long, the children and I had delightful rambles up the hill-sides to the wide Yorkshire moors. We found warm welcome and hospitality on holiday afternoons at farmhouses, or the dwellings of small cloth manufacturers who still employed hand-loom weavers, though there were larger mills in the valley, turned by water-power. The parsonage children and their governess had a general invitation, and we never seemed too many guests, or our visits too frequent, for our large-hearted, homely neighbours.

My heart glows again as I think of them after thirty intervening years, and picture the faces that brightened at the sight of my little troop and me. How I felt their kindness, while I knew that it was poured on a young stranger's head, not from any merit in herself, but out of love and gratitude to the good vicar and his wife under whose roof I dwelt!

I spent Easter at Hillstowe, for the absent boys had a holiday invitation and did not come home, so my room was not needed. As may be supposed, I had some money anxieties. That half-crown could not remain perpetually unbroken, and there were collections at the church. At two months' end, I had not spent a farthing on myself, but I had only twopence left.

I had, however, made a little venture. We took a work magazine at the vicarage, and something in its pages inspired me to make an effort in designing. I possessed a good many odds and ends of materials, and out of these, I fashioned a lamp-mat in shaded wool and tinsel cord. Crochet was the fashionable work then, and I sent my mat, when finished, to the editor of the magazine. To my delight, an answer soon came. The design was original and pretty, and I was requested to name my terms for it. I asked a guinea, which was promptly sent, and enriched me—in hope as well as pocket.

The mat was not my only success, and I had the happiness of spending half my earnings in little presents for the children, though their parents protested against the expenditure; but they saw it pleased me, and I had my way.

The Midsummer holidays were coming, and I was much exercised in my mind as to how I should spend them. Mary Baxendell would have liked me to go home with her, but her parents were about to join some relatives in a Scotch town, and she was to accompany them.

It did not seem to strike my Uncle James that I might need a temporary home when I returned the five pounds lent by him at Christmas. He took the money, acknowledged it, expressed his pleasure that I was doing so well, announced the advent of another baby in words that told rather of resignation than rejoicing, conveyed the united love of himself, my aunt, and cousins, and there the matter ended.

I tried hard to muster courage to visit my old neighbourhood, and my faithful nurse sent an ill-spelt but loving letter to beg that I would go to the lodge. There was a family of strangers at Birch Hill—nice, kind people, who would very likely invite me to the house when they knew I had lived there. But I decided that I was not strong enough to face the memories that haunted every room at Birch Hill, or to see strangers in my parents' seats. So I declined dear old Hannah's loving invite. Mrs. Goulding also intended me to be her guest, but she had a less desirable inmate in the shape of scarlet fever amongst her children, and was in great trouble. It really seemed that every door was closed upon Lois Anstey.

All at once I bethought myself of a place where I could obtain accommodation. The daughter of a farmer near Birch Hill had married a neighbour's son and gone to live in Lincolnshire. They had taken a small farm and were doing fairly well, but, having no children and a good-sized house, they added to their income by taking lodgers during the summer.

It was to their house I went from Hillstowe to spend my holidays, and it was at Roundtree Farm I passed the third of my six milestones.