Chapter I: A Rough Diamond

"O let me be myself! But where, O where,
Under this heap of precedent, this mound
Of customs, modes and maxims, cumbrance rare,
Shall the Myself be found?"
JEAN INGELOW.

"JEAN, make haste! I shall be late! Do call your father—find him, wherever he is. If I miss this train, I shall be late for the boat; and cross at night I will not! Nothing shall induce me! I would rather sleep in a bathing-machine! If one has to be drowned, one may as well see how it comes about. Find your father, and tell him I must and will get into the train. It will be off directly!"

"He is coming, aunt Marie. He only went to look at the book-stall."

"Absurd! As if he would not have plenty of time, after I am gone. Well, you can help me to take all these packages nearer. One—two—three. Let me see—there were eleven, besides my two trunks."

"He told us to stay here till he came back."

"That is always the way. He likes to put off till the last moment; and I hate not having plenty of time. There! I knew it! The bell! I shall be left behind. Jean, bring what you can."

To see the true British female, untrammelled by etiquette, one only needs to view her in full career along a platform, charging the wrong train. Restraint at such a moment vanishes, and aristocratic repose is nowhere. Sometimes the true British male condescends to show his undisguised self in a like manner; at least, so far as flurry and flying coat-tails are concerned; but more commonly his rôle is the dignified punctuality, which has not five seconds to spare, yet which never expects anything so preposterous as that he should be left behind.

Jean overtook Madame Collier, close to the train.

"Don't get in, aunt. This is not yours."

"Not for Folkestone! You are sure?" Madame Collier released the door-handle with a gasp of relief. Her short skirts were tucked up, as if for the wading of a Dulveriford marsh; and her poke bonnet was crooked with mental agitation. Jean gently pulled the bonnet straight, and led Madame Collier again to the forsaken heap of packages.

"I almost wish we had arranged to go with you as far as Folkestone."

"What for? Nonsense, Jean? Mere waste of money. I hate travelling, but I know how to manage. I'm not a minikin finikin creature, like Sybella Devereux, afraid to put my nose inside a train without somebody to back me up. That's not my sort!" She certainly did not look minikin or finikin, seated on a small hamper, with her strongly-outlined face and vigorous personality.

"But you don't like going alone."

"Who said I did? Doing a thing doesn't mean liking it, nine times in ten, with people who are worth anything. It only means not being beaten. I don't like going to France at all, if you come to that. People, are not born into the world just to do what they like," declared Madame Collier, mopping her countenance with a handkerchief of large and substantial make. She disdained what she called "those flibbertigibbet squares," patronised by modern ladies. "It's pretty much the other way commonly, if one's got any stuff in one. I hate Paris—great frivolous place—and that's exactly why I have to live there. If I wanted to go, I shouldn't be allowed."

"Is one never allowed to do what one wishes?" asked Jean.

The doctrine was not new to her, but it sounded dismal.

"Well—some people sometimes—perhaps. Soft folks need a lot of bolstering up, and hard ones take a lot of knocking down. I've had most of the knocking down work. Not much of feather-beds or dainty pillows. And I've needed it, of course, or I shouldn't have had it. People aren't bothered without reason. My corners had to be scraped off, I suppose; and they're not all off yet," added the good lady, showing unusual self-knowledge. "That's why this has come, just when I thought I was settled for life. Nobody ought ever to think that, I do believe; for there's never any knowing what will come next. The Trevelyans haven't much softness about them; and you are a Trevelyan. You won't be tucked up on a feather-bed all your life. There's more to be got out of you than that."

"I hope so!"

"Anyhow, I'd sooner be the one to do things for other people, than be one of the logs that make things for others to do," said Madame Collier. "Till I'm old and ill, I mean. There's the whistle."

"Only for this train."

"And I believe it is mine, after all. Look at the clock. Well—too late now," resignedly. Then, reverting to a former remark, "No, I don't want you all the way down to Folkestone. What's the good? I've no notion of dragging out good-byes. When a leg has to be cut off, the sooner it's done, the better! There's one thing I want to say to you, Jean. About your father—"

"Yes."

"He isn't so young as he was. Only sixty, and that's not old. At least, it needn't be. A man with your father's constitution, who has lived as he has lived, needn't be old at seventy. But he ought to have common-sense, and not expect to do everything the same as he did at thirty. You needn't fancy things are wrong—only keep watch, and be reasonable for him, if he won't be reasonable for himself."

One of the inevitable changes, which come sooner or later to us all as life rolls on, had come to Jean Trevelyan, after years of a steady jog-trot in one groove.

Madame Collier had received an unexpected call to a new sphere of work. Her husband's only brother, M. Arnaud Collier, died suddenly, leaving a semi-invalid wife and nine children, with small means. The widow was weak and incapable, and the older children were boys, none over sixteen in age. An appeal for help, made to Madame Collier, met with a prompt response.

Why not? She was no longer a necessity at Dulveriford Rectory; her work there might be looked upon as accomplished. Not a doubt could exist as to where lay the greater need. Jean at twenty was fully competent to manage her father's small household: the widow was not competent; and Madame Collier, at fifty-five, was a strong woman still.

Feelings and wishes existed, of course. Madame Collier would be grieved to bid farewell to her home of many years. She hated travelling, as she said to Jean; detested children; and loathed change.

Moreover, Mr. Trevelyan and Jean would suffer at parting; for with all her ruggedness, Madame Collier had been a tried friend to them both. Sincere affection existed on either side, beneath a shell of reserve. What of all this? Nay, what of the fact that the loss of her personal income would entail some measure of straitness upon the Rectory household? The question, as it came before their minds, was not at all what any of them might like or wish, but simply, what was the right thing to do? If Madame Collier and her money were needed in France, then she had no business at Dulveriford. The stern Trevelyan sense of duty rose in its might, and settled the question without delay.

In one week, Madame Collier had wound up her English affairs, had packed her personal effects, and was on the road.

Mr. Trevelyan and Jean accompanied her to London. Mr. Trevelyan had business in Town, and he counted it a good opportunity to give Jean a little change.

"There it is! There's the bell! Jean, I can't wait any longer. My train will be off, I know. We are on the wrong platform. Tell your father—"

"Here he comes!"

"Stewart, I am losing my train."

Mr. Trevelyan seemed to be chewing the cud of meditation. He surveyed his sister and her regiment of parcels, with a gaze which found utterance in the query—

"Why did you not bring another trunk?"

"They charge so for luggage abroad. You saw what I had before, so there's no need to bother. If my train is off, I declare I will not cross at night. I'm quite determined. If I have to be drowned, I'll be drowned in daylight."

Mr. Trevelyan signed to a porter to come near.

"Folkestone train?" he said.

"Just coming in, sir."

"Bring these packages."

"Well, you are right for once, but I hate putting off till the last moment; it's such a risk. Make the man bring everything. Eleven altogether—a roll of shawls, two bandboxes, two hampers, two bags, two brown-paper parcels—"

"Come along!" quoth Mr. Trevelyan.

"I mean to have all these with me. Not in the van."

"Come, Marie."

Madame Collier obeyed, then broke loose, and rushed ahead, peering into one carriage window after another, as the train backed into position.

"Not a smoking carriage. I can't stand smoking! It ought to be put down by Act of Parliament. I declare there's nothing but smoking carriages. Bah!" with ineffable disgust in the twist of her nose and mouth. "No, not there, Stewart! I won't be close behind a smoking carriage. And not too much in front. If there's a collision, people in front are sure to be killed. Not too far behind. If the train should be run into by an express—No, I must have a corner seat, close to a window, going forward."

It was not easy to meet all these requirements, but at length Madame Collier was placed, and the porter disposed of her belongings. Madame Collier counted and recounted, lost and found each packet in succession, fee'd her porter, and woke up to the consciousness of few minutes remaining. A frizzly-haired young woman on the opposite seat was bidding farewell to a frizzly-haired young woman on the platform, their heads filling the open window, while their shrill voices ran fast. Madame Collier, finding herself thus debarred from her own relatives, proceeded to clear a way with scant ceremony:

"Now, young woman! It's my turn, if you please."

"What an old fogey!" murmured audibly the aggrieved individual outside.

Madame Collier disdained to notice the utterance.

"Things are all right now, I do believe," she said, breathing hard with her exertions. "Mind, Jean—I shall want to hear all about everybody. Don't forget to tell me if any more comes out about that man Barclay. And mind you don't go alone to his cottage. Give my love to Evelyn Villiers, when you see her. I wish she had come home before I left. She always was a favourite of mine, though you mayn't think it. Why, there's Jem!"

Jean and her father turned: and Jem Trevelyan came swiftly up.

"Just in time!" he said. "What a crowd! I was afraid I might miss you all. Well—" and his hand grasped Madame Collier's, "so you really are off?"

"Yes; I'm off!" Madame Collier's rugged features worked, and a tiny pool of water stood outside each eye, like a minute tarn upon a mountain height. "I'm off!" she repeated huskily. "It isn't what I should have chosen—of course. People are not allowed to choose for themselves—commonly! So much the better, perhaps."

"When they are, they often make a mess of it."

"You're right there! But this isn't choosing. It just—has to be!" She was obliged to haul out the big pocket-handkerchief, since those two little tarns were growing bigger, and threatened to give birth to rivulets. "Leaving Jean, you know—and all! But there! What has to be, has to be. Rose Collier is no more good than an infant. Can't think what business such people have to marry! I've got to go, though—of course."

"Paris is no distance off in these days. You'll soon be running over to see us all again. And we will take care of Jean."

"Yes, do!"

Jean was quiet and rather white. Laying a gloved hand on her aunt's, she was amazed to have it carried to Madame Collier's lips.

"Aunt Marie! Don't!"

"You'll be a good girl, I know, to your father!" jerked out Madame Collier, thrusting away the hand, as if ashamed of her own emotion, while her chest heaved. "I'm sure to have left—something—behind me! Eleven packages—and—But I'm glad to have seen you again, Jem. Oswald was to have been here. Didn't come, of course, just at last. And they said you were—out of Town."

"Till late last night," said Jem, touched by Madame Collier's manful struggles. He had not known before the strength of feeling which underlay her rugged shell. He bent forward, with a glance of apology towards Jean, and murmured something into Madame Collier's ear.

"I can't hear. Say it again. No—really? I am glad! Things do come about queerly. Mind you don't change your mind. Oh, keep off—there's the whistle. Don't get knocked down and killed, whatever you do. I wouldn't have that on my conscience! Good-bye, Stewart. Good-bye, Jean. Keep off—trains are so dangerous. I am glad, Jem! Bah, what a whiff of tobacco! Good-bye."

The poke bonnet continued to waggle till out of sight.

Jem turned to look at Jean.

"Excuse my whisper," he said. "I'll tell you by-and-by what I said."

"It's all right. I am glad you could say anything to please her."

Jean looked rather forlorn, not disposed to tears, but as if something had gone out of her existence, leaving a gap, and as if she did not know what to do next.

Mr. Trevelyan's "Come along!" was a relief. Nobody ever saw Mr. Trevelyan in doubt as to his next step.

"Where are you staying?" Jem asked, as they moved out of the station.

"Two streets off," Jean told him.

In some rooms, recommended by a friend. Jean herself would have liked the novelty of an hotel; but expense had to be considered: and daily table d'hôte was not in Madame Collier's line. She believed they would stay three more nights. Oswald was to have spent this day with them, and to have taken Jean after lunch to the Academy; but thus far he had failed to appear.

"I don't know how to manage, if he does not turn up," said Mr. Trevelyan. "I shall be engaged all the afternoon."

Jem offered himself promptly. If Oswald came not, he would be entirely at Jean's disposal.

"Thanks! Pity she should waste a whole afternoon indoors," said Mr. Trevelyan, after a moment's weighing of proprieties. "Yes—you are one of us—and a cousin too. I don't see why not."

"It is only carrying out my promise to Madame Collier. What shall we do, Jean? The Academy? No, you would rather keep that for Oswald. What do you say to a trip on the river—up to Richmond by steamboat?"