Chapter IV: Part 4

“Conscience,” said my grandmother musingly (turning to my father). “You will remember Phyllis Eyre? She was one of my best friends, and it is now two years since she died, unmarried. She was once governess to the children of Sir Robert Walsh, but remained in the house as companion to Lady Walsh long after her pupils had grown up. She was, in fact, more than a companion, for Lady Walsh trusted her and loved her. She was by birth a lady; she had been well educated, and, like her mistress, she was devoutly and evangelically pious. She was also very handsome, and this you may well believe, for, as you know, she was handsome as an old woman, stately and erect, with beautiful, undimmed eyes. When Evelina Walsh, the eldest daughter, was about one and twenty, Charles Fysshe, the young heir to the Fysshe property, came to stay with her brother, and Phyllis soon discovered, or thought she discovered, that he was in love with Evelina. He seemed to court her society, and paid her attentions which could be explained on one hypothesis only. Phyllis was delighted, for the match in every way was most suitable, and must gladden the hearts of Evelina’s parents. The young man would one day be the possessor of twenty thousand acres; he had already taken a position in the county, and his soul was believed to be touched with Divine grace. Evelina certainly was in love with him, and Phyllis was not backward in urging his claims. She congratulated herself, and with justice, that if the marriage should ever take place, it would be acknowledged that she had had a hand in it. It might even be doubted whether Evelina, without Phyllis’s approval, would have permitted herself to indulge her passion, for she was by nature diffident, and so beset with reasons for and against when she had to make up her mind on any important matter, that a decision was always most difficult to her.

“Charles stayed for about six weeks, and was then called home. He promised that he would pay another visit of a week in the autumn, when Sir Robert was to entertain the Lord Lieutenant and there were to be grand doings at the Hall. Conversation naturally turned upon him during his absence, and Phyllis, as usual, was warm in his praise. One evening, after she had reached her own room and had lain down to sleep, a strange apparition surprised her. It was something more than a suspicion that she herself loved Charles. She strove to rid herself of this intrusion: she called to mind the difference in their rank; that she was five years his senior, and that if she yielded she would be guilty of treachery to Evelina. It was all in vain; the more she resisted the more vividly did his image present itself, and she was greatly distressed. What was the meaning of this outbreak of emotion, not altogether spiritual, of this loss of self-possession, such as she had never known before? Her usual remedies against evil thoughts failed her, and, worst of all, there was the constant suggestion that these particular thoughts were not evil. Hitherto, when temptation had attacked her, she was sure whence it came, but she was not sure now. It might be an interposition of Providence, but how would it appear to Evelina? I myself, my dears, have generally found that to resist the devil is not difficult if I am quite certain that the creature before me is the devil, but it does tax my wits sometimes to find out if he is really the enemy or not. When Apollyon met Christian he was not in doubt for an instant, for the monster was hideous to behold: he had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. After some parleying he cast his dreadful dart, but Christian, without more ado, put up his shield, drew his sword, and presently triumphed. If Satan had turned himself, from his head to his ankles, into a man, and had walked by Christian’s side, and had talked with him, and had agreed with him in everything he had to say, the bear’s claws might have peeped out, but Christian, instead of fighting, would have begun to argue with himself whether the evidence of the face or the foot was the stronger. He would have been just as likely to trust the face, and in a few moments he would have been snapped up and carried off to hell. To go on with my story: the night wore on in sophistry and struggle, and no inner light dawned with the sun. Phyllis was much agitated, for in the afternoon Charles was to return, and although amidst the crowd of visitors she might be overlooked, she could not help seeing him. She did see him, but did not speak to him. He sat next to Evelina at dinner, who was happy and expectant. The next day there was a grand meet of the hounds, and almost all the party disappeared. Phyllis pleaded a headache, and obtained permission to stay at home. It was a lovely morning in November, without a movement in the air, calm and cloudless, one of those mornings not uncommon when the year begins to die. She went into the woods at the outer edge of the park, and had scarcely entered them, when lo! to her astonishment, there was Charles. She could not avoid him, and he came up to her.

“‘Why, Miss Eyre, what are you doing here?’

“‘I had a headache; I could not go with the others, and came out for a stroll.’

“‘I, too, was not very well, and have been left behind.’

“They walked together side by side.

“‘I wanted to speak to you, Miss Eyre. I wonder if you have suspected anything lately.’

“‘Suspected? I do not quite comprehend: you are very vague.’

“‘Well, must I be more explicit? Have you fancied that I care more for somebody you know than I care for all the world besides? I suppose you have not, for I thought it better to hide as much as possible what I felt.’

“‘I should be telling an untruth if I were to say I do not understand you, and I trust you will pardon me if I tell you that a girl more worthy of you than Evelina, and one more likely to make you happy, I have never seen.’

“‘Gracious God! what have I done? what a mistake! Miss Eyre, it is you I mean; it is you I love.’

“There was not an instant’s hesitation.

“‘Sir, I thank you, but I can answer at once. _Never_ can I be yours. That decision is irrevocable. I admire you, but cannot love you.’

“She parted from him abruptly, but no sooner had she left him than she was confounded, and wondered who or what it was which gave that answer. She wavered, and thought of going back, but she did not. Later on in the day she heard that Charles had gone home, summoned by sudden business. Two years afterwards his engagement with Evelina was announced, and in three years they were married. It was not what I should call a happy marriage, although they never quarrelled and had five children. To the day of her death Phyllis was not sure whether she had done right or wrong, nor am I.”

THE GOVERNESS’S STORY

IN the year 1850 I was living as governess in the small watering-place S., on the south coast of England. Amongst my friends was a young doctor, B., who had recently come to the town. He had not bought a practice, but his family was known to one or two of the principal inhabitants, and he had begun to do well. He deserved his success, for he was skilful, frank, and gentle, and he did not affect that mystery which in his elder colleagues was already suspected to be nothing but ignorance. He was one of the early graduates of the University of London, and representative of the new school of medical science, relying not so much upon drugs as upon diet and regimen. I was one of his first patients. I had a severe illness lasting for nearly three months; he watched over me carefully and cured me. As I grew better he began to talk on other matters than my health when he visited me. We found that we were both interested in the same books: he lent me his and I lent him mine. It is almost impossible, I should think, for a young man and a young woman to be friends and nothing more, and I confess that my sympathy with him in his admiration of the Elizabethan poets, and my gratitude to him for my recovery passed into affection. I am sure also that he felt affection for me. He became confidential, and told me all his history and troubles. There was one peculiarity in his conversation which was new to me: he never talked down to me, and he was not afraid at times to discuss subjects that in the society to which I had been accustomed were prohibited. Not a word that was improper ever escaped his lips, but he treated me in a measure as if I were a man, and I was flattered that he should put me on a level with himself. It is true that sometimes I fancied he was so unreserved with me because he was sure he was quite safe, for I was poor, and although I was not ugly I was not handsome. However, on the whole, I was very happy in his society, and there was more than a chance that I should become his wife.

After six months of our acquaintanceship had passed, M., an old schoolfellow of mine, took lodgings near me for the summer. She was a remarkable girl. If she was not beautiful, she was better-looking than I was, and she possessed a something, I know not what, more powerful than beauty to fascinate men. Perhaps it was her unconstrained naturalness. In walking, sitting, standing—whatever she did—her movements and attitudes were not impeded or unduly masked by artificial restrictions. I should not have called her profound, but what she said upon the commonest subjects was interesting, because it was so entirely her own. If she disliked a neighbour, she almost always disliked her for a reason which we saw, directly it was pointed out to us, to be just, but it was generally one which had not been given before. Her talk upon matters externally trivial was thus much more to me than many discourses upon the most important topics. On moral questions she expressed herself without any regard to prejudices. She did not controvert the authenticity of the ordinary standards, but nevertheless behaved as if she herself were her only law. The people in R., her little native borough, considered her to be dangerous, and I myself was once or twice weak enough to wonder that she held on a straight course with so little help from authority, forgetting that its support, in so far as it possesses any vital strength, is derived from the same internal source which supplied strength to her.

When she came to S. she was unwell, and consulted my friend B. He did not at first quite like attending her, and she reported to me with great laughter how she had been told that he had made some inquiries about her from one of her neighbours at home with whom he happened to be acquainted, and how he had manœuvred in his visits to get the servants or the landlady into the room. I met him soon afterwards, and he informed me that he had a new patient. When he heard that I knew her—I did not say how much I knew—he became inquisitive, and at last, after much beating about the bush, knitting his eyebrows and lowering his voice, he asked me whether I was aware that she was not quite—quite _above suspicion_! My goodness, how I flamed up! I defended her with vehemence: I exaggerated her prudence and her modesty; I declared, what was the simple truth, that she was the last person in the world against whom such a scandalous insinuation should be directed, and that she was singularly inaccessible to vulgar temptation. I added that notwithstanding her seeming lawlessness she was not only remarkably sensitive to any accusation of bad manners, but that upon certain matters she could not endure even a joke. The only quarrel I remember to have had with her was when I lapsed into some commonplace jest about her intimacy with a music-master who gave her lessons. The way in which she took that jest I shall never forget. If I had made it to any other woman, I should have passed on, unconscious of anything inconsistent with myself, but she in an instant made me aware with hardly half a dozen words that I had disgraced myself. I was ashamed, not so much because I had done what was in the abstract wrong, but because it was something which was not in keeping with my real character. I hope it will not be thought that I am prosing if I take this opportunity of saying that the laws peculiar to each of us are those which we are at the least pains to discover and those which we are most prone to neglect. We think we have done our duty when we have kept the commandments common to all of us, but we may perhaps have disgracefully neglected it.

Oh, how that afternoon with B. burnt itself into my memory for ever! I was sitting on my little sofa with books piled round me. He removed a few of the books, and I removed the others. He sat down beside me, and, taking my hand, said he hoped I had forgiven him, and that I would remember that in such a little place he was obliged to be very careful, and to be quite sure of his patients, if they were women. He trusted I should believe that there was no other person _in the world_ (the emphasis on that word!) to whom he would have ventured to impart such a secret. I was appeased, especially when, after a few minutes’ silence, he took my hand and kissed it, the first and last kiss. He said nothing further, and departed. The next time I saw him he was more than usually deferential, more than ever desirous to come closer to me, and I thought the final word must soon be spoken.

M. remained in S. till far into the autumn, but I did not see much of her. My work had begun again. B. continued to call on me as my health was not quite re-established. We had agreed to read the same author at the same time, in order that we might discuss him together whilst our impressions were still fresh. Somehow his interest in these readings began to flag; he informed me presently that I had now almost, entirely recovered, and weeks often passed without meeting him. One afternoon I was surprised to find M. in my room when I returned from a walk with my pupils. She had been waiting for me nearly half an hour, and I could not at first conjecture the reason. Gradually she drew the conversation towards B. and at last asked me what I thought of him. Instantly I saw what had happened. What I imagined was once mine had been stolen, stolen perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless stolen, my sole treasure. She was rich, she had a father and mother, she had many friends and would certainly have been married had she never seen B. I, as I have said, was almost penniless; I was an orphan, with few friends; he was my first love, and I knew he would be my last.

I was condemned, I foresaw, henceforth to solitude, and that most terrible of all calamities, heart-starvation. What B. had said about M. came into my mind and rose to my lips. I knew, or thought I knew, that if I revealed it to her she would be so angry that she would cast him off. Probably I was mistaken, but in my despair the impulse to disclose it was almost irresistible. I struggled against it, however, and when she pressed me, I praised him and strove in my praise to be sincere. Whether it was something in my tone, quite unintentional, I know not, but she stopped me almost in the middle of a sentence and said she believed I had kept something back which I did not wish her to hear; that she was certain he had talked to me about her, and that she wished to know what he had said. I protested he had never uttered a word which could be interpreted as disparaging her, and she seemed to be content. She kissed me a little more vehemently than usual, and went away. We ought always, I suppose, to be glad when other people are happy, but God knows that sometimes it is very difficult to be so, and that their happiness is hard to bear.

The Elizabethan studies had now altogether come to an end. In about a couple of months I heard that M. and B. were engaged. M. went home, and B. moved into a larger town. In a twelvemonth the marriage took place, and M. wrote to me after her wedding trip. I replied, but she never wrote again. I heard that she had said that I had laid myself out to catch B. and that she was afraid that in so doing I had hinted there was something against her. I heard also that B. had discouraged his wife’s correspondence with me, no other reason being given than that he would rather the acquaintanceship should be dropped. The interpretation of this reason by those to whom it was given can be guessed. Did he fear lest I should boast of what I had been to him or should repeat his calumny? Ah, he little knew me if he dreamed that such treachery was possible to me!

I remained at the vicarage for three years. The children grew up and I was obliged to leave, but I continued to teach in different families till I was about five-and-forty. After five-and-forty I could not obtain another situation, and I had to support myself by letting apartments at Brighton. My strength is now failing; I cannot look after my servant properly, nor wait upon my lodgers myself. Those who have to get their living by a lodging-house know what this means and what the end will be. I have occasionally again wished I could have seen my way partially to explain myself to M., and have thought it hard to die misrepresented, but I am glad I have not spoken. I should have disturbed her peace, and I care nothing about justification or misrepresentation now. With eternity so near, what does it matter?

INSCRIPTION ON THE ENVELOPE.

“TO MY NIECE JUDITH,—You have been so kind to your aunt, the only
human being, at last, who was left to love her, that she could not
refrain from telling you the one passage in her history which is of
any importance or interest.”

JAMES FORBES

“IT is all a lie, and it is hard to believe that people who preach it do not know it to be a lie.”

So said James Forbes to Elizabeth Castleton, the young woman to whom he was engaged. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and James, who had been brought up at Rugby and Oxford, was now in his last year at a London hospital, and was going to be a doctor.

“I am sure my father does not know it to be a lie, and I do not myself know it to be a lie.”

“I was not thinking of your father, but of the clergy generally, and you _do_ know it to be a lie.”

“It is not true of my brother, and, excepting my father and brother, you have not been in company with parsons, as you call them, for half an hour in your life.”

“Do you mean to tell me you have any doubts about this discredited rubbish?”

“If I have I would rather not speak about them now. Jim, dear Jim, let us drop the subject and talk of something else.”

He was walking by her side, with his hands in his coat pockets. She drew out one of his hands; he did not return the pressure, and presently released himself.

“I thought you were to be my intellectual companion. I have heard you say yourself that a marriage which is not a marriage of mind is no marriage.”

“But, Jim, is there nothing in the world to think about but this?”

“There is nothing so important. Are we to be dumb all our lives about what you say is religion?”

They separated and soon afterwards the engagement was broken off. Jim had really loved Elizabeth, but at that time he was furious against what he called “creeds.” He waited for three or four years till he had secured a fair practice, and then married a clever and handsome young woman who wrote poems, and had captivated him by telling him a witty story from Heine. Elizabeth never married.

Thirty years passed, and Jim, now a famous physician, had to go a long distance down the Great Western Railway to attend a consultation. At Bath an elderly lady entered the carriage carrying a handbag with the initials “E. C.” upon it. She sat in the seat farthest away from him on the opposite side, and looked at him steadfastly. He also looked at her, but no word was spoken for a minute. He then crossed over, fell on his knees, and buried his head with passionate sobbing on her knees. She put her hands on him and her tears fell.

“Five years,” at last he said; “I may live five years with care. She has left me. I will give up everything and go abroad with you. Five years; it is not much, but it will be something, everything. I shall die with your face over me.”

The train was slackening speed for Bristol; she bent down and kissed him.

“Dearest Jim,” she whispered, “I have waited a long time, but I was sure we should come together again at last. It is enough.”

“You will go with me, then?”

Again she kissed him. “It must not be.”

Before he could reply the train was stopping at the platform, and a gentleman with a lady appeared at the door. Miss Castleton stepped out and was at once driven away in a carriage with her companions.

He lived three years and then died almost suddenly of the disease which he had foreseen would kill him. He had no children, but few relatives, and his attendant was a hospital nurse. But the day before his death a lady appeared who announced herself as a family friend, and the nurse was superseded. It was Elizabeth: she came to his bedside, and he recognised her.

“Not till this morning,” she said, “did I hear you were ill.”

“Happy,” he cried, “though I die to-night.”

Soon afterwards—it was about sundown—he became unconscious; she sat there alone with him till the morning broke, and then he passed away, and she closed his eyes.

ATONEMENT

“YOU ask me how I lost my foot? You I see that dog?”—an unattractive beast lying before the fire—“well, when I tell you how I came by him you will know how I lost it;” and he then related the following story:—

I was in Westmoreland with my wife and children for a holiday and we had brought our dog with us, for we knew he would be unhappy with the strangers to whom we had let our house. The weather was very wet and our lodgings were not comfortable; we were kept indoors for days together, and my temper, always irritable, became worse. My wife never resisted me when I was in these moods and the absence of opposition provoked me all the more. Had she stood up against me and told me I ought to be ashamed of myself it would have been better for me. One afternoon everything seemed to go wrong. A score of petty vexations, not one of which was of any moment, worked me up to desperation. I threw my book across the room, to the astonishment of my children, and determined to go out, although it was raining hard. My dog, a brown retriever, was lying on the mat just outside the door, and I nearly fell over him. “God damn you!” said I, and kicked him. He howled with pain, but, although he was the best of house-dogs and would have brought down any thief who came near him, he did not growl at me, and quietly followed me. I am not squeamish, but I was frightened directly the oath had escaped my lips. I felt as if I had created something horrible which I could not annihilate, and that it would wait for me and do me some mischief. The dog kept closely to my heels for about a mile and I could not make him go on in front. Usually the least word of encouragement or even the mere mention of his name would send him scampering with delight in advance. I began to think of something else, but in about a quarter of an hour I looked round and found he was not behind me. I whistled and called, but he did not come. In a renewed rage, which increased with every step I took, I turned back to seek him. Suddenly I came upon him lying dead by the roadside. Never shall I forget that shock—the reproach, the appeal of that poor lifeless animal! I stroked him, I kissed him, I whispered his name in his ear, but it was all in vain. I lifted up his beautiful broad paw which he was wont to lay on my knee, I held it between my hands, and when I let it go it fell heavily to the ground. I could not carry him home, and with bitter tears and a kind of dread I drew him aside a little way up the hill behind a rock. I went to my lodgings, returned towards dusk with a spade, dug his grave in a lonely spot near the bottom of a waterfall where he would never be disturbed, and there I buried him, reverently smoothing the turf over him. What a night that was for me! I was haunted incessantly by the vivid image of the dead body and by the terror which accompanies a great crime. I had repaid all his devotion with horrible cruelty. I had repented, but he would never know it. It was not the dog only which I had slain; I had slain Divine faithfulness and love. That _God damn you_ sounded perpetually in my ears. The Almighty had registered and executed the curse, but it had fallen upon the murderer and not on the victim. When I rose in the morning I distinctly felt the blow of the kick in my foot, and the sensation lasted all day. For weeks I was in a miserable condition. A separate consciousness seemed to establish itself in this foot; there was nothing to be seen and no pain, but there was a dull sort of pressure of which I could not rid myself. If I slept I dreamed of the dog, and generally dreamed I was caressing him, waking up to the dreadful truth of the corpse on the path in the rain. I got it into my head—for I was half-crazy—that only by some expiation I should be restored to health and peace; but how to make any expiation I could not tell. Unhappy is the wretch who longs to atone for a sin and no atonement is prescribed to him!

One night I was coming home late and heard the cry of “Fire!” I ran down the street and found a house in flames. The fire-escape was at the window, and had rescued a man, his wife and child. Every living creature was safe, I was told, save a dog in the front room on the ground-floor. I pushed the people aside, rushed in, half-blinded with smoke, and found him. I could not escape by the passage, and dropped out of the window into the area with him in my arms. I fell heavily on _that_ foot, and when I was helped up the steps I could not put it to the ground. “You may have him for your pains,” said his owner to me; “he is a useless cur. I wouldn’t have ventured the singeing of a hair for him.” “May I?” I replied, with an eagerness which must have seemed very strange. He was indeed not worth half a crown, but I drew him closely to me and took him into the cab. I was in great agony, and when the surgeon came it was discovered that my ankle was badly fractured. An attempt was made to set it, but in the end it was decided that the foot must be amputated. I rejoiced when I heard the news, and on the day on which the operation was performed I was calm and even cheerful. Our own doctor who came with the surgeon told him I had “a highly nervous temperament,” and both of them were amazed at my fortitude. The dog is a mongrel, as you see, but he loves me, and if you were to offer me ten thousand golden guineas I would not part with him.

LETTERS FROM MY AUNT ELEANOR {180} TO HER DAUGHTER SOPHIA, AND A FRAGMENT FROM MY AUNT’S DIARY.

January 31, 1837.

MY DEAREST CHILD,—It is now a month since your father died. It was a sore trial to me that you should have broken down, and that you could not be here when he was laid in his grave, but I would not for worlds have allowed you to make the journey. I am glad I forced you away. The doctor said he would not answer for the consequences unless you were removed. But I must not talk, not even to you. I will write again soon.

Your most affectionate mother,

ELEANOR CHARTERIS.

* * * * *

February 5, 1837.

I have been alone in the library from morning to night every day. How foolish all the books look! There is nothing in them which can do me any good. He is _not_: what is there which can alter that fact? Had he died later I could have borne it better. I am only fifty years old, and may have long to wait. I always knew I loved him devotedly; now I see how much I depended on him. I had become so knit up with him that I imagined his strength to be mine. His support was so continuous and so soft that I was unconscious of it. How clear-headed and resolute he was in difficulty and danger! You do not remember the great fire? We were waked up out of our sleep; the flames spread rapidly; a mob filled the street, shouting and breaking open doors. The man in charge of the engines lost his head, but your father was perfectly cool. He got on horseback, directed two or three friends to do the same; they galloped into the town and drove the crowd away. He controlled all the operations and saved many lives and many thousands of pounds. Is there any happiness in the world like that of the woman who hangs on such a husband?

* * * * *

February 10, 1837.

I feel as if my heart would break if I do not see you, but I cannot come to your Aunt’s house just now. She is very kind, but she would be unbearable to me. Have patience: the sea air is doing you good; you will soon be able to walk, and then you can return. O, to feel your head upon my neck! I have many friends, but I have always needed a human being to whom I was everything. To your father I believe I was everything, and that thought was perpetual heaven to me. My love for him did not make me neglect other people. On the contrary, it gave them their proper value. Without it I should have put them by. When a man is dying for want of water he cares for nothing around him. Satisfy his thirst, and he can then enjoy other pleasures. I was his first love, he was my first, and we were lovers to the end. I know the world would be dark to you also were I to leave it. Perhaps it is wicked of me to rejoice that you would suffer so keenly. I cannot tell how much of me is pure love and how much of me is selfishness. I remember my uncle’s death. For ten days or so afterwards everybody in the house looked solemn, and occasionally there was a tear, but at the end of a fortnight there was smiling and at the end of a month there was laughter. I was but a child then, but I thought much about the ease and speed with which the gap left by death was closed.

* * * * *

February 20, 1837.

In a fortnight you will be here? The doctor really believes you will be able to travel? I am glad you can get out and taste the sea air. I count the hours which must pass till I see you. A short week, and then—“the day after to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow of that day,” and so I shall be able to reach forward to the Monday. It is strange that the nearer Monday comes the more impatient I am.

* * * * *

March 3, 1837.

With what sickening fear I opened your letter! I was sure it contained some dreadful news. You have decided not to come till Wednesday, because your cousin Tom can accompany you on that day. I _know_ you are quite right. It is so much better, as you are not strong, that Tom should look after you, and it would be absurd that you should make the journey two days before him. I should have reproved you seriously if you had done anything so foolish. But those two days are hard to bear. I shall not meet you at the coach, nor shall I be downstairs. Go straight to the library; I shall be there by myself.

* * * * *

DIARY.

January 1, 1838.—Three days ago she died. Henceforth there is no living creature to whom my existence is of any real importance. Crippled as she was, she could never have married. I might have held her as long as she lived. She could have expected no love but mine. God forgive me! Perhaps I did unconsciously rejoice in that disabled limb because it kept her closer to me. Now He has taken her from me. I may have been wicked, but has He no mercy? “I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.” An answer in anger could better be borne than this impregnable silence.

* * * * *

January 3rd.—A day of snow and bitter wind. There were very few at the grave, and I should have been better pleased if there had been none. What claim had they to be there? I have come home alone, and they no doubt are comforting themselves with the reflection that it is all over except the half-mourning. Her death makes me hate them. Mr. Maxwell, our rector, told me when my child was ill to remember that I had no right to her. “Right!” what did he mean by that stupid word? How trouble tries words! All I can say is that from her birth I had owned her, and that now, when I want her most, I am dispossessed. “Self, self”—I know the reply, but it is unjust, for I would have stood up cheerfully to be shot if I could have saved her pain. Doubly unjust, for my passion for her was a blessing to her as well as to me.

* * * * *

January 6th.—Henceforth I suppose I shall have to play with people, to pretend to take an interest in their clothes and their parties, or, with the superior sort, to discuss politics or books. I care nothing for their rags or their gossip, for Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, or Mr. James Montgomery. I must learn how to take the tip of a finger instead of a hand, and to accept with gratitude comfits when I hunger for bread—I, who have known—but I dare say nothing even to myself of my hours with him—I, who have heard Sophy cry out in the night for me; I, who have held her hand and have prayed by her bedside.

* * * * *

January 10th.—I must be still. I have learned this lesson before—that speech even to myself does harm. If I admit no conversation nor debate with myself, I certainly will not admit the chatter of outsiders. Mr. Maxwell called again to-day. “Not a syllable on that subject,” said I when he began in the usual strain. He then suggested that as this house was too large for me, and must have what he called “melancholy associations,” I should move. He had suggested this before, when my husband died. How can I leave the home to which I was brought as a bride? how can I endure the thought that strangers are in our room, or in that other room where Sophy lay? Mr. Maxwell would think it sacrilege to turn his church into an inn, and it is a worse sacrilege to me to permit the profanation of the sanctuary which has been consecrated by Love and Death. I do not know what might happen to me if I were to leave. I have been what I am through shadowy nothings which other people despise. To me they are realities and a law. I shall stay where I am. “A villa,” forsooth, on the outskirts of the town! My existence would be fractured: it will at least preserve its continuity here. Across the square I can see the house in which I was born, and I can watch the shadow of the church in the afternoon slowly crossing the churchyard. The townsfolk stand in the street and go up and down it just as they did forty years ago—not the same persons, but in a sense the same people. My brother will call me extravagant if I remain here. He buys a horse and does not consider it extravagant, and my money is not wasted if I spend it in the only way in which it is of any value to me.

* * * * *

January 12th.—I had thought I could be dumb, but I cannot. My sorrow comes in rushes. I lift up my head above the waves for an instant, and immediately I am overwhelmed—“all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me.” My nights are a terror to me, and I fear for my reason. That last grip of Sophy’s hand is distinctly on mine now, palpable as the pressure of a fleshly hand could be. It is strange that without any external circumstances to account for it, she and I often thought the same things at the same moment. She seemed to know instinctively what was passing in my mind, so that I was afraid to harbour any unworthy thought, feeling sure that she would detect it. Blood of my blood was she. She said “goodbye” to me with perfect clearness, and in a quarter of an hour she had gone. In that quarter of an hour there could not be the extinction of so much. Such a creature as Sophy could not instantaneously _not be_. I cannot believe it, but still the volume of my life here is closed, the story is at an end; what remains will be nothing but a few notes on what has gone before.

* * * * *

January 21st.—I went to church to-day for the first time since the funeral. Mr. Maxwell preached a dull, doctrinal sermon. Whilst my husband and Sophy lived, I was a regular attendant at church, and never thought of disputing anything I heard. It did not make much impression on me, but I accepted it, and if I had been asked whether I believed it, I should have said, “Certainly.” But now a new standard of belief has been set up in me, and the word “belief” has a different meaning.

* * * * *

February 3rd.—Whenever I saw anything beautiful I always asked Tom or Sophy to look. Now I ask nobody. Early this morning, after the storm in the night, the sky cleared, and I went out about dawn through the garden up to the top of the orchard and watched the disappearance of the night in the west. The loveliness of that silent conquest was unsurpassable. Eighteen months ago I should have run indoors and have dragged Tom and Sophy back with me. I saw it alone now, and although the promise in the slow transformation of darkness to azure moved me to tears, I felt it was no promise for me.

* * * * *

March 1st.—Nothing that is _prescribed_ does me any good. I cannot leave off going to church, but the support I want I must find out for myself. Perhaps if I had been born two hundred years ago, I might have been caught by some strong enthusiastic organisation and have been a private in a great army. A miserable time is this when each man has to grope his way unassisted, and all the incalculable toil of founders of churches goes for little or nothing. . . . I do not pray for any more pleasure: I ask only for strength to endure, till I can lie down and rest. I have had more rapture in a day than my neighbours and relations have had in all their lives. Tom once said to me that he would sooner have had twenty-four hours with me as his wife than youth and manhood with any other woman he ever knew. He said that, not when we were first married, but a score of years afterwards. I remember the place and the hour. It was in the garden one morning in July, just before breakfast. It was a burning day, and massive white clouds were forming themselves on the horizon. The storm on that day was the heaviest I recollect, and the lightning struck one of our chimneys and dashed it through the roof. His passion was informed with intellect, and his intellect glowed with passion. There was nothing in him merely animal or merely rational. . . . To endure, to endure! Can there be any endurance without a motive? I have no motive.

* * * * *

March 10th.—My sister and my brother-in-law came to-day and I wished them away. Now that my husband is dead I discover that the frequent visitors to our house came to see him and not me. There must be something in me which prevents people, especially women, from being really intimate with me. To be able to make friends is a talent which I do not possess, and if those who call on me are prompted by kindness only, I would rather be without them. The only attraction towards me which I value is that which is irresistible. Perhaps I am wrong, and ought to accept with thankfulness whatever is left to me if it has any savour of goodness in it. I have no right to compare and to reject. . . I provide myself with little maxims, and a breath comes and sweeps them away. What is permanent behind these little flickerings is black night: that is the real background of my life.

* * * * *

April 24th.—I have been to London, and on Easter Sunday I went to High Mass at a Roman Catholic Church. I was obliged to leave, for I was overpowered and hysterical. Were I to go often my reason might be drowned, and I might become a devotee. And yet I do not think I should. If I could prostrate myself at a shrine I should want an answer. When I came out into the open air I saw again the _plainness_ of the world: the skies, the sea, the fields are not in accord with incense or gorgeous ceremonies. Incense and ceremonies are beyond the facts, and to the facts we must cleave, no matter how poor and thin they may be.

* * * * *

May 5th.—If I am ill, I shall depend entirely on paid service. God grant I may die suddenly and not linger in imbecility. So much of me is dead that what is left is not worth preserving. Nearly everything I have done all my life has been done for love. I shall now have to act for duty’s sake. It is an entire reconstruction of myself, the insertion of a new motive. I do not much believe in duty, nor, if I read my New Testament aright, did the Apostle Paul. For Jesus he would do anything. That sacred face would have drawn me whither the Law would never have driven me.

* * * * *

May 7th.—It is painful to me to be so completely set aside. When Tom was alive I was in the midst of the current of affairs. Few men, except Maxwell, come to the house now. My property is in the hands of trustees. Tom continually consulted me in business matters. I have nothing to look after except my house, and I sit at my window and see the stream of life pass without touching me. I cannot take up work merely for the sake of taking it up. Nobody would value it, nor would it content me. How I used to pity my husband’s uncle, Captain Charteris! He had been a sailor; he had fought the French; he had been in imminent danger of shipwreck, and from his youth upwards perpetual demands had been made upon his resources and courage. At fifty he retired, a strong, active man; and having a religious turn, he helped the curate with school-treats and visiting. He pined away and died in five years. The bank goes on. I have my dividends, but not a word reaches me about it.

* * * * *

October 10th.—Five months, I see, have passed since I made an entry in my diary. What a day this is! The turf is once more soft, the trees and hedges are washed, the leaves are turning yellow and are ready to fall. I have been sitting in the garden alone, reading the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis. I must copy the closing verses. It does me good to write them.

“And Jacob charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.” There is no distress here: he gathers up his feet and departs. Perhaps our wild longings are unnatural, and yet it seems but nature _not_ to be content with what contented the patriarch. Anyhow, wherever and whatever my husband and Sophy are I shall be. This at least is beyond dispute.

* * * * *

October 12th.—I do not wish to forget past joys, but I must simply remember them and not try to paint them. I must cut short any yearning for them.

* * * * *

October 20th.—We do not say the same things to ourselves with sufficient frequency. In these days of book-reading fifty fine thoughts come into our heads in a day, and the next morning are forgotten. Not one of them becomes a religion. In the Bible how few the thoughts are, and how incessantly they are repeated! If my life could be controlled by two or three divine ideas, I would burn my library. I often feel that I would sooner be a Levitical priest, supposing I believed in my office, than be familiar with all these great men whose works are stacked around me.

* * * * *

October 22nd.—Sometimes, especially at night, the thought not only that I personally have lost Tom and Sophy, but that the exquisite fabric of these relationships, so intricate, so delicate, so highly organised, could be cast aside, to all appearance so wastefully, is almost unendurable. . . . I went up to the moor on the top of the hill this morning, where I could see, far away, the river broaden and lose itself in the Atlantic. I lay on the heather looking through it and listening to it.

* * * * *

October 23rd.—The 131st Psalm came into my mind when I was on the moor again. “Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of its mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.”

* * * * *

October 28th—Tom once said to me that reasoning is often a bad guide for us, and that loyalty to the silent Leader is true wisdom. Wesley, when he was in trouble, asked himself “whether he should fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it,” and a wise man told him “to be still and go on.” A certain blind instinct seems to carry me forward. What is it? an indication of a purpose I do not comprehend? an order given by the Commander-in-Chief which is to be obeyed although the strategy is not understood?

* * * * *

November 3rd.—Palmer, my maid, who has been with me ever since I began to keep house, was very good-looking at one-and-twenty. When she had been engaged to be married about a twelvemonth, she burned her face and the burn left a bad scar. Her lover found excuses for breaking off the engagement. He must have been a scoundrel, and I should like to have had him whipped with wire. She was very fond of him. She had an offer of marriage ten years afterwards, but she refused. I believe she feared lest the scar, seen every day, would make her husband loathe her. Her case is worse than mine, for she never knew such delights as mine. She has subsisted on mere friendliness and civility. “Oh,” it is suggested at once to me, “you are more sensitive than she is.” How dare I say that? How hateful is the assumption of superior sensitiveness as an excuse for want of endurance!

* * * * *

November 4th.—Ellen Charteris, my husband’s cousin, belongs to a Roman Catholic branch of the family, and is an abbess. I remember saying to her that I wondered that she and her nuns could spend such useless lives. She replied that although she and all good Catholics believe in the atonement of Christ, they also believe that works of piety in excess of what may be demanded of us, even if they are done in secret, are a set-off against the sins of the world. In this form the doctrine has not much to commend itself to me, and it is assumed that the nuns’ works are pious. But in a sense it is true. “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” The fall of a grain of dust is recorded.

* * * * *

November 7th—A kind of peace occasionally visits me. It is not the indifference begotten of time, for my husband and my child are nearer and dearer than ever to me. I care not to analyse it. I return to my patriarch. With Joseph before him, the father, who had refused to be comforted when he thought his son was dead, gathered up his feet into the bed and slept.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GEORGE LUCY M.A., AND HIS GODCHILD, HERMIONE RUSSELL, B.A.