Chapter II: “To each his suffering.”

GRAY.

After luncheon Mr. Osborne set off on a five miles walk to the nearest large town. It was too far for Violet, had she been willing to leave her mother alone. She remained therefore at home, for Mrs. Osborne was still tired with her journey. She wrote a promised letter to Albert, and endeavoured to give a cheerful description of all around her, but there was no cheerfulness in her feelings.

The letter was finished, and she wandered up the small stairs and over the small house, and again felt oppressed with its dimensions. She returned to the drawing-room, took a bit of work in her hand, and sat down in the window. But the morning’s beauty had faded, and admiration in her soul was dead. The sun had disappeared, the sky was colourless, and a raw mist, promising an evening of rain, was hiding all but the clumps of leafless trees and the broad grass plot from her view. A damp hand had been laid upon her heart, and all its spirit had evaporated. She saw herself condemned to a life of inaction in this small house and strange place, with no excitement or change but the society of Mr. Pope. She thought of all he had told her: the want of interest in all the characters he had mentioned; men bad or disagreeable; a priggish boy, and a child.

Though when happy no fancy had power like Violet’s to colour brightly, she could _dis_colour to the same extent in her despondency; and thus it was she pictured the characters described by Mr. Pope. The only person who excited an interest in her mind was the saintly Lady Ashford, and she, he had said, was sickly and never to be seen. She thought and thought upon her future till its gloom became unbearable, and then she reverted to the past; and it rose before her at her call. She lived over it--over the past year, with its unspeakable happiness. But fancy travels swiftly, and a few seconds brought her to its close; to that forbidden thought, that passionately forbidden recollection, her parting with Leicester; to _that_ which she had cast away.

A hand was laid upon her shoulder, a “Violet, darling!” softly breathed in her ear by her mother’s gentle voice; but, though soft, so unexpected was the touch that she started violently, and two large tears were shaken by the start from her eyes.

The quick movement which averted her head showed Mrs. Osborne that the tears were not to be observed, and she only continued quietly,

“I startled you, dear. I did not mean to do that. But why so idle, darling? It is not good for you.”

“I have nothing to do, mamma,” and she sighed.

“At Broadstairs, Violet, you longed for time to read. Why not read a little now?”

Violet rose and went to the book-case, already arranged with a selection of the very best of books. While she cast her eyes over it Mrs. Osborne sat down again by the fire.

“These books are all so old, mamma,” and Violet sighed again. “I know I ought to read them all, but I cannot fancy them now.”

“I daresay, dear; we ought to have brought a new novel for these first few days, but it is bad for us to be idle. Why not study your German?--you know you always meant to get it up again this winter. Do you remember how you and Albert talked of it at Broadstairs?”

“Yes, mamma, but I fancied things then, and now I don’t.”

Tears again gathered in her eyes, and sitting down near her mother, but shading her face from the light, she went on--

“I know you must think me very wrong, mamma, but I don’t think you _can_ know what I feel. I am so disheartened, so disappointed with myself; I know I don’t think rightly or do rightly, and it makes me miserable, and yet I cannot do better. I am so utterly sick of life, and it seems such a long weary thing before me. There is a weight upon me, which I cannot, cannot shake off.”

“I think, dear, I do understand what you feel.”

“No, mamma, you can’t, because you are good and resigned and patient, and you don’t ever think of yourself; and besides, mamma, you are quiet, and you can’t guess what it is to have an unquiet heart that used to be satisfied, and now is not, gnawing within you. That is the very word,” she added with alacrity, as if she was pleased to find it; “it is a dull gnawing pain, something in my mind like a very great hunger that cannot be satisfied.”

“I know, dear, I cannot feel as you do now,” said her gentle and compassionate mother; “for at my age the feelings are not so quick as at yours, and it would be grievous indeed if I did, when I have been taught for so many years; but I was going to tell you, darling, that I think I can understand, because _once_, I fancy, I felt just as you do now.”

“Oh! mamma, when?” cried her daughter with interest; “I thought you had always been happy?”

“Always had many more blessings than I deserve, dearest, but I have had a great trial. It was when I began to know that I was deaf, Violet, and deaf for ever. You were only three years old then, and you cannot remember me different from what I am, but I _was_ different. I was almost as lively once as you are, Violet.”

“Oh! mamma, and was it such a dreadful blow?”

“It was, darling. I always think, even in Heaven, I shall remember the feeling of the day when I looked in my doctor’s face and asked him if it was hopeless. It was from a cold I foolishly caught when I had an earache; and I tried many, many things, and many physicians, and at last my own doctor advised me to be patient and to try no more. And then I looked in his face quite quietly, and I said that, if he told me it was no use to try, I _would_ be patient, but that, if there was a hope, I did not mind what I suffered; I thought it my duty to suffer for my husband’s sake and yours, darling; and he said he thought my duty was now to be patient. So I repeated more vehemently, ‘Was there no hope?’ And he looked grave and kind, and said, ‘There is but little, and you may ruin your health.’ I thanked him, and said, ‘Then I would take his advice.’ He did not know--no one ever knew--what I felt then, and for months and years after. It left such a scar upon my heart, I always fancy I must wear it in Heaven.”

The excitement in Mrs. Osborne’s usually placid face was so strange, that Violet’s eyes were riveted upon it.

“Dear mamma, and I never knew--never thought,” and Violet rose and kissed her brow, and sat down again.

“No, darling, and you never would, only I thought it might help you to know it. It is long past now,” she resumed in her usual quiet way, “and I think only of my blessings, and the wonderful way in which God has made me happy through those very years I dreaded to think of. Though he cast _me_ off from a world I liked perhaps too well, he gave me a far better and more beautiful self, darling, in you; and I have my own calm happiness, and yours also. Twice blessed I am, and I can truly say that I am happier now than in my youth. Not so madly joyful, darling, but happier.”

“And how did you become happy, mamma?”

And Violet looked eagerly in her mother’s face.

“At first, dear, by trying not to brood over my loss; and that is what I want you to do. I was not very good at first, not near so religiously taught as you, and I did not do nearly so much as I might, or trust God as I ought; but I did wish to do right, to be as good a wife as I could, and to bear it all as well as I could, and that was the first thing I tried. I tried not to feel that I was neglected, not to see how changed it was since people were glad to speak to me, not to resent it and mope over it. I tried to occupy myself, and make myself as pleasant as ever I could--and it did me great good. And gradually,” she said, and her voice lowered, “higher thoughts were put into my head, and I learnt to be thankful that God had afflicted me.”

Tears fell down Violet’s cheeks, not from any lesson her mother taught her, but as she thought how little she had ever thought of her mother’s trials, how rapt she had always been in herself.

“There, dear, don’t,” said Mrs. Osborne, rising and stroking her head, “we must not be melancholy. I only wished to show you that it is not good to be idle.”

“I won’t, mamma,” Violet said with resolution, brushing her tears away and looking up with a smile. “What shall I do? Will you give me something to do?”

“Yes, dear,” and Mrs. Osborne smiled also. “Will you become a milliner and make me a cap. Mine are growing old, and I was afraid to buy new ones, for we must be careful, darling, about our dress.”

“Yes, I suppose so, and I shall not mind that, I hope. Oh! yes, mamma, I will try, and I am so thankful to have it to do. I must try and rival Madame Célestine, for all the world has always said that there are no caps like yours; and if I succeed, I must have Albert down to see,” she added playfully; and with the spirit which she put into all her occupations, she went to her new employment, and was cheered by it.