The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

THE EIGHTH DAY

VISITORS! I did not know how to receive them; and not only visitors but relatives of my own – of my mother’s – her only remaining kindred. I went down with a flutter at my heart to see my unknown kin. He was with them, Alice told me, and I composed myself as well as I could before I entered the room; for by this time we had grown to a dull uncommunicating antagonism, and his presence stimulated me to command myself. It was past Christmas now, and we had spent more than two months in this system of mutual torment. We had been once or twice asked out, and we had gone and behaved ourselves so as not to betray the full extent of the breach between us; but we asked no one to our house – a house in which dwelt such a skeleton; and nobody can fancy how intolerable this dreary tête-a-tête, in which each of us watched the other, and no one spoke save the few necessary formalities of the table, became every day. Yet how every day we began in the same course, never seeking to separate – keeping together as pertinaciously as a couple of lovers, and with the strangest fascination in this silent contest. To look back upon this time is like a nightmare to me. I feel the heavy stifling shadow, the suppressed feverish excitement, the constant expectation and strain of self control when I think of it. I wonder one of us was not crazed by this prolonged ordeal; I think a few days of it would make me frantic now.

I stood for a moment at the door listening to their voices before I entered – they were cordial, sincere voices, pleasant to hear, and in spite of myself I brightened at the kindly sounds. There were three of them – father, mother, and daughter – and when I entered the room, the first thing I saw was a pretty sweet girlish face, very much like the portrait which Mr. Osborne gave me of my mother, looking up all smiles and dimples at my husband’s. I cannot tell how it happened, but for the moment it struck me what a much more pleasant home this Cottiswoode would have been, had that sunny face presided over it – and what a dull sullen heavy countenance in comparison was that clouded and unhappy face which glanced back at me as I glanced at the mirror. I wondered what he thought on the subject, or if it had crossed his fancy; but I had no time to pursue the question, for suddenly I was overwhelmed in the shawl and embrace of a large kind smiling woman, the mother of this girl.

She held me by the hands after the first salutation, and looked at my mourning dress and my pale cheeks, and said, “poor dear!” She was herself very gay in an ample matronly finery, with satin skirts, and a great rich shawl, with a width and a warmth in her embrace, and a soft faint perfume about her which were quite new to me. Her fingers were soft, large, and pink and delicate; her touch was a positive pleasure. There are some people who make you conscious of your own appearance by the strange contrast which you feel it bears to theirs. Mrs. Ennerdale was one of those; I felt how cloudy, how dull, how unreal it was, living on imaginary rights and wrongs, and throwing my life away, when I felt myself within the warm pressure of these kindly human arms.

Mr. Ennerdale was a Squire like other Squires, a hearty comfortable country gentleman, with nothing much to distinguish him from his class – he shook hands with me very warmly, and looked still more closely in my face than his wife had done. “You’re a little like your mother, Mrs. Southcote,” he said in a disappointed tone, as he let me go. I might have been when I was happy; but I certainly was not now.

And then Flora came to me, shyly but frankly – holding my hand with a lingering light clasp, as if she expected a warmer salutation from her new found cousin. She was a year younger than I, very pretty, very fresh and sweet like a half-blown rose. She took her place upon a low chair close by me, and kept her sweet blue eyes on my face when I spoke, and looked at me with great interest and respectfulness. Poor young innocent Flora! —she did not wonder that I looked ill, or question what was the matter with me. She was not skilled, nor could discriminate between unhappiness and grief.

It was not jealousy that crossed my mind, nor anything approaching to it. I only could not help fancying to myself how different everything would have been had she been mistress of Cottiswoode – how bright the house – how happy the master. It was a pleasure to look at the innocent sweet face. I admired her as only women can admire each other. I was not shy of looking at her as a man might have been. I had a pure pleasure in the sweet bloom of her cheek, the pretty turn and rounding of its outline. I had a great love of beauty by nature, but I had seen few beautiful people. Many a time the sweet complexion of Alice, and her comely bright face, had charmed me unawares, and I was a great deal more delighted with Flora now.

Mrs. Ennerdale took me aside, after a few minutes, to talk to me after a matronly and confidential fashion, for I was not well, and did not look well. But her kindness and her sympathy confused me, and I was glad to come back to my old place. Flora followed me with her eyes as I followed her – my sad clouded looks woke Flora’s young tender heart to respect and affectionate wistfulness. I don’t think she ventured to talk much to me, standing apart as I did, to her young fancy, upon my eminence of grief, but she looked up with such an earnest regard in my face, that I was more soothed than by words. When Mrs. Ennerdale began to settle her plumage, and to express her hope to see us soon, a sudden idea seized upon me. I took no time to think of it, but acted on my impulse in a moment. I suddenly became energetic, and begged that Flora might stay a few days with me. Flora looked up with an eager seconding look, and said, “I should be so glad,” in her youthful whispering tone. The papa and mamma took counsel together, and my husband started slightly and looked with a momentary wonder in my face; but I suppose he had almost ceased to wonder at anything I could do.

“Well, I am sure you must have need of company, my dear,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Ennerdale, “and Flora is a good girl too, but must I send her things, or how shall we do? We thought of asking Mr. Southcote and yourself to come to Ennerdale, but I never dreamt of you keeping Flora. Well, dear, well, you shall have her, and I’ll see about sending her things; and, Flora, love, try if you cannot get your poor dear cousin to look cheerful, and recollect exercise,” said the experienced matron, turning aside to whisper to me, “remember, dear, it is of the greatest consequence, walk every day – be sure, every day.”

There was some delay consequent on my request and the new arrangements, but in less than half an hour the elder pair drove off, and left Flora with me. I took her up-stairs with a genuine thrill of pleasure – I think the first I had felt since I entered the house, to show her her room, and help her to take off her cloak. “But come out first, do, and have a walk,” said Flora. “Mamma says you ought to go out; and it is so pleasant to feel the wind in your face. It nearly blew me away this morning – do come!”

“Are you not tired?” said I.

“Tired! – oh no! I am a country girl,” said Flora, with a low sweet laugh, as pretty and youthful as her face, “and when the boys are at home, they never let me rest. I always take a long time to settle down after the holidays. Dear Mrs. Southcote! I hope I will not be too noisy, nor too much of a hoyden for you – for you are not well I am sure.”

“Oh, yes! I am well,” I said, half displeased at this interpretation of the moody face which looked so black and clouded beside Flora’s. “Will you wait for me, Miss Ennerdale, while I get ready?”

“Don’t call me Miss Ennerdale, please don’t,” entreated the girl; “papa says we are as good as first cousins, for his father was your mamma’s uncle, and his mother was her aunt. Do you not know, Mrs. Southcote? your grandpapa and mine were brothers, and they married two sisters – that is how it is – and we are as good as first cousins – and I think, you know, that we ought to call each other – at least, that you ought to call me by my own name.”

“Very well, we will make a bargain,” said I; “do you know my name, Flora?”

“Oh yes! very well – it is Hester,” said Flora, with a blush and a little shyness. “I have no other cousins on papa’s side – and I always liked so much to hear of you.”

“Why?”

“Because – I can’t tell, I am sure!” said Flora, laughing. “I always could see my other cousins, but never you – and so few people knew you; and do you know,” she added quietly, lowering her tone, and drawing near to me, with that innocent pathos and mystery which young girls love, “I think my father, when he was young, was very fond of your mamma.”

“Strange! he, too! everybody must have loved her,” I said to myself, wonderingly.

“Yes, he says he never saw any one like her,” said Flora, with her sweet girlish seriousness, and perfect sincerity.

“Did no one ever say you were like me?” I asked.

Her face flushed in a moment with a bright rosy color.

“Oh, dear Mrs. Southcote! do you think so? I should be so proud.”

“I thought we were to call each other by our Christian names?” said I; “but you must wait for me till I get my bonnet.”

“Let me fetch it – is not that your room?” said Flora, following; “oh! who is that with such a kind face? Is that your maid, Mrs. – cousin?”

“Come and you shall see her, Miss – cousin,” said I, unable to arrest the happy and playful fascination of this girl; “she is my maid and my nurse, and my dearest friend, too, Flora – my very dearest friend – Alice, this is Miss Ennerdale, my cousin.”

Alice started to her feet very hurriedly, made a confused curtsey, and looked at the young girl. It was too much for the self-control of Alice. I believe she had become nervous and unsettled, like the rest of us; and now she turned suddenly away, her lips quivered, her eyes filled. Flora gazed at her shyly, and kept apart, knowing nothing of the cause of her emotion.

“Is she very like, Alice?” said I, in an under tone.

“Very like, dear! God bless her! it’s like herself again. Miss Hester, is her name Helen?” asked Alice with a sob.

“No.”

The glance of disappointment on Alice’s face was only momentary.

“It ought not to have been, either; I’m glad it is not, dear – ah, Miss Hester! if she had but been your sister!”

“No, Alice, you would have loved her best; and I could not have borne that,” said I, still in a whisper; “but she is to stay with me. I will not let her go away again, till she is weary of Cottiswoode.”

And Alice, dear, kind, faithful Alice, who had no thought but for me, was grateful to me for seeking my own pleasure thus. I felt as if I had done her a favor, when I heard her “bless you, my darling!” Ah, this humble love was very consolatory; but I am not sure that it was very good for me.

I was not very strong nor able to walk as I had been used to do. But I felt the sweet exhilaration of the wind upon my face, and looked with pleasure along the level road, to see the thatched houses of Cottisbourne clustering as if for a gossip under the sunshine, and the great sky descending in its vast cloudy parallels to the very edge of these boundless featureless fields. The hum in the air so different from the hum in summer; the sharp, far-away bark of that dog, which always does bark somewhere within your range of hearing in a winter landscape; the shriller harping of the leafless elms, a sound so distinct from the soft rustling of their summer foliage – everything had a clear, ringing, cheering sound – and Flora went on by my side, the embodiment and concentration of all the lesser happiness, with a gay light tripping pace like a bird’s, and all her heart and mind in sweet harmonious motion with her young graceful frame. I had always, myself, been the youngest in our little household – it was a new pleasure to me, and yet a strange, unusual sensation, to find myself thrown into the elder, graver, superior place, and this young creature with me, whom I could not help but treat like a child, a younger sister, rich in possession of youth, which I had never known.

At fifteen, I think, I must have felt old beside Flora, and now at one-and-twenty – no great age, heaven knows! – I was struck with wonder and admiration at the beautiful youthfulness which was in every motion and every word of this simple pretty girl. My marriage, and my unhappiness, had increased the natural distance between us. I did not envy Flora; but I had a sort of reflective, half melancholy delight in looking at her – such as old people have, I fancy – which was strange enough at my years.

“Do you not like walking, cousin?” said Flora – “I think the fresh air is so sweet – I do not care whether it is summer or winter. I think I should like always to be out of doors. I always could dance when I feel the wind on my face like this.”

“But I am older than you, Flora,” said I.

Flora laughed, her sweet, low, ringing laugh – “I am sure you are not so much older than me, as I am older than Gus,” she said; “but mamma says when they are all at home, that I am the wildest boy among them. Do you like riding, cousin?”

“I never ride,” said I.

“Never ride? – oh! I am fond of horses!” cried Flora, “and a gallop along a delightful long road like this – why, it’s almost as good as flying. Will you try? – I am quite sure you are not timid, cousin. Oh, do let Mr. Southcote find a horse for you and try to-morrow. But, oh, I forgot!” she said with a sudden blush, which brought a still deeper color to my cheek, as she glanced at me, “perhaps it would not be right for you.”

There was a pause of momentary embarrassment, and Flora greatly distressed I could perceive, thinking she had annoyed me. At that moment, some children from the school at Cottisbourne passed us, going home, and made their clumsy bows and curtseys, which I only acknowledged very slightly as we went on. Flora, for her part, cast a wistful glance after the little rustics. “Will you not speak to them, cousin?” she asked with a little surprise – “have they not been good children? – I should so like you to see our school at Ennerdale. I always go there every day, and I am very fond of them. They are tidy pleasant children; and I believe, though it looks so vain to say it,” said Flora, breaking off with a laugh, “that they all like me.”

“I should not fancy that was so very extraordinary either,” said I; “other people do that, I suppose, besides the children at Ennerdale.”

“Yes, everybody is very good to me,” said Flora, with a quiet seriousness; “but then, you know, cousin, I have sometimes to punish the children as well as to praise them. How do you do here? I am sure you know a great deal better how to manage than I do. Do you forgive them when they seem sorry, or do you keep up looking displeased at them? Mamma says I spoil them, because I only look angry for a moment; but you know I never am really angry, I only pretend, because it’s right.”

“Indeed, Flora, I do not know. I never visit the school; I have had so little to do with children,” I answered hastily.

Once more Flora cast an annoyed glance at me. This was more wonderful still than never riding – I began to grow quite a puzzler to Flora.

“Mamma has so many things to do, she seldom gets any time to help me,” continued the girl, rallying a little after a pause. “Do you know, cousin, mamma is a perfect Lady Bountiful; she is always busy about something – and when people tell her of it, she only laughs and says it is no credit to her – for she does it all for pleasure. Don’t you think it is very silly for people to praise ladies like mamma, or to find fault with them either? She is only kind to the village people because she likes to see them pleased and getting on well; and we all like company, cousin Hester, and we know the village people best and longest, and they are our nearest neighbors; and don’t you think it is right to be kind to them? But the Miss Oldhams, at Stockport House, say we are undermining their independence, and condescending to the poor.”

“I am sure your mamma must be quite right, Flora – but here comes some rain – I think we must go home,” said I.

Flora held up her fresh pretty face to it, and caught the first drops upon her cheeks.

“It is rather too cold,” she said, shaking them off with a pretty graceful motion, and beginning to run like a young fawn. “I like to be caught in a spring shower; but oh, cousin Hester, what shall I do if I get my dress wet, I haven’t another one till they send; and then, I am running and forgetting you. Don’t run —I don’t care for being wet, if I may come down stairs in this frock after all. Oh! there is Mr. Southcote with a mantle for you, and an umbrella, and now I’ll run all the way home.”