CHAPTER IX.
"They say the maxim is not new,
That good and evil mixed must be
In every thing this world can show."
—Patty
The next morning dawned a calm, mild day. The snow was knee-deep on the ground and covered the housetops with a thick soft mantle. On how many utterly different scenes the stray sunbeams rested that winter morning. Nearly all the heroines of Miss Teazle's ball were sunk in heavy, tired slumber, in rooms strewn with laces and flowers and other fragments of last night's dissipation. The poor over-exerted mammas are neither able to rise nor to sleep, and their pitiably puckered brows and sour looking faces would excite the sympathy of the most cynical misanthrope.
And yet, perhaps if not reminded, some readers would be tasteless enough to overlook the noble sacrifice these mothers were making of the comfort of their lives in order to "chaperone" their stylish daughters to all the haunts of pleasure. These poor fashionable women must indeed drain life's cup of bitterness to the dregs, if we can judge from the worldly girl's soliloquy.
Who rigs herself in satins light,
And goes to parties every night,
To chaperone her daughters bright?
My mother
Who eats late suppers to her grief,
Of jellied turkeys and roast beef,
And finds no dyspeptic relief
My mother
Who tries to talk with pompous air,
And saturates with dye her hair,
To gratify her daughters fair?
My mother
Who snubs our neighbor Mrs. Bell,
In poorer days we knew so well,
And tales of woe did often tell?
My mother
Who calls at Ridleau and all round,
Where rank and titles do abound,
And boasts of cousins newly found?
My mother
Who fears to bow to poorer kin,
For fear her daughters will begin
To growl and scold as though 'twere sin!
My mother.
I give the intelligent reader ten minutes to pause and moralize after digestion.
I anticipate the look of stupid wonder that must necessarily envelope the face. If there is so much in individual influence in the lower circle, what can one expect from the multitude that must submit to a thousand other decrees coming imperatively from the infallible (?) lips of society herself? How can we do otherwise than substitute for truth and simplicity, deception and affectation? What else can we do but fail to recognise one another in the characters we are forced to assume? Is it surprising that good and wise men from their corners of seclusion call the world degenerate, and wonder at the persistent wrong-doing of those who are the work of such merciful hands? Strange to say, most of us know, or pretend to know, that life is all deception; that the world itself, and those who belong to it are essentially, almost necessarily, selfish; that the goodness and charity which circulate at rare intervals are only the superfluidities of comfort, proceeding from no generous impulse whatever. It is not dealt out at the sacrifice of a crust of bread. It is given so that it may not be left.
Oh, the weakness of humanity after nineteen centuries of fortification!
Oh, the despicable degradation of a race conceived in an Eternal Mind,
created by an Infinite Hand, redeemed by the voluntary sacrifice of a
God, and sanctified by the Spirit that pervades the universe!
Knowing this, realizing this, as most of us do, why do we not make a move towards independence? Not the independence of the State, that gratifies the paltry ambition of thousands, not that social independence whose meaning has of late been so shamefully misapplied, not even the individual independence that satisfies many. These are but names. I mean that independence that leaves one unfettered by one's self, that makes one victor over one's own evil tendencies and impulses—for man has no enemy so cunning as himself. If he cannot conquer his own inclinations to error, how is he going to subdue them in others?
If we are slaves, mentally and morally to our sensual selves—if we raise the material element above the spiritual within us, we then lose the right of opinion on good or evil, for a man that is passion's slave is the mouth-piece of evil, and an active agent of the enemy of mankind! If we open our volumes of literature, every page bears a reflection of some kind on these things.
For instance, see what a great writer says, speaking of the deception in life:
"I am weary
Of the bewildering masquerade of life—
Where strangers walk as friends and friends as strangers,
Where whispers overhead betray false hearts;
And through the mazes of the crowd we chase
Some form of loveliness that smiles and beckons.
And cheats us with fair words, to leave us
A mockery and a jest, maddened, confused—
Not knowing friend from foe."
Every one who chooses to think at all has a thought in common on the question. In a biography of George Eliot, Hutton speaks of the manners of good society as "a kind of social costume or disguise which is in fact much more effective in concealing how much of depth ordinary characters have, and in restraining the expression of universal human instincts and feelings, than in hiding individualities the distinguishing inclinations, talents, bias and tastes of those who assume them. After all, what we care chiefly to know of men and women is not so much their special bias or tastes as the general depths and mass of the human nature that is in them—the breadth and power of their life, its comprehensiveness of grasp, its tenacity of instinct, its capacity for love and its need for trust."
I fear we will never find this among the leading men and women of our day. Great minds, like George Eliot's, when they wish to spend their genius in written books, will leave the lighted hall where refinement and bon-ton hold their nightly revels, and will descend to the huts of laborers and mechanics that form one distinct phase of English life. Like Charlotte Bronte, and some others, she seeks substance for her work in a true, open character, and that is rarely found among the educated classes, who learn from books to unlearn the lessons of nature.
We will now leave the "lollipop" darlings of material nature and pass on out of their dishevelled untidy rooms, leaving their painted faces and powdered heads to spin out the late morning among the blankets,—and seek gratification elsewhere. It is breakfast-time in Henry Rayne's house and the curling steam rises in graceful clouds from the hot tasty dishes that Mrs. Potts concocts with so much art. Honor, Nanette and Mr. Rayne are as usual the only participants of the wholesome things. Honor has just come in, fresh and rosy, all smiles as she steps up to Mr. Rayne's chair with a cheery good-morning. Then kneeling beside her guardian, and looking into his kindly face, she says shyly:
"I have something to tell you all, a surprise, and don't begin breakfast before you know it. If I were not a little orphan this morning, I would let it pass likely, but having only you and Nanette I must tell you, that you may not spare your kind wishes for me. To-day is my twentieth birthday!"
Mr. Rayne rose instantly to his feet and his eyes looked suspiciously moist as he kissed her tenderly on the brow. Then Honor turned to Nanette, but the poor woman was weeping mournfully in her blue handkerchief.
"I'll never forgive myself," she was saying, "to have forgotten your birthday above everything else, and your dear kind father when he gave you to me, a tiny thing in my arms, said, 'she will be a year the 24th February, don't ever forget the day,' and there it slipped from me this time and I never thought of it."
Honor flung her arms round the old creature's neck and drowned her reproaches in a volley of kisses.
"Don't mind that Nanny dear, say you wish me a good Christian life for the next year and you will have done your duty."
"God grant it you, my pretty child."
"Amen," answered Mr. Rayne's deep voice as he left the room.
Honor looked up surprised, but in a few moments her guardian returned with a morocco jewel case in his hands. He placed it in hers, saying, "My you live to wear it out in goodness and virtue, and may God spare you from the snares of this wicked world."
With trembling fingers Honor opened the little box which revealed to view a spangling collection of diamonds. It was an oval locket, profusely set with diamonds with her initials turned artfully on the surface. Inside were the miniature pictures of her father and mother. She laid down the costly gift and went over to her benefactor with tear-dimmed eyes. She put both her slender arms around his neck and pressed one long fervent kiss upon the old man's brow.
"Are you determined, dear Mr. Rayne, to put me under an everlasting obligation to you? Are you not satisfied with bestowing those tokens that I might in time repay by constant love and care, without forcing such a splendid gift as this on me? Really your kindness begins to make me uncomfortable, for it is amounting to a debt I can never repay. And where did you get these dear, dear pictures, and how did you have it ready and all for my birthday?"
"Well, my dear, say we sit down and I'll answer all your questions to the music of knives and forks. I have had a miniature likeness of your father in my possession for many years, and it had often struck me, if I could but procure one of your mother's too, how it would please me to have them set together in a locket for you. The other day I was taken nicely out of my dilemma by finding an old-fashioned locket of yours by the fire in the library. I borrowed it for the short space of a few days until I had copies taken from it, and then Nanette kindly slipped it back into your jewel-case for me. I then ordered the little receptacle that you have admired so much and I only received the whole last night. Strangely enough too, that it should have come just in time. I would have given it to you immediately anyway, because of something I am going to discuss with you in the library after breakfast."
Honor was still looking intently down at the open case beside her plate when he finished the last sentence, but she looked up suddenly as he ceased, with a glance of eager inquiry in her eyes.
"It may startle you, Honor, or may not, but we'll see to that."
A little more rattling of plates and cutlery, a few more clouds of steam from the rich coffee, a series of disconnected gay sentences and ejaculations and the meal was over. The grave tones of Mr. Rayne's voice filled the room in a prayer of thanksgiving, and with the last echo of the "Amen," Honor and her guardian came out from the dining-room into the library arm in arm.