It is a true and tried friendship also; not an affair of last week. Years have passed, and many things have happened since the day when Mrs. Murchison, with her husband and children, came down for a few hours from Littleburgh to Ermespoint, fully intending to return the same evening. How powerless we are to carry out our intentions, unless God wills that we should! How seldom, as we go through life, have we the least idea of what lies ahead! A precipice may be just three steps in advance, yet we often do not see it until we are on the brink. All this would be very terrible, if we did not know that our steps are guided and guarded by a Father's Hand. If He conducts to the precipice-edge, then all is well. Nay, even if He bids us plunge over— to death—what is it but a swift and sure passage Home? I mean, with those who know and love and obey Him.
We had not been long at Ermespoint, and the house was still in confusion. My boy, Bertram, was expected home that day; and Ellie and I went to meet him at the station. He was just sixteen, and very delicate, from the effects of a severe illness some months earlier. He came rushing to us, out of the train, full of spirit as usual, and poured out a hurried jumble about having been "taken rather" on the way, and somebody having been "so good" to him.
It was difficult to make out exactly what he meant; but I followed him across the platform to the little group of excursionists.
"You've got to thank her, mother," Bertram whispered energetically.
The picture comes back to me now, as I recall that day. A strong broad-built working-man, respectful and respectable, in his Sunday suit, holding by the hand one of the prettiest little children I have ever seen—poor tiny Bessie! She had the sweetest face, so shy and smiling. Two other children and a biggish boy were there; but after Bessie, I noticed chiefly the mother. She was young-looking still, though over thirty-five in age; and remarkable for her extreme neatness and sobriety of dress, together with a gentle placid anxious face—placid and anxious together. That was curious. A rather thin face, but not too thin, not long or bony; with high cheek-bones, and deep-set tender wistful eyes; while the mouth was quiet, yet disposed to be tremulous. Something about Mrs. Murchison won my trust and my liking on the spot.
Only a few words were exchanged between us then; but Bertram said he would find them later on the shore; and he gave me no peace till I promised to have the whole family in to tea in the basement-room. We were still so busy, unpacking and arranging, and the house was in so much confusion, that I confess I did hesitate for a few minutes. It seemed to me that the maids had enough to do. However, I knew they never minded anything if it were for Bertram,—he was always such a favourite,—and I gave way, though only on condition that he would stay quietly indoors till after lunch.
Then he went out with Ellie and Rosamund; and what follows Mrs. Murchison has to a great extent told—better, I am sure, than I could, for she has an extraordinary memory for conversations. I could not repeat one tenth part of what I said to her that sorrowful day; but she says it is all correct. Sometimes I tell her she makes up out of her own head; and then she smiles and shakes the said head, and answers only, "You know better, ma'am." So I do: she is true to the backbone, and her memory is as true as herself.
We had been so short a time in Ermespoint, and so busy while there, as to have had little leisure yet for learning much about it. Ellie and Rose had been down to the beach several times, but only near at hand—except just once, the day before, when old nurse and they went along the shore under the west cliff; and they came back full of the beauty of the place. My husband took a stroll the same way in the evening; and he spoke, on his return, of the remarkable overhanging of the cliffs. But still he had no thought of danger. No warning-boards were up; and it seemed inconceivable that people should be quietly left to run into such peril, without a word being said to hinder them.
We did not know till later that warning-boards had once been up, and had been removed,—nobody could precisely say by whom or for what reason. No doubt it was for the interest of certain bathing-machine owners, that people should not be frightened away; yet if that were all—! One finds it difficult to believe in such selfishness—such recklessness of human life!
However—so things were, and remonstrances had been made by one or two gentlemen living at Ermespoint without avail. My husband's predecessor tried to rouse people to a sense of the danger; but nobody would listen, or at least nobody cared to act. I suppose it was hopeless, until somebody's life should be forfeited, and poor little Bessie was the victim. It might have been all the Murchisons, and all my children, if the landslip had come just half-an-hour earlier, when the whole party were close up under the cliff.