Chapter Thirty Eight.
Plans and Experiments.
“I am sick of the hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main.”
Virginia Seyton had spent her Christmas at Littleton, and after returning to London for her cousin Ruth’s marriage, had come home again at the end of January. At Littleton, more than one old friend had advised her to reconsider her resolve to live at Elderthwaite; but Virginia did not feel herself tempted by any proposal of cottage, however charming, or companionship, however congenial. She had been lonely, unhappy, and forlorn at Elderthwaite; but somehow it pulled at her heart-strings. She could not rejoice over all the well-ordered services at Littleton, much as they refreshed her spirits, as she did over the new hymn which she and Mrs Clements drilled into the Elderthwaite children; and she found herself believing, when receiving the correct answers of her former scholars, that there was after all “something” in the north-country intellect, however untrained, that was superior in quality, if not in quantity, to that of the south. When she went back to London, common acquaintances brought her into contact with the Stanforths. She and Ruth went to an evening party at their house, just as Mr Stanforth and Gipsy returned from Spain, and were invited to come afterwards and see the Spanish sketches. Ruth was glad to make all the business that pressed on her an excuse for refusing; but Virginia went, and was happier than she had been for months in hearing Alvar spoken of, and spoken of in terms of praise. Neither girl was conscious of the other’s interest in this meeting—how Gipsy listened to “some one who had known Jack all his life,” how Virginia watched Alvar’s recent companion; but Gipsy’s blushes came in the right place, and in spite of her extreme amaze at the idea of Jack in this new capacity, Virginia guessed where the spark had been lighted, and so could listen fearlessly to the story of the adventures at Ronda, and could look with pleasure at the sketches of which Alvar’s figure was a picturesque element. It was a pleasant peep at a new life linked with her old one.
Ruth’s was a very brilliant wedding. Everything was arranged by her grandmother, and bridesmaids, dresses, breakfast, and even church, were all chosen with exact regard to the correct fashion of the moment. Ruth wished it all to be over that she might find herself away with Rupert; then perhaps she would feel at rest. As it was, their rapid, interrupted surface intercourse tantalised her almost as much as their occasional interviews in the days of secrecy and silence. And when they were alone, Ruth was afraid to go deep. Often had she said, “In my love there shall be perfect confidence; there shall be nothing between my soul and his.” And now her past transgression, however excusable it might seem, erred against this perfect confidence. And Rupert’s “soul” was not at all ready to display itself to her, or to himself either, partly because he was not serious in his emotions, any more than in his principles, but partly also because he not unnaturally considered that when his deeds were satisfactory to Ruth, it was quite unnecessary to analyse his feelings. So she had no encouragement to confidence, and the perfect union for which she had longed, disappointed her, partly through her past falsity, but more from the want of any common aim or principle to unite them. Ruth was fairly happy; but she was the same Ruth still, with a nature that could never be satisfied without earnestness equalling her own, an earnestness from the purity and simplicity of which she had turned aside to seek a sort of consecration of life which only a man of high principle and strong purpose could really have helped her to find, in a love which she thought more powerful because it was more regardless of duty, in which view she did but follow much teaching and many writers.
Ruth did not make the confession which would have set her right with herself if not with Rupert, she had practised too much self-pleasing to find the courage for it. She married; and as life went on her aspirations would either die into the commonplace she had despised, or she might be driven to satisfy them elsewhere than with Rupert.
And Virginia, who equally with Ruth idealised life and its relations, and who also found her ideal unfulfilled—unfulfilled, but not destroyed. She had lost her lover, but the good and holy life which she had thought to lead with him, though its beauty took a sterner cast, was possible without him. Life was not purposeless, though it was very difficult, and poor Virginia was diffident of her own powers, and was, moreover, in many ways ill-fitted to live with those whose views of life were uncongenial to her.
“If I had more tact I should get on better at home; if I had had more patience, more charity, I should not have quarrelled with Alvar,” she thought, and with some truth. But when she came back to Elderthwaite it was coming home. Dick and Harry were glad to see her; her father said it looked cheerful to have her about again; the little housemaid, whom she had taught for an hour on Sundays, was enchanted, and had written copies and learnt hymns in her absence; while she could not but be welcome to her aunt, whom she found suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism, which confined her to her room. Virginia had no natural skill in nursing, and Miss Seyton was not fond of attentions. But, though she was severely uncomplaining, Virginia’s companionship was enlivening, and, moreover, while she was incapacitated, her niece was obliged to manage the house. She had bought enough bitter experience now not to be frightened and startled at the state of things, and she perceived how much Miss Seyton had done to keep things straight. But the young, fresh influence brightened up the old dependents, and she managed, too, to introduce some little comfort. But a piece of home work really within her powers came to her in an unexpected quarter. Dick’s examination was to take place in about six weeks, and she found from Harry that he had been really reading for it, and to her great surprise and pleasure he did not resent her interest in it. Her French, and history, and arithmetic were quite enough in advance of Dick’s to make her aid valuable to him, and finding how much he was behindhand, spite of some honest though fitful efforts, she gave him some lessons with the tutor at Hazelby to whom Bob Lester was sent, and as Dick always brought his papers to her afterwards, there was no question that he actually availed himself of the opportunity.
As for the old parson, he greeted her with a perfect effusion of delight. He had come to love her better than anything in the world except Cheriton, whose illness had been a real sorrow to him. The little improvements had not been allowed to languish—indeed others had been projected. Mr Clements had not been idle. A poor widow, whose continued respectability had certainly been partly owing to her attachment to Mr Seyton’s rival or assistant, “the old Methody,” had a niece who had been trained as a pupil-teacher in a parish belonging to a friend of Mr Ellesmere’s, and, her health failing, the girl had come to live with her aunt. Hence a proposal for a little day-school; and actually a subscription set on foot by Mr Clements.
(This of course took place before the passing of the Education Act.)