Far Above Rubies

by George MacDonald

Hector knew very well how his mother would regard such an alliance as had now begun to absorb every desire and thought of his heart, and was the more careful to watch and repress every sign of the same, foreseeing that, at the least suspicion of the fact, she would lay all the blame upon Annie, at once dismiss her from the house, and remain forever convinced that she had entered it with the design in her heart to make him fall in love with her. He therefore avoided ever addressing her, except with a distant civility, the easier to him that his mind was known only to himself, while all the time the consciousness of her presence in it enveloped the house in a rosy cloud. For a long time he did not even dream of attempting a word with her alone, fondly imagining that thus he gave his mother time to know and love Annie before discovering anything between them to which she might object. But he did not yet know how incapable that mother was of any simple affection, being, indeed, one of the commonest-minded of women. He believed also that the least attempt to attract Annie’s attention would but scare her, and make her incapable of listening to what he might try to say.

In the meantime, Annie, under the influence of more and better food, and that freedom from care which came of the consciousness that she was doing her best both for her mother and for her own moral emancipation, looked sweeter and grew happier every day; no cloudy sense, no doubt of approaching danger had yet begun to heave an ugly shoulder above her horizon, neither had Hector begun to fret against the feeling that he must not speak to her; in such a silence and in such a presence he felt he could live happy for ages; he moved in a lovely dream of still content.

And it was natural also that he should begin to burgeon spiritually and mentally, to grow and flourish beyond any experience in the past. Within a few such days of hidden happiness, the power of verse, and of thoughts worthy of verse, came upon him with as sure an inspiration of the Almighty as can ever descend upon a man, accompanied by a deeper sense of the being and the presence of God, and a stronger desire to do the will of the Father, which is surely the best thing God himself can kindle in the heart of any man. For what good is there in creation but the possibility of being yet further created? And what else is growth but more of the will of God?

Something fresh began to stir in his mind; even as in the spring, away in far depths of beginning, the sap gives its first upward throb in the tree, and the first bud, as yet invisible, begins to jerk itself forward to break from the cerements of ante-natal quiescence, and become a growing leaf, so a something in Hector that was his very life and soul began to yield to unseen creative impulse, and throb with a dim, divine consciousness. The second evening after thus recognizing its presence he hurried up the stair from the office to his own room, and there, sitting down, began to write—not a sonnet to his charmer, neither any dream about her, not even some sweet song of the waking spring which he felt moving within him, but the first speech of a dramatic poem. It was a bold beginning, but all beginners are daring, if not presumptuous. Hector’s aim was to embody an ideal of check, of rousing, of revival, of new energy and fresh start. All that evening he wrote with running pen, forgot the dinner-bell after its first summons, and went on until Annie knocked at his door, dispatched to summon him to the meal. There was in Hector, indeed, as a small part of the world came by-and-by to know, the making of a real poet, for such there are in the world at all times—yea, even now—although they may not be recognized, or even intended to ripen in the course of one human season. I think Annie herself was one of such—so full was she of receptive and responsive faculty in the same kind, and I remain in doubt whether the genuine enjoyment of verse be not a fuller sign of the presence of what is most valuable in it than even some power of producing it. For Hector, I imagine, it gave strong proof of his being a poet indeed that, when he opened the door to her knock, the appearance of Annie herself, instead of giving him a thrill of pleasure, occasioned him a little annoyance by the evanishment of a just culminating train of thought into the vast and seething void, into which he gazed after it in vain. And Annie herself, although all the time in Hector’s thought, revealed herself only, after the custom of celestials, at the very moment of her disappearance; her message delivered, she went back to her duties at the table; and then first Hector woke to the knowledge that she had been at his door, and was there no more. During the last few days he had been gradually approaching the resolve to keep silence no longer, but be bold and tell Annie how full his heart was of her. One moment he might have done so; one moment more, and he could not!

He followed close upon her steps, but not a word with her was possible, and it seemed to Hector that she sped from him like a very wraith to avoid his addressing her. Had she, then, he asked himself, some dim suspicion of his feelings toward her, or was she but making haste from a sense of propriety?

Now that very morning Mrs. Macintosh had been talking kindly to Annie—as kindly, that is, as her abominable condescension would permit—and, what to Annie was of far greater consequence, had paid her her wages, rather more than she had expected, so that nothing now lay between her and the fall of her burden from her heavy-laden conscience, except, indeed, her preliminary confession. Dinner, therefore, being over, her mistress gone to the drawing room to prepare the coffee, and her master to his room to write a letter suddenly remembered, Hector was left alone with Annie. Whereupon followed an amusing succession of disconnected attempt and frustration. For no sooner had Mr. Macintosh left the room than Annie darted from it after him, and Hector darted after Annie, determined at length to speak to her. When Annie, however, reached the foot of the stair, her master was already up the first flight, and Annie’s courage failing her, she, turning sharply round, almost ran against Hector, who was close behind her. The look of disappointment on her face, to the meaning of which he had no clew, quenching his courage next, he returned in silence to the dining room, where Annie was now hovering aimlessly about the table, until, upon his re-entrance, she settled herself behind Hector’s chair. He turned half-round, and would have said something to her, but, seeing her pale and troubled, he lapsed into a fit of brooding, and no longer dared speak to her. Besides, his mother might come to the dining room at any moment!

Then Annie, thinking she heard her master’s re-descending step, hurried again from the room; but only at once to return afresh, which set Hector wondering yet more. Why on earth should she be lying in ambush for his father? He did not know that she was equally anxious to avoid the eyes of her mistress. And while Annie was anxious to keep her secret from the tongue of Mrs. Macintosh, Hector was as anxious to keep his from the eyes of his mother until a fit moment should arrive for its disclosure. But he imagined, I believe, that Annie saw he wanted to speak to her, and thought she was doing what she could to balk his intention.

But the necessity for disclosure was strongest in Annie, and drove her to encounter what risk might be involved. So when at last she heard a certain step of the stair creak, she darted to the door, and left the room even while the hand of her mistress, coming to say the coffee was ready, was on that which communicated with the drawing room.

“I thought I heard Annie at the sideboard: is she gone?” she said.

“She left the room this moment, I believe,” answered Hector.