Chapter Forty.
Lightsome Days.
Before he returned home in the morning, Hope went to Dr Levitt’s, to report of what he had seen and heard on Mr Grey’s premises in the course of the night. He was persuaded that several persons had been about the yards; and he had seen a light appearing and disappearing among the shrubs which grew thick in the rear of the house. Sydney and he had examined the premises this morning, in company with Mr Grey’s clerk; and they had found the flower-beds trampled, and drops of tallow from a candle which had probably been taken out of a lantern, and ashes from tobacco-pipes, scattered under the lee of a pile of logs. Nothing was missed from the yards: it was probable that they were the resort of persons who had been plundering elsewhere: but the danger from fire was so great, and the unpleasantness of having such night neighbours so extreme, that the gentlemen agreed that no time must be lost in providing a watch, which would keep the premises clear of intruders. The dog, which had by some means been cajoled out of his duty, must be replaced by a more faithful one; and Dr Levitt was disposed to establish a patrol in the village.
The astonishment of both was great when Margaret appeared, early as it was, with her story. It was the faint hope of recovering her ring which brought her thus early to the magistrate’s. Her brother was satisfied to stay and listen, when he found that Hester knew as yet nothing of the matter. It was a clear case that the Greys must find some other guardian for the nights that Mr Grey spent from home; and Dr Levitt said that no man was justified in leaving his family unprotected for a single night in such times as these. He spoke with the deepest concern of the state of the neighbourhood this winter, and of his own inability to preserve security, by his influence either as clergyman or magistrate. The fact was, he said, that neither law nor gospel could deter men from crime, when pressed by want, and hardened against all other claims by those of their starving families. Such times had never been known within his remembrance; and the guardians of the public peace and safety were almost as much at their wits’ end as the sickly and savage population they had to control. He must to-day consult with as many of his brother magistrates as he could reach, as to what could be done for the general security and relief.
As Hope and Margaret returned home to breakfast, they agreed that their little household was more free to discharge the duties of such a time than most of their neighbours of their own rank could possibly be. They had now little or nothing of which they could be robbed. It was difficult to conceive how they could be further injured. They might now, wholly free from fear and self-regards, devote themselves to forgive and serve their neighbours. Such emancipation from care as is the blessing of poverty, even more than of wealth, was theirs; and, as a great blessing in the midst of very tolerable evil, they felt it. Margaret laughed, as she asked Edward if he could spare a few pence to buy horn spoons in the village, as all the silver ones were gone.
Hester was not at all too much alarmed or disturbed, when she missed her watch, and heard what had happened. She was chiefly vexed that she had slept through it all. It seemed so ridiculous that the master of the house should be safe at a distance, and the mistress comfortably asleep, during such an event, leaving it to sister, maid, and guest, to bear all the terror of it!
Dr Levitt’s absence of mind did not interfere with the activity of his heart, or with his penetration in cases where the hearts of others were concerned. He perceived that the lost turquoise was, from some cause, inestimable to Margaret, and he spared no pains to recover it: but weeks passed on without any tidings of it. Margaret told herself that she must give up this, as she had given up so much else, with as much cheerfulness as she could; but she missed her ring every hour of the day.
Christmas came; and the expected contest took, place about the rent of the corner-house. Mr Rowland showed his lady the bank-notes on the morning of quarter-day, and then immediately and secretly sent them back. Mrs Rowland had never been so sorry to see bank-notes; yet she would have been so angry at their being returned, that her husband concealed the fact from her. Within an hour the money was in Mr Rowland’s hands again, with a request that he would desist from pressing favours upon those who could not but consider them as pecuniary obligation, and not as justice. Mr Rowland sighed, turned the key of his desk upon the money, and set forth to the corner-house, to see whether no repairs were wanted—whether there was nothing that he could do as landlord to promote the comfort and security of his excellent tenants.
Christmas came; and Morris found she could not leave her young ladies while the days were so very short. She would receive no wages after Christmas, and she would take care that she cost them next to nothing; but she could not be easy to go till brighter days—days externally brighter, at least—were at hand, nor till the baby was a little less tender, and had shown beyond dispute that he was likely to be a stout little fellow. She could not think of Miss Margaret getting up quite in the dark, to light the fire; it was a dismal time to begin such a new sort of work. Margaret privately explained to her that these little circumstances brought no discouragement to persons who undertake such labour with sufficient motive; and Morris admitted this. She saw the difference between the case of a poor girl first going to service, who trembles half the night at the idea of her mistress’s displeasure if she should not happen to wake in time; such poor girl undertaking service for a maintenance, and by no means from love in either party towards the other—Morris saw the difference between the morning waking to such a service and Margaret’s being called from her bed by love of those whom she was going to serve through the day, and by an exhilarating sense of honour and duty. Morris saw that, while to the solitary dependant every accessory of cheerfulness is necessary to make her willingly leave her rest—the early sunshine through her window, and the morning songs of birds—it mattered little to Margaret under what circumstances she went about her business—whether in darkness or in light, in keen frost or genial warmth. She had the strength of will, in whose glow all the disgust, all the meanness, all the hardship of the most sordid occupations is consumed, leaving unimpaired the dignity and delight of toil. Morris saw and fully admitted all this; and yet she stayed on till the end of January.