“Different people,” said Charles, “see things in a different light. Mr Rathbone has not experienced these dangers, because he has made his fortune by commerce, not by war. Besides, I must think Mr Rathbone a very rare instance of the power of principle against temptation. There are few indeed who spend their Indian wealth so generously for others, though every one who goes out with any principle to direct him, hopes that he shall be able to hold a straight course, though almost all others have gone astray. I could not, neither, I am sure, could you, encourage this confidence with respect to Alfred. If he were to be separated from us for five years before he left England, and were to have no prospect of seeing us again for twenty or thirty years, how weak would be the family ties, and how easily chilled the family affection on which we should wish to depend as a safeguard to higher principles! And as to those higher principles, we could have little influence in forming or strengthening them: we must, at the end of one other year, commit them to the care of strangers. How little knowledge we could have of them; how little confidence that they could be firm enough to resist the attacks of temptations, renewed from day to day, under which the strong have sunk, and before which the fortified have given way.”
“But Charles, my dear Charles, is this all true? Are you sure there is no mistake? If but one hundredth part were true, I would not hesitate for a moment.”
“Ask those who know, dear Jane: let us ask Mr Barker. Let us tell our thoughts to Mr Rathbone himself. This is too important a matter to be decided on our own judgments, without further knowledge; but Mr Barker’s knowledge of the fate of many youths who have been sent out to India, will, I believe, lead him to encourage us in declining Mr Rathbone’s offer. Whatever we may think of the offer itself, Jane, we must not forget the generosity which has been shewn in making it.”
“Certainly,” said Jane, “it will be very difficult to express our sense of such kindness; and more so still to decline it: but I hope they will understand and even approve our feeling about it.”
The brother and sister then talked over other circumstances connected with their affairs. Charles asked whether any new plan was in view for the girls to earn a little more money. Jane smiled, and said that Isabella had not been idle, but that what she had attempted was yet unfinished, and that if Charles had not visited them, he would have known nothing of the matter till the work was completed. The thing was this: a French lady who had been staying at Mr Everett’s in the autumn, had shewn Jane an elegant little French work on plants. A variety of flowers were arranged according to various peculiarities, which had caused them to be adopted as emblems, some of royalty, others of natural or moral qualities, etcetera. There were plates of many of the flowers, some well executed, others very indifferently. It struck Jane at once that Isabella might translate this work, and she borrowed it of the French lady, that they might examine it at home. They thought, on close examination, that the work might be improved in the translation: that various floral emblems might be added, and that drawings, very superior to the plates of the work, might increase its value. When Jane returned the book, she asked its owner whether it had been translated into English. The reply was, that the original work had only been published a few weeks, and could not yet be well known in England. This determined Isabella at once to make the trial. The drawings were the most important and the most difficult part; but by the interest and assistance of a few friends, Isabella obtained access to some excellent botanical works and plates. Many, indeed most of the flowers, she was able to draw from nature during the eight months that the work was in progress; and where the flowers were so rare as to be out of her reach altogether, there was nothing to be done but to copy from the plates of the original work. With the translation she took great pains, and here Jane helped her. Jane had an excellent and well-cultivated taste, and she was therefore well fitted to judge of style, and she assisted Isabella to re-write and polish her translation, till no foreign idiom could be detected, and till there was no trace of the stiffness or poverty which characterises most versions from the French. When this was done, Jane, who wrote a much better hand than Isabella, transcribed it, by degrees, as the drawings were finished, one by one, so that the work was complete as far as it went. At this time, only four drawings and about twelve pages of copying remained to be done, and then it was to try its fate in the hands of a London bookseller.
Charles was delighted with the plan, as Jane described it; but she would not let him see the work till Isabella was present. She said that if it did not answer she should be quite grieved, for that it had been the object of chief interest to Isabella for many months, and she had been unwearied in her application to it during all her leisure hours in that time. They could form no idea of the sum it ought to bring them; but Jane said she would not take less than ten guineas, and she hoped for more. Charles shook his head, and was afraid she expected too much; but he promised to take charge of it when he returned, if it could be finished by that time, and to do all in his power to dispose of it advantageously. He then enquired whether the five guineas which they had already earned remained untouched; and on being told that it was to lie by till they were rich enough to purchase a piano, or till some unforeseen emergency should call it into use, he presented his own five pound note to Jane to add to the little fund.
Jane was most unwilling to receive the fruits of his labour and self-denial; but she knew that he spoke the truth when he said that no other use to which he could apply it would give him half so much pleasure. It gave him pleasure, he said, to think that they had a little sum of their own to go to, instead of having to apply to their friends in case of sickness, family mourning, or any other incidental expense likely to occur in a family consisting of several members, and widely, though distantly, connected with many more. “It is not being over-prudent, Jane; it is not being worldly-minded, I hope, to think in this way, is it?”
“I think not,” replied Jane. “I am often afraid of becoming so, I assure you, and I try to keep this fear in mind from day to day. At present, however, we have been led on so easily, our path has been so smoothed for us, that it seems hardly possible that we should be unmindful who it is that has disposed all things for us. Now I am reminded, day by day, how grateful I ought to be: if I become worldly, it will more probably be when I have greater labours and anxieties to undergo. If we can meet in this way, dear Charles, from time to time, it will be as strong a safeguard against worldliness as we can have.”
In the course of the morning Charles called on his Quaker travelling companion, and gave him an account of the night which he had passed with poor Monteath, and of the circumstances under which he had left his charge. The excellent man was much interested, and said he wished that he could himself have remained, and saved Charles the pain of these anxious hours.
“My wife,” said he, “was saved much fear by my speedy arrival, I hope thy friends had no fear for thee?”