St. John had not suspected the identity of his penitent with the man to whom he owed it, that he wore a girdle round his waist, till the day that Gabrielle came into the church. Poor Gabrielle! It was hard lines for her to be sent off with the cowardly villain, but there seemed no other way to settle the fate of both of them, considering that they were married to each other. A lingering pity filled St. John's heart when he thought of her, and of the terrible fate to which she had bound herself. All this sort of thing is exhausting to the nerves, and no one could begrudge St. John his day and a half of rest by Yellowcoats bay. He and his fellow-workers took very few such days. Their hands were quite full of work, not of a sentimental kind. It takes money to send criminals and their families away to lead new lives in new lands, and money does not always come for the wishing. It takes time and the expenditure of thought to prepare men for the gallows, to get their pardons for them if may be, to smoothe their paths, whichever way they lead; it is good hard work to do these things, and many like them, and takes the flesh off men's bones, and wears out nerves and brains almost as effectually as stocks and speculations But there are men who choose to work in obscurity in a service for which the world offers them no wages—only a very stiff contempt.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SURRENDER.
Missy found herself at home in the country, very sorry to leave her mother, very glad to breathe pure air again, very humble to think how much she objected to bad smells and street noises. St. John and her mother did not seem to take them into account at all, and the Sisters she was sure enjoyed them. Her housekeeping and Aunt Harriet took up a good deal of her time, but it was pretty dull work, and her heart was heavy. It was something of a strain to have to see people and to answer their curious questions; but to tell the truth, Missy was much less ashamed of her brother and her mother since she came back, and chiefly felt the impossibility of making anybody understand the matter. She understood comparatively little herself, but the comfortable rector, "with fat capon lined," the small-souled doctor, the young brood of Olors, the strait-laced Sombreros, the evangelical Eves, how much less could they comprehend. She knew that the keenest interest existed in the whole community regarding their family matters, and that much indignation was felt at the breaking up of the home. There were a great many people who wore inclined to look upon her as a martyr to the fanaticism of her mother and brother, and she would have been overwhelmed with civilities if she had consented to receive them. As it was, she considered every unusual demonstration of regard, as a disapprobation of her mother, and resented it in her heart, and possibly showed much coldness of manner. So she gradually isolated herself, and became daily less a part of the Yellowcoats community.
How odd it was to be so unimportant! Her small housekeeping required so few dependents, contrasted with their former ways. Now that they did not entertain, and that she was neither young nor old, and that illness had kept her from even the ordinary duties of visiting, she had fallen almost entirely out of sight. A very gay family had taken their house, which was now quite a centre of amusement. The Andrews cottage had been occupied by people whose delight it was to be considered swell. They drove all sorts of carts, and sailed all manner of boats, and owned all varieties of dogs. The village gazed at them, and the residents who were entitled to be considered on a visiting equality, called on them, and all united to gratify their ambition to be talked about. At these two houses, poor Missy felt she would be excused from calling. Indeed, no one seemed to notice the omission; it is so easy to sink down into obscurity, and to become nobody. She sometimes felt as if she had died, and had been permitted to come back and see how small a place she had filled, and how little she was missed, to perfect her in humility. After all, St. John and his mother—were they so very wrong? What was it all worth?
Miss Harriet Varian, about these days, was much easier to get along with than in more prosperous ones. Perhaps she was touched by Missy's changed manner and illness; perhaps the insignificance into which they had fallen, had had for her, too, its lesson. And perhaps the spectacle of her sister's faith, had, against her will, shocked her into a study of her own selfish and unlovely life. She had many silent hours now, in which she did not call for Balzac and diversion; she submitted to hear books which she had always refused to listen to. She was less querulous with those around her, less sharp-tongued about her neighbors. She said nothing about St. John and his mother, only listened silently to the news that came of them weekly to Missy. Missy and she understood each other pretty well now; their trouble had drawn them together. In talking, they knew what to avoid, and each considered the other's feelings as never before. Two lonely women in one house, with the same grief to bear, it would have been strange if they had not come together a little, to carry the load.
Goneril had so much more to do nowadays, she was much improved. She had had her choice of going away, or staying to do three times the work she had had to do in the other house. It is difficult to say why she stayed, whether from a sort of attachment to Missy, and pity for Miss Varian, or from a dislike of rupture and change. She had had enough of it herself to know real trouble when she saw it, and she certainly saw it in the two women whom she elected to serve. Her wrath had boiled over vehemently at first. She had been anything but respectful to her employer's form of faith. But that was completely settled, once for all, and she now made no allusion to the matter, at least above stairs. It is quite possible that below she may have had her fling, occasionally, at "popish 'pression." The Sister who nursed Missy during her illness, she had, with difficulty, brought herself to be respectful to, but there was so much of the real nurse in the peppery Goneril, that during long watches they had come to be almost friends.
The summer passed slowly away; the autumn came, and with it, the flight of the summer birds whose strange gay plumage had made her old home so unnatural to Missy. The dog-carts and the beach-carts and the T-carts had all been trundled away; the boat-houses were locked up, the stables emptied; the six months' leases of the two houses were at an end, and quiet came back to the place.