And while Lilias began to move about the house in the new strength, which, she fancied, arose from a resolve to exert herself and show her gratitude to her friends, Helen went quickly down the Waterside to her daily labour. Her quick, nervous, tell-tale motions seemed to have been subdued in presence of the mourner, and her face looked paler and quieter than was its wont. That varying temperament of hers had a strange facility of catching the tone of the atmosphere in which she was, and wearing it unconsciously as the sky wears the clouds. The happy good-morrow twitterings—not songs—of the birds among the dewy glistening leaves confused the stronger voice of the wan water, and filled all the fresh morning air with inarticulate music—cheerful sounds came through the intervening trees from Fendie. Children, yonder, on the high-road began to flock out of the cottage doors to school. Scarcely any heart could refuse to rise with the buoyant upspringing new day; but along the green, soft path, and through this plain of long waving grass by the side of the bridge, Helen Buchanan went quietly with a dimness on her face.
She had cares and bitternesses enough, as she said. William Oswald was still in Edinburgh; he had not been home even for a day; but the Reverend Robert had learned with inexpressible surprise and considerable pain that the young schoolmistress of Fendie did not choose to accept the dignified position to which he had elected her. It was almost the first rebuff he had met with since the triumphant beginning of his career, and he was a mortal young man, though he was a minister, and felt the mortification of being rejected to its fullest extent. So the Reverend Robert concealed the disappointment of the true honest feelings which did him honour under a veil of pique and pride. He could not manage to be indifferent, yet in his manner, when he accidentally met her, and in his attempt at indifference, was almost rude to Helen. Her sensitive pride began to rise again in full tide; people had begun to notice her for the sake of the minister, who now believing, as thoughtless malice said, that the minister had changed his mind and withdrawn in time, withdrew too, and marked the change: and Mrs Buchanan’s little quiet house fell into its old loneliness once more.
And the old weariness came sometimes back, and forlorn bitter thoughts swelled sometimes again about the changing heart. It was the penalty she paid for her power to endure and to enjoy.
So she went to her usual labour, and worked at it as she had worked for years; but other schools were rising in Fendie, where the little daughters of the masons and joiners and seamen of the good town could acquire a greater stock of accomplishments than Helen professed—where the fancy-work flourished in a perfect luxuriance of patterns, and the sober “whiteseam,” which was poor Helen’s staple, was thrust aside in disgrace. Helen was so foolish as to have an opinion on this subject; she had a good deal of wilfulness about her, it must be confessed; she thought it an honourable craft for those small maidens of hers, the manufacture of garments for their various homes; but was somewhat impatient of the tawdry prettinesses after which their ambition yearned.
It did her a little harm this weakness of aesthetical feeling; she thought of the natural fitness and propriety, and they gave her no thanks; and so it chanced that Helen got few new scholars. She felt the evils of competition; as her elder girls dropped off with their quota of education completed, younger ones did not come in to fill up the declining numbers, even when the young schoolmistress having discovered her error began not very willingly to amend it. Mrs Buchanan was beginning to look very sad and careworn; the steps of the coming wolf were already at the door.
The half year’s rent would soon be due, and the mother and daughter, in their anxious consultations, could by no means see where it was to come from. And the banker Oswald was their landlord; the gentle widow and the proud, sensitive Helen were at one in that point; there was nothing that they would not rather do than delay their payment by a single day.
Mrs Buchanan’s little portion was very attenuated now; the expenses of her husband’s illness and death had nearly swallowed it up, and the remnant was in the form of bank shares; but the very meagre dividend which this little capital yielded yearly was not above half what was necessary for this dreaded rent. The good mother painfully hoarded the little stock of school-fees; painfully expended what was absolutely needed—and lay awake far into the night and started again before the sun was up, calculating that sad arithmetic which could not issue in anything but a failure—laboriously trying to bring together the two ends which would not meet.
So Helen needed the natural spring and buoyant life of her temperament as much as Lilias did the gentle human touch of hope: their sorrows were apportioned to them by the same Hand which did so diversely create their spirits. Lilias had been very patient, until this wild light of hope broke in upon her still dead sorrow; and now Helen was bravely fighting against the cold incoming tide of neglect and poverty; holding up a high heart above the waves, and keeping as she could, unwetted by the chill spray about her, the wings of her strong life.
The banker Oswald was looking on; he had managed to ascertain so much of their need, and means, and mode of life as would have added bitterness to their struggle had Mrs Buchanan or her daughter known of it; and with singular interest and even some excitement, as he might have looked at a strong swimmer contending with the stronger current, the obstinate man looked on. To see these women battling so stoutly with a tide more powerful than that under which Walter Buchanan had sunk in his mid-day; to observe how Helen bore her fall from the temporary elevation which the minister’s attentions had procured for her, and went upon her way alone in her own unconscious dignity, so open to all kindnesses, still, and with the frank, clear skies of youth constantly breaking through the clouds of injured pride—no thought of coming to the rescue entered the mind of the banker, but there were no two persons in Fendie, out of his own household, whom he observed with half the interest which fascinated him to these. He fancied William had altogether forgotten the poor schoolmistress, and while he was entirely satisfied that such should be the case, a certain shade of contempt for this, obtruded itself into the pride with which he regarded the rising name of his son: but had William suddenly presented himself to ask the banker’s consent, as he had done before, the answer would still have been the same; he was still determined, unchangeable, bound by the resolution which nothing should break—never!
“I do not know what to say to Lilias, mother,” said Helen, as in the afternoon she prepared to return to Mossgray, where Mrs Buchanan was to accompany her. “You will know—I cannot speak to her of this, for it would be terrible to lead her to hope, and then have that dreary blank of disappointment return again—and such disappointment! It is not like our troubles—troubles which could be almost altogether removed by what would be a very little matter to Mossgray; but Lilias has a heavier burden than we have.”