The furniture, modern stuff, was sold, every stick of it, and Miss Toller rejoiced when the spring sofa and chairs which had been devoted to Poulters and Goachers and Taggarts were piled up in the vans. The nightmares of fifteen years hid themselves in the mats and carpets.
Helen and she standing at the dresser ate their last meal in the dingy kitchen of Russell House. It was nothing but sandwiches, but it was the most delicious food they had tasted there. It is a mistake if you are old to go back to the village in which you were born and bred. Ghosts meet you in every lane and look out from the windows. There are new names on the signboard of the inn and over the grocer"s shop. A steam-engine has been put in the mill, and the pathway behind to the mill dam and to the river bank has been closed. The people you see think you are a visitor. The church is restored, and there is a brand new Wesleyan chapel. Better stay where you are and amuse yourself by trying to make flowers grow in your little, smoky, suburban back-garden. But Miss Toller and Helen were not too old. Mr. Toller met them at the station with a four- wheeled chaise. Before the train had quite stopped, Helen caught sight of somebody standing by the cart which was brought for the luggage. "It"s Tom! it"s Tom!" she screamed; and it was Tom himself, white-headed now and a little bent. She insisted on walking with him by the side of his horse the whole four miles to their journey"s end. He was between forty and fifty when she went away and had been with Mr. Toller ever since--"tried a bit at times," he confessed, "with the second missus." "She"s with G.o.d, let us hope," said Tom, "and we"ll leave her alone."
They came to Barton Sluice. Flat and unadorned are the fields there, and the Nen is slow, but it was their own land, they loved it, and they were at rest. They fell into their former habits, and the talk of crops, of markets, of the weather, and of their neighbours was sweet. Mrs. Mudge and Miss Everard came now and then to see them in summer time, and when Mr. Toller slept with his fathers, his daughter and Helen remained at the farm and managed it between them.
ESTHER
BLACKDEEP FEN, 24th November 1838.
My Dear Esther,--This is your birthday and your wedding-day, and I have sent you a cake and a knitted cross-over, both of which I have made myself. I can still knit, although my eyes fail a bit. I hope the cross-over will be useful during the winter. Tell me, my dear, how you are. Twenty-eight years ago it is since you came into the world. It was a dark day with a cold drizzling rain, but at eleven o"clock at night you were born, and the next morning was bright with beautiful sunshine. Some people think that Blackdeep must always be dreary at this time of year, but they are wrong. I love the Fen country. It is my own country. This house, as you know, has belonged to your father"s forefathers for two hundred years or more, and my father"s old house has been in our family nearly as long. I could not live in London; but I ought not to talk in this way, for I hold it to be wrong to set anybody against what he has to do. Your brother Jim is the best of sons. He sits with me in the evening and reads the paper to me. He goes over to Ely market every week. He has his dinner at the ordinary, where many of the company drink more than is good for them, but never once has he come home the worse for liquor. I had a rare fright a little while ago. I thought there was something between him and one of those Stanton girls at Ely. I saw she was trying to catch him. It is all off now. She is a town girl, stuck-up, spends a lot of money on her clothes, and would have been no wife for Jim. She would not have been able to put her hand to anything here. She might have broken my heart, for she would have tried to draw Jim away from me. I don"t believe, my dearest child, in wedded love which lessens the love for father and mother.
When you were going to be married what agony I went through! It was so wicked of me, for it was jealousy with no cause. I thank G.o.d you love me as much as ever. I wish I could see you again at Homerton, but the journey made me so ill last winter that I dare not venture just yet.--Your loving mother,
RACHEL SUTTON.
HOMERTON, 27th Nov. 1838.
My Dearest Mother,--The cake was delicious: it tasted of Blackdeep, and the cross-over will be most useful. It will keep me warm on cold days, and the love that came with it will thicken the wool.
But, mother, it is not a month ago since you sent me the stockings.
You are always at work for me. You are just like father. He gave us things not only on birthdays, but when we never looked out for them. Do you remember that week when wheat dropped three shillings a quarter? He had two hundred quarters which he might have sold ten days earlier. He was obliged to sell them at the next market and lost thirty pounds, but he had seen at Ely that day a little desk, and he knew I wanted a desk, and he bought it for me with a fishing- rod and landing-net for Jim.
My husband said he could not think of anything I needed and wrote me a cheque for two pounds.
O! that you could come here, and yet I am certain you must not. My heart aches to have you. In my day-dreams I go over the long miles to Blackdeep, through Ware, through Royston, through Cambridge, through every village, and then I feel how far away you are. I turned out of the room the other day the chair in which you always sat. I could not bear to see it empty. Charles noticed it had gone and ordered it to be brought back. He may have suspected the reason why I put it upstairs. My dearest, dearest mother, never fear that my affection for you can become less. Sometimes after marriage a woman loves her mother more than she ever loved her before.
It is a black fog here and not a breath of air is stirring. How different are our fogs at Blackdeep! They may be thick, but they are white and do not make us miserable. I never shall forget when I was last in Fortyacres and saw the mist lying near the river, and the church spire bright in the sunlight. The churchyard and the lower part of the church were quite hidden.
What a mercy Jim was not trapped by Dolly, for I suppose it was she.
Jim is not the first she has tried to get. You are quite right.
She might have broken your heart, and I am sure she would have broken Jim"s, for she is as hard as a millstone.--Your loving child,
ESTHER.
BLACKDEEP FEN, 3rd December 1838.
Your letter made me feel unhappy. I am afraid something is on your mind. What is the matter? I was not well before I went to Homerton the last time, but maybe it was not London that upset me. If you cannot leave, I shall come. Let me hear by the next post.
HOMERTON, 5th December 1838.
I told Charles I was expecting you. He said that your sudden determination seemed odd. "Your mother," he added, "is a woman who acts upon impulses. She ought always to take time for consideration. This is hardly the proper season for travelling." I asked him if he would let me go to Blackdeep. He replied that, unless there was some particular reason for it, my proposal was as unwise as yours. What am I to do? A particular reason! It is a particular reason that I pine for my mother. Can there be any reason more particular than a longing for the sight of a dear face, for kisses and embraces? You must counsel me.
BLACKDEEP, 15th December 1838.
As Charles imagines I am carried away by what he calls impulses, I did not answer your letter at once, and I have been thinking as much as I can. I am not a good hand at it. Your dear father had a joke against me. "Rachel, you can"t think; but never mind, you can do much better without thinking than other people can with it." I wish I had gone straight to you at once, and yet it was better I did not.
It would have put Charles out, and this would not have been pleasant for either you or me. I would not have you at Blackdeep now for worlds. The low fever has broken out, and to-day there were two funerals. Parson preached a sermon about it; it was a judgment from G.o.d. Perhaps it is, but why did it take your father three years ago? It is all a mystery, and it looks to me sometimes as if here on earth there were nothing but mystery. I have just heard that parson is down with the fever himself.
Do let me have a long letter at once.
HOMERTON, 20th December 1838.
A Mrs. Perkins has been here. She sat with me for an hour. She spends her afternoons in going her rounds among her friends, as she calls them, but she does not care for them, nor do they care for her. She looks and speaks like a woman who could not care for anybody, and yet perhaps there may be somewhere a person who could move her.
I am so weary of the talk of my neighbours. It is so different from what we used to have at Blackdeep. Oh me! those evenings when father came in at dark, and Mr. and Mrs. Thornley came afterwards and we had supper at eight, and father and Mr. Thornley smoked their pipes and drank our home-brewed ale and we had all the news--how much Mr. Thornley had got for his malt, how that pig-headed old Stubbs wouldn"t sell his corn, and how when he began to thresh it and the ferrets were brought, a hundred rats were killed and bushels of wheat had been eaten.
You ask me what is the matter. I do not deny I am not quite happy, but it would be worse than useless to dwell upon my unhappiness and try to give you reasons for it. London, in the winter, most likely does not suit me. I shall certainly see you in the spring, and then I hope I shall be better.
BLACKDEEP FEN, Christmas Day, 1838.
As a rule it is right to hide our troubles, but it is not right that you should hide yours from me. You are my firstborn child and my only daughter. There are girls who are very good, but between their mothers and them there is a wall. They do what they are bid; they are kind, but that is all. They live apart from those that bore them. I would not give a straw for such duty and love. I gathered one of our Christmas roses this morning. We have taken great care to keep them from being splashed and spoilt. There was not a speck on it. I put it in water and could not take my eyes off it. Its white flower lay spread open and I could look right down into it. I thought of you. When you were a little one--ay, and after you were out of short frocks--you never feared to show me every thought in your mind, you always declared that if you had wished to hide anything from me, it would have been of no use to try. What a blessing that was to me! How dreadful it would be if, now that you are married, you were to change! I am sure you will not and cannot.
HOMERTON, 1st January 1839.
The New Year! What will happen before the end of it? I feel as if it must be something strange. I have just read your last letter again, and I cannot hold myself in. My dearest mother, I confess I am wretched. It might be supposed that misery like mine would express itself with no effort, but it is not so: it would be far easier to describe ordinary things. I am afraid also to talk about it, lest that which is dim and shapeless should become more real.
Since the day we were married Charles and I have never openly quarrelled. He is really good: he spends his evenings at home and does not seem to desire entertainment elsewhere. He likes to see me well-dressed and does not stint in house expenditure, although he examines it carefully and pays a good many of the bills himself by cheque. He has been promoted to be manager of the bank, and takes up his new duties to-day. Mrs. Perkins, whose husband is one of the partners, told me that he had said that there is n.o.body in the bank equal to Charles for sound sense and business ability; that everything with which he has to do goes right; he is always calm, never in a hurry, and never betrayed into imprudence. This I can well believe. As you know, Jim asked him a month ago in much excitement for advice about Fordham, who owed him 200 pounds. Jim had heard there was something wrong. Charles put the letter in the desk and did not mention it to me again till a week afterwards, when he asked me to tell Jim the next time I wrote to Blackdeep that he need not worry himself, as Fordham was quite safe. It is certainly a comfort to a woman that her husband is a strong man and that he is much respected by his employers. Of what have I to complain? O mother, life here is so dull! This is not the right word; it is common, but if you can fill it up with my meaning, there is no better. It will then be terrible. There is hardly a flower in the garden, although not a weed is permitted. The sooty laurels unchanging through winter and summer I hate. Some flowers I am sure would grow, but Charles does not care for them. Neatness is what he likes, and if the beds are raked quite smooth, if the gra.s.s is closely shaven and trimmed and not a grain of gravel in the path is loose, he is content. He cannot endure the least untidiness in the house. If papers are left lying loosely about, he silently puts them evenly together. He brings all his office ways into the dining-room; the pens must never be put aside unwiped and the ink- bottles must be kept filled to a certain height. We do not get much sun at any time of day in Homerton, and we face the west. Charles wishes the blinds to be drawn when it shines, so that it may not fade the curtains. We have few books excepting Rees"s cyclopaedia, and they are kept in a glazed case. If I look at one I have to put it back directly I have done with it. I saw this place before I was married, but it did not look then as it looks now, and I did not comprehend how much Blackdeep was a part of me. The front door always open in daytime, the hollyhocks down to the gate, the strawberry beds, the currant and gooseberry bushes, the lilacs, roses, the ragged orchard at the back, the going in and out without "getting ready," our living-room with Jim"s pipes and tobacco on the mantel-shelf, his gun over it, his fishing-tackle in the corner--I little understood that such things and the ease which is felt when our surroundings grow to us make a good part of the joy of life.
When I came to Blackdeep for my holiday and lifted the latch, it was just as if a stiff, tight band round my chest dropped from me. I have nothing to do here. We keep three servants indoors. I would much rather have but two and help a little myself. They are good servants, and the work seems to go by mechanism without my interference. I suggested to Charles that, as they were not fully employed, we should get rid of one, but he would not consent. He preferred, he said, paid service. To me the dusting of my room, paring apples, or the cooking of any little delicacy, is not service. The cook asks for orders in the morning; the various dishes are properly prepared; but if I were Charles, and my wife understood her business, I should like to taste her hand in them. I never venture into the kitchen. "The advantage of paid service,"
added Charles, "is that if it is inefficient you can reprimand or dismiss." Nothing in me finds exercise. I want to work, to laugh, to expect. There was always something going on at Blackdeep, no two days alike. I never got up in the morning knowing what was before me till bedtime. That outlook too from my window, how I miss it!-- the miles and miles of distance, the rainbow arch in summer complete to the ground, the sunlight, the stormy wind, the stars from the point overhead to the horizon far away--I hardly ever see them here.
You will exclaim "Is this all?" If you were here you would think it enough, but it-- The clock is striking one. Charles is to be at home to lunch. He is going to buy the house and is to meet the owner this afternoon, an old man who lives about ten minutes" walk from us. Charles thinks the purchase will be a good investment and that another house might be built on part of the garden.
BLACKDEEP, 15th January 1839.
I am not surprised you find London dull, but I grieve that it has taken such an effect on you. I hoped that, as you are young, you would get used to the bricks and mortar and the smoke.
Jim came in and I had to stop. The Lynn coach is set fast in the snow near the turnpike at the top of our lane, and he is going to help dig it out. I will take up my pen again. You are no worse off than thousands of country girls who are obliged to live in streets narrower than those in Homerton. I cannot help boding you are not quite free with me. I do beseech you to hide nothing. There must even now be something the matter beyond what I have heard. I cannot say any more at present. My head is in a whirl. May be you will have a child. That will make all the difference to you.
HOMERTON, 20th January 1839.
How shall I begin? I must tell the whole truth. Mother, mother, I have made a great mistake, the one great mistake of life. I have mistaken the man with whom I am to live. Charles and I were engaged for two years. I have discovered nothing new in him. I was familiar with all his ways and thought them all good. I compared him with other men who were extravagant and who had vices, and I considered myself fortunate. He was cool, but how much better it was to be so than to have a temper, for I should never hear angry words from him which cannot be forgotten? I remembered how measured my uncle Robert"s speech was, how quiet he was, and yet no two human beings could have been more devoted to one another than uncle and aunt. Charles"s quietude seemed so like uncle"s. Charles was very methodical. He always came to see me on the same days, at the same hours, and stayed the same time. It provoked me at first, but I said to myself that he was not a creature of fits and starts and that I could always depend on him.
He always kissed me when we met and when we parted. I do not remember that he ever had me in his arms, and I never felt he was warm and eager when we were alone together; but I had heard of men and women who married for what they called love, and in a twelvemonth it had vanished and there was nothing left. Of many small particulars I took but little notice. When we chose the furniture I wanted bright-coloured curtains, but he did not like them and bought dark red, gloomy stuff. I tried to think they were the best because they would not show the London dirt. I had a bonnet with scarlet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs which suited my black hair, but he asked me to change them for something more sober, because they made me conspicuous. Again I thought he was right, and that what might do for the country might not be proper in town. Trifles! and yet to me now what a meaning they have! Two years--and everything is changed, although, as I have just said, I have found out nothing new! The quietude is absence of emotion, different in its root from uncle Robert"s serenity. It is the deadly sameness of a soul to which nothing is strange and wonderful and a woman"s heart is not so interesting as an advertis.e.m.e.nt column in the newspaper. He never cares to look into mine. I do not pretend that there is anything remarkable in it, but if he were to open it he would find something worth having. This absence of curiosity to explore what is in me kills me. What must the bliss of a wife be when her husband searches her to her inmost depths, when she sees tender questions in his eyes, when he asks her DO YOU REALLY FEEL SO? and she looks at him and replies AND YOU? I could endure the uneventfulness of outward life if anything not unpleasant HAPPENED between me and Charles. Nothing happens. Something happens in my relationship to my dog. I pat him and he is pleased; he barks for joy when I go out. I cannot live with anybody with whom I am always on exactly the same even terms--no rising, no falling, mere stagnation. I am dead, but it is death without its sleep and peace. Fool, fool that I was! I cannot go on. What shall I do? If Charles drank I might cure or tolerate him; if he went after another woman I might win him back. I can lay hold of nothing.
A child? Ah no! I have longed unspeakably for a child sometimes, but not for one fathered by him.