CHAPTER XXVI.
"Wanted, by a young person, aged 17, a situation as companion to aninvalid or elderly lady. Salary not so much an object as a comfortablehome in a pious family. Address, A. B., Post Office, Naullan, N.W."
This is the modest form in which Miss Craven's desire for work comesbefore the public. She had begged earnestly for the expunging of the"pious family."
"It is not true, Mrs. Brandon," she says, with vexed tears in her eyes;"it is nothing to me whether they are pious or not--the salary is farthe greatest object."
"If it is, my dear, it ought not to be," answers promptly Mrs. Brandon,who, having paid for the insertion of the advertisement, thinks thatshe has a right to word it as she wishes.
And now it has gone forth through the length and breadth of thecivilized world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic Poles--has found itsway into clubs and cafes, hotels and private houses, numerous as thesea-sand grains, in the overgrown advertisement sheet of the _Times_.To not one in ten thousand of that journal's millions of readers is itmore interesting than any other announcement in the long columns of--
"Wanted, a cook."
"Wanted, a cook."
"Wanted, a good plain cook."
"Wanted, a footman."
"Wanted, a footman."
A companionship, then, is what has been decided upon as the vocationto which Esther is best suited: it requires neither French nor German,neither astronomy nor the use of the globes: it demands only a patienceout-Jobing Job, a meekness out-Mosesing Moses, a capacity for eatingdirt greater than that of any _parvenu_ struggling into society,health and spirits more aggressively strong than a schoolboy's, and apliability greater than an osier's. These qualities being supposed tobe more quickly acquirable than music, drawing, and languages, Estherhas decided upon entering on the office that will call for the exerciseof them all.
Besides the printed advertisement above quoted, Mrs. Brandon has beenadvertising largely in private, by means of many long-winded epistles;has been seeking far and wide among the circle of her acquaintancefor some grey maid, wife, or widow, in the tending of whose haggard,peevish age Esther may waste her sweet, ripe youth, unassailedby wicked men, in safe, respectable misery. And meanwhile Estherwaits--waits through the fog-shrouded, sun-forgotten November days,through the eternal black November nights,--waits, straying lonelyalong the steaming tree-caverned wood-paths--the solemn charnels of thedead summer nations of leaves and flowers.
Preachers are fond of drawing a parallel between us and those forestleaves; telling us that, as in the autumn they fall, rot, aredissolved, and mingle together, stamped down and shapeless, in brownconfusion, and yet in the spring come forth again, fresh as ever; soshall we--who, in our autumn, die, rot, and are not--come forth againin our distant spring, in lordly beauty and gladness. So speaking,whether thinkingly or unthinkingly, they equivocate--they lie! It isnot the _same_ leaves that reappear; others _like_ them burst fromtheir sappy buds, and burgeon in the "green-haired woods;" but _not_they--_not_ they! They stir not, nor is there any movement among thesodden earth-mass that was _them_. If the parallel be complete, otherslike us--others as good, as fair, as we! but yet _not we_--other thanus, shall break forth in lusty youth, in their strong May-time; _butwe_ shall rot on!
"Oh touching, patient earth, That weepest in thy glee; Whom God created very good, And very mournful we!"
how much longer can you bear the weight of all your dead children, thatlie so heavy on your mother breast!
* * * * *
One morning, on joining the Brandon family before prayers, Esther findsMrs. Brandon reading aloud a letter; but on Esther's entrance shedesists. Hearing her voice stop, the young girl comes forward eagerly.
"Is it about me?" she asks, panting, forgetting her morning salutations.
"Yes, Esther," replies Mrs. Brandon, laconically, continuing to read,but this time to herself.
Esther walks to the window, drums on the rain-beaten pane, returns tothe table; takes up the bread-knife, and begins to chip bits of crustoff the loaf; sits down, gets up again; then, unable to contain herselfany longer, cries out, hastily, "Will it do?--will it do?"
"If you will give me time, my dear, to finish this letter in peace, Ishall have a better chance of being able to tell you," answers the oldlady, drily.
Esther sits down again, snubbed; and then the door opens, and the threemiddle-aged, quakerish maid-servants make their sober entry, each withbible and hymnal in her hand; and the long exposition, the eight-versedhymn, and extempore prayer set in. To Esther's ears, all the words ofexposition, hymn, and prayer seem to be, "Will it do?--will it do?"
"I have received a letter," begins Mrs. Brandon, slowly addressingEsther, when the "exercise" is ended, "from a valued Christian friendof mine, who has lately met with a lady and gentleman considerablyadvanced in life, who are on the look-out for a----"
"Companion?" interrupted Esther, breathlessly.
"For a young person who may supply the place of their failing sight, byreading to them, writing letters for them--may arrange the old lady'swork, and make herself a generally useful, agreeable, and ladylikecompanion."
"That does not sound hard, does it?" says Esther, with a nearerapproach to hopefulness in her face than has been seen there since herbrother's death. "Neither reading, writing, nor being ladylike are verydifficult accomplishments, are they? Oh, Mrs. Brandon, I hope they'lltake me, don't you? What is their name?"
"Blessington!"
"Blessington!" repeats Essie, her lips parting in some dismay. "Iwonder are they--can they be--any relation to Miss Blessington, SirThomas Gerard's ward?"
"I really cannot tell you, my dear. You have given us so very littleinformation as to your visit to the Gerards, that I was not even awarethat Blessington was the name of Sir Thomas's ward."
Esther passes by the small reproach in silence.
"Perhaps they may be her father and mother," suggests Bessy.
"She has no father nor mother."
"Her grandfather and grandmother?"
"She has no grandfather nor grandmother."
"Her great-uncle and great-aunt?"
"Possibly."
"Very likely the same family," remarks Mrs. Brandon, intending to saysomething rather agreeable than otherwise. "Blessington is not a commonname."
"I recollect," Esther says, contracting her forehead in the effort torecall all that was said upon a subject which at the time interestedher too little to have made much impression--"I recollect hermentioning one day having some old relations in ----shire, whom it wasa great bore to have to go and visit."
"These people live in ----shire."
"Then it must be the same," cries Essie, a look of acute chagrinpassing over her features. "Oh, Mrs. Brandon, what a disappointment!I'm afraid we shall have to look out again! I'm afraid this won't do!"
"And why not, pray?" inquires the other, staring in displeasedastonishment from under her thick white eyebrows at her young_protegee_.
Silence.
"Did you," inquires the old lady, looking rather suspiciously at her,"have any quarrel or disagreement with the Gerards during your visitwhich could render you unwilling to meet any one in any way connectedwith their family?"
"Oh no! no!--certainly not!" answers Essie, vehemently, blushingscarlet as any June poppy.
The elder woman's sharp ancient eyes pass like a gimlet through andthrough the younger one. They fasten with the pitiless fixedness of onewho has passed the age for blushing, and has consequently no compassionfor that infirmity upon the betraying red of her sweet bright cheeks.
"Are you _quite_ sure, Esther?"
"Quite," replies Esther, with steady slowness. "I don't like them, asa family. In fact, I _hate_ them all; but I have had no quarrel withthem."
"I wonder that you cared to spend a whole month and more with peoplethat you hated," says Miss Bessy, with a sprightly smile.
"So do I, Bessy," answers Esther, bitt
erly, turning away her head; "butthat's neither here nor there."
"Am I to understand, then," says Mrs. Brandon, with an inquisitorialelevation of nose and spectacles, "that an apparently _groundless_ and,as far as I can judge, _ungrateful_ feeling of dislike towards peoplewho, from the little you have told us of them, seem always to havetreated you with indulgent kindness, is your sole motive for wishing todecline this very desirable situation?"
"When one has seen better days," answered the poor proud child,sighing, "one wishes to keep as far as possible from any of those whohave known one formerly."
"Tut!" answers Mrs. Brandon, chidingly; "it can be a matter of verylittle consequence to people in the position of the Gerards whether youhave a few pounds a year more or less. They can afford to be kind toyou, whatever your circumstances may be!"
"I don't _want_ them to be kind to me," cries the girl, fiercely, stunginto swift anger. "I know nothing I should dislike more. The only wishI have, with regard to the whole family, is that I should never heartheir names mentioned again!"
Mrs. Brandon seats herself at the table, and begins to pour out the teaout of a huge, deep-bodied family tea-pot. Miss Bessy divides the smallcurling rashers of fat bacon into four exactly equal portions. At PlasBerwyn it is generally a case of "Cynegan's Feast; or enough and nowaste." That is to say, at the first onslaught _everything_ vanishes;and if any one, with fruitless gluttony, craves a second help, hemust console himself with the idea that many medical men agree in theopinion that, in order to preserve ourselves in perfect health, weshould always rise from table feeling hungry.
"If," says Mrs. Brandon, resuming the conversation, and setting herwords to the music of a peculiarly crisp piece of toast, which sheeats with a rather infuriating sound of crunching--"If, Esther, youcan be deterred by so trivial an obstacle from availing yourself ofan opportunity, humanly speaking, so promising--a door, I may say,opened for you in a _special_ and _remarkable_ manner, in answer toprayer--you cannot expect me to exert myself a second time on yourbehalf."
Esther stoops her head in silence over her fat bacon, which she has notthe heart to eat.
"Esther is more difficult to please than we expected, is not she,mamma," says Bessy, smiling slightly--"considering that she told usyesterday she envied the man who brought the coals, because he earnedhis own living?"
"And so I did," answers Esther, gloomily.
"I'm afraid, Esther," says Mrs. Brandon, taking another piece of toast,and shaking her head prophetically, "that you will have to pass througha _burning fiery furnace_ before the stubborn pride of the unregenerateheart is brought low!"
"Perhaps so," answers the young girl, calmly; but to her own heart shesays that she defies any earthly furnace to burn hotlier than the oneshe has already passed through.