CHAPTER V.
TURNING A NEW LEAF.
My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for anew place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--shakenin nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin,haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like anoverwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt, however, Iwas not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time tobenefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, afterthe funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, anavaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who,indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a directcontrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessedto this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteenpounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similarcondition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regardedas occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however,at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, ofwhich the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departurefrom my present abode, while with another I was not provided.
In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consultan old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grandmansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours with her; shecomforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, Ileft her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay before me; it was aclear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my poverty, and myperplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youththat had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light and notfeebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonelywalk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village norfarmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence ofmoonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dimpath; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of thatwhich to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--the AuroraBorealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise than throughmy fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in energy with thekeen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent to mymind; my mind was made strong to receive it.
”Leave this wilderness,” it was said to me, ”and go out hence.”
”Where?” was the query.
I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in thatflat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I hadnever yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London.
The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see thehousekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little moreof the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she didnot charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staidmanner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hoodof hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achievewith impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with anexcited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as adreamer and zealot.
The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while sheprepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the windowand came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as itdanced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed, wasits mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I tookit on my knee.
Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and Ihad been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young ladyof sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lowerclass than mine.
I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, youngMrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was thegood-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood andmaternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change otherseven less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was changed too,though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to recall myselfto her memory; why should I? She came for her son to accompany her in awalk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an infant. I onlymention the incident because, in addressing the nurse, Mrs. Leigh spokeFrench (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly badaccent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I foundthe woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered volubly in Frenchtoo. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked thather young lady had brought that foreign nurse home with her two yearsago, on her return from a Continental excursion; that she was treatedalmost as well as a governess, and had nothing to do but walk out withthe baby and chatter French with Master Charles; ”and,” added Mrs.Barrett, ”she says there are many Englishwomen in foreign families aswell placed as she.”
I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewivesstore seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which theirprescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left myold friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned innin the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former days.
In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise thanthe reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. Mymeans would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, andalso to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded itas a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, ratherthan as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like takingall you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil;whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever.
Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by:my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, liesnow, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). Aboutnine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London.
My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaboratereproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as Ihad neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on adark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of whichthe vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers ofclear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence ofmore brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.
When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and otherswaiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never beforeheard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I managedto understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself and trunksafely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address. Howdifficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In London forthe first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with travelling;confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished with eitherexperience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to act obliged.
Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense,however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, andit was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that shespasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter:considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she washugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously calledfor the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being whollyovercome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that younglady, when she appeared.
I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness andsmartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how theyhad all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in itsmincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruceattire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb.
”Well, it can't be helped,” I thought, ”and then the scene is new, andthe circumstances; I shall gain good.”
Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, andsubsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking,black-coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them erelong. I believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a littlewhile they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state betweenpatronage and politeness.
I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myselfby a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down bythe bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terribleoppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like aghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was Idoing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? Whatprospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did Icome? Whither should I go? What should I do?
I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A darkinterval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did notregret the step taken, nor wish to retract it. A strong, vaguepersuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I_could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult, would intime open--predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed themso far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to saymy prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle andlain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. Atfirst I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at thetwelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: ”I lie in the shadowof St. Paul's.”