Books: Modern Broods
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Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Modern Broods
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"Such sensitiveness needs anxious care," said Elizabeth.
"If it be not the effect of spoiling. Just affectation!" replied the
sister-in-law in a decided voice, which made Bessie glad that the
poor child's home was not to be among the rough boys at Stokesley,
who were not credited with any particular feelings.
Angela's absence gave the Bishop the opportunity of telling what she
had been during her years at Albertstown, what a wonderful power
among the natives, though not without disappointment, and she had
been still more effective among the settlers and their daughters.
Carrigaboola, Fulbert's farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to
the few clergy of his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a
tower of strength for influence over the settlers who had fallen in
his way, by his unswerving uprightness and honour, with the deeper
principles of religion, little talked of but never belied. Even
after his death, the power he had been told over all with whom he had
come in contact.
Bernard heard it with immense pleasure, as did the faithful Ferdinand
and Marilda; while Elizabeth felt more and more that Sister Angela
was not to be treated, as she feared Sam and his wife were inclined
to do, as a mere interloper in their family affairs, but as one to be
not merely considered with gratitude, but even reverenced.
Indeed, Sam began to feel it, as he saw how the other men, both
practical business men, listened, and were impressed; but it was not
quite the case with his wife, who did not particularly esteem
colonial Bishops, and still less Sisterhoods or devotion to
missionary efforts, especially among the Australian blacks, whom her
old geography book had told her were the most degraded and hopeless
of natives, scarcely removed from mere animals.
When Angela appeared half through dinner time and said that Lena was
safely asleep, and Marilda sat her down to be happy in exchange of
Carrigaboola tidings with her Bishop, Fernando greeted her with a
reverence not undeserved, though perhaps all the more from the
contrast to the mischievous little sprite who used to disturb the
days of his philandering with Alda.
How much shocked Mrs. Samuel was, when the magnificent Sir Ferdinand,
whom she regarded with awe as a millionaire, was flippantly answered
by this extraordinary Sister, "Thank you, Fernan, I should like to
have a sight of the old office. I hope you have a descendant of the
old cat, Betty. Didn't she come from your grandmother, Marilda? Do
you remember her being found playing tricks with the nugget, just
come from Victoria?"
"That was in her kitten days," said Ferdinand.
"Is that personal, Fernan?"
"A compliment, Angel," said the Bishop. "Kittens alter a good deal."
"Not much for the better," said Angela. "If you only could see Mrs.
Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and
all!"
"I thought her very much improved," said Lady Underwood gravely.
"Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her
tail at the tip and tuck her paws--her velvet paws--well under her;
and lick her lips over the--oh, dear!--what do you call it?--your
menu is quite too much for us poor savages, Marilda. A bit of damper
is quite enough for us, isn't it, Bishop?"
"Varied with opossum and fern root," he said smiling; "but that's
only when we have lost our way."
The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd's child, who had
strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop
and Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried
home by Angela's "crack gin," as she told it to Bernard; and as
Marilda thought the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated
into "favourite pupil," though Bernard carried on the joke by asking
Marilda if she thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of
mankind.
Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pass
in the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for
grave discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and
associations of all kinds. Emilia and her husband tried in all
courtesy not to let the Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and
indeed Bessie was only too glad to listen and join at times in the
talk; but it all went outside Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole
scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop, and a Sister. Indeed, it
was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave man, very much so in
his early days, comported himself on this occasion as if he realised
Southey's wish -
"That in mine age as cheerful I might be,
Like the green winter of the holly tree."
At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance. Lena slept
all night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela
foreboded that the examination might not detect her delicacy. They
met Mrs. Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor's, Lady
Underwood Travis having placed her carriages at their disposal.
It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital
reputation what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and
fanciful mothers, while perhaps he had also heard of her fracas long
ago at the hospital. For he was not more courteous to her than could
be helped, treating her much as if she were only the nursery maid,
and hardly looking at the opinion which she had made Professor May
write out for him.
To her mind, it was a very cursory examination that he made; and the
upshot of his opinion, triumphantly accepted by Mrs. Merrifield, was
that there was nothing seriously amiss with the child, that she only
needed care, regularity and bracing, and that the stifling, gasping
spasms were simply the effect of hysteria.
Hysteria! Angela felt as if she should run wild as she heard Mrs.
Merrifield's complacent remarks on having always thought so, and
being sure that a few weeks of good air and good management would
make an immense difference. The need of not alarming or prejudicing
the poor little victim was all that kept Angela in any restraint; and
Mrs. Merrifield went on to say that she had promised her youngest
boy, who was with her in London, to take him to the Zoological
Gardens, and it would be a good opportunity for Magdalen to see them.
"Is that where there is a kangaroo?" asked Lena, so eagerly that
Angela, though thinking that morning's work enough for the feeble
strength, could not withstand her. Besides, if the Merrifields were
to have her wholly in another day, what was the use of standing out
for one afternoon? One comfort was that Elizabeth, who would really
have the charge of the child, had much more good sense and knowledge
of the world than her sister-in-law.
Still Angela felt the only way of bearing it was that after setting
Mrs. Merrifield down, she stopped the carriage at a church she knew
to have a noon-tide Litany, knelt there, with the little girl beside
her, and tried to say, "Thy will be done! To Thy keeping I commit
her." Her "hours" came to help her.
"Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife,
The wasting fever of the heart,
From perils guard her feeble life,
And to our souls Thy help impart."
She was able to be calm, and to utter none of her rage when they came
back to luncheon; and Marilda, declaring she liked nothing so well as
seeing children at the Zoo, wished to go with the party. All, save
Mrs. Merrifield and her boy, had gone different ways in London, so
there was plenty of room in the barouche.
The boy's mind was set on riding on the elephant, and they walked on
that way, turning aside, however, to the yard where towered the
kangaroo, tall, gentle, graceful and gracious. Lena sprang forward
with a cry of joy, and clasped her hands; but in one moment the same
spasm, at first of ecstasy then of overpowering feeling, becoming
agony, came over her, and gasping and choking, Angela held her in her
arms and carried her to a seat, holding her up, loosening her
clothes; but still she did not come round. Her aunt tried to say,
"hysteric." Some one brought water, but it was of no use--there were
still the labouring gasps, and the convulsive motion. "Let us take
her home," Marilda said.
"Nothing but hysterics!" repeated the aunt. "I will stay with
Jackie."
Marilda found her servant and the carriage, and in the long drive, a
few drops of strong stimulant at a chemist's brought a little relief
though scarcely consciousness; and when Angela had carried her up to
her room, there was a blueness about the lips, a coldness about the
fingers, that told much. Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow
as the nearest, and he was at home; but he could only look and do
nothing, but attempt to revive circulation, all in vain; and with
Marilda standing by, with one convulsive clutch of Angela's hand, the
true mother of her orphaned life, little Lena sank to a peaceful rest
from the tribulations that awaited her here.
CHAPTER XXIX--SAFE
"Rest beyond all grief and pain,
Death to thee is truest gain."
KEBLE.
Angela's nearest and best friends had anticipated that the peaceful
climax of all her cares would be a relief to her; and so indeed in
the long run it would be to her higher sense, and she would be
thankful. But even those who knew her most thoroughly had not
estimated the pangs of personal affection and deprivation of the
child she had fostered with a mother's tenderness for seven years,
and the absolute suffering of the sudden parting, even though it was
to security of bliss, instead of doubt and uneasiness.
She was quite broken and really ill with neuralgia and exhaustion,
unable to attend the funeral, which the Merrifields wished to have at
Stokesley, and unfit for anything but lying still with the pink
parrot on the rail below, kindly watched over by good Marilda. The
strain of many disturbed nights, the perplexities, the struggle for
resignation, all coming after a succession of trying events in
Australia, had told heavily upon her. Indeed, no one guessed how
much she had undergone, physically as well as spiritually, till
Marilda would not be denied the consulting Dr. Brownlow, who
questioned her closely, and extorted confessions of the long
continued strain of exertion. Rest was all she needed; and Marilda
took care that she had it, bringing Robina up from Minsterham to make
it more effectual, and letting her have visits from her Bishop and
from Bernard as they could afford the time, both being very and
variously busy.
Angela had made up her mind to go out to Australia again, and to make
Carrigaboola an endowment for the Sisterhood; but the means of doing
this could best be arranged there, and she intended to go out when
her Bishop should return in the autumn, feeling that her vocation was
there, though there was a blank in all she had most cared for on
earth in that home.
As soon as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at
Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there. Remembering
her old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt
and spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the
Sisters who surrounded her it was more as if they were receiving a
saint.
When she came back to Vale Leston, she had recovered cheerfulness,
more equable than it had ever been, and Cherry and Alda found her a
charming companion. There was much going on at Vale Leston just
then. Miss Arthuret and Dolores were at Penbeacon, seriously
considering of the scheme of converting the old farm house into a
kind of place of study for girls who wanted to work at various
technicalities, and to fit themselves for usefulness or for self-
maintenance. There was to be more or less of the Convalescent Home
or House of Rest in combination, and it had occurred to Dolores that
there could hardly be a better head of such an establishment than
Magdalen Prescott.
Magdalen had been asked to the Priory to meet Angela, to whom it was
now a comfort and pleasure to talk of her treasure, so much less lost
to her than in the uncongenial surroundings threatened at Coalham.
And the invitation, followed by the proposal, came at a not
unpropitious moment. A railway company, after much surveying, much
disputing, and many heartburnings, were actually obtaining an Act of
Parliament, empowering it to lay its cruel hands upon the Goyle,
running its viaducts down the ravine of Arnscombe, and destroy all
the peace and privacy! It did much, as Agatha had said, to make the
new scheme of Penbeacon acceptable though.
"That comes of making one's nest," she sighed, "and thinking one's
self secure in it for life! Oh! it is worse and more changeable in
this latter century than in any other! Does the world go round
faster?"
"Of course it does," said Geraldine. "Think how many fashions, how
many styles, how many ways of thinking, have passed away, even in our
own time."
"And what have they left behind them?"
"Something good, I trust. Coral cells, stones for the next
generation of zoophytes to stand upon to reach up higher."
"Is it higher?"
"In one sense, I hope. The same foundation, remember, and each cell
forms a rock for the future--a white and beautiful cell, remember, as
it grows unconsciously, beneath this creature."
Magdalen smiled, delighted with the illustration.
"It forms into the rocks, the strong foundations of the earth," she
said.
"When it has undergone its baptism beneath the sea," added Geraldine.
"But practically and unpoetically, perhaps--how the young folk mount
upon all our little achievements in Church matters, and think them
nearly as old-fashioned and despicable as we did pews and black
gowns! Or how attempts like the schools that brought up Robina and
Angela have shot out into High Schools, colleges, professions, and I
know not what besides."
"Ah! we come to my old notions for my sisters. I thought they would
have been governesses like myself, but they married; and now tell me,
what do you think of this scheme of Miss Mohun and Agatha?"
"You know Dolores is going to her father first. I never saw him, but
Lady Merrifield and Jane tell me he is a very wise, highly-principled
person, perfectly to be trusted; and they like all that they have
heard of his young wife. I should think if Agatha is to become a
scientific lecturer, she could not begin her career under better
training."
"Career, exactly! People used not to talk of careers."
"Life and career! Tortoise and hare, eh? But the hare may and ought
still to reach the goal, and have her cell built, even if she does
have her wander yahr, like the young barnacles, before becoming
attached! No! she need not become the barnacle goose. That is
fabulous," said Mrs. Grinstead, laughing off a little of her
seriousness, and adding, "Tell me of the other girls. I think Vera
did not come home last year."
"No; nor the year before. She has a good many pretty little talents,
and is very obliging. Mrs. White seems to be very fond of her, and
did not want to spare her when they went to Gastein for the summer.
And this year, when there was so much infection about, I could not
press it."
"Is it true that there is anything between her and Petros White?"
"I know Miss Mohun--Jane--infers it, but I don't like to build upon
it."
"I should build on most inferences that Jane Mohun ventured to make
known," said Geraldine, smiling; "and Paulina's fate is pretty well
fixed, I suppose!"
"Dear child, she has never had any other purpose since I first knew
her thoroughly, and I do not think her present stay at Dearport will
disenchant her. I think she is really devoted, not to the
theoretical romance of a Sisterhood, but to the deeper full purpose
of self-devotion."
"I can fully believe it of her. Hers have not been the ups and downs
of my Angela, though indeed, after all she has gone through, there is
something in her face that brings to my mind, 'After that ye have
suffered awhile, stablish, strengthen, settle you.'"
"It is a lovely countenance--so patient, and yet so bright."
"I do not think anything in all her life has tried her so much as the
distress about little Lena; and after knowing her wildness--to use a
weak word for it--under other troubles, I see what grace and self-
control have done for her. You still keep your Thekla!" she added,
as the girl flashed by, in company with a coeval Vanderkist.
"For a few years to come, though I am beginning to feel like the old
hens who do but bring their children up to launch them on the
waters."
"Well, it is happy if the launch can be made with hope present as
well as faith; and to see what Angel has become after many
vicissitudes, not confined to her first years of youth, is an immense
encouragement."
To Angela's great delight, the affairs of Brown and Underwood were
found to require inspection at San Francisco, as well as at Colombo,
where Bernard was to put the firm into the hands of one of the
Browns, who was to meet him there, and he would then be able to come
home to the central office in England.
It was not expedient for Phyllis to make the voyage for so brief a
stay, so it was decided that she should remain with her mother, and
she declared that she should be happy about Bernard being taken care
of if Angela, before settling in at Carrigaboola, would go and stay
with him at Ceylon. "No one can tell the pleasure it is," she said
to Magdalen, "to borrow one's own especial brother from his wife for
a little while. Oh, yes, I know it goes against the grain with him,
and it is right it should; but the poor old sister enjoys her treat
nevertheless and notwithstanding."
There was a great family gathering at Vale Leston, including both the
Harewoods; and the Bishop of Albertstown came to spend that last
fortnight in England with Clement, the boy who had been committed to
him as a chorister, then trained as a young deacon, and almost driven
out in his inexperience to the critical charge of the neglected
parish and the old squire, only to be recalled after seven years to
the more important charge in London on the Bishop's appointment,
there to serve till strength gave way, and he must perforce return to
his former home. There was a farewell picnic of the elders at
Penbeacon, merry and yet wistful in its hopeful auguries that the
loved play place would be a glad and beneficial home.
It was a strange retrospect, talked over by the two old friends in
deep thankfulness, yet humility over their own shortcomings and
failures, and no less strange were the recollections of the wild
noisy insubordinate schoolgirl whom the Bishop's sister had failed to
tame, and who had to both seemed to live only on sensation, whether
religious or secular, and who had been one continual care and
perplexity to each. By turns they had thought that the full Church
system acted as a hotbed on her peculiar temperament, and at others
they had thought it only an alternative to the amusements of vanity
and flirtation. Each had felt himself a failure with regard to her,
and had hoped for a fresh start from each crisis of repentance,
notably, from the death of Felix, only to be disappointed by some
fresh aberration.
However, in Queensland, her work had been noble, and thoroughly
effective in many cases; it had involved much self-denial and even
danger, and though these might agree with her native spirit of
adventure, there had likewise been not fitful, but steadily earnest
devotion in her convent life, as well as the tenderest reverent care
of Mother Constance in a long and painful decline, and therewith a
steady cheerful influence which had immensely assisted the growth of
Fulbert's character. For some years past, Sister Angela had been not
a care, but a trusty helper to the Bishop; and the later trials and
difficulties, especially the sore rending of the tie with the being
she had come to love with all the force of her strong nature, had
been borne in a manner that bore witness to the subduing of that
over-rebellious and vehement spirit.
And, as she said to Geraldine on the last evening as they bade good-
night, "This has been the very happiest time I ever spent here--yes,
happier than in those exultant days of new possession and liberty.
Oh, yes, all experiments, as it were, bold ventures, self-reproach
and failure, defiance and fun, and then--oh, the ache I would not
confess, the glory of being provoking, and, oh, the final anguish I
brought on myself and on you all; and I went on, when it began to
wear away, still stifling the sting which revived whenever I came
home, and all was renewed! Really, whenever I shammed it was only
remorse. I don't think that real repentance, and the peace after it,
began till those quiet days with dear Mother Constance."
"And is it peace now?"
"Yes, I think so. Even the parting with my child has not torn me up.
I can say it is well--far better than leaving her, far better,
indeed! And Felix is what he meant to be, my treasure, not my
accuser. Oh, I am glad to have been at home, and made it all up, to
bear away--and leave with you the sense of Peace."
All who had loved and feared for her were very happy over her when
all joined in that farewell service on her own birthday, St. Michael
and All Angels' Day.
The party were joined by Dolores and Wilfred at Liverpool; Bernard
having undertaken to establish the latter at Colombo in hands as safe
as might be.
CHAPTER XXX--THE MAIDEN ROCKS
"What need we more if hearts be true,
Our voyage safe, our port in view."
- KEBLE.
A telegram that a steamer had been wrecked on the Maiden Rocks filled
three homes with dismay. The rocks were sought out in maps, and
found to be specks lying between County Antrim and Scotland--no doubt
terrible in their reality.
Another day brought something more definite. It WAS the Afra,--
"wrecked in the fog of October 11th. Boats got off."
That was all; but a day's post brought letters, of which the fullest
was from Dolores:
"CORNCASTLE, LARNE, CO. ANTRIM, IRELAND,
October 12.
"DEAREST AUNT LILY, -
"I trust Phyllis has by this time heard from Bernard, as I heard him
called on, as a good oarsman, to go in the first boat, and we saw
Angela's bonnet. We--that is Wilfred, Nag, and the Bishop--are all
safe here, with eight or nine others. Will will do well, I trust.
He quite owes his life to Nag. This is how it was: We had not long
been out of the Mersey before an impenetrable fog came down upon us,
and we could not see across the deck; but on we went, on what proved
to be our blind way, till, after a night and day, just as we were
getting up from dinner, there came a hideous shock and concussion,
throwing us all about the room; and in less than a minute it was
repeated, with horrible crackings, tearings, yells and shouts. No
one needed to tell us what it meant, and down came the call, 'Don't
wait to save your things, only wraps, ladies! Up on deck! Life-
belts if you can!' I remember Bernard standing at the top of the
ladder, helping us up, and somehow, I understand from him, that we
were on a reef, and might either remain there, and sink, or be washed
off. The fog was clearing, and there was a dim light up high,
somewhere, one of the lighthouses, I believe. I don't quite know how
it all went; I think we kept in the background, round the Bishop, and
that a boat full of emigrant women was put off. I know there were
only about half a dozen women left, who had been crying and refusing
to leave their husbands; and about thirty altogether, men and women,
were somehow got into our boat with the chief mate; the Bishop all
consolation and prayer; poor Wilfred limp, cold and trembling, for he
had been very seasick till the last moment, when Bernard pulled him
out of his berth, and put him into a lifebelt. The sea was not very
rough, with an east wind; but the mate said the current was so strong
he could make no way against it. It would bring us on to the Irish
cliffs, and then, God help us! Knowing what that coast is, I thought
there was no hope; and as it was beginning to grow light there rose
an awful wall, all black and white, ready to close upon us; but just
as I set my teeth and tried to recollect prayers, or follow the
Bishop's, but I could only squeeze Agatha harder and harder, there
was a fresh shouting among the men, and the boat was heaved up in a
fearful way, then down. It was tide, and we were near upon breakers;
but there were answering shouts, or so they said--I believe a line
was thrown, and a light shown. But as the boat rose again, Nag and I
expected to be hurled on the rocks the next moment, and clung
together. But instead--though the waves had almost torn us asunder--
we were lying on a stony beach, and human hands were dragging at us--
voices calling and shouting about our not being dead. God had helped
us! We had been carried into a clift where there is a coastguard
station; and the good men had come down and were helping us on shore.
But before I well knew anything, Agatha was on her feet; I heard her
cry 'Wilfred, Wilfred!' and then I saw her dragging him, quite like a
dead thing, out of the surf, just in time before another great wave
rushed in which would have washed them both back, if a man had not
grappled her at the very moment, calling out, 'Let go, let go, he's a
dead man!' She did not let go; when the wave broke, happily, just
short of them, and another came to help, and saved them from being
sucked back. Then the Bishop came and assured us that he was alive,
and got the men to carry him up to the coastguard cottages; indeed,
it was an awful escape; for of our boatload most were lost
altogether, three lie dead, dashed against the rock, and two more,
the mate one of them, have broken limbs. Wilfred was unconscious for
a long time, at least an hour; but by the help of spoonfuls of
whiskey he came round to a dreamy kind of state, and he does not seem
to suffer much; and the Bishop, the Preventive man and Nag all are
sure no limbs are broken, but he seems incapable of movement except
his hands. It may be only jar upon the spine, and go off in another
day or two; but we do not dare to send for a doctor, or anything
else, indeed, till we have some money; for we all of us have lost
everything except five shillings in my pocket and two in Nag's. Even
our wraps were washed off--I believe Agatha gave hers to a shivering
woman in the boat. The Bishop, too, gave away his coat, forgetting
to secure his purse. But the people are very kind to us--North, or
Scotch Irish Presbyterians, I think--for they don't seem to know what
to make of his being a Bishop when they found he was not R.C., though
they call him His Reverence. Please send us an order to get cashed,
at Larne, six miles off, where this is posted. Wilfred lies on the
good Preventive woman's bed, clean and fairly comfortable, and they
have made a shake-down in their parlour for Nag and me. The Bishop
SAYS he is well off, but I believe he is always looking after the
mate and the other man in the other house, and sleeps, if at all, in
a chair. Nag is THE nurse. She had ambulance lessons, you know,
when at the High School, and profited by them more than I ever did,
and Wilfred likes to have her about him, and when he is dazed, as he
always is at first waking, he calls her Vera. But don't be uneasy
about him, dear Aunt Lily. Deadly sea-sickness, a night of tossing
and cold, and then this terrible landing may well upset him, and
probably he will be on his legs by the time you get this letter.
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