 Chapter 43 of Dearbrook. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chris Caron. Dearbrook by Harriet Martinu. Chapter 43. Working Round. Several days passed, and there was no direct news of Enderby. Maria never spoke of him, though many little intervals in Margaret's busy life occurred when the friends were together. And Maria ought have taken occasion to say anything she wished. It was clear that she chose to avoid the subject. Her talk was almost entirely about the sick for whom she labored as strenuously as her strength would permit. The whom she labored as strenuously as her strength would permit. She would not go about among them, nor sit up with the sufferers, but she cooked good things over her fire for them all day long. And she took to her home many children who were too young to be youthful, and old enough to be troublesome in a sick house. Between her cooking, teaching, and playing with the children, she was as fully occupied as her friends in the corner house, and perhaps might not really know anything about Mr. Enderby. Each one of the family had caught glimpses of him at one time or another. There was reason to think that he was active among Mr. Walcott's poor patients, and hope had encountered him more than once in the course of his rounds, that when a few words on the business of the moment were exchanged, and nothing more happened. Margaret saw him twice once on a horseback, then he turned suddenly down a lane to avoid her, and at the Rollins dining room window, with net in his arms, she never now passed that house when she could help it. But this once it was necessary. And she was glad that Philip had certainly not seen her. His back was half churned through the window at the moment, as if someone within was speaking to him. Each time his image was so stamped in upon her mind that amidst all the trials of such near-neighborhood, without intercourse, his presence in Dearbrook was on the whole. Certainly a luxury. She had gained something to compensate for all her restlessness in the three glimpses of him, with which she had now been favored. A thought sometimes occurred to her, of which she was so ashamed that she made every endeavor to banish it. She asked herself now and then whether if she had been able to sit at home or take her a custom walks. She would not have beheld Philip oftener, whether she was not sadly out of the way of seeing him at the cottage in the lane, and the other sorted places where her presence was necessary. Not for this occasional question did she stay away one moment longer than she would otherwise have done from the cottage in the lane. But while she was there it was apt to occur. There she sat one afternoon, somewhat wary, but not dreaming of going home. There lay the three sick creatures still. The woman was likely to recover. The boy lingered and seemed waiting for his father to go with him. Platt had sunk very rapidly, and this day had made a great change. Margaret had taken the moaning and restless child on her lap for the ease of change of posture, and she was now shading from his eyes with her shawl. The last level rays of the sun which shone in upon her from the window, she was unwilling to change her seat, for it seemed as if the slightest movement would quench the lingering life of the child. And there was no one to draw the window curtain. The old woman, having gone to buy food in the village, Mrs. Platt, slept almost all the day and night through. And she was asleep now, so Margaret sat quite still, holding up her shawl before the pallid face which looked already dead. Nothing broke the silence but the twitter of the young words and the thatch, and the mutterings of the sick man whom Margaret imagined to be somewhat disturbed by the unusual light that was in the room. It had not been the custom of the sun to shine into any houses of late, and the place full of yellow light did not look like itself. She knew that in a few minutes the sun would have set, and she hoped that then poor Platt would be still. Meantime she appeared to take no notice but sat with her eyes fixed on the boy's face, marking that each side was a fainter than the last. At length allowed her sound, then she had yet heard from the sick man, made her look towards him, and the instant throb of her heart seemed to be felt by the child, for he moved his head slightly. Platt was trying to support himself upon his elbow. White in the other, shaking hand, he held towards her, her twice wing. She remembered her charge and did not spring to seize it. But there was something in her continence that strongly excited the sick man. He struggled to rise from his bed, and his face was fierce. Margaret spoke gently as calmly as she could, told him she would come presently, that there was no hurry, and urged him to lie down till she could put the child off her lap, but her voice failed her. In spite of herself for now, at last she recognized and Platt the tall woman. This was the look which had perplexed her more than once. Patience, a little further patience, she said to herself, as she saw the ring still trembling in the sick man's hand, and felt one more sigh from the little fellow on her lap. No more patience was needed. This was the boy's last breath. His head fell back, and the sunlight, which streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more. Margaret gently closed them, and laid the body, on its little bed, in the corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away. She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which trembled little less than the sick man's own. She spoke calmly, however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts. She tried to understand the mutterings of mist, which only a word here and there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness, with which Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her, and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing, the earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane. Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say nothing about it at present. Mr. Platt has been talking almost ever since he went, said Margaret, and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no time to lose, I am afraid. Do try. Doleman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she thought she wanted to know what o'clock it was. Is that all? Tell him that the sun is in her setting. But if you have a watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in the house? The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her suppose that poor folks had watches. When some gentle folks had none, Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She believed she had seen such a dear brook. The old woman replied by saying, She believed Margaret might have understood some few things, among the many the poorest a creature had been saying. Not one, Margaret declared, but it was so plain that she was not believed, in that she had little doubt of Hester's watch having been harbored in this very house, if it was not there still. The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians, while alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune teller, was now loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed, with exultation at the fortune teller, having been right in the end. The mother suddenly awakened, groaned and screamed, so that it was fearful to hear her. All efforts to restore quiet were in vain. Margaret was moved, shocked, terrified. She could not keep her own calmness in such a scene of confusion. But while her cheeks were covered with dears, while her voice trembled as she implored silence, she never took off her glove. In the midst of the tumult, plate sank back and died. The renew cries had the effect of bringing some neighbors from the end of the lane. While they were there, Margaret could be of no further use. She promised to send coffins immediately, that stage of pestilence being now reached when coffins were the first consideration, and then slipped out from the door into the darkness, and ran till she had turned the corner of the long lane. She usually considered herself safe abroad, even in times like these, as she carried no property of value about with her. But now that she was wearing her precious ring again, she felt too rich to be walking alone in the dark. She did not slacken her pace till she approached lights and people, and then she was glad to stop for breath. She could not resist going first to Maria to show her the recovered treasure, and this caused her to direct her steps through the churchyard. It was there that she came in, view of lights and people under the lines. It was that she stopped for breath. The churchyard was now the most frequented spot in the village. The path by the turnstile was indeed grown over with grass, but the great gate was almost always open, and the ground near it was trodden bare by the feet of many mourners. Funeral trains, trains which daily grew shorter till each coffin was now followed, only by two or by three, were passing in from early morning at intervals till sunset, and now might be often seen by torchlight far into the night. The villager patching the churchyard wall might hear. In the night air the deep voice of the clergymen announcing the farewell to some brother or sister committing ashes to ashes and dust to dust. There was no disturbance now from the boys leaping over the graves or from little children eager to renew their noisy play. Such of the young villagers as remained above the ground appeared to be silenced and subdued by privation, the drariness, the neglect of these awful days. They looked on from afar or avoided the spot instead of such the observer of the two funerals which were now in the churchyard was a person quite at the other extremity of life. Margaret saw the man of a hundred years. Gem bird, the pride of the village in his way, seated on the bench under the spreading tree, which was youthful in comparison with himself. He was listlessly watching the black figures which moved about in the light of a solitary torch by an open grave while waiting for the clergymen who was engaged with the group beyond. You are late abroad, Mr. Bird, said Margaret. I should have not looked for you here so far on in the evening. What's your will, said the old man. Grandfather won't go home ever till they have done here, said a great-grandchild of the old man, running up from his amusement of hooting to the owls in the church tower. They'll soon have done with these two, and then grandfather and I shall go home. Won't we, Granny? Does it not make you sad to see so many funerals, said Margaret, sitting down on the bench beside him? Hey, had you not better stay at home than to see so many that you knew later on the ground? Does he understand, she asked a side of the boy. Does he have her answer but in this way? Oh, he talks fast enough sometimes. It is just as you happen to take him. Margaret was curious to know that were the meditations among the tombs of one so aged as this man, so she spoke again. I have heard that you knew this place before anybody lived in it, and now you seem likely to see it empty again. It was a wild place enough in my young time, said Jen, speaking now very fluently. There was nothing of it but the church, and that there was never used, because it had had its roof pulled off in the wars. There was only a footpath to it through the fields then, and few people went nigh it, except a few gentry that came a pleasuring here. Into the woods, the owls and I knew it as well as then as we do today, and nobody else that is now living, the owls and I, and the old man left a chuckling laugh which was all he had strength for. The woods, said Margaret, did the verdant wood spread as far as this church in those days? And were they not private property then? It was all forest hair bolts except a clear space around the church tower. It might be thin sprinkled, but it was called forest. The place where I was born had thorns all about it, and when I could scarce walk alone, I used a scramble among the blossoms that made the ground white all under those thorns. The birds that lived by the haze in winter were prodigious. That cottage stood as near as I can tell, where gray rollens, great granary, is now. There used to be much swine in this woods then, and many's the time they have thrown me down when I was a young thing, getting acorns. That was about the time of my hearing, the first music I ever heard, unless you call the singing of the birds music. We had plenty of that, and the bells on the breeze from a distance, when the wind was south, the first music, so to call it, that I heard was from a blind fiddler that came to us. What brought him, I don't know, whether he lost his way or what, but he lost his way after he left us. His dog seems to have been in fault, but he got into a pool in the middle of the wood. And there he lay drowned, with one foot up on the bank. When I went to see what the parking of the dog could be about, he clutched his fiddle in the drowning, and I remember I tried to get the music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank. While father was saying, the poor soul must have been under the water now two days, so I have reason to remember the first music I heard. You have got him talking now, said the grandchild running off, and presently the owls were heard hooting again. Whereabouts was this pool, as Margaret? It is a deep part of the brook, that in hot summers is left a pond. It is there that the chief of the sliding goes on in winter now, in the meadow. It is meadow now, but then the deer used to come down through the wood to drink at the brook there. That is how the village got its name. So you remember the time when the deer came down to drink at the brook? How many things have happened since then? You have heard a great deal of music since those days. I either have been a good deal of fiddling at our weddings since that, and we have had recruiting parties through and war times. And many a mother singing to her baby and the psalm in the church for so many years. Yes, the place have been full of music for long, but it seems likely to be silent enough now. I began to think I should be left the last, as I was the first, said the old man, but they say the sickest is abating now, and that several are beginning to recover. Pray God, it may be so. First after the wood was somewhat cleared, there was a laborer's cottage or two, now standing empty, and the folks that lived in them lying yonder. Then there was the farmhouse, and then a carpenter came, and a wheeler, then there was a shop wanted, and the church was roofed in and used, and some gentry came and sat down by the riverside, and the place grew to what it is. They say now, it is not near its end yet, but it is strange to me to see the churchyard the fullest place near, so that I have come here for company. And the old man shuckled again. As she rose to go, Margaret asked whether he knew the plats, who lived in the cottage in the lane. I know him to see too. Is he down? He is dead, and his child, but his wife is recovering. Hey, there's many recovering now, they say. Indeed, who? Why are many? But the fewer has got into Rowland's house. Would they say? Margaret's heart turned sick, adhering these words. And she hastily pursued her way. It was not Philip, however, who was seized. He was in the churchyard at this moment. She saw him walking gently along the turstile path, slackening his pace only for a moment, as he passed the funeral group. The light from the torch shone full upon his face. The face settled and composed, as she knew it would not be if he were aware who was within a few paces of him. She felt the strongest impulse to show him her ring, the strongest desire for his sympathy in its recovery, but an instant showed her the absurdity of the thought, and she hung down her blushing head in the darkness. From Maria she had sympathy, such as it was, sympathy without any faith in Philip. She had, from her also good news, of the state of the village. There were recoveries talked of, and there would be more, now that those who were seized would no longer consider death inevitable. Mrs. Howell was ill, and poor Miss Nairs was down, with the fever, which no one could wander at. But Mr. Jones and his son John were both out of danger, and the little tuckers were likely to do well. Mr. James was already talking of sending for his wife and sister-in-law home again, as the worst days of the disease seemed to be the past, and so many families had not been attacked at all. It was too true that Matilda Rowland was unwell today, but Mr. Walcott hoped it was only a slight feverish attack, which would be thought, nothing of under any other circumstances, on the whole Maria thought the neighbors she had seen today in better spirits than at any time since the fever made its appearance. Margaret found more good news at home. In the first place the door was opened to her by Morris. Hester stood behind to witness the meeting. She had her bonnet on. She was going on with her husband to see Mrs. Howell, and make some provision for her comfort. But she had waited a little while in hopes that Margaret would return and be duly astonished to see Morris. You must make tea for each other, and be comfortable while we are away. Said Hester, we will go now directly, that we may be back as early as we can. I have several things to tell you, said Margaret, when you return and one now, brother, which must not be delayed. Platt and his child are dead, and coffins must be sent. The sooner the better, or we shall lose the poor woman too. Hope promised to speak to the undertaker as he went by. We have become very familiar with death, Morris, since she went away, said Margaret, as she obliged her old friend to sit down by the fire and prepared to make tea for both. That is why you see me here, Miss Margaret. Every piece of news could get of this place was worse than the last, and I could perceive from your last letter that you had sickness all about you, and I could not persuade myself but that it was my duty to come and to be youthful, and to take care of you, my dear, if I may say so. And now you are here. I trust you, may stay. I trust we may be justified in keeping you. We have meat every day now, Morris, at least when we have time to cook it. Since my brother has been attending so many of Mr. Jones' family, we have had meat almost every day. Indeed, my dear, I don't know how you could keep up without it, so busy, as I find you are among the sick. Busy night and day, my mistress tells me, tell the people have got to call you, the good lady. You do not look as if you had lost much of your natural rest. But I know how the mind keeps the body up. Yours is an earnest mind, Margaret, that will always keep you up. But, my dear, I do hope it has been an easy mind, too. You will excuse my saying so, Margaret, more than excused it. But she could not immediately answer the tears trembled in her eyes, and her lip quivered when she would have spoken. Morris stroked her hair, and kissed her forehead, as if she had been still a child, and whispered that all things ended well in God's own time. Oh, yes, I know, said Margaret, as Hester told you how prosperous we are growing, I do not mean only about money. We are likely to have enough for that, too, for my brother's old patients have almost all sent for him again. But we care the less about that, from having discovered that we were as happy with little money as with much. But it is a satisfaction and pleasure to find my brother regarded more and more as he ought to be, and yet greater to see how nobly he would deserve the best that can be thought of him. He forgives his enemies no doubt, heaping coals of fire on their heads. You will witness it, Morris. You will see him among them, and it will make your heart glow. Poor creatures, I have heard some of them own to him, from their sick beds, with dread and tears, that they broke his windows, and slaughtered his name. Then you should see him smile when he tells them that it is all over now, and that they will not mistake him so much again. No, never, he has shown himself now what he is. He sat up two nights with one poor boy, who is now likely to get through, and in the middle of the second night, the boy's father got up from his sick bed in the next room, and came to my brother to say that he felt that ill luck would be upon them all. If he did not confess that he put that very boy behind the hedge, with stones in his hand, to throw it outward, the day he was mobbed at, at the alms houses, he was deluded by the neighbors. He said, into thinking, that my brother meant ill by the poor. They have learned to the contrary now, my dear, and what does Sir William Hunter say of my master nowadays, to you know? There is very little hurt of Sir William, and Lady Hunter, at present, shut up at home as they are. But Dr. Leavitt, who loves to make peace, you know, and tell what is pleasant, declares that Sir William Hunter has certainly said that, after all, it does not so much signify which way a man votes at an election, if he shows a kind heart to his neighbors in trouble sometimes. Sir William Hunter has learned his lesson then, it seems, from this affliction. I suppose he sees that one who does his duty, as my master does at a season like this, is just the one to vote according to his conscience at an election. But, my dear, what sort of heart have these hunters got, that they shut themselves up as you say? They give their money freely, and that is all that we can expect from them. If they have always been brought up, and accustomed to fear sickness, and danger, and death, we cannot expect that they should lose their fear at a time like this. We must be thankful for what they give, and their money has been of great service, though there is no doubt that their example would have been of more. One would like to look into their minds, and see how they regard my master there. They regard him, no doubt, so far rightly as to consider him quite a different sort of person from themselves, and no rule for them. So far they are right. They do not comprehend his satisfactions, and ease of mind. And it is very likely that they have pleasures of their own which we do not understand. And they are quite welcome, I am sure, my dear, as long as they do not meddle with my master's name. That is, as he says all over now, after this, however, the people in Dearbrook will be more ready to trust in my master's skill and kindness than in Sir William Hunter's grandeur and money, which can do little to save them in time of need. Margaret explained how ignorantly the poor and the neighborhood had relied on the fortune tellers who had only duped them, how that witch would have been religion in them if they had been early taught, and which would have enabled them to rely on the only power which really can save, had been degraded by ignorance into a foolish and pernicious superstition. Morris hoped that this also was over now. She had met some of these conjurers on the Blickley Road, and seen others breaking up their establishment in the lanes, and returning their backs upon Dearbrook, whether they were scared away by the morality of the place or had found the tide of fortune telling beginning to turn, mattered nothing as long as they were gone. The tea-table was cleared, and Morris and Margaret were admiring the baby as he slept. When Hester and her husband returned, Mrs. Howell was very unwell and likely to be worse, all attempts to bring Miss Miskin to reason and induce her to enter her friend's room, wherein vain she bestowed a bondage of tears, tremored, and forboding on Miss Howell's state and prospects, but shut herself up in a fumigated apartment where she promised to pray for a good result and to await it. The maid was a hearty lass who would sit up willingly under Hester's promise that she should be relieved in the morning. The girl's fear was of not being able to satisfy her mistress, whom it was not so easy to nurse as it might have been, from her insisting on having everything arranged precisely as it was in her poor dear Howell's last illness. As Miss Miskin had refused to enter the chamber, Hester had been obliged to search the chest of drawers for Mr. Howell's last dressing gown, which Miss Miskin had promised should be mended and aired and ready for wear by the morning. Margaret cried Hester as her sister was lighting her candle. The exclamation made Edward turn around and brought back Morris into the parlor after saying good night, Margaret, your ring. There was as much joy as shame in Margaret's crimson blush. She let her sister examine the turquoise and said, Yes, this is the boon of today. Edward's hundred pounds has come, said Hester, but that is nothing to this. Margaret's eyes thanked her. She just explained that poor plat had been the thief, and had restored it to her before he died, and that she could get no explanation, no tidings of Hester's watch, and she was gone. Dr. Levitt's early stir about this ring prevented its being disposed of. I have no doubt, said Edward, if so it is yet possible that we may recover your watch. I will speak to Dr. Levitt in the morning. Dear Margaret, said Hester, she is now drinking in the hue of that turquoise, and blessing it for being unchanged. She regards this recovery of it as a good omen, I see, and far to be it from us to mock at such a superstition. As usual, when she was upon this subject, Hester looked up into her husband's face, and as usual, when she spoke on this subject, he made no reply. End of Chapter 43, Recording by Chris Caron. A few days after Morris's return, she told Margaret that the tidings in the village of Miss Rowland's illness were not good. Mrs. Rowland was quite as sure as ever that, if anybody could cure Matilda, it was Mr. Walcott. But Mr. Walcott himself looked anxious, and a bed had been put up for him in the room next to the sick child. Margaret wondered why Mr. Rowland did not send to Blickley for further advice, but Morris thought that Mrs. Rowland would not give up her perfect faith in Mr. Walcott, if all her children should die before her face. When Morris had left the room, Margaret was absorbed in speculations, as she played with her sister's infant speculations on the little life of children. And on their death. Her memory followed Matilda through every circumstance in which she had seen her, the poor little girl's very attitude, voice, and words. Words full alas of folly and vanity rose again upon her ear and eye, in immediate contrast with the image of death and the solemnity of the life to come. In the midst of these thoughts came tears of shame and self-reproach. For another thought, how low, how selfish, thrust itself in amongst them, that she was secure for the present from Philip's departure, that he would not leave, dear Brooke, while Matilda was in a critical state. As these tears rolled down her cheeks, the baby looked full in her face and caught the infection of grief. He hung his little lip and looked so woe-begone that Margaret dashed away the signs of her sorrow and spoke gaily to him, and as the sun shone in at the moment upon the lustres on the mantelpiece, she set the glass drops in motion and let the baby try to catch the bright colors that danced upon the walls and ceiling. At this moment Esther burst in with a countenance of dismay. Margaret, my husband, has a headache. A headache was no trifle in these days. Anything more than a headache, asked Margaret, no other feeling of illness. There is nothing to wonder at in a mere headache. It is very surprising that he has not had it before with all his toil and want of sleep. He declares it is a trifle, said Esther, but I see he can hardly hold up. What shall I do? Make him lie down and rest, and let me go to Mrs. Howell instead of you. She will be a little disappointed, but that cannot be helped. She must put up with my services today. Now do not frighten yourself as if no one ever had a headache without having a fever. I shall desire Morris to let no one in, and to bring no messages to her master while his headache lasts. Very right, I will tell her as I go from my bonnet. One more kiss before I go, baby. Do not wait tea for me, Esther. I cannot say when I shall be back. Margaret had been gone to Mrs. Howell's about an hour and a half when there was a loud and hasty knock at the door of the corner house. It roused hope from a dose in which she had just fallen, and provoked Esther accordingly. There was a parley between Morris and somebody in the hall, and presently a voice was heard calling loudly upon Mr. Hope. Esther could not prevent her husband from springing from the bed and going out upon the stairs. Mr. Rowland was already half way up, looking almost beside himself with grief. You must excuse me, sir, you must excuse me, Mr. Hope. You must not judge me hardly. If you are ill, I am sorry, sir. But, sir, my child is dying. We fear she is dying, sir, and you must come and see if anything can save her. I shall never forgive myself for going on as we have been doing. She has been sacrificed. Fairly sacrificed, I fear. No, Mr. Rowland, I must comfort you there, said Hope, as they walked rapidly along the street. I have had occasion to see a great deal of Mr. Walcott and his professional conduct in the course of these last few weeks, and I am certain that he has a very competent knowledge of his business. I assure you he shows more talent, more power altogether in his professional than his unprofessional conduct, and in this particular disease he now has had much experience. God bless you for saying so, my dear sir. It is like you, always generous, always just, and kind. You must forgive us, Mr. Hope. At a time like this you must overlook all causes of offence. They are very great, I know, but you will not visit them upon us now. We have only to do with the present now, said Hope. Not a word about the past, I entreat you. Mrs. Rowland, today reckless of everything but her child, was standing out on the steps, watching as for the last Hope for her Matilda. She is much worse, Mr. Hope, suddenly and alarmingly worse. This way, follow me. Hope would speak with Mr. Walcott first, as he entered the study to await Mr. Walcott. Philip passed out. They did not speak. O Philip, speak to Mr. Hope, cried Mrs. Rowland. For God's sake, do not do anything to offend him now. I will do everything in my power, madam, to save your child, said Hope. Do not fear that the conduct of her relations will be allowed to injure her. My love, said Mr. Rowland, Mr. Hope came from a sick bed to help us. Do not distrust him. Indeed, he deserves better from us. Pray forgive me, said the miserable mother. I do not well know what I am saying, but I will atone for all if you save my child. Priscilla, cried her brother from the doorway, against which he was leaning. His tone of wonder was lost as Walcott entered, and the study was left for the conference of the medical men. As the gentleman went upstairs to Matilda's room, they saw one child here, and another there, peeping about, in silence and dismay. As Hope put his hand on the head of one in passing, Mr. Rowland said, There is a carriage coming for them presently, to take them away. Anna and George are now with Miss Young, and she will take them all away. She is very good, but I knew we might depend on her upon her heart and her forgiveness. Ah, you hear the poor child's voice, that shows you the way. Matilda was wandering, and for the moment, talking very loud, something about Grandmama seeing her dance, and, when I am married, struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the mother. Matilda was soon in a stupor again. It was impossible to hold out much prospect of her recovery. It was painful to everyone to hear how Mrs. Rowland attempted to bribe Mr. Hope by promises of doing him justice, to exert himself to the utmost in Matilda's behalf. He turned away from her again and again, with a disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far roused by the few words which had been let drop below stairs, as to choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient's room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his brother-in-law to Matilda's bedside, dismissed Mr. Walcott from the room, and then he said, A few minutes will suffice, I believe, sister, to relieve your mind, and they will be well spent. Tell us what you mean by what you have been saying so often within this quarter of an hour, as you hope in heaven, as you dare to ask God to spare your child. Tell us the extent to which you feel that you have injured Mr. Hope. Hope sank down into the window-seat by which he had been standing. He thought the whole story of his love was coming out now. He waited for the first words, as for a thunderclap. The first words were, Oh Philip, I am the most wretched woman living. I never saw it so strongly before. I believe I did it with an idea of good to you, but I burned a letter of migrants to you. What letter? When? The day you left us last, the day you were in the shrubbery all the morning, the day the children found the shavings burnt. What was in that letter? Did you read it? No, I dared not. What made you burn it? I was afraid you would go to her, and that your engagement would come on again. Then what you told me, what made me break it off, could not have been true. No, it was not, not all true. What was true and what was not? Mrs. Rowland did not answer, but looked timidly at Mr. Hope. Now was the moment for him to speak. It was true, said he, that at the very beginning of my acquaintance with Hester and Margaret, I preferred Margaret, and that my family discerned that I did. As true as that, Hester has been long been the beloved of my heart, beloved as, but I cannot speak of my wife, of my home in the hearing of one who has endeavoured to profane both. All I need to say is that neither Hester nor Margaret ever knew where my first transient fancy lighted, while they both know, know as they know in their own hearts, where it has fixed. It is not true that Margaret ever loved any one but you, Enderby, and Mrs. Rowland cannot truly say that she ever did. What was it then that Margaret confided to my mother, after Enderby turning to his sister? I cannot tell what possessed me at the time to say so, but that I thought I was doing the best for your happiness, but Philip, I really believe now that Margaret never did love any one but you. I know nothing to the contrary, but my mother? She knew very little of any troubles in Mr. Hope's family, and what she did here was all from me. Do you mean that all you told me of Margaret's confidences to my mother was false? There was no answer, but Mrs. Rowland's pale cheeks grew paler. Oh God, what can Margaret have thought of me all this time? cried Philip. I can tell you what she thought. I believe, said Hope. Her brother and sister have read her innocent mind, as you yourself might have done if your faith in her had been what she deserved. She has believed that you loved her and that you love her still. She has believed that someone, that Mrs. Rowland, produced her to you, and in her generosity she blames you for nothing but that you would not see and hear her that you went away on the receipt of her letter, of that letter which it now appears you never saw. Where is she? cried and to be striding to the door. She is not at home. You cannot find her at this moment, and if you could, you must hear me first. You remember the caution I gave you when we last conversed in the abbey and again in the meadows? I do, and I will observe it now. You remember that she is unaware that you ever, that interview with Mrs. Gray, ever took place. She shall never learn it from me. This is one of those facts which have ceased to exist, which is absolutely dead and should be buried in a oblivion. You hear, Priscilla? She bowed her head. You believe that? Say no more, brother. Do not humble me further. I will make what reparation I can, indeed I will, and then perhaps God will spare my child. Hope's passing reflection was, How alike is the superstition of the ignorant and of the wicked, my poor neighbours stealing to the conjurer's tent in the lane, and this wretched lady, hope alike to bribe heaven in their extremity, they by gifts and rites, she by remorse and reparation, how indifferent from the faith which say, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. Where is Margaret? Will you tell me, after end of being patiently? But before I see her, I ought to ask forgiveness from you, Hope. You find how cruelly I have been deceived by what incredible falsehood, but glancing at his pale sister, we will speak no more of that, if, in the midst of all this error and wretchedness, I have hurt your feelings more than my false persuasions rendered necessary. I hope you will forgive me. And me? Will you forgive me? asked Mrs. Rowland faintly. There is nothing to pardon in you, said Hope to Philip. Your belief in what your own sister told you, in so much detail, can scarcely be called a weakness. And you did and said nothing to me that was not warranted by what you believed. And I forgive you, madam. I will do what I can to relieve your present affliction, and as long as you attempt no further injustice towards my family, no word shall be spoken by any of us to remind you of what is past. You are very good, Mr. Hope. I tell you plainly, he resumed, that you cannot injure us beyond a certain point. You cannot make it goodness in us to forget what is past. It is a far less consequence to us, what you and others think of us, than what we think of our neighbours. Our chief sorrow has been the spectacle of yourself in your dealings with us. We shall be thankful to be reminded of it no more. And now, enough of this, where is Margaret, again, after Enderby, as if in despair of an answer? She is nursing Mrs. Howell. As soon as I have seen this poor child again, I will go home and take care that Margaret is prepared to see you. Remember how great the surprise, the mystery, must be to her. If the surprise were all, said Philip, but will she hear me? Will she forgive me? Will she trust me? Was there ever a woman who really loved, who would not hear, who would not forgive, would not trust? said Hope, smiling. I must not answer for Margaret, but I think I may answer for a woman in the abstract. I will follow you in an hour, Hope. Do so. Now, madam. And Hope followed Mrs. Rowland again to the bedside of her dying child. End of Chapter 44 Chapter 45 of Dear Brook This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dear Brook by Harriet Martinot Read by Gary Day Chapter 45 Rest of the Placible Margaret was not at Mrs. Howells at the moment that her brother believed and said she was. She had been there just in time to witness the poor woman's departure, and she was soon home again and relating the circumstances to Hester by the fireside. Even the news that Edward was now in the same house with Philip could not efface from her mind what she had seen, nor could Hester help listening, though full of anxiety about her husband. Miss Miskin was prevailed upon to leave the room at the last, I suppose. Scarcely, poor Nanny was supporting her mistress's head when I went in, and she said with tears that there was no depending on anyone but us. They both looked glad enough to see me, but then nothing was satisfying Mrs. Howell, but that I should warm myself and be seated to the last, and she offered you some cherry bounce, I suppose. Yes, just as usual. Then she told me that it would be as well to mention now, in case she should grow worse and be in any danger, that she should be gratified if you and I would select each a rug or screen pattern from her stock, and worsted to work with it, and she gave a broad hint that there was one with a mausoleum and two weeping willows, which she hoped one of us would choose, and that perhaps her name might fill up the space on the tomb. Poor Nanny began to cry and this affected Mrs. Howell, and she begged earnestly to see Miss Misskin, and then she came, I suppose. Not she, she would not come till her friend sent a message, threatening to haunt her if she did not. Did you carry the message? No, but Nanny did, and I thought with hearty goodwill. Miss Misskin came trembling, but too much frightened to cry. She would not approach nearer than the doorway, and there fell on her knees, and so remained the whole time she was receiving directions about the shop and the stock, in case, as the poor soul said again, of my getting worse, so as to be in any danger. And yet Dr. Levitt thought he had told her plainly enough what he thought of her state this morning. And was she aware at last, or did she go off unconsciously? I think she was aware. I think so from her last words. Oh, my poor dear Howell. I sat behind the curtain while she was speaking to Miss Misskin, sometimes so faintly that Nanny had to repeat her words, to make them heard as far as the door. That selfish, wretch Miss Misskin. It was very moving, I assure you, to hear not one word of reproach, or even notice of Miss Misskin's desertion in this illness. What was said was commonplace enough, but every word was kind. I have it all. I took it down with my pencil behind the curtain, for I was sure Miss Misskin would never remember it. Mrs. Howell went on till she came to directions about the bullfinch, that her poor dear Howell used to laugh to see perched upon her nightcap of a morning, and then she grew unintelligible. I thought she was only fainting, but while we were trying to revive her, Nanny said that she was going, and Miss Misskin drew back into the passage, shut the door, and made her escape. Her friend looked that way once more, and said that we had all been very good to her. She mentioned her husband, as I told you, and then died very quietly. Miss Misskin knows, of course. I told her, and did not pretend to feel much sympathy in her lamentations. I told her she had lost a friend who would have watched over her, I believed, till her last breath, if she had been the one attacked by the fever. What did she say? She exclaimed a good deal about how good we all were, and wondered what Dear Brooke would have done without us, and said she was sure I was too kind to think of leaving her in the house with the corpse, with only Nanny. When I declined, passing the night there, she comforted herself with thinking aloud that her friend would not haunt her, certainly would not haunt her, as she had gone to her room at last. Her final question was how soon I thought it likely that she should feel the fever coming on in case of her having caught it, after all, by going into the room. What an end to a sentimental friendship of so many years! I rather expect to hear in the morning that she has taken refuge in some neighbour's house, and left Nanny alone with the corpse tonight. My husband's knock, cried Hester, starting up. How is your headache, love? asked she anxiously, as she met him at the room door. Gone, quite gone, he replied. I must step down into the surgery for a minute, about this poor little girl's medicine, and then I have a great deal to tell you. The sister sat in perfect silence till his return. Matilda, said Margaret, looking up at her brother. She is very ill, not likely to be better. And poor Mrs. Howell is gone, said Hester. What a sweep it is. Did you hear, love? Mrs. Howell is dead. I hear it is a terrible destruction that we have witnessed, but I trust it is nearly over. I know of only one or two cases of danger now, besides this little girl's. Poor Matilda. But we have little thought to spare, even of her tonight. If I did not know that Margaret is ready for whatever may be tied, he continued, fixing his benevolent gaze upon her. And if, moreover, I were not afraid that someone would be coming to tell my news, if I did not get it out at once, I should hesitate about saying what I have to say. Philip has been explaining. He is coming, said Margaret, with such calmness as she could command. Enderby is coming, and someone else whose explanations are more to the purpose has been explaining. Mrs. Rowland, alarmed and shaken by her misery, has been acknowledging the whole series of falsehoods, by which she persuaded, convinced her brother that you did not love him, that you were, in fact, detached elsewhere. I see how angry you are, Hester. I see you are asking, in your own mind, how Enderby could be thus deluded, how he could trust his sister, rather than Margaret. How can I speak of him as deserving to have her after all this? Your questions are reasonable enough, love, and yet they cannot be answered. Your doubts of Enderby are reasonable enough, and yet I declare to you that he is, in my eyes, almost, if not quite, blameless. Thank you, brother, said Margaret, looking up with swimming eyes. There is one great point to be settled, resumed hope, and that is whether you will both be content to bury in silence the subject of this quarrel, from this hour, relying on my testimony and Mrs. Rowland's. Oh, Edward, do not put your name and hers together. For Enderby's justification, and for Margaret's sake, my name shall be joined with the Archfiends, if necessary, my love. You must, as I was saying, rely upon the testimony of those who know the whole. The end of his conduct throughout has been, if not the very wisest and best, perfectly natural and consistent with the love for Margaret which he has cherished to this hour. I knew it, Mermit Margaret. He will himself disclose as much as he thinks proper when he comes, but he comes full of fear and doubt about his reception. Margaret hung her head, feeling that it was well she was reminded what reason there was for his coming with doubt and trembling in his heart. As he comes full of fear and doubt, resumed hope, I must tell you first, that he never received your last letter, Margaret. He thought you would not answer his. He thought you took him at his word about not attempting explanation. What an unhappy accident, cried Hester. Who carried that letter? How did it happen? It was no accident, my dear. Mrs. Rowland burned that letter. Margaret covered her face with her hands, then, suddenly looking up, she cried. Did she read it? No, she says she dare not. Why, Margaret, you seem sorry that she did not. You think it would have cleared you? I have no doubt she thought so too, and that was the reason why she averted her eyes from it. Yes, it was a cruel injury, Margaret. Can you forgive it, do you think? Not tonight, said Hester. Do not ask it of her tonight. I believe I may ask it at this very moment. The happy can forgive. Is it not so, Margaret? For myself I could, and I do, brother. I would go now and nurse her child and comfort her, but, but you cannot forgive the wretchedness she has caused to Philip. Well, if you each forgive her for your own part, then there is a chance that she may yet lift up her humbled head. What possessed her to hate us so, said Hester? Her hatred to us is the result of long habits of ill-will, of selfish pride, and of low pertinacity about small objects. That is the way in which I account for it all. She disliked you first for your connection with the Greys, and then she disliked me for my connection with you. She nourished up all her personal feelings into an opposition to us and our doings, and when she had done this, and found her only brother going over to the enemy, as she regarded it, her dislike grew into a passion of hatred. Under the influence of this passion, she has been led on to say and do more and more that would suit her purposes. Till she has found herself sunk in an abyss of guilt, I really believe she was not fully aware of her situation, till her misery of today revealed it to her. Poor things, said Margaret. Is there nothing we can do to help her? We will ask Enderby. I take hers to be no uncommon cause. The dislikes of low and selfish minds generally bear very much the character of hers, though they may not be pampered by circumstances into such a luxuriant as in this case. In a city, Mrs. Rowland might have been an ordinary spiteful fine lady. In such a place as Dearbrook, and with a family of rivals, cousins, incessantly before her eyes, to exercise her passions upon, she has ended in being what she is, said Margaret, as hope stopped for a word. Margaret is less surprised than you expected, is she not? said Hester. You did not suppose that she would sit and listen, as she does to your analysis of Mrs. Rowland? But if the truth were known, she carries a prophecy about her on her finger. I have no doubt she has been expecting this very news, ever since she recovered her ring. Yes or no, Margaret. I should rather say she has carried a prophecy in her heart all these long months, said Hope, of which that on her finger is only the symbol. However it may be, said Hester, it has prepared a reception for Mr. Enderby. There is no resisting a prophecy. What is written is written. I must hear him, you know, said Margaret, gently. You must, and you must hear him favourably, said her brother. I had forgotten, said Hester, ringing the bell. Morris, a good fire in the breakfast room, immediately. Within an hour Philip and Margaret were by that fireside, finally wedded in heart and soul. It was astonishing how little explanation was needed, when Margaret had once been told, in addition to the fact of her letter having been destroyed, that she was declared to have made Mrs. Enderby the depository of her confidence about a prior attachment. There was, however, as much to relate as there was little to explain. How Enderby's heart burned within him, when, in sporting with the idea of a prior attachment, it came out what Margaret had felt at the moment of his intrusion upon the conference with Hope, of which she had since, as at the time, been so jealous. The amusement on her own part, and the joy on Hester's, which she was trying to conceal by her downcast looks. How his soul melted within him, when she owned her momentary regret at being saved from under the ice, and the consolation and stimulus she had derived from her brother's expression of affection for her on the spot. How clear, how true a refutation were the revelings of the imputations that had been cast upon her, and how strangely had the facts been distorted by a prejudiced imagination. How sweet in the telling was the story of the ring, so sad in the experience, and the recountings of the times that they had seen each other of late. Philip had caught more glimpses than she. He came down, he dare not say, to watch over her in this time of sickness, but because he could not stay away when he heard of the condition of Dearbrook. But for this sickness would they have met? Should they ever have understood each other again? This was a speculation on which they could not dwell. It led them too near the verge of the grave, which was yawning for Matilda. Mrs. Rowland would have been relieved, but the relief would have been not unmixed with humiliation, if she could have known how easily she was let off in this long conference. Not only can the happy easily forgive, but they are exceedingly apt to forget the causes and the history of their woes, and the richid lady who, in the midst of her grief and terror for her child, trembled at home at the image of the lovers she had injured, was to those lovers in their happiness, much as if she had never existed. Mrs. Howell, said Margaret, hearing her sister mention their departed neighbour after Philip was gone, is it possible that it was this very afternoon that I saw that poor woman die? Even so, dear, how many days or months or years have you lived since? A whole age of bliss, Margaret. Margaret's blush, said. Yes. End of Chapter 46 Chapter 46 of Dearbrook. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gary Day. Dearbrook by Harriet Martino. Chapter 46. Dearbrook in Sunshine. On the first news of the fever being gone, the grays returned to Dearbrook, and Dr. Levitz's family soon followed. The place wore a strange appearance to those who had been absent for some time. Large patches of grass overspread the main street, and cows might have pastured on the fetch of some of the cottages, while the once green churchyard looked brown and bare from the number of new graves crowded in among the old ones. In many a court were the spring flowers running wild over the weedy borders, for want of hands to tend them, and the birds built in many a chimney from which the blue smoke had been want to rise in the morning air. Sophia and her sisters noticed these things as they walked through the place on the morning after their arrival, while their father was engaged in inspecting the Paris Register to learn how many of his neighbours were gone, and their mother was paying her visit of condolence to Mrs. Rowland. Fanny and Mary were much impressed this day with Matilda's death. They had first wondered, and then wept, when they had heard of it at a distance, and now went once more on the spot, where they had seen her daily, and had hourly criticised her looks, her sayings, and doings. They were under a strong sense of the meanness and frivolity of their talk, and the unkindness of their feelings about one whose faults could hardly be called her own, and who might now, they supposed, be living and moving in scenes and amidst circumstances, whose solemnity and importance put to shame the petty intercourse they had carried on with her here. Both resolved in their hearts that if Anna Rowland should praise her own dancing, and flatten her back before she spoke, and talk often of the time when she should be married, they would let it all pass, and not tell Mama or Sophia, or exchange satirical looks with each other. They remembered now that Matilda had done good and kind things, which had been disregarded at the time they were bent on ridiculing her. It was just hereabouts that she took off her worsted gloves one bit a day in the winter, and put them on the hands of her little brother who was crying with cold. And it was by yonder corner that she directed a stranger gentleman into the right road so prettily that he looked after her as she walked away, and said she would be the pride of the place some day. Alas, there she lay in the vault under the church, and she would be no one's pride in this world, except in her poor mother's heart. There is someone not immoral, cried Fanny, the very first beside my cousins that we have seen today. Oh, it is Mrs. James. Shall we not speak to her? Mrs. James seemed warmed out of her usual indifference. She shook hands almost affectionately with Sophia. The meeting of acquaintances who find themselves alive after a pestilence is unlike any other kind of meeting. It animates the most indifferent, and almost makes friends of enemies. While Mrs. James and Sophia were making mutual inquiries, Mary called Fanny's attention to what was to be seen opposite. There was a glittering row of large, fresh-guilt letters, miskin, late howl, haberdasher, etc. Miss Miskin in the deepest morning, with accountants trained to melancholy, was peeping through the ribbons and hand chiefs, which veiled her window, to see whether the Miss Graves were on their way to her or not. Sophia would not have been able to resist going in, but that, on parting from Mrs. James, she saw the true object of her morning walk, approaching in the person of Mr. Walcott. Her intention had been to meet him in his rounds, and here he was. If Mrs. James had been almost affectionate, what was Mr. Walcott? He had really gone through a great deal of anxiety and suffering lately, and his heart was very soft and tender just now. He turned about and walked with Sophia, walked a mile out into the country by her side, and neither seemed to have any thoughts of turning back, till Fanny reminded her sister how long Mama would have been kept waiting for her to go and call on the Levits. The conversation had been in an under-voice, all the way out and back, but when the parting was to take place, when Mr. Walcott was to leave them in the outskirts of the village, the little girls heard a few words, which threw some light on what had been passing. They caught from Sophia, I must consult my parents, and as they hurried homewards with her, they ventured to cast up a glance of droll meaning into her face, which made her try to help smiling, and to speak sharply, and then they knew that they had guessed the truth. Mr. Gray made his call upon his cousins that evening. He requested some private conversation with Hope. His objects were to learn Hope's opinion of Mr. Walcott, as he had seen him of late under very trying circumstances. And if this opinion should be sufficiently favourable to warrant the proposition, to open the subject of a partnership. A partnership in which, as was fair, Mr. Walcott should have a small share at present of the income, and a large proportion of the labour, which was all that the young man, under the effect of his recent terrors, and of his veneration for Mr. Hope, wished or desired. He had declared that, if he could obtain his beloved Sophia, and be permitted to rely on Mr. Hope as his partner and friend, he should be the happiest man alive, and he was confident that his parents would consider him a most fortunate youth to be received, at his outset, into life, into such a family as Mr. Gray's, and under the professional guidance of such a practitioner and such a man as Mr. Hope. There seemed to be every probability of his becoming the happiest man alive, for the Gray's were clearly well disposed towards him, and Mr. Hope had nothing to say of him which could hurt their feelings. He repeated what he had declared to Mr. Rowland, that Mr. Walcott's energies seemed to be concentrated in the practice of his profession, and that his professional knowledge appeared to be sufficient. There was no doubt of his kindness of heart, and though it could not be expected of him that he should ever make a striking figure in the world, yet he might sustain a fair portion of respectability and usefulness in a country station. As to the partnership, no difficulty arose. Mr. Gray frankly explained that present income was far less of an object than to have his daughter settled beside her parents, and his son-in-law usefully and honorably occupied. Sophia would have enough money to make Walcott's income an affair of inferior consideration. If he should deserve an increase by and by, it would all be very well. If not, the young people must get on without. Anything was better than sending the young man a way to establish it himself in a new place, with no happier prospects to Sophia's family than that of parting with her to a distance at last. It did not require many days to complete the arrangements. Hester was at first a little vexed, but on the whole much more amused at the idea of her husband having Mr. Walcott for a partner, and she soon saw the advantage of his being spared many a long country ride, and many a visit at inconvenient seasons by his junior being at hand. She made no substantial objection, and invited Mr. Walcott to the house with all due cordiality. The young man's gratitude and devotion knew no bounds, and the only trouble hope felt in the business was the awkwardness of checking his expressions of thankfulness. When the announcement of the double arrangement was to be made, Mrs. Gray could not resist going herself to Mrs. Rowland, and Sophia was sorry that she could not be present too, to see how the lady would receive the news of a third gentleman marrying into the Gray's connection so decidedly. But Mr. Gray took care to enlighten his partner on the matter some hours before, so that Mrs. Rowland was prepared. She persuaded herself that she was very apathetic, that she had no feelings left for the affairs of life, and her interests were all buried in the tomb of her own Matilda. Mrs. Gray had therefore nothing in particular to tell Sophia when she returned from paying the visit. In exchange for the news, Sir William and Lady Hunter sent back their congratulations, and a very gracious and extensive invitation to dinner, finding that Mrs. Rowland's brother was really with the approbation of his family going to marry Mrs. Hope's sister, and that Mrs. Rowland's protégé was entering into partnership with Mr. Hope himself, they thought it the right time to give their sanction to the reconciliations which were taking place by being civil to all the parties round. So Lady Hunter came in state to Debra at one fine day, made all due apologies, and invited to dinner the whole connection. Mrs. Rowland could not go, of course, and Margaret declined, but all the rest went. Margaret was on the eve of her marriage, and she preferred one more day with Maria to a visit of ceremony. She begged Philip to go, as his sister could not, and he obeyed with a good grace, grudging the loss of a sweet spring evening over Sir William Hunter's dinner table the less, that he knew Margaret and Maria were making the best use of it together. Once more the friends sat in the summer house by the window, once they loved to look abroad upon meadow, wood, and stream. Here they had studied together and cherished each other. Here they had eagerly imparted a multitude of thoughts, and carefully concealed a few. Here they were now converting together for the last time, before their approaching separation. Maria sighed often as well as she might, and when Margaret looked abroad on the beanset as in the distant field, and listened to the bleat of the lambs which came up from the pastures, and was aware of the scent of the hyacinths occasionally wafted in from poor Matilda's neighbouring flowerpot, she sighed too. You must take some of our hyacinths with you to London, and see whether they will not blossom there, said Maria, answering to her friend's thought. I hardly know whether there would be most pain or pleasure in seeing plants sprout and then wither in the little balcony of a back drawing-room which overlooks gables or stables, instead of these delicious green meadows. How fond you were two years ago of imagining the bliss of living always in sight of this very landscape. Yet it has yielded already to the back drawing-room with a prospect of stables and gables. We shall come and look upon your woods sometimes, you know. I'm not bidding goodbye to this place or to you, God forbid. Now tell me, Margaret, said Maria, after a pause. Tell me when you are to be married. That is what I was just about to do. We go on Tuesday. Indeed, in three days. But why should it not be so? It is a weary time since you promised first. A year ago there were reasons, as Philip admits now, why I could not leave Hester and Edward. There are no such reasons now. They are prosperous. Their days of struggle, when they wanted me, my head, my hands, my little income, are passed. Edward's practice has come back to him with increase for Mr. Walcott. There is nothing more to fear for them. Have you done your duty by them now? My duty? What has it been to theirs? Oh Maria, what a spectacle has that been! When I think how they have overcome evil with good, how they have endured, how forgiven, how toiled, and watched on their enemy's behalf, till they have ruled all the minds and touched all the hearts of friends and foes for miles around, I think theirs the most gracious piece of tribulation that ever befell. At home, oh, even you do not know what a home it is. Nor was Margaret herself aware what that home was now. She saw how Edward had there too overcome evil with good, how he had permanently established Hester in her highest moods of mind, strengthened her to overcome the one unhappy tendency from which she had suffered throughout the whole of her life, and dispersed all storms from the dwelling wherein his child was to grow up. But she did not know half the extent of his victory, or the delight of its rewards. She knew nothing of the secret shudder with which he looked back upon the entanglement, the peril, the suffering he had gone through, or of the deep peace which had settled down upon his soul, now that the struggle was well past. She little imagined how, when all the world regarded him as an old married man, his was now, in truth, the soul of the lover. How, from having at one time pitted, feared, recoiled from her, with whom he had connected himself for life, he had risen by dint of a religious discharge of duty towards her, from self-reproach and mere compassion, to patience, to hope, to interest, to admiration, to love. Love that last worthy of hers, love which satisfied even Hester's imperious affections, and set even her over busy mind and heart at rest. Little did Margaret imagine all this. There was but one beside Edward himself who knew it, and that one was Morris, who daily thanked God that strength had been given according to the need. There is but one person in the world, Maria, said her friend, on whose account I cannot help being anxious. I was faithless about Hester, as long as it was possible to have an uneasy thought for her, and now I am afraid I shall sin in the same way about you. And why should you, Margaret? If I were without object, without hope, without experience, without the power of self-rule, which such experience gives, you might well fear for me. But why now? It is not reasonable towards the providence under which we live. It is not just to me. It is very true, but though it is not too much for your faith, that you are in firm and suffering in body, poor, solitary, living by toil without love, without prospect, though all this may not be too much for your faith, Maria, I own it is at times, for mine. Of all these evils, there is but one which is very hard to bear. I am solitary, and the suffering from the sense of this is great. But what has been born may be born, and this evil is precisely that which has been the peculiar trial of the greatest and best of their race, or of those who have been recognized as such. You will not suppose that I try to flatter my pride with this thought, or that the most insane pride could be a support under this kind of suffering. I mean only that there can be nothing morally fatal in a trial which many of the wisest and best have sustained. But it is painful, very painful. For the mere pain, let it pass, and for the other desigremont of my lot, let us not dare to speak evil of them. Lest we should be slandering my best friends. If infirmity, toil, poverty, and the foibles of people around us all go to fortify us in self-reliance, God forbid that we should quarrel with them. But are you sure, quite sure, that you can stand the discipline, that your nerves, as well as your soul, can endure? Far from sure, but my peril is less than it was, and I have therefore every hope of victory at last. In my wilderness some tempter or another comes, at times when my heart is hungry and my faith is fainting, and shows me such a lot as yours, all the sunny kingdoms of love and hope given into your hand, and then the desert of my lot looks dreary enough for the moment. But then arises the very reasonable question. Why should we demand that one lot should, in this exceedingly small section of our immortality, be as happy as another? Why we cannot each husband our own life and means, without wanting to be all equal? Let us bless heaven for your lot, by all means. But why, in the name of providence, should mine be like it? Name, Margaret, why these tears? For their sake I will tell you, and then we shall have talked quite enough about me, that you are no fair judge of my lot. You see me often, generally, in the midst of annoyance, and you do not, because no one can, look with the eye of my mind upon the future. If you could, for one day and night, feel with my feelings, and see with my eyes, oh, that I could, I should be the holier for ever after. Nay, nay, but if you could do this, you would know, from henceforth, that there are glimpses of heaven for me, in solitude, as for you in love, and that it is almost as good to look forward without fear of chance or change, as with such a flutter of hope, as is stirring in you now, so much for the solitaries of the earth, and because providence should be justified of his children. Now, when is this family meeting to take place in the corner house? Frank hopes to land in August, and Anne, Mrs. Gilchrist, will meet him as soon as she can hear, in her by-corner of the world, of his arrival. The other sister is still abroad and cannot come. I hope Anne may be a friend to you, an intimate, judging by her brothers and her own letters. I think she must be worthy. Thank you, but you are, and you ever will be, my intimate. There can be no other. We shall be often seeing you here. Sometimes, and we shall have you with us. No, I cannot come to London. I shall never leave this place again, I believe, but you will be often coming to it. When that crowd of new graves in the church yard shall be waving with grass, and those old woods looking more ancient still, and the grown people of Deerbrook telling their little ones all about the pestilence that swept the place at the end of the great scarcity. When they were children, you and yours, and perhaps I, may sit a knot of grey-headed friends and hear over again about those good old days of ours, as we shall then call them. Until how there was an aged man who told us of his seeing the deer come down through the forest to drink at the brook. I should like to behold those future days, and to remember whose face you saw in the torchlight, at the time and place of your hearing the old man's tale. Whose horse do I hear stopping at the stable? It is Philips. He has galloped home before the rest at Margaret, drawing back from the window with a smile from his face. Still upon her face. Now, Maria, before anyone comes, tell me, would you like to be with me on Tuesday morning or not? Do as you like. I will come to be sure, said Maria smiling. And now, while there is any twilight left, go and give Mr. Enderby the walk in the shrubbery that he had galloped home for. Margaret kept Philip waiting while she lighted her friend's lamp. And it's gleam, shone from the window of the summer-house for long, while talking of Maria, the lovers paced the shrubbery and let the twilight go. End of Chapter 46