A shudder ran through her, as if at the sight of some hideously offensive object.

"That would be the best thing," said Sepia, "if it meant not think more about it. Everything is better for not being thought about. I would do anything to comfort you, dear. I would marry him for you, if that would do; but I fear it would scarcely meet the views of Herr Papa. If I could please the beast as well--and I think I should in time--I would willingly hand him the purchase-money. But, of course, he would scorn to touch it, except as the proceeds of the _bona-fide_ sale of his own flesh and blood."

CHAPTER XIV.

UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE.

As the time went on, and Letty saw nothing more of Tom, she began to revive a little, and feel as if she were growing safe again. The tide of temptation was ebbing away; there would be no more deceit; never again would she place herself in circ.u.mstances whence might arise any necessity for concealment. She began, much too soon, alas! to feel as if she were newborn; nothing worthy of being called a new birth can take place anywhere but in the will, and poor Letty's will was not yet old enough to give birth to anything; it scarcely, indeed, existed. The past was rapidly receding, that was all, and had begun to look dead, and as if it wanted only to be buried out of her sight. For what is done is done, in small faults as well as in murders; and, as nothing can recall it, or make it not be, where can be the good in thinking about it?--a reasoning worse than dangerous, before one has left off being capable of the same thing over again. Still, in the mere absence of renewed offense, it is well that some shadow of peace should return; else how should men remember the face of innocence? or how should they live long enough to learn to repent? But for such breaks, would not some grow worse at full gallop?

That the idea of Tom's friendship was very pleasant to her, who can blame her? He had never said he loved her; he had only said she was lovely: was she therefore bound to persuade herself he meant nothing at all? Was it not as much as could be required of her, that, in her modesty, she took him for no more than a true, kind friend, who would gladly be of service to her? Ah! if Tom had but been that! If he was not, he did not know it, which is something to say both for and against him. It could not be other than pleasant to Letty to have one, in her eyes so superior, who would talk to her as an equal. It was not that ever she resented being taught; but she did get tired of lessons only, beautiful as they were. A kiss from Mrs. Wardour, or a little teasing from Cousin G.o.dfrey, would have done far more than all his intellectual labor upon her to lift her feet above such snares as she was now walking amid. She needed some play--a thing far more important to life than a great deal of what is called business and acquirement. Many a matter, over which grown people look important, long-faced, and consequential, is folly, compared with the merest child's frolic, in relation to the true affairs of existence.

All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her houseduties; and, again, her readings with her cousin G.o.dfrey, since Tom's apparent recession, had begun to revive in interest. He grew kinder and kinder to her, more and more fatherly.

But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking measures.

In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was inquiring after some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to herself, she said, to find for the girl the right thing, before sending her from the house.

In the true spirit of benevolent tyranny, she said not a word to Letty of her design. She had the chronic distemper of concealment, where Letty had but a feverish attack. Much false surmise might have been corrected, and much evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to show how gladly she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old lady kept her lynx-eye upon the young people.

But G.o.dfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye, came to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should be the common sitting-room. This would aid him in carrying out his resolve of a cautious and staid demeanor toward his pupil. To preserve his freedom, he must keep himself thoroughly in hand. Experience had taught him that, were he once to give way and show his affection, there would from that moment be an end of teaching and learning. And yet so much was he drawn to the girl, that, at this very time, he gave her the ma.n.u.script of his own verses to which I have referred--a volume exquisitely written, and containing, certainly, the outcome of the best that was in him: he did not tell her that he had copied them all with such care and neatness, and had the book so lovelily bound, expressly and only for her eyes..

News of something that seemed likely to suit her ideas for Letty at length came to Mrs. Wardour's ears, whereupon she thought it time to prepare the girl for the impending change. One day, therefore, as she herself sat knitting one sock for G.o.dfrey, and Letty darning another, she opened the matter.

"I am getting old, Letty," she said, "and you can't be here always. You are a thoughtless creature, but I suppose you have the sense to see that?"

"Yes, indeed, aunt," answered Letty.

"It is high time you should be thinking," Mrs. Wardour went on, "how you are to earn your bread. If you left it till I was gone, you would find it very awkward, for you would have to leave Thornwick at once, and I don't know who would take you while you were looking out. I must see you comfortably settled before I go."

"Yes, aunt."

"There are not many things you could do."

"No, aunt; very few. But I should make a better housemaid than most--I do believe that."

"I am glad to find you willing to work; but we shall be able, I trust, to do a little better for you than that. A situation as housemaid would reflect little credit on my pains for you--would hardly correspond to the education you have had."

Mrs. Wardour referred to the fact that Letty was for about a year a day--boarder at a ladies' school in Testbridge, where no immortal soul, save that of a genius, which can provide its own sauce, could have taken the least interest in the chaff and chopped straw that composed the provender.

"It is true," her aunt went on, "you might have made a good deal more of it, if you had cared to do your best; but, such as you are, I trust we shall find you a very tolerable situation as governess."

At the word, Letty's heart ran half-way up her throat. A more dreadful proposal she could not have imagined. She felt, and was, utterly insufficient for--indeed, incapable of such an office. She felt she knew nothing: how was she to teach anything? Her heart seemed to grow gray within her. By nature, from lack of variety of experience, yet more from daily repression of her natural joyousness, she was exceptionally apprehensive where anything was required of her. What she understood, she encountered willingly and bravely; but, the simplest thing that seemed to involve any element of obscurity, she dreaded like a dragon in his den.

"You don't seem to relish the proposal, Letty," said Mrs. Wardour. "I hope you had not taken it in your head that I meant to leave you independent. What I have done for you, I have done purely for your father's sake. I was under no obligation to take the least trouble about you. But I have more regard to your welfare than I fear you give me credit for."

"O aunt! it's only that I'm not fit for being a governess. I shouldn't a bit mind being dairymaid or housemaid. I would go to such a place to-morrow, if you liked."

"Letty, your tastes may be vulgar, but you owe it to your family to look at least like a lady."

"But I am not scholar enough for a governess, aunt."

"That is not my fault. I sent you to a good school. Now, I will find you a good situation, and you must contrive to keep it."

"O aunt! let me stay here--just as I am. Call me your dairymaid or your housemaid. It is all one--I do the work now."

"Do you mean to reflect on me that I have required menial offices of you? I have been to you in the place of a mother; and it is for me, not for you, to make choice of your path in life."

"Do you want me to go at once?" asked Letty, her heart sinking again, and her voice trembling with a pathos her aunt quite misunderstood.

"As soon as I have secured for you a desirable situation--not before,"

answered Mrs. Wardour, in a tone generously protective.

Her affection for the girl had never been deep; and, the moment she fancied she and her son were drawing toward each other, she became to her the thawed adder: she wished the adder well, but was she bound to harbor it after it had begun to bite? There are who never learn to see anything except in its relation to themselves, nor that relation except as fancied by themselves; and, this being a withering habit of mind, they keep growing drier, and older, and smaller, and deader, the longer they live--thinking less of other people, and more of themselves and their past experience, all the time as they go on withering.

But Mrs. Wardour was in some dread of what her son would say when he came to know what she had been doing; for, when we are not at ease with ourselves, when conscience keeps moving as if about to speak, then we dread the disapproval of the lowliest, and G.o.dfrey was the only one before whom his mother felt any kind of awe. Toward him, therefore, she kept silence for the present. If she had spoken then, things might have gone very differently: it might have brought G.o.dfrey to the point of righteous resolve or of pa.s.sionate utterance. He could not well have opposed his mother's design without going further and declaring that, if Letty would, she should remain where she was, the mistress of the house. If not the feeling of what was due to her, the dread of the house without her might well have brought him to this.

Letty, for her part, believed her cousin G.o.dfrey regarded her with pity, and showed her kindness from a generous sense of duty; she was a poor, dull creature for whom her cousin must do what he could: one word of genuine love from him, one word even of such love as was in him, would have caused her nature to shoot heavenward and spread out earthward with a rapidity that would have astonished him; she would thereby have come into her spiritual property at once, and heaven would have opened to her--a little way at least--probably to close again for a time. Now she felt crushed. The idea of undertaking that for which she knew herself so ill fitted was not merely odious but frightful to her. She was ready enough to work, but it must be real, not sham work.

She must see and consult Mary! This was quite another affair from Tom!

She would take the first opportunity. In the mean time there was nothing to be done or said; and with a heavy heart she held her peace--only longed for her own room, that she might have a cry. To her comfort the clock struck ten, and all that now lay between her and that refuge was the usual round of the house with Mrs. Wardour, to see all safe for the night. That done, they parted, and Letty went slowly and sadly up the stair. It was a dark prospect before her. At best, she had to leave the only home she remembered, and go among strangers.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MOONLIGHT.

It was a still, frosty night, with a full moon. When she reached her chamber, Letty walked mechanically to the window, and there stood, with the candle in her hand, looking carelessly out, nor taking any pleasure in the great night. The window looked on an open, gra.s.sy yard, where were a few large ricks of wheat, shining yellow in the cold, far-off moon. Between the moon and the earth hung a faint mist, which the thin clouds of her breath seemed to mingle with and augment. There lay her life--out of doors--dank and dull; all the summer faded from it--all its atmosphere a growing fog! She would never see Tom again! It was six weeks since she saw him last! He must have ceased to think of her by this time! And, if he did think of her again, she would be far off, n.o.body knew where.

Something struck the window with a slight, sharp clang. It was winter, and there were no moths or other insects flying, What could it be? She put her face close to the pane, and looked out. There was a man in the shadow of one of the ricks! He had his hat off, and was beckoning to her. It could be n.o.body but Tom! The thought sent to her heart a pang of mingled pleasure and pain. Clearly he wanted to speak to her! How gladly she would! but then would come again all the trouble of conscious deceit: how was she to bear that all over again! Still, if she was going to be turned out of the house so soon, what would it matter? If her aunt was going to compel her to be her own mistress, where was the harm if she began it a few days sooner? What did it matter anyhow what she did? But she dared not speak to him! Mrs.

Wardour's ears were as sharp as her eyes. The very sound of her own voice in the moonlight would terrify her. She opened the lattice softly, and gently shaking her head--she dared not shake it vigorously--was on the point of closing it again, when, making frantic signs of entreaty, the man stepped into the moonlight, and it was plainly Tom. It was too dreadful! He might be seen any moment! She shook her head again, in a way she meant, and he understood, to mean she dared not. He fell on his knees and laid his hands together like one praying. Her heart interpreted the gesture as indicating that he was in trouble, and that, therefore, he begged her to go to him. With sudden resolve she nodded acquiescence, and left the window.

Her room was in a little wing, projecting from the back of the house, over the kitchen. The servants' rooms were in another part, but Letty forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked also upon the ricks.

There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest she should startle him, and he should call out, for the slightest noise about the place would bring G.o.dfrey down. The next moment, however, Tom, aware of her presence, sprang to his feet, and, turning, bounded to her, and took her in his arms. Still possessed by the one terror of making a noise, she did not object even by a contrary motion, and, when he took her hand to lead her away out of sight of the house, she yielded at once.

When they were safe in the field behind the hedge--

"Why did you make me come down, Tom?" she whispered, half choked with fear, looking up in his face, which was radiant in the moonshine.

"Because I could not bear it one day longer," he answered. "All this time I have been breaking my heart to get a word with you, and never seeing you except at church, and there you would never even look at me.

It is cruel of you, Letty. I know you could manage it, if you liked, well enough. Why should you try me so?"

"Do speak a little lower, Tom: sound goes so far at night!--I didn't know you would want to see me like that," she answered, looking up in his face with a pleased smile.

"Didn't know!" repeated Tom. "I want nothing else, think of nothing else, dream of nothing else. Oh, the delight of having you here all alone to myself at last! You darling Letty!"