The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

“Call me mam, if you like.”

“But you’re not a lady, and I won’t say ma’am to you,” said Theo, rude as a child will sometimes be when least she intends offence.

Her mother set her down, and gave a deep sigh. Was it only that the child’s restlessness and roughness tired her? My father thought otherwise.

“Tell me; tell me,” the child persisted, beating her with her little clenched fist. “Take me up again, and tell me, or I will make you.”

My father thought it time to interfere. He stepped forward. The mother started with a little cry, and caught up the child.

“Theo,” said my father, “I cannot allow you to be rude, especially to one who loves you more than any one else loves you.”

The woman set her down again, dropped on her knees, and caught and kissed his hand.

The child stared; but she stood in awe of my father,—perhaps the more that she had none for any one else,—and, when her mother lifted her once more, was carried away in silence.

The difficulty was got over by the child’s being told to call her mother Nurse.

My father was now sufficiently satisfied with immediate results to carry out the remainder of his contingent plan, of which my mother heartily approved. The gardener and his wife being elderly people, and having no family, therefore not requiring the whole of their cottage, which was within a short distance of the house, could spare a room, which my mother got arranged for the gypsy; and there she was housed, with free access to her child, and the understanding that when Theo liked to sleep with her, she was at liberty to do so.

She was always ready to make herself useful; but it was little she could do for some time, and it was with difficulty that she settled to any occupation at all continuous.

Before long it became evident that her old habits were working in her and making her restless. She was pining after the liberty of her old wandering life, with sun and wind, space and change, all about her. It was spring; and the reviving life of nature was rousing in her the longing for motion and room and variety engendered by the roving centuries which had passed since first her ancestors were driven from their homes in far Hindostan. But my father had foreseen the probability, and had already thought over what could be done for her if the wandering passion should revive too powerfully. He reasoned that there was nothing bad in such an impulse,—one doubtless, which would have been felt in all its force by Abraham himself, had he quitted his tents and gone to dwell in a city,—however much its indulgence might place her at a disadvantage in the midst of a settled social order. He saw, too, that any attempt to coerce it would probably result in entire frustration; that the passion for old forms of freedom would gather tenfold vigor in consequence. It would be far better to favor its indulgence, in the hope that the love of her child would, like an elastic but infrangible cord, gradually tame her down to a more settled life.

He proposed, therefore, that she should, as a matter of duty, go and visit her parents, and let them know of her welfare. She looked alarmed.

“Your father will show you no unkindness, I am certain, after the lapse of so many years,” he added. “Think it over, and tell me to-morrow how you feel about it. You shall go by train to Edinburgh, and once there you will soon be able to find them. Of course you couldn’t take the child with you; but she will be safe with us till you come back.”

The result was that she went; and having found her people, and spent a fortnight with them, returned in less than a month. The rest of the year she remained quietly at home, stilling her desires by frequent and long rambles with her child, in which Mr. Wagtail always accompanied them. My father thought it better to run the risk of her escaping, than force the thought of it upon her by appearing not to trust her. But it came out that she had a suspicion that the dog was there to prevent, or at least expose, any such imprudence. The following spring she went on a second visit to her friends, but was back within a week, and the next year did not go at all.

Meantime my father did what he could to teach her, presenting every truth as something it was necessary she should teach her child. With this duty, he said, he always baited the hook with which he fished for her; “or, to take a figure from the old hawking days, her eyas is the lure with which I would reclaim the haggard hawk.”

What will be the final result, who dares prophesy? At my old home she still resides; grateful, and in some measure useful, idolizing, but not altogether spoiling her child, who understands the relation between them, and now calls her mother.

Dora teaches Theo, and the mother comes in for what share she inclines to appropriate. She does not take much to reading, but she is fond of listening; and is a regular and devout attendant at public worship. Above all, they have sufficing proof that her conscience is awake, and that she gives some heed to what it says.

Mr. Blackstone was right when he told me that good I was unable to foresee would result from the loss which then drowned me in despair.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TROUBLES.

In the beginning of the following year, the lady who filled Miss Clare’s place was married, and Miss Clare resumed the teaching of Judy’s children. She was now so handsomely paid for her lessons, that she had reduced the number of her engagements very much, and had more time to give to the plans in which she labored with Lady Bernard. The latter would willingly have settled such an annuity upon her as would have enabled her to devote all her time to this object; but Miss Clare felt that the earning of her bread was one of the natural ties that bound her in the bundle of social life; and that in what she did of a spiritual kind, she must be untrammelled by money-relations. If she could not do both,—provide for herself and assist others,—it would be a different thing, she said; for then it would be clear that Providence intended her to receive the hire of the laborer for the necessity laid upon her. But what influenced her chiefly was the dread of having anything she did for her friends attributed to professional motives, instead of the recognition of eternal relations. Besides, as she said, it would both lessen the means at Lady Bernard’s disposal, and cause herself to feel bound to spend all her energies in that one direction; in which case she would be deprived of the recreative influences of change and more polished society. In her labor, she would yet feel her freedom, and would not serve even Lady Bernard for money, except she saw clearly that such was the will of the one Master. In thus refusing her offer, she but rose in her friend’s estimation.

In the spring, great trouble fell upon the Morleys. One of the children was taken with scarlet-fever; and then another and another was seized in such rapid succession—until five of them were lying ill together—that there was no time to think of removing them. Cousin Judy would accept no assistance in nursing them, beyond that of her own maids, until her strength gave way, and she took the infection herself in the form of diphtheria; when she was compelled to take to her bed, in such agony at the thought of handing her children over to hired nurses, that there was great ground for fearing her strength would yield.

She lay moaning, with her eyes shut, when a hand was laid on hers, and Miss Clare’s voice was in her ear. She had come to give her usual lesson to one of the girls who had as yet escaped the infection: for, while she took every precaution, she never turned aside from her work for any dread of consequences; and when she heard that Mrs. Morley had been taken ill, she walked straight to her room.

“Go away!” said Judy. “Do you want to die too?”

“Dear Mrs. Morley,” said Miss Clare, “I will just run home, and make a few arrangements, and then come back and nurse you.”

“Never mind me,” said Judy. “The children! the children! What shall I do?”

“I am quite able to look after you all—if you will allow me to bring a young woman to help me.”

“You are an angel!” said poor Judy. “But there is no occasion to bring any one with you. My servants are quite competent.”

“I must have every thing in my own hands,” said Miss Clare; “and therefore must have some one who will do exactly as I tell her. This girl has been with me now for some time, and I can depend upon her. Servants always look down upon governesses.”

“Do whatever you like, you blessed creature,” said Judy. “If any one of my servants behaves improperly to you, or neglects your orders, she shall go as soon as I am up again.”

“I would rather give them as little opportunity as I can of running the risk. If I may bring this friend of my own, I shall soon have the house under hospital regulations. But I have been talking too much. I might almost have returned by this time. It is a bad beginning if I have hurt you already by saying more than was necessary.”

She had hardly left the room before Judy had fallen asleep, so much was she relieved by the offer of her services. Ere she awoke, Marion was in a cab on her way back to Bolivar Square, with her friend and two carpet-bags. Within an hour, she had intrenched herself in a spare bedroom, had lighted a fire, got encumbering finery out of the way, arranged all the medicines on a chest of drawers, and set the clock on the mantle-piece going; made the round of the patients, who were all in adjoining rooms, and the round of the house, to see that the disinfectants were fresh and active, added to their number, and then gone to await the arrival of the medical attendant in Mrs. Morley’s room.

“Dr. Brand might have been a little more gracious,” said Judy; “but I thought it better not to interrupt him by explaining that you were not the professional nurse he took you for.”

“Indeed, there was no occasion,” answered Miss Clare. “I should have told him so myself, had it not been that I did a nurse’s regular work in St. George’s Hospital for two months, and have been there for a week or so, several times since, so that I believe I have earned the right to be spoken to as such. Anyhow, I understood every word he said.”

Meeting Mr. Morley in the hall, the doctor advised him not to go near his wife, diphtheria being so infectious; but comforted him with the assurance that the nurse appeared an intelligent young person, who would attend to all his directions; adding,—

“I could have wished she had been older; but there is a great deal of illness about, and experienced nurses are scarce.”

Miss Clare was a week in the house before Mr. Morley saw her, or knew she was there. One evening she ran down to the dining-room, where he sat over his lonely glass of Madeira, to get some brandy, and went straight