an' all that, an' yit all the while kep' a will locked up from you, as tied you
up as tight as aenything. I assure you," Mrs Jerome continued, dropping her
voice in a confidential manner, "I know no more to this day about Mr Jerome's
will, nor the child as is unborn. I've no fears about a income?I'm well awear Mr
Jerome 'ud niver leave me stret for that; but I should like t'hev a thousand or
two at my own disposial; it meks a widder a deal more looked on."
Perhaps this ground of respect to widows might not be entirely without its
influence on the Milby mind, and might do something towards conciliating those
more aristocratic acquaintances of Janet's, who would otherwise have been
inclined to take the severest view of her apostasy towards Evangelicalism.
Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means?one feels they are taking
quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge
in a few delinquencies. "They've got the money for it," as the girl said of her
mistress who had made herself ill with pickled salmon. However it may have been,
there was not an acquaintance of Janet's, in Milby, that did not offer her
civilities in the early days of her widowhood. Even the severe Mrs Phipps was
not an exception; for heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we
never visited people we speak ill of: we should live, like Egyptian hermits, in
crowded solitude.
Perhaps the attentions most grateful to Janet were those of her old friend Mrs
Crewe, whose attachment to her favourite proved quite too strong for any
resentment she might be supposed to feel on the score of Mr Tryan. The little
deaf old lady couldn't do without her accustomed visitor, whom she had seen grow
up from child to woman, always so willing to chat with her and tell her all the
news, though she was deaf; while other people thought it tiresome to shout in
her ear, and irritated her by recommending ear-trumpets of various construction.
All this friendliness was very precious to Janet. She was conscious of the aid
it gave her in the self-conquest which was the blessing she prayed for with
every fresh morning. The chief strength of her nature lay in her affection,
which coloured all the rest of her mind: it gave a personal sisterly tenderness
to her acts of benevolence; it made her cling with tenacity to every object that
had once stirred her kindly emotions. Alas! it was unsatisfied, wounded
affection that had made her trouble greater than she could bear. And now there
was no check to the full flow of that plenteous current in her nature?no gnawing
secret anguish?no overhanging terror?no inward shame. Friendly faces beamed on
her; she felt that friendly hearts were approving her, and wishing her well, and
that mild sunshine of goodwill fell beneficently on her new hopes and efforts,
as the clear shining after rain falls on the tender leaf-buds of spring, and
wins them from promise to fulfilment.
And she needed these secondary helps, for her wrestling with her past self was
not always easy. The strong emotions from which the life of a human being
receives a new bias, win their victory as the sea wins his: though their advance
may be sure, they will often, after a mightier wave than usual, seem to roll
back so far as to lose all the ground they had made. Janet showed the strong
bent of her will by taking every outward precaution against the occurrence of a
temptation. Her mother was now her constant companion, having shut up her little
dwelling and come to reside in Orchard Street; and Janet gave all dangerous keys
into her keeping, entreating her to lock them away in some secret place.
Whenever the too well-known depression and craving threatened her, she would
seek a refuge in what had always been her purest enjoyment?in visiting one of
her poor neighbours, in carrying some food or comfort to a sick-bed, in cheering
with her smile some of the familiar dwellings up the dingy back-lanes. But the
great source of courage, the great help to perseverance, was the sense that she
had a friend and teacher in Mr Tryan: she could confess her difficulties to him;
she knew he prayed for her; she had always before her the prospect of soon
seeing him, and hearing words of admonition and comfort, that came to her
charged with a divine power such as she had never found in human words before.
So the time passed, till it was far on in May, nearly a month after her
husband's death, when, as she and her mother were seated peacefully at breakfast
in the dining-room, looking through the open window at the old-fashioned garden,
where the grass-plot was now whitened with appleblossoms, a letter was brought
in for Mrs Raynor.
"Why, there's the Thurston post-mark on it," she said. "It must be about your
Aunt Anna. Ah, so it is, poor thing; she's been taken worse this last day or
two, and has asked them to send for me. That dropsy is carrying her off at last,
I dare say. Poor thing! it will be a happy release. I must go, my dear?she's
your father's last sister ?though I'm sorry to leave you. However, perhaps I
shall not have to stay more than a night or two."
Janet looked distressed as she said, "Yes, you must go, mother. But I don't know
what I shall do without you. I think I shall run in to Mrs Pettifer, and ask her
to come and stay with me while you're away. I'm sure she will."
At twelve o'clock, Janet, having seen her mother in the coach that was to carry
her to Thurston, called, on her way back, at Mrs Pettifer's, but found, to her
great disappointment, that her old friend was gone out for the day. So she wrote
on a leaf of her pocket-book an urgent request that Mrs Pettifer would come and
stay with her while her mother was away; and, desiring the servant-girl to give
it to her mistress as soon as she came home, walked on to the Vicarage to sit
with Mrs Crewe, thinking to relieve in this way the feeling of desolateness and
undefined fear that was taking possession of her on being left alone for the
first time since that great crisis in her life. And Mrs Crewe, too, was not at
home!
Janet, with a sense of discouragement for which she rebuked herself as childish,
walked sadly home again; and when she entered the vacant dining-room, she could
not help bursting into tears. It is such vague undefinable states of
susceptibility as this?states of excitement or depression, half mental, half
physical?that determine many a tragedy in women's lives. Janet could scarcely
eat anything at her solitary dinner; she tried to fix her attention on a book in
vain; she walked about the garden, and felt the very sunshine melancholy.
Between four and five o'clock, old Mr Pittman called, and joined her in the
garden, where she had been sitting for some time under one of the great
apple-trees, thinking how Robert, in his best moods, used to take little Mamsey
to look at the cucumbers, or to see the Alderney cow with its calf in the
paddock. The tears and sobs had come again at these thoughts; and when Mr
Pittman approached her, she was feeling languid and exhausted. But the old
gentleman's sight and sensibility were obtuse, and, to Janet's satisfaction,
he
showed no consciousness that she was in grief.
"I have a task to impose upon you, Mrs Dempster," he said, with a certain
toothless pomposity habitual to him: "I want you to look over those letters
again in Dempster's bureau, and see if you can find one from Poole about the
mortgage on those houses at Dingley. It will be worth twenty pounds, if you can
find it; and I don't know where it can be, if it isn't among those letters in
the bureau. I've looked everywhere at the office for it. I'm going home now, but
I'll call again tomorrow, if you'll be good enough to look in the mean time."
Janet said she would look directly, and turned with Mr Pittman into the house.
But the search would take her some time, so he bade her good-by, and she went at
once to a bureau which stood in a small back room, where Dempster used sometimes
to write letters and receive people who came on business out of office hours.
She had looked through the contents of the bureau more than once; but to-day, on
removing the last bundle of letters from one of the compartments, she saw what
she had never seen before, a small nick in the wood, made in the shape of a
thumb-nail, evidently intended as a means of pushing aside the movable back of
the compartment. In her examination hitherto she had not found such a letter as
Mr Pittman had described?perhaps there might be more letters behind this slide.
She pushed it back at once, and saw?no letters, but a small spirit decanter,
half full of pale brandy, Dempster's habitual drink.
An impetuous desire shook Janet through all her members; it seemed to master her
with the inevitable force of strong fumes that flood our senses before we are
aware. Her hand was on the decanter; pale and excited she was lifting it out of
its niche, when, with a start and a shudder, she dashed it to the ground, and
the room was filled with the odour of the spirit. Without staying to shut up the
bureau, she rushed out of the room, snatched up her bonnet and mantle which lay
in the dining-room, and hurried out of the house.
Where should she go? In what place would this demon that had re-entered her be
scared back again? She walks rapidly along the street in the direction of the
church. She is soon at the gate of the churchyard; she passes through it, and
makes her way across the graves to a spot she knows?a spot where the turf was
stirred not long ago, where a tomb is to be erected soon. It is very near the
church wall, on the side which now lies in deep shadow, quite shut out from the
rays of the westering sun by a projecting buttress.
Janet sat down on the ground. It was a sombre spot. A thick hedge, surmounted by
elm trees, was in front of her; a projecting buttress on each side. But she
wanted to shut out even these objects. Her thick crape veil was down; but she
closed her eyes behind it, and pressed her hands upon them. She wanted to summon
up the vision of the past; she wanted to lash the demon out of her soul with the
stinging memories of the bygone misery; she wanted to renew the old horror and
the old anguish, that she might throw herself with the more desperate clinging
energy at the foot of the cross, where the Divine Sufferer would impart divine
strength. She tried to recall those first bitter moments of shame, which were
like the shuddering discovery of the leper that the dire taint is upon him; the
deeper and deeper lapse; the on-coming of settled despair; the awful moments by
the bedside of her self-maddened husband. And then she tried to live through,
with a remembrance made more vivid by that contrast, the blessed hours of hope,
and joy, and peace that had come to her of late, since her whole soul had been
bent towards the attainment of purity and holiness.
But now, when the paroxysm of temptation was past, dread and despondency began
to thrust themselves, like cold heavy mists, between her and the heaven to which
she wanted to look for light and guidance. The temptation would come again? that
rush of desire might overmaster her the next time?she would slip back again into
that deep slimy pit from which she had been once rescued, and there might be no
deliverance for her more. Her prayers did not help her, for fear predominated
over trust; she had no confidence that the aid she sought would be given; the
idea of her future fall had grasped her mind too strongly. Alone, in this way,
she was powerless. If she could see Mr Tryan, if she could confess all to him,
she might gather hope again. She must see him; she must go to him.
Janet rose from the ground, and walked away with a quick resolved step. She had
been seated there a long while, and the sun had already sunk. It was late for
her to walk to Paddiford and go to Mr Tryan's, where she had never called
before; but there was no other way of seeing him that evening, and she could not
hesitate about it. She walked towards a footpath through the fields, which would
take her to Paddiford without obliging her to go through the town. The way was
rather long, but she preferred it, because it left less probability of her
meeting acquaintances, and she shrank from having to speak to any one.
The evening red had nearly faded by the time Janet knocked at Mrs Wagstaff's
door. The good woman looked surprised to see her at that hour; but Janet's
mourning weeds and the painful agitation of her face quickly brought the second
thought, that some urgent trouble had sent her there.
"Mr Tryan's just come in," she said. "If you'll step into the parlour, I'll go
up and tell him you're here. He seemed very tired and poorly."
At another time Janet would have felt distress at the idea that she was
disturbing Mr Tryan when he required rest; but now her need was too great for
that: she could feel nothing but a sense of coming relief, when she heard his
step on the stair and saw him enter the room.
He went towards her with a look of anxiety, and said, "I fear something is the
matter. I fear you are in trouble."
Then poor Janet poured forth her sad tale of temptation and despondency; and
even while she was confessing she felt half her burthen removed. The act of
confiding in human sympathy, the consciousness that a fellow-being was listening
to her with patient pity, prepared her soul for that stronger leap by which
faith grasps the idea of the divine sympathy. When Mr Tryan spoke words of
consolation and encouragement, she could now believe the message of mercy; the
water-floods that had threatened to overwhelm her rolled back again, and life
once more spread its heaven-covered space before her. She had been unable to
pray alone; but now his prayer bore her own soul along with it, as the broad
tongue of flame carries upwards in its vigorous leap the little flickering fire
that could hardly keep alight by itself.
But Mr Tryan was anxious that Janet should not linger out at this late hour.
When he saw that she was calmed, he said, "I will walk home with you now; we can
talk on the way." But Janet's mind was now sufficiently at liberty for her to
notice the signs of feverish weariness in his appearance, and she would not hear
of causing him any further fa
tigue.
"No, no," she said earnestly, "you will pain me very much?indeed you will, by
going out again to-night on my account. There is no real reason why I should not
go alone." And when he persisted, fearing that for her to be seen out so late
alone might excite remark, she said imploringly, with a half sob in her voice,
"What should I? what would others like me do, if you went from us? Why will you
not think more of that, and take care of yourself?"
He had often had that appeal made to him before, but to-night?from Janet's
lips?it seemed to have a new force for him, and he gave way. At first, indeed,
he only did so on condition that she would let Mrs Wagstaff go with her; but
Janet had determined to walk home alone. She preferred solitude; she wished not
to have her present feelings distracted by any conversation.
So she went out into the dewy starlight; and as Mr Tryan turned away from her,
he felt a stronger wish than ever that his fragile life might last out for him
to see Janet's restoration thoroughly established?to see her no longer fleeing,
struggling, clinging up the steep sides of a precipice whence she might be any
moment hurled back into the depths of despair, but walking firmly on the level
ground of habit. He inwardly resolved that nothing but a peremptory duty should
ever take him from Milby?that he would not cease to watch over her until life
forsook him.
Janet walked on quickly till she turned into the fields; then she slackened her
pace a little, enjoying the sense of solitude which a few hours before had been
intolerable to her. The Divine Presence did not now seem far off, where she had
not wings to reach it; prayer itself seemed superfluous in those moments of calm
trust. The temptation which had so lately made her shudder before the
possibilities of the future, was now a source of confidence; for had she not
been delivered from it? Had not rescue come in the extremity of danger? Yes;
Infinite Love was caring for her. She felt like a little child whose hand is
firmly grasped by its father, as its frail limbs make their way over the rough
ground; if it should stumble, the father will not let it go.
That walk in the dewy starlight remained for ever in Janet's memory as one of
those baptismal epochs, when the soul, dipped in the sacred waters of joy and
peace, rises from them with new energies, with more unalterable longings.
When she reached home she found Mrs Pettifer there, anxious for her return.
After thanking her for coming, Janet only said, "I have been to Mr Tryan's; I
wanted to speak to him;" and then remembering how she had left the bureau and
papers, she went into the back-room, where, apparently, no one had been since
she quitted it; for there lay the fragments of glass, and the room was still
full of the hateful odour. How feeble and miserable the temptation seemed to her
at this moment! She rang for Kitty to come and pick up the fragments and rub the
floor, while she herself replaced the papers and locked up the bureau.
The next morning, when seated at breakfast with Mrs Pettifer, Janet said,
"What a dreary, unhealthy-looking place that is where Mr Tryan lives! I'm sure
it must be very bad for him to live there. Do you know, all this morning, since
I've been awake, I've been turning over a little plan in my mind. I think it a
charming one?all the more, because you are concerned in it."
"Why, what can that be?"
"You know that house on the Redhill road they call Holly Mount; it is shut up
now. That is Robert's house; at least, it is mine now, and it stands on one of
the healthiest spots about here. Now, I've been settling in my own mind, that if
a dear good woman of my acquaintance, who knows how to make a home as
comfortable and cozy as a bird's nest, were to take up her abode there, and have
Mr Tryan as a lodger, she would be doing one of the most useful deeds in all her