Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

‘I must go,’ said Mrs. Merridew.

She could not trust herself to speak, I could see. She put down her face and kissed the ivory hand, and then she turned and went past me to the door, without another word. I think she had forgotten my very existence. When she had reached the door she turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes upon Ellen. She was going away, having given them back their living, without so much acknowledgment as if she had brought a nosegay. There was in her look a mute remonstrance and appeal and protest. Ellen Babington trembled all over; her lips quivered as if with words which pride or pain would not permit her to say; but she held, with both hands immovable, to the back of her mother’s chair, who, for her part, was kissing her hand to the departing visitor. ‘Good-bye; come and see us soon again,’ the old lady was saying cheerfully. And Ellen gazed, and trembled, and said nothing. Thus this strangest of visits came to an end.

She had forgotten me, as I thought; but when I came to her side and my arm was within her reach, she clutched at it and tottered so that it was all I could do to support her. I was very thankful to get her into the cab, for I thought she would have fainted on the way. But yet she roused herself when I told the man to drive back to the station.

‘We must go to the lawyer’s first,’ she said; and then we turned and drove through the busy London streets, towards the City. The clerks looked nearly baked in the office when we reached it, and the crowd crowded on, indiscriminate and monotonous. One feels one has no right to go to such a place and take any of the air away, of which they have so little. And to think of the sweet air blowing over our lawns and lanes, and all the unoccupied, silent, shady places we had left behind us! Such vain thoughts were not in Mrs. Merridew’s head. She was turning over and over instead a very different kind of vision. She was counting up all she had sacrificed, and how little she had got by it; and yet was going to complete the sacrifice, unmoved even by her thoughts.

I confess I was surprised at the tone she took with the lawyer. She said ‘Mr. Merridew and myself’ with a composure which made me, who knew Mr. Merridew had no hand in it, absolutely speechless. The lawyer remonstrated as he was in duty bound, and spoke about his client’s will; but Mrs. Merridew made very little account of the will. She quoted her husband with a confidence so assured that even I, though I knew better, began to be persuaded that she had communicated with him. And thus the business was finally settled. She had recovered herself by the time we got into the cab again. It is true that her face was worn and livid with the exertions of the day, but still, pale and weary as she was, she was herself.

‘But, my dear,’ I said, ‘you quoted Mr. Merridew, as if he knew all about it; and what if he should not approve?’

‘You must not think I have no confidence in my husband,’ she said quickly; ‘far from that. Perhaps he would not see as I do now. He would think of our own wants first. But if it comes to his ears afterwards, Charles is not the man to disown his wife’s actions. Oh, no, no; we have gone through a great deal together, and he would no more bring shame upon me, as if I acted when I had no right to act—than—I would bring shame upon him; and I think that is as much as could be said.’

And then we made our way back to the station; but she said nothing more till we got into the railway-carriage, which was not quite so noisy as our cab.

‘It would have been such a thing for us,’ she said then, half to herself. ‘Poor Charles! Oh, if I could but have said to him, “Don’t be so anxious; here is so much a year for the children.” And Jack should have gone to the University. And there would have been Will’s premium at once’ (i.e., to Mr. Willoughby, the engineer). ‘The only thing that I am glad of is that they don’t know. And then Janet; she breaks my heart when she talks. It is so bad for her, knowing the Fortises and all those girls who have everything that heart can desire. I never had that to worry me when I was young. I was only the governess. Janet’s talk will be the worst of all. I could have made the house so nice too, and everything. Well!—but then I never should have had a moment’s peace.’

‘You don’t regret?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Mrs. Merridew with a long sigh. And then, ‘Do you think I have been a traitor to the children?’ she cried suddenly, ‘taking away their money from them in the dark? Would Charles think me a traitor, as they do? Is it always to be my part?—always to be my part?’

‘No, no,’ I said, soothing her as best I could; but I was very glad to find my pony-carriage at the station, and to drive her home to my house and give her some tea, and strengthen her for her duties. Thus poor John Babington’s fortune was disposed of, and no one was the wiser, except, indeed, the old lady and her daughter, who were not likely to talk much on the subject. And Mrs. Merridew walked calmly across to her house in the dusk as if this strange episode of agitation and passion had been nothing more solid than a dream.

CHAPTER III

We did not meet again for some days after this, and next time I saw her, which was on Sunday at church with her children, it seemed impossible to me to believe in the reality of the strange scene we had so recently passed through together. The calm curtain of ordinary decorums and ordinary friendliness had risen for a moment from Mrs. Merridew’s unexcited existence, revealing a woman distracted by a primitive sense of justice, rending her own soul, as it were, in sunder, and doing, in spite of herself and all her best instincts, what she felt was right. That she should have any existence separate from her children had never occurred to anybody before. Yet, for one day, I had seen her resist and ignore the claims of her children, and act like an independent being. When I saw her again she was once more the mother and nothing more, casting her eyes over her little flock, cognizant, one could see, of the perfection or imperfection of every fold and line in their dresses, keeping her attention upon each, from little Matty, who was restless and could not be kept quiet, up to Janet, who sat demure, and already caught the eye of visitors as one of the prettiest girls of Dinglefield. Mrs. Merridew remarked all with a vigilant mother’s eye, and as I gazed across at her in her pew, it was all but impossible for me to believe that this was the same woman who had clung so convulsively to my arm, whose face had been so worn and hollowed out with suffering. How could it be the same woman? She who had suffered poor John Babington to love her—and then had cast him off, and married her friend’s lover instead; who had established so firm an empire over a man’s heart, that, after twenty years, he had remembered her still with such intensity of feeling. How Janet would have opened her big eyes had it been suggested to her that her mother could have any power over men’s hearts; or, indeed, could be occupied with anything more touching or important than her children’s frocks or her butcher’s bills! I fear I did not pay much attention to the service that morning. I could not but gaze at them, and wonder whether, for instance, Mr. Merridew himself, who had come back from circuit, and was seated respectably with his family in church, yawning discreetly over Mr. Damerel’s sermon, remembered anything at all, for his part, of Matilda Babington or her brother. Probably he preferred to ignore the subject altogether—or, perhaps, would laugh with a sense of gratified vanity that there had been ‘a row,’ when the transference of his affections was discovered. And there she sat by his side, who had—had she betrayed his confidence? was she untrue to him in being this time true to her friends? The question bewildered me so that my mind went groping about it and about it. Once, I fear, she had been false to those whose bread she ate, and chosen love instead of friendship. Now was she false to the nearest of ties, the closest of all relationships, sitting calmly there beside him with a secret in her mind of which he knew nothing? ‘Falsely true!’—was that what the woman was who looked to the outside world a mere pattern of all domestic virtues, without any special interest about her, a wife devoted to her husband’s interest, a mother wrapped up, as people say, in her children? I could not make up my mind what to think.

‘I hope you got through your business comfortably,’ Mrs. Spencer said to me as we walked home from church.

‘With Mrs. Merridew’s assistance,’ said Lady Isabella, who was rather satirical. And the Merridews heard their own name, and stopped to join in the conversation.

‘What is that about my wife?’ he said. ‘Did Mrs. Mulgrave have Mrs. Merridew’s assistance about something? I hope it was only shopping. When you have business you should consult me. She is a goose, and knows nothing about it.’

‘I don’t think she is a goose,’ said I.

‘No, perhaps not in her own way,’ said the serene husband, laughing; ‘but every woman is a goose about business—I beg your pardon, ladies, but I assure you I mean it as a compliment. I hate a woman of business. Shopping is quite a different matter,’ he added, and laughed. Good heavens! if he had only known what a fool he looked, beside the silent woman, who gave me a little warning glance and coloured a little, and turned away her head to speak to little Matty, who was clinging to her skirts. A perfect mother! thinking more (you would have said) of Matty’s little frills and Janet’s bonnet-strings than of anything else in life.

And that was all about it. The summer went on and turned to autumn and to winter and to spring again, with that serene progression of nature which nothing obstructs; and the children grew, and the Merridews were as poor as ever, managing more or less to make both ends meet, but always just a little short somewhere, with their servants chosen on the same principle of supplementing each other’s imperfect service as that which Janet had announced to me. For one thing, they kept their servants a long time, which I have noticed is characteristic of households not very rich nor very ‘particular.’ When you allow such pleas to tell in favour of an imperfect housemaid as that she is good to the children, or does not mind helping the cook, there is no reason why Mary, if she does not marry in the meantime, should not stay with you a hundred years. And the Merridews’ servants accordingly stayed, and looked very friendly at you when you went to call, and did their work not very well, with much supervision and exasperation (respectively) on the part of the mother and daughter. But the family was no poorer, though it was no richer. The only evidence of our expedition to town which I could note was, that it had produced a new pucker on Mrs. Merridew’s brow. She had looked sufficiently anxious by times before, but the new pucker had something more than anxiety in it. There was a sense of something better that might have been; a sense of something lost—a suspicion of bitterness. How all this could be expressed by one line on a smooth white forehead I cannot explain; but to me it was so.

Now and then, too, a chance allusion would be made which recalled what had happened still more plainly. For instance, I chanced to be calling one afternoon, when Mr. Merridew came home earlier than usual from town. We were sitting over our five-o’clock tea, with a few of the children scrambling about the floor and Janet working in the corner. He took up the ordinary position of a man who has just come home, with his back to the fire, and regarded us with that benevolent contempt which men generally think it right to exhibit for women over their tea; and everything was so ordinary and pleasant, that I for one was taken entirely by surprise, and nearly let fall the cup in my hand when he spoke.

‘I don’t know whether you saw John Babington’s death in the Times three or four months ago, Janet,’ he said, ‘did you? Why did you never mention it? It is odd that I should not have heard. I met Ellen to-day coming out of the Amyotts, where I lunched, in such prodigious mourning that I was quite startled. All the world might have been dead to look at her. And do you know she gave me a look as if she would have spoken. All that is so long past that it’s ridiculous keeping up malice. I wish you would call next time you are in town to ask for the old lady. Poor John’s death must have been a sad loss to them. I hear there was some fear that he had left his property away from his mother and sister. But it turned out a false report.’

I did not dare to look at Mrs. Merridew to see how she bore it; but her voice replied quite calmly without any break, as if the conversation was on the most ordinary subject—

‘Where did you manage to get so much news?’

‘Oh, from the Amyotts,’ he said, ‘who knew all about it. Matilda, you know, poor girl’ (with that half laugh of odious masculine vanity which I knew in my heart he would be guilty of), ‘married a cousin of Amyott’s, and is getting on very well, they say. But think over my suggestion, Janet. I think at this distance of time it would be graceful on your part to go and call.’

‘I cannot think they would like to see me now,’ she said in a low voice. Then I ventured to look at her. She was seated in an angular, rigid way, with her shoulders and elbows squared to her work, and the corners of her mouth pursed up, which would have given to any cursory observer the same impression it did to her husband.

‘How hard you women are!’ he said. ‘Trust you for never forgiving or forgetting. Poor old lady, I should have thought anybody would have pitied her. But however it is none of my business. As for Ellen, she is a very handsome woman, though she is not so young as she once was. I should not wonder if she were to make a good marriage even now. Is it possible, Janet, after being so fond of her—or pretending to be, how can I tell?—that you would not like to say a kind word to Ellen now?’

‘She would not think it kind from me,’ said Mrs. Merridew, still rigid, never raising her eyes from her work.

‘I think she would: but at all events you might try,’ he said. All her answer was to shake her head, and he went away to his dressing-room shrugging his shoulders and nodding his head in bewildered comments to himself on what he considered the hard-heartedness of woman. As for me, I kept looking at her with sympathetic eyes, thinking that at least she would give herself the comfort of a confidential glance. But she did not. It seemed that she was determined to ignore the whole matter, even to me.

‘I wish papa would take as much interest in us poor girls at home as he does in people that don’t belong to him,’ said Janet. ‘Mamma, I never can piece this to make it long enough. It may do for Marian’ (who was her next sister), ‘but it will never do for me.’

‘You are so easily discouraged,’ said Mrs. Merridew. ‘Let me look at it. You girls are always making difficulties. Under the flounce your piecing, as you call it, will never be seen. Those flounces,’ she added, with a little laugh, which I knew was hysterical, ‘are blessings to poor folks.’

‘I am sure I don’t think there is anything to laugh at,’ said poor Janet, almost crying: ‘when you think of Nelly Fortis and all the other girls, with their nice dresses all new and fresh from the dressmaker’s, and no trouble; while I have only mamma’s old gown, that she wore when she was twenty, to turn, and patch, and piece—and not long enough after all!’

‘Then you should not grow so,’ said her mother, ‘and you ought to be thankful that the old fashion has come in again, and my old gown can be of use.’ But as she spoke she turned round and gave me a look. The tears were in her eyes, and that pucker, oh, so deeply marked, in her forehead. I felt she would have sobbed had she dared. And then before my eyes, as, I am sure, before hers, there glided a vision of Ellen Babington in her profound mourning, rustling past Mr. Merridew on the stairs, with heaps of costly crape, no doubt, and that rich black silk with which people console themselves in their first mourning. How could they take it all without a word? The after-pang that comes almost inevitably at the back of a sacrifice, was tearing Mrs. Merridew’s heart. I felt it go through my own, and so I knew. She had done it nobly, but she could not forget that she had done it. Does one ever forget?

And then as I went home I fell into a maze again. Had she a right to do it? To sit at table with that unsuspicious man, and put her arm in his, and be at his side continually, and all the time be false to him? Falsely true! I could not get the words out of my mind.

CHAPTER IV

I do not now remember how long it was before I saw in the Times the intimation of old Mrs. Babington’s death. I think it must have been about two years: for Janet was eighteen, and less discontented with things in general, besides being a great deal more contented than either her friends or his desired, with the civilities of young Bischam from the Priory, who was always coming over to see his aunt, and always throwing himself in the girl’s way. He had nothing except his commission and a hundred and fifty a year which his father allowed him, and she had nothing at all; and, naturally, they took to each other. It is this that makes me recollect what year it was. We had never referred to the matter in our frequent talks, Mrs. Merridew and I. But after the intimation in the Times, she herself broke the silence. She came to me the very next day. ‘Did you see it in the papers?’ she asked, plunging without preface into the heart of the subject: and I could not pretend not to understand.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I saw it;’ and then stopped short, not knowing what to say.

She had got a worn-out look in these two years, such as all the previous years in which I had known her had not given. The pucker was more developed on her forehead; she was less patient and more easily fretted. She had grown thin, and something of a sharp tone had come into her soft, motherly voice. By times she would be almost querulous; and nobody but myself knew in the least whence the drop of gall came that had so suddenly shown itself in her nature. She had fretted under her secret, and over her sacrifice—the sacrifice which had never been taken any notice of, but had been calmly accepted as a right. Now she came to me half wild, with the look of a creature driven to bay.

‘It was for her I did it,’ she said; ‘she had always been so petted and cared for all her life. She did not know how to deny herself; I did it for her, not for Ellen. Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave, I cannot tell you how fond I was of that girl! And you saw how she looked at me. Never one word, never even a glance of response: and I suppose now–’

‘My dear,’ I said, ‘you cannot tell yet; let us wait and see; now that her mother is gone her heart may be softened. Do not take any steps just yet.’

‘Steps!’ she cried. ‘What steps can I take now? I have thrown altogether away from me what might have been of such use to the children. I have been false to my own children. Poor John meant it to be of use to us–’

And then she turned away, wrought to such a point that nothing but tears could relieve her. When she had cried she was better; and went home to all her little monotonous cares again, to think and think, and mingle that drop of gall more and more in the family cup. Mr. Merridew was again absent on circuit at this time, which was at once a relief and a trouble to his wife. And everybody remarked the change in her.

‘She is going to have a bad illness,’ Mrs. Spencer said. ‘Poor thing, I don’t wonder, with all those children, and inferior servants, and so much to do. I have seen it coming on for a long time. A serious illness is a dangerous thing at her age. All her strength has been drained out of her; and whether she will be able to resist–’

‘Don’t be so funereal,’ said Lady Isabella; ‘she has something on her mind.’

‘I think it is her health’ said Mrs. Spencer; and we all shook our heads over her altered looks.

I had a further fright, too, some days after, when Janet came to me, looking very pale. She crept in with an air of secrecy which was very strange to the girl. She looked scared, and her hair was pushed up wildly from her forehead, and her light summer dress all dusty and dragging, which was unlike Janet, for she had begun by this time to be tidy, and feel herself a woman. She came in by the window as usual, but closed it after her, though it was very hot. ‘May I come and speak to you?’ she said in a whisper, creeping quite close to my side.

‘Of course, my dear; but why do you shut the window?’ said I; ‘we shall be suffocated if you shut out the air.’

‘It is because it is a secret,’ she said. ‘Mrs. Mulgrave, tell me, is there anything wrong with mamma?’

‘Wrong?’ I said, turning upon her in dismay.

‘I can’t help it,’ cried Janet, bursting into tears. ‘I don’t believe mamma ever did anything wrong. I can’t believe it: but there has been a woman questioning me so, I don’t know what to think.’

‘A woman questioning you?’

‘Listen,’ said Janet hastily. ‘This is how it was: I was walking down to the Dingle across the fields—oh! Mrs. Mulgrave, dear, don’t say anything; it was only poor Willie Bischam, who wanted to say good-bye to me—and all at once I saw a tall lady in mourning looking at us as we passed. She came up to us just at the stile at Goodman’s farm, and I thought she wanted to ask the way; but instead of that, she stopped me and looked at me. “I heard you called Janet,” she said; “I had once a friend who was called Janet, and it is not a common name. Do you live here? is your mother living? and well? and how many children are there? I should like to know if you belong to my old friend.”’

‘And what did you say?’

‘What could I say, Mrs. Mulgrave? She did not look cross or disagreeable, and she was a lady. I said who I was, and that mamma was not quite well, and that there were ten of us; and then she began to question me about mamma. Did she go out a great deal? and was she tall or short? and had she pretty eyes “like mine?” she said; and was her name Janet like mine? and then, when I had answered her as well as I could, she said, I was not to say a word to mamma; “perhaps it is not the Janet I once knew,” she said; “don’t say anything to her;” and then she went away. I was so frightened, I ran home directly all the way. I knew I might tell you, Mrs. Mulgrave; it is like something in a book, is it not, when people are trying to find out– oh, you don’t think I can have done any harm to mamma?’

Janet was so much agitated that it was all I could do to quiet her down. ‘And I never said good-bye to poor Willie, after all,’ she said, with more tears when she had rallied a little. I thought it better she should not tell her mother, though one is very reluctant to say so to a girl; for Willie Bischam was a secret too. But he was going away, poor fellow, and probably nothing would ever come of it. I made a little compromise with my own sense of right.

‘Forget it, Janet, and say nothing about it; perhaps it was some one else after all; and if you will promise not to meet Mr. Bischam again–’

‘He goes to-night,’ said Janet, with a rueful look; and thus it was evident that on that point there was nothing more to be said.

This was in the middle of the week, and on Saturday Mr. Merridew was expected home. His wife was ill, though she never had been ill before in her life; she had headaches, which were things unknown to her; she was out of temper, and irritable, and wretched. I think she had made certain that Ellen would write, and make some proposal to her; and as the days went on one by one, and no letter came– Besides, it was just the moment when they had decided against sending Jack to Oxford. To pay Willie’s premium and do that at the same time was impossible. Mrs. Merridew had struggled long, but at last she was obliged to give in; and Jack was going to his father’s chambers to read law with a heavy heart, poor boy; and his mother was half distracted. All might have been so different; and she had sacrificed her boys’ interests, and her girls’ interests, and her own happiness, all for the selfish comfort of Ellen Babington, who took no notice of her: I began to think she would have a brain fever if this went on.

She was not at church on Sunday morning, and I went with the children, as soon as service was over, to ask for her. She was lying on the sofa when I went in, and Mr. Merridew, who had arrived late on Saturday, was in his dressing-gown, walking about the room. He was tired and irritable with his journey, and his work, and perennial cares. And she, with her sacrifice, and her secret, and perennial cares, was like tinder, ready in a moment to catch fire. I know nothing more disagreeable than to go in upon married people when they are in this state of mind, which can neither be ignored nor concealed.

‘I don’t understand you, Janet,’ he was saying, as I entered; ‘women are vindictive, I know; but at least you may be sorry, as I am, that the poor old lady has died without a word of kindness passing between us: after all, we might be to blame. One changes one’s opinions as one gets on in life. With our children growing up round us, I don’t feel quite so sure that we were not to blame.’

‘I have not been to blame,’ she said, with an emphasis which sounded sullen, and which only I could understand.

‘Oh no, of course; you never are,’ he said, with masculine disdain. ‘Catch a woman acknowledging herself to be in fault! The sun may go wrong in his course sooner than she. Mrs. Mulgrave, pray don’t go away; you have seen my wife in an unreasonable mood before.’

‘I am in no unreasonable mood,’ she cried. ‘Mrs. Mulgrave, stay. You know—oh, how am I to go on bearing this, and never answer a word?’

‘My dear, don’t deceive yourself,’ he said, with a man’s provoking calm, ‘you answer a great many words. I don’t call you at all a meek sufferer. Fortunately the children are out of the way. Confound it, Janet, what do you mean by talking of what you have to bear? I have not been such a harsh husband to you as all that; and when all I asked was that you should make the most innocent advances to a poor old woman who was once very kind to us both–’

‘Charles!’ said Mrs. Merridew, rising suddenly from her sofa, I can’t bear it any longer. You think me hard, and vindictive, and I don’t know what. You, who ought to know me. Look here! I got that letter, you will see by the date, more than two years ago; you were absent, and I went and saw her: there—there! now I have confessed it; Mrs. Mulgrave knows– I have had a secret from you for two years.’

It was not a moment for me to interfere. She sat, holding herself hysterically rigid and upright on the sofa. Whether she had intended to betray herself or not, I cannot tell. She had taken the letter out of her writing-desk, which stood close by; but I don’t know whether she had resolved on this step or whether it was the impulse of the moment. Now that she had done it a dreadful calm of expectation took possession of her. She was afraid. He might turn upon her furious. He might upbraid her with despoiling her family, deceiving himself, being false, as she had been before. Such a thing was possible. Two souls may live side by side for years, and be as one, and yet have no notion how each will act in any sudden or unusual emergency. He was her husband, and they had no interest, scarcely any thought, that one did not share with the other; and yet she sat gazing at him rigid with terror, not knowing what he might do or say.

He read the letter without a word; then he tossed it upon the table; then he walked all the length of the room, up and down, with his hands thrust very deeply into his pockets; then he took up the letter again. He had a struggle with himself. If he was angry, if he was touched, I cannot tell. His first emotions, whatever they were, he gulped down without a word. Of all sounds to strike into the silence of such a moment, the first thing we heard in our intense listening was the abrupt ring of a short excited laugh.

‘How did you venture to take any steps in it without consulting me?’ he said.

‘I thought—I thought–’ she stammered under her breath.

‘You thought I might have been tempted by the money,’ he said, taking another walk through the room, while she sat erect in her terror, afraid of him. It was some time before he spoke again. No doubt he was vexed by her want of trust, and wounded by the long silence. But I have no clue to the thoughts that were passing through his mind. At last he came to a sudden pause before her. ‘And perhaps you were right, Janet,’ he said, drawing a long breath. ‘I am glad now to have been free of the temptation. It was wrong not to tell me—and yet I think you did well.’

Mrs. Merridew gave a little choked cry, and then she fell back on the sofa—fell into my arms. I had felt she might do it, so strange was her look, and had placed myself there on purpose. But she had not fainted, as I expected. She lay silent for a moment, with her eyes closed, and then she burst into tears.

I had no right to be there; but they both detained me, both the husband and wife, and I could not get away until she had recovered herself, and it was evident that what had been a tragical barrier between them was now become a matter of business, to be discussed as affecting them both.

‘It was quite right the old lady should have it,’ Mr. Merridew said, as he went with me to the door, ‘quite right. Janet did only what was right; but now I must take it into my own hands.’

‘And annul what she has done?’ I asked.

‘We must consult over that,’ he said. ‘Ellen Babington, who has been so ungrateful to my wife, is quite a different person from her mother. But I will do nothing against Mrs. Merridew’s will.’