Cousin Phillis (11 page)

'I must see that you don't get cold for more reasons than one; if you
are ill, Holdsworth will be so anxious and miserable out there' (by
which I meant Canada)—

She shot one penetrating look at me, and then turned her face away with
a slightly impatient movement. If she could have run away then she
would, but I held the means of exit in my own power. 'In for a penny,
in for a pound,' thought I, and I went on rapidly, anyhow.

'He talked so much about you, just before he left—that night after he
had been here, you know—and you had given him those flowers.' She put
her hands up to hide her face, but she was listening now—listening
with all her ears. 'He had never spoken much about you before, but the
sudden going away unlocked his heart, and he told me how he loved you,
and how he hoped on his return that you might be his wife.'

'Don't,' said she, almost gasping out the word, which she had tried
once or twice before to speak; but her voice had been choked. Now she
put her hand backwards; she had quite turned away from me, and felt for
mine. She gave it a soft lingering pressure; and then she put her arms
down on the wooden division, and laid her head on it, and cried quiet
tears. I did not understand her at once, and feared lest I had mistaken
the whole case, and only annoyed her. I went up to her. 'Oh, Phillis! I
am so sorry—I thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it; he
did talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and somehow I
thought it would give you pleasure.'

She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes,
glittering with tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly
happiness; her tender mouth was curved with rapture—her colour vivid
and blushing; but as if she was afraid her face expressed too much,
more than the thankfulness to me she was essaying to speak, she hid it
again almost immediately. So it was all right then, and my conjecture
was well-founded! I tried to remember something more to tell her of
what he had said, but again she stopped me.

'Don't,' she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In half
a minute she added, in a very low voice, 'Please, Paul, I think I would
rather not hear any more I don't mean but what I have—but what I am
very much obliged—Only—only, I think I would rather hear the rest
from himself when he comes back.'

And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did not
say any more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards me—not
meeting my eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine just as if we
were two children, she said,—

'We had best go back now—I don't look as if I had been crying, do I?'

'You look as if you had a bad cold,' was all the answer I made.

'Oh! but I am quite well, only cold; and a good run will warm me. Come
along, Paul.'

So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the threshold of the
house, she stopped,—

'Paul, please, we won't speak about that again.'

When I went over on Easter Day I heard the chapel-gossips complimenting
cousin Holman on her daughter's blooming looks, quite forgetful of
their sinister prophecies three months before. And I looked at Phillis,
and did not wonder at their words. I had not seen her since the day
after Christmas Day. I had left the Hope Farm only a few hours after I
had told her the news which had quickened her heart into renewed life
and vigour. The remembrance of our conversation in the cow-house was
vividly in my mind as I looked at her when her bright healthy
appearance was remarked upon. As her eyes met mine our mutual
recollections flashed intelligence from one to the other. She turned
away, her colour heightening as she did so. She seemed to be shy of me
for the first few hours after our meeting, and I felt rather vexed with
her for her conscious avoidance of me after my long absence. I had
stepped a little out of my usual line in telling her what I did; not
that I had received any charge of secrecy, or given even the slightest
promise to Holdsworth that I would not repeat his words. But I had an
uneasy feeling sometimes when I thought of what I had done in the
excitement of seeing Phillis so ill and in so much trouble. I meant to
have told Holdsworth when I wrote next to him; but when I had my
half-finished letter before me I sate with my pen in my hand
hesitating. I had more scruple in revealing what I had found out or
guessed at of Phillis's secret than in repeating to her his spoken
words. I did not think I had any right to say out to him what I
believed—namely, that she loved him dearly, and had felt his absence
even to the injury of her health. Yet to explain what I had done in
telling her how he had spoken about her that last night, it would be
necessary to give my reasons, so I had settled within myself to leave
it alone. As she had told me she should like to hear all the details
and fuller particulars and more explicit declarations first from him,
so he should have the pleasure of extracting the delicious tender
secret from her maidenly lips. I would not betray my guesses, my
surmises, my all but certain knowledge of the state of her heart. I had
received two letters from him after he had settled to his business;
they were full of life and energy; but in each there had been a message
to the family at the Hope Farm of more than common regard; and a slight
but distinct mention of Phillis herself, showing that she stood single
and alone in his memory. These letters I had sent on to the minister,
for he was sure to care for them, even supposing he had been
unacquainted with their writer, because they were so clever and so
picturesquely worded that they brought, as it were, a whiff of foreign
atmosphere into his circumscribed life. I used to wonder what was the
trade or business in which the minister would not have thriven,
mentally I mean, if it had so happened that he had been called into
that state. He would have made a capital engineer, that I know; and he
had a fancy for the sea, like many other land-locked men to whom the
great deep is a mystery and a fascination. He read law-books with
relish; and, once happening to borrow De Lolme on the British
Constitution (or some such title), he talked about jurisprudence till
he was far beyond my depth. But to return to Holdsworth's letters. When
the minister sent them back he also wrote out a list of questions
suggested by their perusal, which I was to pass on in my answers to
Holdsworth, until I thought of suggesting direct correspondence between
the two. That was the state of things as regarded the absent one when I
went to the farm for my Easter visit, and when I found Phillis in that
state of shy reserve towards me which I have named before. I thought
she was ungrateful; for I was not quite sure if I had done wisely in
having told her what I did. I had committed a fault, or a folly,
perhaps, and all for her sake; and here was she, less friends with me
than she had even been before. This little estrangement only lasted a
few hours. I think that as Soon as she felt pretty sure of there being
no recurrence, either by word, look, or allusion, to the one subject
that was predominant in her mind, she came back to her old sisterly
ways with me. She had much to tell me of her own familiar interests;
how Rover had been ill, and how anxious they had all of them been, and
how, after some little discussion between her father and her, both
equally grieved by the sufferings of the old dog, he had been
remembered in the household prayers', and how he had begun to get
better only the very next day, and then she would have led me into a
conversation on the right ends of prayer, and on special providences,
and I know not what; only I 'jibbed' like their old cart-horse, and
refused to stir a step in that direction. Then we talked about the
different broods of chickens, and she showed me the hens that were good
mothers, and told me the characters of all the poultry with the utmost
good faith; and in all good faith I listened, for I believe there was a
good deal of truth in all she said. And then we strolled on into the
wood beyond the ash-meadow, and both of us sought for early primroses,
and the fresh green crinkled leaves. She was not afraid of being alone
with me after the first day. I never saw her so lovely, or so happy. I
think she hardly knew why she was so happy all the time. I can see her
now, standing under the budding branches of the grey trees, over which
a tinge of green seemed to be deepening day after day, her sun-bonnet
fallen back on her neck, her hands full of delicate wood-flowers, quite
unconscious of my gaze, but intent on sweet mockery of some bird in
neighbouring bush or tree. She had the art of warbling, and replying to
the notes of different birds, and knew their song, their habits and
ways, more accurately than any one else I ever knew. She had often done
it at my request the spring before; but this year she really gurgled,
and whistled, and warbled just as they did, out of the very fulness and
joy of her heart. She was more than ever the very apple of her father's
eye; her mother gave her both her own share of love, and that of the
dead child who had died in infancy. I have heard cousin Holman murmur,
after a long dreamy look at Phillis, and tell herself how like she was
growing to Johnnie, and soothe herself with plaintive inarticulate
sounds, and many gentle shakes of the head, for the aching sense of
loss she would never get over in this world. The old servants about the
place had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of the land, common to
most agricultural labourers; not often stirred into activity or
expression. My cousin Phillis was like a rose that had come to full
bloom on the sunny side of a lonely house, sheltered from storms. I
have read in some book of poetry,—

A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love.

And somehow those lines always reminded me of Phillis; yet they were
not true of her either. I never heard her praised; and out of her own
household there were very few to love her; but though no one spoke out
their approbation, she always did right in her parents' eyes out of her
natural simple goodness and wisdom. Holdsworth's name was never
mentioned between us when we were alone; but I had sent on his letters
to the minister, as I have said; and more than once he began to talk
about our absent friend, when he was smoking his pipe after the day's
work was done. Then Phillis hung her head a little over her work, and
listened in silence.

'I miss him more than I thought for; no offence to you, Paul. I said
once his company was like dram-drinking; that was before I knew him;
and perhaps I spoke in a spirit of judgment. To some men's minds
everything presents itself strongly, and they speak accordingly; and so
did he. And I thought in my vanity of censorship that his were not true
and sober words; they would not have been if I had used them, but they
were so to a man of his class of perceptions. I thought of the measure
with which I had been meting to him when Brother Robinson was here last
Thursday, and told me that a poor little quotation I was making from
the Georgics savoured of vain babbling and profane heathenism. He went
so far as to say that by learning other languages than our own, we were
flying in the face of the Lord's purpose when He had said, at the
building of the Tower of Babel, that He would confound their languages
so that they should not understand each other's speech. As Brother
Robinson was to me, so was I to the quick wits, bright senses, and
ready words of Holdsworth.'

The first little cloud upon my peace came in the shape of a letter from
Canada, in which there were two or three sentences that troubled me
more than they ought to have done, to judge merely from the words
employed. It was this:—'I should feel dreary enough in this
out-of-the-way place if it were not for a friendship I have formed with
a French Canadian of the name of Ventadour. He and his family are a
great resource to me in the long evenings. I never heard such delicious
vocal music as the voices of these Ventadour boys and girls in their
part songs; and the foreign element retained in their characters and
manner of living reminds me of some of the happiest days of my life.
Lucille, the second daughter, is curiously like Phillis Holman.' In
vain I said to myself that it was probably this likeness that made him
take pleasure in the society of the Ventadour family. In vain I told my
anxious fancy that nothing could be more natural than this intimacy,
and that there was no sign of its leading to any consequence that ought
to disturb me. I had a presentiment, and I was disturbed; and I could
not reason it away. I dare say my presentiment was rendered more
persistent and keen by the doubts which would force themselves into my
mind, as to whether I had done well in repeating Holdsworth's words to
Phillis. Her state of vivid happiness this summer was markedly
different to the peaceful serenity of former days. If in my
thoughtfulness at noticing this I caught her eye, she blushed and
sparkled all over, guessing that I was remembering our joint secret.
Her eyes fell before mine, as if she could hardly bear me to see the
revelation of their bright glances. And yet I considered again, and
comforted myself by the reflection that, if this change had been
anything more than my silly fancy, her father or her mother would have
perceived it. But they went on in tranquil unconsciousness and
undisturbed peace.

A change in my own life was quickly approaching. In the July of this
year my occupation on the — railway and its branches came to an end.
The lines were completed, and I was to leave —shire, to return to
Birmingham, where there was a niche already provided for me in my
father's prosperous business. But before I left the north it was an
understood thing amongst us all that I was to go and pay a visit of
some weeks at the Hope Farm. My father was as much pleased at this plan
as I was; and the dear family of cousins often spoke of things to be
done, and sights to be shown me, during this visit. My want of wisdom
in having told 'that thing' (under such ambiguous words I concealed the
injudicious confidence I had made to Phillis) was the only drawback to
my anticipations of pleasure.