Читать книгу Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1 - Lever Charles James - Страница 6

When change of fortune had reduced the Kelletts so low that Sybella was driven to become a daily governess, her hard fate had exacted from her about the very heaviest of all sacrifices. It was not, indeed, the life of unceasing toil, – dreary and monotonous as such toil is, – it was not the humility of a station for which the world affords not one solitary protection, – these were not what she dreaded; as little was it the jarring sense of dependence daily and hourly imposed. No, she had courage and a high determination to confront each and all of these. The great source of her suffering was in the loss of that calm and unbroken quiet to which the retired habits of a remote country-house had so long accustomed her. With scarcely anything which could be called a society near them, so reduced in means as to be unable to receive visitors at home, Kellett’s Court had been for many years a lonely house. The days succeeded each other with such similarity that time was unfelt, seasons came and went, and years rolled on unconsciously. No sights nor sounds of the great world without invaded these retired precincts. Of the mighty events which convulsed the politics of states, – of the great issues that engaged men’s minds throughout Europe, – they heard absolutely nothing. The passing story of some little incident of cottier life represented to them all that they had of news; and thus time glided noiselessly along, till they came to feel a sense of happiness in that same unbroken round of life.

They who have experienced the measured tread of a conventual existence – where the same incidents daily recur at the same periods, where no events from without obtrude, where the passions and the ambitions and cares of mankind have so little of reality to the mind that they fail to impress with any meaning – are well aware that in the peaceful calm of spirit thus acquired there is a sense of happiness, which is not the less real that it wears the semblance of seriousness, almost of sadness.

In all that pertained to a sombre monotony, Kellett’s Court was a convent. The tall mountains to the back, the deep woods to the front, seemed barriers against the world without; and there was a silence and a stillness about the spot as though it were some lone island in a vast sea, where no voyagers ever touched, no traveller ever landed. This same isolation, strong in its own sense of security, was the charm of the place, investing it with a kind of romance, and imparting to Sybella’s own life a something of storied interest. The very few books the house contained she had read and re-read till she knew them almost by heart. They were lives of voyagers, – hardy men of enterprise and daring, who had pushed their fortunes in far-away lands, – or else sketches of life and adventure in distant countries.

The annals of these sea-rovers were full of all the fascination of which gorgeous scenery and stirring incident form the charm. There were lands such as no painter’s genius ever fancied, verdure and flowers of more than fairy brilliancy, gold and gems of splendor that rivalled Aladdin’s cave, strange customs, and curious observances mingled with deeds of wildest daring, making up a succession of pictures wherein the mind alternated between the voluptuous repose of tropical enjoyment and the hair-breadth ‘scapes of buccaneering existence. The great men whose genius planned, and whose courage achieved, these enterprises, formed for her a sort of hero-worship. Their rough virtues, their splendid hospitality, their lion-hearted defiance of danger, were strong appeals to her sympathy, while in their devoted loyalty she found a species of chivalry that elevated them in her esteem. Woman-like, too, she inclined to make success the true test of greatness, and glorified to herself those bold spirits who never halted nor turned aside when on their road to victory. The splendid self-dependence of such men as Drake and Dampier struck her as the noblest attribute of mankind; that resolute trust in their own stout hearts imparted to them a degree of interest almost devotional; and over and over did she bethink her what a glorious destiny it would have been to have had a life associated and bound up with some such man as one of these. The very contest and controversy his actions would have evoked, heightened the illusion, and there savored of heroism in sharing a fame that flung down its proud defiance to the world.

Estrangement from the world often imparts to the stories of the past, or even to the characters of fiction, a degree of interest which, by those engaged in the actual work of life, is only accorded to their friends or relatives; and thus, to this young girl in her isolation, such names as Raleigh and Cavendish – such characters as Cromwell, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Napoleon – stood forth before her in all the attributes of well-known individuals. To have so far soared above the ordinary accidents of life as to live in an atmosphere above all other men, – to have seen the world and its ways from an eminence that gave wider scope to vision and more play to speculation, – to have meditated over the destinies of mankind from the height of a station that gave control over their actions, – seemed so glorious a privilege that the blemishes and even the crimes of men so gifted were merged in the greatness of the mighty task they had imposed upon themselves; and thus was it that she claimed for these an exemption from the judgments that had visited less distinguished wrong-doers most heavily. “How can I, or such as I am, pronounce upon one like this man? What knowledge have I of the conflict waged within his deep intelligence? How can I fathom the ocean of his thoughts, or even guess at the difficulties that have opposed, the doubts that have beset him? I can but vaguely fashion to myself the end and object of his journey; how, then, shall I criticise the road by which he travels, the halts he makes, the devious turnings and windings he seems to fall into?” In such plausibilities she merged every scruple as to those she had deified to her own mind. “Their ways are not our ways,” said she; “their natures are as little our natures.”

From all the dreamland of these speculations was she suddenly and rudely brought to face the battle of life itself, an humble soldier in the ranks. No longer to dwell in secret converse with the mighty spirits who had swayed their fellow-men, she was now to enter upon that path of daily drudgery whose direst infliction was the contact with that work-o’-day world wherewith she had few sympathies.

Mrs. Hawkshaw had read her advertisement in a morning paper, and sent for her to call upon her. Now Mrs. Hawkshaw was an alderman’s lady, who lived in a fine house, and had fine clothes and fine servants and fine plate, and everything, in short, fine about her but a fine husband, for he was a rough, homespun, good-natured sort of man, who cared little for anything save a stocking-factory he owned at Balbriggan, and the stormy incidents that usually shook the “livery” he belonged to.

There were six little Hawkshaws to be governed and geographied and catechised, and civilized in all the various forms by which untaught humanity is prepared for the future work of life; there were rudiments of variously colored knowledge to be imparted, habits instilled, and tempers controlled, by one who, though she brought to her task the most sincere desire to succeed, was yet deep in a world of her own thoughts, – far lost in the mazy intricacies of her own fancies. That poor Miss Kellett, therefore, should pass for a very simple-minded, good creature, quite unfit for her occupation, was natural enough; and that Mrs. Hawkshaw should “take her into training” was almost an equally natural consequence.

“She seems to be always like one in a dream, my dear,” said Mrs. Hawkshaw to her husband. “The children do exactly as they please; they play all false, and she never corrects them; they draw landscapes in their copy-books, and she says, ‘Very nicely done, darlings.’”

“Her misfortunes are preying upon her, perhaps.”

“Misfortunes! why, they have been in poverty this many a year. My brother Terry tells me that the Kelletts had n’t above two hundred a year, and that latterly they lost even this.”

“Well, it is a come-down in the world, anyhow,” said Hawkshaw, sighing, “and I must say she bears it well.”

“If she only feels it as little as she appears to do everything else, the sacrifice doesn’t cost her much,” said the lady, tartly. “I told her she was to come here last Sunday and take charge of the children; she never came; and when I questioned her as to the reason, she only smiled and said, ‘She never thought of it; in fact, she was too happy to be alone on that day to think of anything.’ And here she comes now, nearly an hour late.” And, as she spoke, a weary step ascended the steps to the door, and an uncertain, faltering hand raised the knocker.

“It is nigh eleven o’clock, Miss Kellett,” said Mrs. Hawkshaw, as she met her on the stairs.

“Indeed – I am so sorry – I must have forgotten – I don’t think I knew the hour,” said the other, stammeringly.

“Your hour is ten, Miss Kellett.”

“I think so.”

“How is your father, Miss Kellett?” asked the alderman, abruptly, and not sorry to interpose at the juncture.

“He is well, sir, and seems very happy,” said she, gratefully, while her eyes lighted up with pleasure.

“Give him my regards,” said Hawkshaw, good-naturedly, and passed down the stairs; while his wife coldly added, —

“The children are waiting for you,” and disappeared.

With what determined energy did she address herself now to her task, – how resolutely devote her whole mind to her duty. She read and heard and corrected and amended with all the intense anxiety of one eager to discharge her trust honestly and well. She did her very utmost to bring her faculties to bear upon every detail of her task; and it was only when one of the girls asked who was he whose name she had been writing over and over again in her copy-book, that she forgot her self-imposed restraint, and in a fervor of delight at the question, replied, “I ‘ll tell you, Mary, who Savonarola was.”

In all the vigor of true narrative power, the especial gift of those minds where the play of fancy is only the adornment of the reasoning faculty, she gave a rapid sketch of the prophet priest, his zeal, his courage, and his martyrdom; with that captivating fascination which is the firstborn of true enthusiasm, she awakened their interest so deeply that they listened to all she said as to a romance whose hero had won their sympathies, and even dimly followed her as she told them that such men as this stood out from time to time in the world’s history like great beacons blazing on a rocky eminence, to guide and warn their fellow-men. That in their own age characters of this stamp were either undervalued or actually depreciated and condemned, was but the common lot of humanity; their own great destinies raised them very often above the sympathies of ordinary life, and men caught eagerly at the blemishes of those so vastly greater than themselves, – hence all the disesteem they met with from contemporaries.

“And are there none like this now, Miss Bella?” asked one of the girls; “or is it that in our country such are not to be met with?”

“They are of every land and of every age; ay, and of every station! Country, time, birth have no prerogative. At one moment the great light of the earth has been the noblest born in his nation, at another a peasant, – miles apart in all the accidents of fortune, brothers by the stamp which makes genius a tie of family. To-morrow you shall hear of one, the noblest-hearted man in all England, and yet whose daily toil was the vulgar life of an exciseman. This great man’s nature is known to us, teaching men a higher lesson than all that his genius has bequeathed us.”

In the willingness with which they listened to her, Bella found fresh support for her enthusiasm. If, therefore, there was this solace to the irksome nature of her task, it rendered that task itself more and more wearisome and distasteful. Her round of duty led her amongst many who did not care for these things; some heard them with apathy, others with even mockery. How often does it happen in life that feelings which if freely expanded had spread themselves broadly over the objects of the world, become by repression compressed into principles!

This was the case with her; the more opposition thwarted, the more resolutely was she bent on carrying out her notions. All her reading tended to this direction, all her speculation, all her thought.

“There must be men amongst us even now,” said she, “to whom this great prerogative of guidance is given; superior minds who feel the greatness of their mission, and, perhaps, know how necessary it is to veil their very ascendancy, that they may exercise it more safely and more widely. What concession may they not be making to vulgar prejudice, what submission to this or that ordinance of society? How many a devious path must they tread to reach that goal that the world will not let them strive for more directly; and, worse than all, through what a sea of misrepresentation, and even calumny, must they wade? How must they endure the odious imputations of selfishness, of pride, of hard-heartedness, nay, perhaps, of even crime? And all this without the recognition of as much as one who knows their purpose and acknowledges their desert.”