Whiteladies. Oliphant Margaret
more or less involved in the government of other souls. She managed her nephew’s estate in trust for him till he came of age, – if he should live to come of age, poor boy; she managed her own money and her sister’s, which was not inconsiderable; and the house and the servants, and in some degree the parish, of which Miss Susan was the virtual Squire. But of all this weight of affairs it did not occur to her to throw any upon Augustine. Augustine had always been spared from her youth up – spared all annoyance, all trouble, everybody uniting to shield her. She had been “delicate” in her childhood, and she had sustained a “disappointment” in youth – which means in grosser words that she had been jilted, openly and disgracefully, by Farrel-Austin, her cousin, which was the ground of Susan Austin’s enmity to him. I doubt much whether Augustine herself, whose blood was always tepid and her head involved in dreams, felt this half so much as her family felt it for her – her sister especially, to whom she had been a pet and a plaything all her life, and who had that half-adoring admiration for her which an elder sister is sometimes seen to entertain for a younger one whom she believes to be gifted with that beauty which she knows has not fallen to her share. Susan felt the blow with an acute sense of shame and wounded pride, which Augustine herself was entirely incapable of – and from that moment forward had constituted herself, not only the protector of her sister’s weakness, but the representative of something better which had failed her, of that admiration and chivalrous service which a beautiful woman is supposed to receive from the world.
It may seem a strange thing to many to call the devotion of one woman to another chivalrous. Yet Susan’s devotion to her sister merited the title. She vowed to herself that, so far as she could prevent it, her sister should never feel the failure of those attentions which her lover ought to have given her – that she should never know what it was to fall into that neglect which is often the portion of middle-aged women – that she should be petted and cared for, as if she were still the favorite child or the adored wife which she had been or might have been. In doing this Susan not only testified the depth of her love for Augustine, and indignant compassion for her wrongs, but also a woman’s high ideal of how an ideal woman should be treated in this world. Augustine was neither a beautiful woman nor an ideal one, though her sister thought so, and Susan had been checked many a time in her idolatry by her idol’s total want of comprehension of it; but she had never given up her plan for consoling the sufferer. She had admired Augustine as well as loved her; she had always found what she did excellent; she had made Augustine’s plans important by believing in them, and her opinions weighty, even while, within herself, she saw the plans to be impracticable and the opinions futile. The elder sister would pause in the midst of a hundred real and pressing occupations, a hundred weighty cares, to condole with, or to assist, or support, the younger, pulling her through some parish imbroglio, some almshouse squabble, as if these trifling annoyances had been affairs of state. But of the serious matters which occupied her own mind, she said nothing to Augustine, knowing that she would find no comprehension, and willing to avoid the certainty that her sister would take no interest in her proceedings. Indeed, it was quite possible that Augustine might have gone further than mere failure of sympathy; Susan knew very well that she would be disapproved of, perhaps censured, for being engrossed by the affairs of this world. The village people, and everybody on the estate, were, I think, of the same opinion. They thought Miss Susan “the hard one” – doing her ineffable injustice, one of those unconsidered wrongs that cut into the heart. At first, I suppose, this had not been the state of affairs – between the sisters, at least; but it would be difficult to tell how many disappointments the strong and hard Susan had gone through before she made up her mind never to ask for the sympathy which never came her way. This was her best philosophy, and saved her much mortification; but it cost her many trials before she could make up her mind to it, and had not its origin in philosophy at all, but in much wounding and lacerating of a generous and sensitive heart.
Therefore she did not breathe a word to her sister about the present annoyance and anxiety in her mind. When it was their hour to go upstairs – and everything was done like clock-work at Whiteladies – she went with Augustine to her room, as she always did, and heard over again for the third or fourth time the complaint of the rudeness of the butler, Stevens, who did not countenance Augustine’s “ways.”
“Indeed, he is a very honest fellow,” said Miss Susan, thinking bitterly of Farrel-Austin and of the last successful stroke he had made.
“He is a savage, he is a barbarian – he cannot be a Christian,” Miss Augustine had replied.
“Yes, yes, my dear; we must take care not to judge other people. I will scold him well, and he will never venture to say anything disagreeable to you again.”
“You think I am speaking for myself,” said Augustine. “No, what I feel is, how out of place such a man is in a household like ours. You are deceived about him now, and think his honesty, as you call it, covers all his faults. But, Susan, listen to me. Without the Christian life, what is honesty? Do you think it would bear the strain if temptation – to any great crime, for instance – ”
“My dear, you are speaking nonsense,” said Miss Susan.
“That is what I am afraid of,” said her sister solemnly. “A man like this ought not to be in a house like ours; for you are a Christian, Susan.”
“I hope so at least,” said the other with a momentary laugh.
“But why should you laugh? Oh, Susan! think how you throw back my work – even, you hinder my atonement. Is not this how all the family have been – treating everything lightly – our family sin and doom, like the rest? and you, who ought to know better, who ought to strengthen my hands! perhaps, who knows, if you could but have given your mind to it, we two together might have averted the doom!”
Augustine sat down in a large hard wooden chair which she used by way of mortification, and covered her face with her hands. Susan, who was standing by holding her candle, looked at her strangely with a half smile, and a curious acute sense of the contrast between them. She stood silent for a moment, perhaps with a passing wonder which of the two it was who had done the most for the old house; but if she entertained this thought, it was but for the moment. She laid her hand upon her sister’s shoulder.
“My dear Austine,” she said, “I am Martha and you are Mary. So long as Martha did not find fault with her sister, our good Lord made no objection to her housewifely ways. So, if I am earthly while you are heavenly, you must put up with me, dear; for, after all, there are a great many earthly things to be looked after. And as for Stevens, I shall scold him well,” she added with sudden energy, with a little outburst of natural indignation at the cause (though innocent) of this slight ruffling of the domestic calm.
The thoughts in her mind were of a curious and mixed description as she went along the corridor after Augustine had melted, and bestowed, with a certain lofty and melancholy regret, for her sister’s imperfections, her good-night kiss. Miss Susan’s room was on the other side of the house, over the drawing-room. To reach it she had to go along the corridor, which skirted the staircase with its dark oaken balustrades, and thence into another casemented passage, which led by three or four oaken steps to the ante-room in which her maid slept, and from which her own room opened. One of her windows looked out upon the north side, the same aspect as the dining-hall, and was, indeed, the large casement which occupied one of the richly-carved gables on that side of the house. The other looked out upon the west side, over the garden, and facing the sunset. It was a large panelled room, with few curtains, for Miss Susan loved air. A shaded night-lamp burned faintly upon a set of carved oaken drawers at the north end, and the moonlight slanting through the western window threw two lights, broken by the black bar of the casement, on the broad oak boards – for only the centre of the room was carpeted. Martha came in with her mistress, somewhat sleepy, and slightly injured in her feelings, for what with Everard’s visits and other agitations of the day, Miss Susan was half an hour late. It is not to be supposed that she, who could not confide in her sister, would confide in Martha; but yet Martha knew, by various indications, what Augustine would never have discovered, that Miss Susan had “something on her mind.” Perhaps it was because she did not talk as much as usual, and listened to Martha’s own remarks with the indifference of abstractedness; perhaps because of the little tap of her foot on the floor, and sound of her voice as she asked