Chapter IV: ‘i Lean Upon Thee, Dear, Without Alarm.’

Naomi awoke with a strange feeling of trouble on the morning after her father’s return with his young wife. She felt like one who, after some sudden bereavement, awakens to the old familiar world to find it desolate and empty.

‘I have lost my father,’ came like a cry of despair from her troubled heart; and then came Reason, the calm and quiet teacher, and sat down by her bed, and argued the matter to its logical issue, and showed her that her father had done her no wrong. She blushed at the thought of her own selfishness--she to grudge her father this new happiness--she who had given so much of her heart to another--she who was so soon to abandon the home-nest.

‘But my father has always been first, my father will always be first, in my heart,’ she said to herself excusingly.

‘Let her only make my father happy, and I shall be satisfied,’ she thought, as she stood before the little looking-glass, twisting the heavy coil of hair round her neat tortoise-shell comb. ‘I wish she were only a little older. She has such a childish look. I cannot fancy her a companion for my father.’

Naomi went down-stairs with a determination to be very kind to the poor little wife--to shield her, if need were, from aunt Judith’s acrimony; but on this first morning aunt Judith was scrupulously civil; if she erred at all it was on the side of over-politeness. She was inclined to be righteous over-much in her dealings with the new member of the household.

Jim greeted his stepmother with frank familiarity, and offered to take her for a nutting expedition in the woods after dinner.

‘Of course you’re fond of nuts?’ he said.

‘I’m very fond of the woods,’ answered Cynthia, whose heart overflowed with kindly feeling for these stepchildren, and who was grateful for the smallest token of regard on their part.

‘I should like to know how the business is to go on if you’re out nutting every afternoon,’ said Judith, turning sharply on her nephew. She was not going to waste civility on him.

‘Come, now, I’ve been sticking pretty close to the shop for the last six months. I don’t often play truant, I’m sure, and there’s not much doing in my line between dinner and tea.’

‘Of course, if Mrs. Haggard wishes you to go out walking--’

‘Call me Cynthia, please,’ cried the girl, and then added timidly, ‘unless you would like to call me sister.’

‘You’re very kind, but I couldn’t turn my tongue to it. I never had a sister, and I can’t bring myself to make believe. As to calling you by your Christian name, I should feel myself wanting in respect to my brother’s wife; and nobody shall ever have cause to lay that at my door.’

‘I shall call you Cynthia, though,’ said Jim. ‘It would never do for a great hobbledehoy like me to be calling a pretty little thing like you mother. Folks would split their sides with laughing. And you’ll come nutting this afternoon? There’s hazel and cobnuts, and no end, in Matcherly Wood. It’s three miles from here; but you can walk that much, I daresay.’

‘I am a pretty good walker,’ answered Cynthia, delighted to be on such good terms with her stepson.

‘Shall I wash the tea-things?’ she asked, when breakfast was over and Joshua had gone out.

‘I’ve washed ’em for the last four-and-twenty years, and I shouldn’t like harm to come to them,’ answered Judith politely; ‘you needn’t trouble about it, Mrs. Haggard. All you’ve got to do is to amuse yourself; you’re the mistress here, and it’s your place to be waited on.’

‘But, indeed, Miss Haggard, I have never been accustomed--’ protested Cynthia.

‘What you may have been accustomed to has nothing to do with it,’ replied Judith. ‘You are my brother’s wife, and you shall be treated as such. There’s the best parlour, when you like to sit by yourself. _We_ haven’t used it on workadays; but, of course, that’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’

‘I had rather sit in the room you use,’ said Cynthia, oppressed by so much courtesy; ‘I should be very sorry to cause any trouble or alteration in your life.’

Naomi was somewhat restless in her goings in and out, and up and down stairs, between breakfast and dinner, on this particular morning, having an idea that, as Oswald had not paid her his accustomed visit yesterday, he was likely to come early to-day; and she was anxious to be the first to tell him of the startling change that had taken place in the household, to soften the edge of his resentment should he be inclined to resent this act of her father’s. She had not quite realised the fact that no one had any right to question Joshua’s disposal of his own life.

There were the usual morning tasks: a batch of starched curtains to be ironed on the board in front of the kitchen window--the best parlour to be dusted and beeswaxed--flowers to be trimmed and watered. But throughout her performance of these duties Naomi was listening or watching for Oswald’s coming. Dinner-time came, however, and no Oswald.

Joshua went out directly after dinner, and Judith retired to her stronghold behind the counter. Cynthia and Jim started for their walk to Matcherly Wood, and Naomi was standing at the parlour window, in her afternoon dress, in that quiet hour of the declining day when the sky takes a golden tinge above distant woods. She had been watching some time, when she saw her lover coming round the bend of the road, walking slowly till he caught sight of her, and then quickening his pace, and approaching her with a smile. She went out to the garden-gate to meet him, and they went to the garden together, instead of going into the dull old house. They greeted each other with the tranquil affection of lovers whose future happiness is secure, whose present bliss is undisturbed by outward influences or inward doubts.

‘Why didn’t you come yesterday evening, Oswald?’

‘Because my father took it into his head to be unusually conversational, and I did not like to leave him without a listener. I thought I could make amends for last night’s self-denial by coming to tempt you out for a morning ramble in the woods; but this morning the Squire discovered that he was not well enough to keep an appointment with his tenant at Chale, and sent me off to represent him; so after a ten-mile ride upon Herne I had to walk about a farm all the morning, hearing complaints and excuses, and inspecting improvements of whose nature or advantage I had only the vaguest idea, yet about which I knew I should have to stand a rasping cross-examination on my return.’

‘Poor Oswald!’

‘I’m afraid I never was made to grow rich out of the soil, Naomi. And did you really miss me, dearest? That would be a wonderful admission from you. You don’t often gratify my self-esteem by letting me think myself necessary to your happiness.’

‘Oswald!’ she said, with a tender reproachfulness in the serious eyes, which meant much more than words.

‘You would have me believe that love’s best language is silence,’ he answered playfully; ‘but I sometimes wish you were just a little more given to sweet words.’

‘There are some feelings that are too sacred to be spoken of lightly. If it should please Heaven to put my affection to the test, you would not find it wanting.’

‘I believe that, dear. I have a measureless faith in your truth and constancy, only I am exacting enough to sigh for a little more warmth as well. There are moments in which I have asked myself, Is this love, or only a sublimated friendship? We have schooled ourselves to such perfect tranquillity; we have so stifled all the agitations and emotions which poets depict as love’s necessary adjuncts--nay, love’s very atmosphere--that I have found myself asking, Is it really love? or is it some calmer, softer, holier feeling, such as the saints of old felt for each other; a sentiment which might be breathed through a convent grating, or communicated by martyr to martyr in a pitying sigh on the pathway to the stake?’

‘I don’t know whether my love is like the love your poets write about, Oswald--that Court poet, for instance, who was in love with Amoret and Sacharissa at the same time--but I know that if my life were weighed against it, love would conquer life.’

‘My dearest,’ cried Oswald tenderly, drawing her to him, ‘I will never say these foolish things again. Yours is the true love, yours are the depth and steadfastness; and I am a shallow wretch who cannot properly understand any feeling that does not gush forth in a torrent of words. Darling, I will trust you, and believe implicitly in the love that is not loud.’

They had come to the end of the garden, and to that green oasis of grass plot where there were a bench and table under the shade of trees whose leaves were now fast falling, or hanging limp and yellow on the dark-brown branches. It was one of those still autumnal afternoons on which the earth seems to rest in a dreamy silence, as if wearied by summer’s long pageant. Her corn is garnered, her fruits are stored, she has done her work, this faithful Mother Earth, and she folds her hands in the soft September atmosphere and composes herself for winter’s long sleep.

‘My Naomi, how grave you are!’ said Oswald when they had strolled to the wilderness without a word on either side.

‘I have something to tell you, Oswald,’ she answered, looking at him anxiously.

‘Nothing bad, I hope. No postponement of our marriage?’

‘No. It is something about my father, something that will surprise you very much--perhaps shock you.’

Oswald was puzzled. He had been taught to consider Joshua Haggard a rich man--a man who made money fast and spent it slowly; but Naomi’s words and manner suggested trouble of some kind, and he could only imagine financial difficulty.

‘You mean that your father’s business is not so profitable as we believe,’ he said; ‘he has some apprehension of failure?’

‘It is nothing about business. My father has married again, Oswald. He brought his wife home to us yesterday evening.’

Oswald gave a long sigh of astonishment.

‘That is a surprise! But as long as it does not make you unhappy, darling, and I don’t see why it should, as you’ll soon be out of a stepmother’s power, it can’t make any difference to me. Who is the lady? Is she very grim and awful?’

‘She is very pretty, and younger than I.’

‘You don’t mean it?’

‘I hope you won’t despise my father, Oswald?’ said Naomi deprecatingly.

‘Despise him for marrying a pretty young woman instead of an ugly old one! No, my dear, I am not so inhuman. The fact is sudden enough to be startling, but it is not unnatural. And a pretty girl will hardly be a gorgon as a stepmother. You are not very much afraid of her, are you, Naomi?’

‘Poor child! I think she is more inclined to be afraid of me. It is such a relief to have told you, Oswald. You will not think any the worse of my father, will you, dear?’

‘Think worse of him for being human enough to fall in love. No, Naomi; I am too deeply entangled in the meshes myself not to have a fellow-feeling for another prisoner in the net. And for a man of your father’s age, love is a very serious business. Cupid has a stronger grip upon sober manhood than on shallow and frivolous youth. Tell me all about it, dear. Who is the lady? Young, you say, and pretty? Do I know her? Have I ever seen her? Is she one of your Bethelites?’

‘No, Oswald; she’s quite a stranger. She was never at Combhaven till yesterday evening.’

‘And do you know nothing about her?’

Naomi was silent. Here was a divided duty. Oswald, as her future husband, had a right to possess her confidence; yet loyalty to her father demanded that she should keep the secret of his wife’s lowly origin; and she had some sense of personal shame in the idea that her father’s wife had been one little year ago a houseless wanderer upon the country side, without name or friends--a waif, whose only history was of starvation and ill-usage.

‘Is she vulgar, or disagreeable in any way?’ asked Oswald, taking Naomi’s silence as an evidence of embarrassment, and picturing to himself some miller’s blowsy-cheeked daughter, or worse, perhaps, the vivacious handmaid of some roadside inn.

‘No; she is gentle and quiet. I do not think you will dislike her. I only feared that you might think my father foolish for having chosen such a young wife.’

The church-clock struck five, the inevitable tea-time; and Naomi turned to leave the wilderness, where the patriarchal ferns were already brown and yellow, while younger varieties still retained their tender green.

They went back to the house by the long straight pathway between the borders of rose-bushes and old-fashioned autumn flowers, which bounded the neat expanse of vegetables in carefully kept rows; the celery-bed, which already breathed forth its aromatic odour; the dark leaves of beet-root, and straggling winter kail. Oswald felt a mild curiosity about the preacher’s new wife. He was slightly amused at this revelation of human weakness in the reserved and dignified Joshua, a man who had seemed to occupy a higher stage of life than that on which human weaknesses have sway. He followed Naomi into the house, and stood close behind her as she opened the parlour-door, and, looking over her shoulder, saw Joshua’s wife.

Cynthia was kneeling by the newly-lighted fire, with her straw bonnet hanging over her arm, just as she had come in from the nutting expedition; her loosened hair falling a little over her face, her cheeks flushed to a delicate carnation by air and exercise, her eyes looking dreamily at the bright flames leaping up from the newly-kindled wood; a pretty picture assuredly, concentrating all the light in the dusky room. The tea-things were laid, but the family had not yet assembled. Cynthia was alone.

She started up as Naomi entered with her lover, and stood before them shyly, too much abashed by a stranger’s presence for speech.

‘I hope you enjoyed your ramble,’ said Naomi kindly.

‘The wood was lovely. It was very kind of your brother to take me there.’

‘I think it was kind of you to go with him. This is Mr. Pentreath. I--I have told him about my father’s marriage.’

Cynthia curtsied, and Oswald held out his hand, at which she gave him hers shyly, never having shaken hands with any one so different from the young men of Penmoyle, whose hands were always red and inclined to coarseness, and who breathed hard in society. She was not awed or impressed by Oswald’s appearance, as she had been by Joshua Haggard’s dark and earnest face, but she considered him highly ornamental. Oswald was surprised by this delicate and flower-like beauty. He had expected to see a pretty young woman, buxom and good-tempered, with rosy cheeks adorned by large bunches of curls, not innocent of bergamot-scented pomatum, coral earrings, perhaps, and one of those velvet headbands which he so heartily detested--the kind of young woman he had seen in a tobacconist’s shop at Exeter.

He looked at Cynthia silently, lost in wonder. Where could Joshua Haggard have discovered this gracious creature? It was as if he had come unawares into that homely parlour and found Milton’s Sabrina or Ovid’s Daphne standing by the hearth.

Mr. Haggard came in presently, followed by his sister. He gave his wife a little look of greeting which was full of quiet tenderness, and then welcomed his future son-in-law with a hearty shake-hands.

‘You see I have stolen a march upon you all, Oswald,’ he said. ‘At my age a man does not care to make a fuss about getting married; and I knew that Naomi and you would give my wife an affectionate welcome. I had no occasion to stipulate for that beforehand.’

Cynthia had slipped away to carry her bonnet up-stairs. She had been too well trained by the Miss Weblings not to know that a bonnet flung carelessly on a chair in the family sitting-room would be an offence to aunt Judith. She came back breathless, with her hair neatly arranged, and took her seat by her husband’s side, but not before Miss Haggard had exclaimed,

‘When ever are we going to sit down to tea, I wonder? It’s a quarter-past already. I don’t know what’s come to the house.’