Chapter VIII: Something to Bear

THE day broke in sunny beauty. At "the breezy call of incense-breathing morn," the merry birds filled the air with their twittering, and the bleat of the lamb was heard from the meadow. Man roused himself to his various labours. The sound of the woodcutter's axe came from the forest, the clink of iron from the village forge, and the slow creak of the waggon from the lane. Under the eaves the swallows were chattering, and the "cock's shrill clarion" rose from the yard. Pleasant was the blending of rural sounds which roused Philomel to consciousness that another day had begun.

But the vicar's daughter awoke with a sense of oppression at her heart which excluded all pleasure, a feeling that some strange thing had occurred, that something painful was before her, though when she first opened her blue eyes to the light, full consciousness had not returned, and she knew not what caused the oppressive sensation. Then she felt a chilliness at her head, and intuitively Philomel put up her hand to that which some hours before had been so warmly, as well as so richly, clothed; the first touch recalled to her in a moment all that had happened upon the preceding evening.

How different often are our sensations in the morning from those experienced in the night—in what an altered light events and objects appear! If Philomel had been earnest, resolute, devoted, when the quiet stars were shining over her—if the curtain of night had seemed to shut out the world—all her courage and spirit of self-sacrifice now appeared to have faded away with the stars. She sprang from her pillow with a feeling akin to desperation, and for the first half-hour, while her fingers intuitively went on with her toilette preparations, her mind was wildly revolving schemes of escape from the consequences of what appeared to her now a senseless, almost suicidal, act.

Where should she hide herself—what could she do? Should she feign sickness, keep her apartment, shroud herself in darkness from the gaze of inquisitive eyes, the reach of impertinent gossip? Philomel was half wild with vexation when she looked at herself in her mirror; there was a choking sensation in her throat; but she was too much excited to cry, she was rather disposed in a fit of passionate distress to fling herself down on the floor. This was all very childish indeed, but poor Philomel was no heroine. She had done what could not be undone, and was not able at first to remember that "things without remedy should be without regard," and that the loss of her golden fleece was not the heaviest of misfortunes.

The first thing to soften the distress of the shorn lamb was the distant sound of children's voices singing a hymn which Philomel had herself taught them in the little schoolhouse on the moor. She threw open her lattice to let in the music, and with it came in the sweet morning air, laden with perfume from the garden. Tears came into Philomel's eyes as she listened, and then she turned them towards the parcel which she had directed to Caleb Coffin on the preceding night, and something of thankful pleasure mingled now with her pain.

"It has not been for naught; there is comfort at least in that thought. If I am a loser, others are gainers. Those dear little voices—how sweet they sound! I think that they were sent to cheer me, and give me courage to go on; for go on I must! I am like one climbing a cliff, who has reached a point whence he cannot go back. I must not stop on my way, or the fruit of my effort is lost. I must go on—I must go on!" Philomel repeated these last words again and again.

If, according to her own simile, she had been as one clambering up the steep face of a cliff, till there was no way of turning or descending, a jutting crag seemed to be overshadowing her now. Her nerve was failing her, her courage was sinking, and yet she must rise above that obstacle, or all the hard upward struggle already experienced would avail her nothing.

Philomel's window looked out on a fair lawn girdled with shrubbery, dotted with parterres. The village lay beyond it, backed by the wood, and above the trees rose the tower of the church, its gilt weathercock gleaming blight in the morning beam. Job, the labourer employed at the vicarage, was standing on the dew-sprinkled lawn, by the lines of newly-mown grass, whetting his scythe, and merrily whistling. There were sounds of movement within the dwelling. Philomel heard Sarah the maid setting down the jug of hot water and the cleaned boots outside the door of the vicar's apartment. It was time that another step should be taken on Philomel's difficult path, another point by an effort be gained. She called the maid to her room, strangely dreading to meet even the eye of the simple Scottish general-servant.

Sarah obeyed the young lady's call.

Philomel did not look at her as she entered; fancy painted vividly enough the expression of blank amazement on the face of the maid as she saw her mistress for the first time divested of all her long flowing hair.

Philomel pointed to the parcel which lay on the table, and, in as steady a voice as she could command, bade Sarah ask Job to take it directly to Burnesbey Abbey. Philomel had to repeat the order in a more peremptory tone before it was obeyed, for the servant was so much astonished by what she saw, that she could scarcely take in the sense of what she heard.

It was a relief to the vicar's daughter when Sarah had quitted the room with that precious packet, though Philomel was persuaded that the first words which would escape the maid's lips would be, "Sure my young leddy has gone clean daft!"

Philomel watched Job from her window as he stopped in his mowing to receive the message and parcel from Sarah. Few words seemed to pass between the two. Job wiped his scythe, hung it up in a blossoming lilac, took up his fustian jacket which had lain on the gravel drive, put it on, and then set off on his errand, little guessing what were the contents of the small white parcel which he carried under his arm.

"I have now compromised myself fully," murmured Philomel Lamb to herself, as Job passed through the green gate, and she heard its clink as it swung back behind him. "He carries my plighted promise as well as my hair. Oh, may my uncle faithfully fulfil his part of a bond as strange as that made by Shylock, I had almost said—as cruel!"

Philomel, though heavy-hearted, was no longer excited. The Rubicon had been crossed, there was no more painful struggling with indecision and doubt. The vicar's daughter quietly read her chapter, and knelt at her morning devotions; she had never engaged in them with a more simple, confiding faith. There is to a loving heart a sweetness in sacrifice; notwithstanding all her fears and regrets, when Philomel rose from her knees she felt no longer unhappy.

"Oh, that I could but tell my father why I have done this," murmured Philomel half aloud, as she heard the vicar descending the stairs. "For the first time in my life, I fear to face him. Papa will be so much surprised, so much annoyed; my conduct will seem so inexplicable to him. His vexation will be the worst—or almost the worst—part of my trial."

Philomel went to her drawer, took out her small store of ribbons, carried them to her toilette-table, and forced herself to look calmly into the mirror. She must wear no false hair—even had any been at hand, that was a part of her bond—but she might soften the effect of the disfigurement which the loss of her ringlets occasioned.

Philomel used the scissors here and there where the golden fleece had been hastily and unevenly clipped; and she bound a blue ribbon round her temples, letting the ends fall behind on her shoulders. The maiden felt little satisfied with the effect of her simple coiffure, and yet not all the charm of her face had been lost with her curls. The contour of the head was classical, the hair on it smooth and shining as gold, the countenance beneath looked more youthful than ever, with its rosy blush, and expression of mingled shyness and sweetness.

Thrice Philomel went to the top of the staircase, thrice she returned to her own apartment, before she could summon up courage sufficient to meet her father at the breakfast-table before family prayers. Delay, however, could not make the inevitable trial more easy to be borne, and when Philomel did enter the parlour at last, it was with a rapid, hurried step. The vicar had his back to the door when it was opened by his daughter, he was looking out the chapter for the day. But when he turned round and suddenly confronted Philomel, his surprise at her altered appearance was expressed in an ejaculation which was rarely known to escape from his lips.

"Bless me," cried the vicar three times, and each time with stronger emphasis, "what has the child done with her hair!"

Philomel went up to her father for her usual morning salute, but instead of giving it, the vicar held her back by her shoulders, that he might gaze with a long, puzzled, scrutinizing look at the head shorn of its locks. Embarrassed and distressed by his gaze, poor Philomel dared not raise her eyes, and felt her whole countenance suffused with a burning glow.

"What mad freak is this?" said the vicar at last in a tone of displeasure. "You are the last person whom I should have expected to play the fool in a silly attempt to follow the fashion."

"It is not the fashion at all," replied Philomel, scarcely knowing whether to cry or to laugh.

"Fashion or not—it is frightful; you look like a charity-child," bluntly observed the vicar. "I hate the masses of false hair with which girls now-a-days disfigure their heads, and I thought that the pendulum of fashion might be swinging back to no hair at all, but the latter fancy would be the most absurd of the two."

"I hope, papa, that you don't mind much," said Philomel, timidly approaching and giving the kiss which her parent, for once, did not return.

"Well, I suppose that a girl has a right to do what she pleases with her own hair; dress it like a Chinese or an Ojibeway Indian, if it takes her fancy to do so," said the vicar, still looking a good deal disturbed; "but I am sorry that a daughter of mine should make herself the talk of the village. Of course you do not intend to show your cropped poll at the archery-meeting to-day."

"Indeed, papa, I believe—I think—I know that I mustn't break my engagement."

The vicar merely shrugged his shoulders, and to Philomel's relief at that moment, Sarah came in for family prayers.

At breakfast, the vicar was unusually silent. When Sarah brought in the steaming kettle, she observed to herself that master looked put out, and no wonder, he had taken such pleasure in Miss Philomel's hair. Mr. Lamb was, however, a good-tempered man, and had a kindly heart. He saw that his daughter was pained, and he would not distress her by questions. Only, during breakfast-time, Philomel several times found her father looking at her short hair with a perplexed and troubled expression.

"I shall not dine at home to-day," said Mr. Lamb, as he concluded his meal; "I shall go to see Bullen's sick child, and then on to G—. I shall look in there on the rector, and probably take early dinner with him."

"Then will you not accompany me to the archery-meeting, papa?" asked Philomel, who dreaded facing the company without the support of her father's presence.

"Not accompany you, but join you there. I shall be in time, no doubt, to see you receive the silver arrow, if you win the prize," said the vicar smiling. "But, in truth," he added, more gravely, "I am scarcely in a mood for all these gay doings to-day. This niggardly conduct of Coffin's weighs on my spirits; my own village will look as strange to me without my school, as—as you do, child, without your ringlets."

"Oh, papa, I don't despair of our keeping on the school!" exclaimed Philomel, with a brighter glance than had beamed on her face since she had met her father that morning.

The vicar sighed, and shook his head. "Caleb Coffin," he observed, "is not a man to be changed by a word or led by a hair."

"We shall see," said Philomel, smiling.

And as she went up the stairs to her room, her heart felt much lighter than it had done when she had descended them before breakfast.