From Birth to Bridal

Chapter I

f T was early in the afternoon, but the -*- stillness of Dr. Harrison's house was like that of midnight. The child sat in her nursery, with the bit of pretty silk patchwork that had amused her for a week tossed on the floor, and the ballads of Robin Hood unread upon her knee. How silent it was in-doors ! how oppress ed was her little heart! she seemed to hear nothing, see nothing ; and then suddenly the silence changed into rushing, all-per vading sound. She sprang from her stool, frightened. She must go somewhere, she vol. I. ri must do something;. She climbed on to the broad window-ledge, and looked into the pleasant, old-fashioned garden. Nobody there, nor was there any real sound such as her overcharged brain had fancied. The thrushes were piping softly in the sunshine, and the buds were turning green ; her mind took in these things half uncon sciously, and with a half-sigh she said, " I wonder if I might go out ; I have only been once in the garden with papa to-day."

There was no one to ask ; she was her own mistress. With a quaint feeling of responsibility she put on her ordinary hat and jacket, and got her gloves ; slowly and quietly opened the door, and walked out into the passage. At the top of the staircase she stood and looked wist fully down a dark oak-floored gallery, with a narrow crimson carpet running along its centre towards a closed door, the door that parted her from all her little world. A faint sigh of " mamma " fluttered from her lips, as she went her way down the low broad stairs, without stopping at the rloors of what she knew were empty sitting rooms, out through the garden-door. The garden, her play-place, seemed as still and deserted as the house, perhaps more so, for in the house she was often bidden to be quiet ; in the garden she might romp as she pleased.

The silence and oppression there were too great for her, the birds seemed like stranger voices calling to her ; and with one quick look at the white blinds drawn down the windows in her mother's room, she turn ed and went out of the gate into the street, still quietly and decorously, for there was a method and purpose in the child's actions, though they were almost unconscious. b Across the broad green close she passed. Some men who were sweeping looked at the tiny trim figure, wondering to see her there alone ; and through the open door she went into the Cathedral, the only place beside her father's house in which she was at home ; her heavenly Father's house, where could she be more truly at home, where less alone ? The bells began to chime for service, and the child took her place, as she had often done with her mother.

Probably had she been asked she could not have told her purpose, nor could she have described the train of her thoughts ; but in after-years that day and its every occurrence and sensation remained clearly cut in her memory. After the service she went into the cloisters, and sat down full of thoughts. The sunlight streamed upon her sunny hair and violet frock, and the organ within the church still pealed out upon the air. A verger passed her with his wife, and she heard him say in a low tone : " Poor little girl, I hear her mother is dying." The tone was low, but yet it broke the dreamy oppression of the last few hours, and the child burst into tears. Bitterly and long she wept, though not loudly, for she was overpowered by a sense of lone liness and desolation, rather than of wrong or injury.

The sun sank low behind the vast white buildings, setting red in the west, and fringing the light clouds with gold ; the birds sang their sweetest even-song, the organ was hushed, and a young voice with a slight foreign accent said to her : " Why do you weep, little girl ?" " Mamma is dying, they say, and I am all alone," whispered the child, after some moments' pause. " I am alone too," rejoined the stranger, sitting down by her side. " But you do not cry," said she. " Are you unhappy ?" " Often." Something in the tone with which that one word was uttered made the child look up. The boy beside her, a few years older than herself, sat looking away to the red west, with the sad shadow of his last word hovering about his mouth ; she watched him silently, till he turned his soft dark eyes upon her, and then, meeting hers, of grey hazel, intently fixed upon him, he smiled.

She could not have told anyone that the dark chestnut hair, and eyes to match, with the colour that mantled in his brown cheek, were new to her, and pleased her ; but he perhaps had full consciousness of all the links in the chain of thought that suggested his next words. " Do you like violets ? Come, then, we will get some — dark single ones, and pale double ones. I like the double ones best, Neapolitan — southern ones, you know." She nodded ; they were mostly new words to her, but she felt, if she did not under stand them. She got up to go with him, her eyes still wet, her soft cheeks flushed, and still undried, so simple, so sweet, like the flowers he proposed to get her. Away to the organist's house they went silently together. He pushed open the gate, and called towards the house, " I have brought a little girl with me, Mr. Adams — I may give her some violets, may I not?"

A voice answered from within in kindly permission, and into the little garden under the south wall the children went. A bit of old monastic wall sheltered it, and there stood two beehives. There would blow in the Summer soon the organist's joy and pride, roses of every shade ; and there now grew and blossomed the sweet flowers with which the stranger boy had lured the child from her sorrow. He filled her small hands with them, telling her how the bees loved them, and flew in and out, murmuring to the sweetest of them all the sunny hours of the day : and how, in southern lands of France and Italy, the most delicious of all perfumes was made from such flowers as these. The sun had sunk, the children came out of the garden, and the boy ran into the house, returning with a bright silk thread, to tie the flowers.

She smiled up in his face, and Mrs. Adams stood at her parlour window watching them. " Goodness me !" cried she, " it is little Miss Harrison ; she ought to be at home." In another minute she had put on her bonnet and come out to them. " I will take you home, my dear. I don't suppose you know your way." The voice was strange to her, but a kind one, and the child unhesitatingly gave her hand with the same grave decorum that had possessed her all the afternoon. "Good-bye, little lady — good-bye, flower," said the boy with the dark eyes, laying his hand on her shoulder ; she had no hand at liberty to offer him for the usual shake. Gravely, and with childish grace, she curt seyed to him. " Good-bye, fairy boy, and thank you." " Vera ! Vera ! — where is Vera ?" were the first words the child heard as her father's door was opened for her.

She had walked the short distance home in silence with Mrs. Adams, partly because she had lost herself in the sweet Spring afternoon, fairyland to her — partly because she was greatly fatigued. Mrs. Adams knew the sorrow hanging over the child's head, and forbore to talk to her. "Vera! — where is Vera?" It was her father's voice. " My darling child ! — your mother ! — ah ! thank you, Mrs. Adams. I cannot stop, forgive me — Vera, come!" He lifted her in his arras, pulled off her hat and threw it down, as he strode up the stairs. The door that had been closed a few hours before was open now ; softly the father entered, and laid the child on the bed beside the mother's feebly-raised hand. " Violets, mamma ! — double ones for you !" whispered the child. " A fairy boy gave me them. They are for you."

" For me, Vera ! — how sweet ! God bless you, Vera ! You will not forget me ! Love papa ! — love papa !" slowly and gasp ingly came the words. Vera heard. She was too young — all was too strange for her to do more than she had done all day — feel, feel ; why or how, she could not tell. Then there came again the rushing, all-pervading sound she had heard before that day, and then all was quite still. Vera had fainted, and her mother was dead ! The child's violets were laid upon the mother's breast. She never asked for them ; but a year afterwards, when she again saw some blooming, she pressed closer to her father, whispering : " There are violets in heaven ; mamma took mine with her !"

Chapter II. Vera Harrison

had said she was all alone — poor burdened little heart, fearing the wonderful and sudden glimpse into the future opened before her. Her imagination could not conceive a world without her mother, where days and nights must come and go, and never in them should she hear the pleasant voice, or meet the ever-ready smile. The guide, the teacher, the playmate — for Edith Harrison had been all these to her child — was snatched from her at once. She could not mark the progress of disease in the uncom plaining mother, who seemed always in her usual place at table, or in her drawing room, and was always to be found by her child ; only in the last few weeks — or were they days, for childhood seldom reckons time correctly ? — had a shadow crept upon her life. The house was very still ; the servants did not sing at their work ; the little brother's shouts were often hushed by nurse, with a tear in her eye; and the father moved gravely and softly about the house, paler than his wront.

If he met his children, he would lay his hand gently on their heads, perhaps stoop and kiss them, but rarely speak — that cheery father ! The mother was in her drawing-room less and less, and at last Vera never found her there ; and no dessert followed her father's dinner now. How long this change had been coming Vera could not tell, when that long and loneliest last day of her mother's life arrived. Papa and mamma, — the beacons, the strong pillars of the child's life, — and now one light was quenched, one pillar thrown down. She was old enough to feel, though not to reason. There was to be a new order of things, and for her it was as if there was no order ; she was not big enough or strong enough to meet this new, mysterious, and therefore fearful, change with self-possession. She sat alone, and very young and help less, in the cloisters, and wept, and out of her full heart she said that she was all alone.

Vera forgot then her brother's curly head and merry ways, the sturdy brother who toddled about with her on the terrace, or to her favourite haunt in the shrubbery, to play with acorns or chestnuts. " Master George is always safe with Miss Vera," nurse would say with pride. She had forgotten nurse, too, who had been with her from her birth, had cared for her like a second mother, had made all her pretty frocks, and dressed her little-cared for dolls, had heard her lessons in her mother's absence, and whose gentle, unob trusive influence had greatly moulded the child. And she had forgotten her father, between whom and herself already existed the deep and subtle tie that often binds father and daughter in the tenderest sympathy. Dr. Harrison had cherished a most pas sionate affection for his child from the time, some two years before, when he had been attacked with scarlet-fever; and she, missing him out of her daily life, asked for him, and prayed to be allowed to go to him ; it was unkind to leave papa alone.

Obtaining only refusals to her request, she waited her opportunity of escaping unobserved, and her mother found her fast asleep in her father's arms. " Let her alone, Edith," said he ; " it is too late to move her now." "Vera took the fever from her father ; but he often told the story of her with a flutter of pride at his heart. The Spring deepened into Summer, and the garden was gay with flowers. Vera sat in the shade on the grass, reading or work ing with nurse, and playing sometimes with George ; but things were very still about the child. Everyone wore black in the house ; the pianoforte in the drawing-room was closed ; the long lounging-chair her mother always used had been carried into her father's study and folded up ; and her father came in and out as usual, with ever a sweet smile, but few words yet for his children.

He often took Vera in the carriage with him when he visited his patients, but he was sad and silent, and would hold her little hand in his without a word ; and she would stroke and fondle hin^, knowing his sorrow and his patience. The child's un spoken sympathy soothed him more than wiser things. She went to the Cathedral services with him, and stood in the cloisters by the slab that covered her mother's grave, where the morning sunlight fell, chequered by the cedar boughs ; and she remembered the day she had been there alone, and the dark eyed boy who comforted her. But no one spoke to her about that day ; in the hurry and grief of her mother's death, and the sorrowful, dark time that followed it, her little fairy-tale had never transpired, and with the curious reticence of children 6he had never spoken of it.

Yet when she stood there in the cloisters, her eyes would glance towards the opposite side, and she could have laid her fingers on the spot vol. I. c where she had sat when the boy spoke to her. The Summer weeks passed by ; the straw berries in the long, sunny garden were all gone, the children had eaten the last linger ing ones after their early dinner, and Vera had gone with the gardener to pull green gages from the old tree trained on the stable wall, and had brought them in the little basket of Brazilian grass her mother had always used for the same purpose, to her father, as he sat on the broad stone steps outside his study window in the evening. He remembered the basket well, and was pleased to see it in his little daughter's hand. He bade her take care of it, and she knew from the tone of his voice that in some way the basket was connected with her lost mother.

The stone steps outside the study were Dr. Harrison's usual seat in the warm evenings ; he sat there reading the Times now, and watching his children's shadows lengthen on the grass. Vera was rolling a beautiful Summer golden pippin for George to run after. Their happy laughter did not disturb him. By-and-by nurse's voice was heard calling to the children to come in — the sun light was gone, there was only shadow now. The father went and hoisted his boy on his shoulder to carry him in, first putting him into the apple-tree, that he might gather a big yellow apple for nurse ; and then he bade Vera come and sit with him awhile. Quite still they sat, she with her head against his knee. At last he said, " What do you like, Vera ?" " Like, papa ! — what do you mean ? I like fruit, and out of doors, and roses, and," hearing the low cooing of wood-doves in the trees beyond the garden, " I like that ; and," in a soft tone, " I like you, papa." c2 He smiled, partly at her simpleness, partly at his own inability to understand a child's wandering mind and fancy.

" Well then, Vera, what do you know ? •what can vou do ?" She looked up quickly. "Oh! papa, I can't do anything but read. Is that very stupid ?" He laughed. " Not very wise, certainly." And then he sighed, but observing how intently the child watched his changing moods, and changed with them, he said cheerfully, " ' Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a girl healthy, and wealthy, and wise.' We will leave out the wealth}', little woman ; but I would like you to be wise and healthy, so suppose you go to bed now, and when she has tucked you up, tell nurse to come to me in the study. Come in, Brand, and sit down," he called when, after an hour, nurse knocked at the study door. " I want to talk to you. What does Vera know ?" " She can read almost anything, sir ; and seems to like every book she can get hold of; and she can write, and work, too — but she does not like that, except at odd times, and to help me finish something for Master George.

And then, sir, mistress had begun to teach' her the piano, and I know she thought she would learn that well." " Ah ! yes. But," after a pause, and twisting absently in his hand the sugar-tongs in the small tea-equipage before him, "she must go on learning, and have some one to teach her. I was thinking, Brand, of ask ing my sister-in-law to spend a week here. I could talk to her, and ask her opinis ion. " Why not, sir ?" put in Brand. " Well, then, I will write to-night, and ask her to bring her two daughters, and come here at once. If my brother can come, so much the better." " I hope Captain Harrison can come," said nurse, who liked the Captain well, but did not at all affect the Captain's wife. " Then, Brand, you will see to everything being prepared for them ; and we must do what we can to make the place pleasant to them, though doubtless they will only regard it as a little change, and will not feel it dull."

Nurse had nothing to say to meet that sad tone, which found an echo in her own heart, so she wished her master good night as cheerily as she could, and took her way to the kitchen. " Whatever had master got to say to you to-night, Mrs. Brand ?" cried cook, as the nurse went into the small, neat parlour, where the other three maids were sitting — one at work, the other writing a letter, and the speaker in a state of blissful idleness. Late dinner was over some time ago, and she did not " want to put her eyes out like them young things," so now she was quite prepared for a chat with nurse. " You're such a stranger here, Brand, that we'll just make you welcome now you are come. Lucy, be quick and put your scribbling away, and get some supper." Lucy laid the cloth accordingly, and cook produced from her own private treasure a bottle of cowslip wine, a part of a cake, sent from her own mother far away in the North — these, with a currant tart, and the usual bread and cheese and beer, made a highly-appreciated repast ; and cook's question was once more asked — " Whatever had master to say to you to night ?"

"He began to speak to me about Miss Vera "Not to send her to school, I hope?" broke in the two younger maids. " No, but he says some one must teach her, and then he said he would ask Captain and Mrs. Harrison to come here directly on a visit, and he would talk to them a little. And he wants us to put all things ready for them." " Hum !" said the cook, drinking her wine, slowly and apparently engrossed with its flavour, and watching the nurse all the while, for it was well known that Mrs. Captain Harrison was no favourite with nurse. But nurse sat very quietly near the open window, crumbling a bit off her cake to feast the kitten that was perched on the window ledge." " You see," said she, as if in answer to the unspoken comments, " Mrs. Frank Harrison is about the only lady-relative Vera has got, and it stands to reason her papa should wish to speak to some lady about her.

She ought to care for her, if she doesn't ; and I don't know that poor mistress's aunt can do much for her. The visit may do my master good, he was always fond of his brother, and he ought to have some one to help him a little. I declare he thinks of everything ; he ask ed me the other day when Georgie would go into knickerbockers, and if Vera's black hat wasn't too hot for her ; and he never made one mistake about the mourning that was ordered for all of us." "There,"said cook, magnanimously, "after listening to so excellent a piece of reason ing, " I vote we all begin and get the house ready to-morrow ; and we'll have it as fine as fippence, for I know Mrs. Frank of old, poking her nose in everywhere." If nurse were agreeable, the other servants took their cue from her ; and the seance broke up.

The invitation was given and accepted, and within a week Captain and Mrs. Harri son were to arrive, accompanied by their two little girls. In the gravest and steadiest way, Vera went round with Brand to see that all was in readiness ; for Brand thought she might as well teach her nursling what she considered a necessary part of a well brought-up young lady's education — Brand being a servant of the older order of things, very conscientious and very domes tic, and not far wrong in her judgment. Whenever Vera seemed to tire a little, or to wish to run off to the gardener, nurse would enourage her with a smile of praise, or yet more by the words, "Your dear mamma al ways saw to these things herself, dear." Vera hung her favourite text, " Suffer the little children to come unto me," — her fa vourite picture of the Infant St. John and the lamb, in her cousin's bed-room, and put her prettiest books into their shelves ; and on the day when the guests came, she put flowers on the dressing-tables, and arranged others, with Brand's help, in two pretty bask ets for the drawing-room.

Chapter III

" ~\TES, Vera is charming — a sweet, anii- -*- able child, and so obedient," Mrs. Harrison said to her brother-in-law at dinner, the second day of her visit to Salisbury, with the blandest of smiles, wratching him as she spoke. "I am glad you are pleased with her," answered he, gravely. " I believe her im pulses are very good ; but my little girl has lived so quiet and sheltered a life that, as yet, no storms or trials have come near her." "She is so pretty, too, that, with a little care and pains, she may become quite dislinguee ; and she is always ready to give up her own pleasure. My darlings are getting quite fond of her. It is such a happy visit for them." A shriek from the nursery, and a violently-slammed door, interrupted the lady's praises, and Dr. Harrison looked up quickly from the biscuit he was meditatively break ing up, as Vera marched into the dining room, with flashing eyes, and a deep red spot on her cheek.

" Papa," she said, " my cousins have torn the new book you gave me ; and they laugh at my hair cut short like a boy's, and I told them you and mamma liked it so; and then they said I was asburd, and then — and then I believe I was very naughty and rude, for Brand said I was a disgrace to her and you, and that she would tell you to-night ; and see, I came to tell you myself." "Manfully said, Vera," cried her uncle; " like a brave man, too !" But her father shook his head. "That is not a pretty story at all, my child ; but we will not speak of it now, only if you have been rude to your cousins you must ask their pardon, and show them you SI are sorry. Vera looked rather crestfallen, but she climbed up on to her father's knee, and rubbed her derided head against his breast. " Susan, tell Brand to bring the other children down to dessert ; Miss Vera will stay here."

The tall parlour-maid finished clearing the table, setting fruit and wine and fresh glasses, and then took the message to the nursery. Brand went into the kitchen after she had left her charges at the door of the dining room, rather scandalised at her young lady's behaviour ; but she could not help laughing at Susan's account of how Miss Vera came in as bold as you please, and how for her part she, Susan, was sure master was proud of her in his heart, and could not abide the other stuck-up little things. Altogether it came to be considered rather grand of Miss Vera ; but then certainly Susan coloured the picture highly for the benefit of the groom, who came in with the week's stable-account for his master. Nurse felt uneasy and doubt ful about the future, but kept her trouble to herself. In the meantime, when her cousins sat down to dessert, Vera slid off her father's knee, selected the nicest plums and peaches for them, and whispered, as she gave one to each, " I am very sorry, Isabel.

I am very sorry, Marian." The children went to bed, and coffee was served in the drawing-room. Dr. Harrison and his brother played a game at picquet, chatting together over old friends. Mrs. Harrison sang them some favourite ballads. Turning from the piano, she said, " Why do you cut Miss Vera's hair so short ? — she is dressed so very plainly too for these days ; you can afford to do anything you please for her." " Yes, anything I think good for her," he replied with some emphasis. " I am not very fond of what you call these days ; I do not wish her to conform to mere caprices of fashion ; you had a specimen this evening of what a very decided and strong willed little person she is. I am anxious to guard her against herself; you cannot alter character, but you may direct it. I want her to learn to rule herself, and self-denial, even in small matters of plain dress and hair, is, I believe, a part of the lesson.

She has no mother, too, to soften down hard lines. It was on her account chiefly, I asked you to visit me. I cannot spare time to come to you, and I thought Frank here might con trive to bring you. I want to have your opinion what I had better do for my children. I do not promise to take your advice, but I shall be glad to have it." " Send them both to school, George," broke in the Captain, " the youngster as soon as he is big enough, and missy now ; there must be plenty of good and proper people ready to take them, and it would save you a world of trouble and thought." " And leave me very lonely, Frank ; be sides, I do not quite like girls' schools. 1 have seen something of them during my professional life ; there is a good deal of neglect of body, and mind, and heart — not wilful neglect, but attendant on the very system of general instruction.

I am inclined to think I prefer individual training, for girls at any rate ; and until our ways are a VOL. I. d little more advanced, and they receive by general consent a wider and deeper form of education — until, too, the women to whom we entrust our girls have learned to rule themselves, to be good and steady women of business, to understand what they profess to teach, and yet withal to retain the tender womanly heart." Mrs. Harrison did not venture to interrupt the doctor's crotchets, as she called them ; but the Captain leaned back in his chair, and said, with a laugh, " What in the world, George, has made you so great a believer in the women ?" " Two things, or rather people — my mo ther and my wife — perfect women, nobly planned. But remember, I only uphold the women for what they may be, not for what they are.