From Thistles-Grapes?

Front matter

FROM THISTLES-GRAPES ? BY MRS. EILOART, AUTHOR OF "THE CURATE'S DISCIPLINE," "MEQ," "ST. BEDE'S," etc., etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. JPttblishtr in Orbiiwro to _i)tt gHxjests. 1870. [All Rights Seserved.] CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER FAGB I. ANNE CUNDLEIGH'S STORY ... 1 II. MRS. PAYNE'S INMATE . . . .42 III. THE MINISTER'S GARDEN . . . .62 IV. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HEDGE . .109 V. MR. CHARLES ROSSLYN REJECTS HIS GOOD FORTUNE 115 VI. GRACE'S VISIT INTO SOCIETY . . .138 VII. HOW TIME WORE ON . . . .171 VIII. OUT OF PRISON 188 IX. DICK GIRLING IN LUCK . . . .211 X. MR. HESKETH'S CHRISTMAS . . . 232 XI. THE DOCTOR DANGEROUS . . . .252 XII. THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE SINNER . . 264 XIII. ONCE THEY WERE FRIENDS . . . 278 XIV. THE DOCTOR'S WINDOWS .... 300 XV THE DOCTOR TELLS HIS STORY . . .313 PROM THISTLES-GRAPES?

Chapter I. Anne Cundleigh's Story

ET me tell you the quiet story of a quiet woman ; skip it as an irrele vant episode if you will, but as Anne Cund leigh bad had a great deal to do for the last year or two with Grace Rosslyn, I should like you to be well acquainted with her. At school, where they first knew each other, Grace had for a time disliked her with aU her heart ; that is saying a great deal, for Grace could dislike very heartily when it so pleased her : the new teacher was pale, marked with the smaU-pox, plain, and un- 1 VOL. Grapes? attractive, and the wa„nt of beauty was a cardinal sin in the eyes of Grace — she was grave and quiet too, and Grace, at this time overflowing with healthful life, was chafed by the inert stillness, as it seemed to her, of Anne Cundleigh. Grace was rather a troublesome girl at school, she had an inveterate knack of get ting into scrapes — tearing her frocks, ink ing her cuffs, and generally delaying the learning her lessons till the last moment ; this was bad enough, but her inveterate habit of dreaming at the wrong times and in the wrong places was worse — she would be repeating a passage of Ryron to herself when she ought to be giving her full attention to the construction of a French verb, or the mastering of a difficult passage of Mendelssohn.

Anne Cundleigh bad a great many things to do besides just teaching music— to look after the girls, keep their wardrobes in order, and themselves tolera bly quiet out of school-hours. It was a hard life, and the girls made it so much the harder. She was conscientious and pains taking, trying to do her best, and to get them to do their best too, and they resented this ; not being used to teachers of Anne Cundleigh's stamp. But there was not one of them showed their dislike so openly as Grace ; just because they were afraid to do so, whereas Grace was afraid of nothing ; she was audacious and rude — more untidy and careless than ever ; as it seemed in sheer defiance of Anne Cundleigh's rule. So matters went on till the scarlet fever broke out in the school. Grace was one of its first victims, and was taken to the in firmary, whither she was soon followed by half-a-dozen others, the rest of the girls being hurriedly sent home.

Miss Sharpe, the mistress of the establishment, was 1—2 — Grapes ? 4 too frightened to do more than call in a doctor, and send the healthy pupfls away, and the infected ones upstairs ; she was fear fully afraid of anything contagious, was about as useful in illness as Hood's schoolmistress on the Rhine, and aU her energies and anxieties now were concentrated on herself, taking every precaution possible to escape the fever while yet remaining per force at her post. It was under these circumstances that Anne Cundleigh came out grandly ; she took the command of the sick-room, nursed the girls night and day, quieted Miss Sharpe's fears, was wonderful in cooling drhiks and kind words, so that every girl who was her patient become thoroughly ashamed of her dislike to her, and Grace most of all. With her it was from one extreme to another ; she had disliked this little pale creature, with her neat, orderly ways, hated her for the scars that disease had left upon her face, detested the un varying persistence with which she stood up for what she thought right.

Now, all these were so many points in her favour. What a relief it was to have such neatness and such order in the sick-room ! As to the marks of the small-pox, they were like a soldier's scars in the eyes of Grace. No doubt Anne Cundleigh had gained them through waging warfare with disease, just as she was doing it now ; and her firm ad herence to what she thought right proved an invaluable quality when dealing with patients who would, when the disease was at its height, clamour for the very things the doctor had said were most unfit for them ; or with servants who would persist in disobeying orders, and of whom it was difficult to say which was the most trying, their forgetfulness or their ignorance. She — Grapes ? 6 exalted Anne Cundleigh into a heroine, and fell in love with her after her fashion, and resolved that when they two were alone, she would make what amends she could by owning her regret for her past frowardness, and promising quite altered conduct for the future.

She made amends, as matters turned out, after another and still better fashion. Anne fell iU in her turn just as all the pupils but Grace had recovered and gone home for change of air. Grace had not had the disease itself so violently as some, but the effects lasted longer. She was a long time recovering her strength, and during this convalescence, which might else have been so tedious, it had been pleasant to he and watch Anne Cundleigh's quiet movements and all her thoughtful care for the girls who had shown themselves such refractory pupds to her. She was idealizing the quiet little woman, picturing her as one of Miss Nightingale's band, or as the chief agent of succour in a city attacked by cholera or plague. Grace did nothing by halves. Anne Cundleigh, from being before disliked, ridiculed, had now become an object of the greatest affection and rever ence.

She had set this most unpretending of all creatures on a pedestal, just as she had set her cousin, and was ready to wor ship her after another fashion, just as much as she worshipped him. Anne had the fever : not violently or dangerously. The very illness seemed to take her in a characteristic form. There was no raving or delirium as there had been with most of the girls, but just a quiet unconsciousness of aU around, which was the best thing that could happen to her, as it prevented her being distressed by Miss Sharpe's horror at learning that the — Grapes? 8 teacher, upon whom she had so relied, had fallen ill in her turn. " It was everyway so inconvenient, just as she was going to the sea-side, and just as the house was to be purified preparatory for the pupds' return, for Miss Cundleigh to be taken ill.

If she would but have put it off till she got home !" said Miss Sharpe to Grace, who, being now out of quarantine, had volunteered to teU her that Miss Cundleigh was unable to rise that morning and to all appearance was suffering from the fever. " I don't see how she could do that," said Grace. " We'd all of us have put off the fever altogether if we coidd, ma'am." " She must have felt it coming on last night," said Miss Sharpe, "and there would have been time then." " She only complained of her head, and her head has been aching every night for the last week, which, with all it has to carry, is no wonder. Any one's head would ache with such a burthen," said Grace. " But what is to be done V said Miss Sharpe helplessly. She would almost have risked the chance of contagion if she could have consulted Anne herself as to what was to be done with her, but there was no one to take advice of unless it might be Grace, who was to go home that mornnig- " Send for Dr. Macree back again," said Grace, " and when papa comes for me tell him I am going to stay here and nurse Miss Cundleigh.

There's nobody else to do it. I never did nurse any one in my life, but I think it's time I made a beginning. Miss Cundleigh lent me Miss Nightingale's book while I was ill, so I dare say I sha'n't go very far wrong." "But your papa won't allow it," said Miss Sharpe, feeling at the same time what Gh^apes ? 10 a blessing it would be if he would. Grace from a girl of sixteen seemed to have shot up into a woman of six-and-twenty, strong willed, self-reliant. Miss Sharpe looked at her admiringly. " I always did like those plucky girls," she thought ; " they're hard to rule, and always getting into scrapes, but there's something in them after all." " Yes, papa will," said Grace. " He has a great notion of justice. Miss Cundleigh has nursed me when she only came into the school to teach me music and keep me in order — if she could ; well, I'm going to nurse her, because it's right I should, that's all : papa will see it and understand it perfectly.

When Miss Cundleigh's better we'll go home to the Grange together. I shall drive her about all day, and read to her all the evening. But just now I don't think it would be right of me to go home, because as the fever has broken out in Miss Cundleigh, and I've been bending over her, perhaps I may carry it with me. I hope I haven't given it to you, Miss Sharpe." " Oh, good gracious !" screamed Miss Sharpe. " I always said if ever I had a fever I should die. Nothing but my strong sense of duty kept me here while it was about. Do stand farther off, that's a good girl. Do you mind my opening the win dow 1 You won't catch cold. Where's my aromatic vinegar ? But what a heroine you are to be sure ! My dear Grace, when your young friends return, I shall hold you up to them as an example of self-devotion and disinterestedness.

I can't tell you how rejoiced I am that the example I have set you all during this most trying time has borne such fruit already — go to Miss Cundleigh, my dear love — how I should — Grapes ? 12 like to kiss you, but my terrible suscepti bility to contagion, and the consciousness that a life like mine ought not to be too lightly imperilled, prevent my gratifying my feelings ! But you may rely upon it I shall place your conduct before your papa in its proper light. If he says you may remain you have my fullest sanction to do so, and ought to win Miss Cundleigh's eternal gratitude." Grace went upstairs, and Miss Sharpe sprinkled herself with aromatic vinegar and burnt a pastille to fumigate the room, after which she despatched a note for Dr. Macree, desiring the servants to show him to her before he went upstairs, as this last shock to her nerves was more than she was prepared for.

After that, while awaiting the Doctor, she took a little red lavender in water, and arranged her dress preparatory to receiving Mr. Rosslyn. Grace was now in the sick-room, and she t went to work much as she had seen Anne Cundleigh do. When fresh air had been admitted, the tumbled pillow smoothed, the poor hot head bathed and cooled, and every thing that could militate against that ex quisite neatness in which Anne so delighted, sent away or arranged in proper order, she sat down by the bedside waiting for Dr. Macree. He was long in coming, having been away from home when Miss Sharpe's note arrived, and Anne opened her eyes before he made his appearance. She looked conscious now — more like herself — if it had not been for the deep red spots fast coming out, Grace might have thought that nothing worse ailed her than a rather worse head-ache than usual, and she spoke rationally enough.

" When are you going home 1 I thought your papa was coming for you." — Grapes ? " So he is, but I shall not go with him. I'm going to stay with you." " I'm afraid I'm ill," said Mrs. Cundleigh, through all the fever flush and spots a pallor showed, as she thought of what her illness would entail upon the poor little household at home. " Yes, you're ill. You're going to have the fever like the rest of us," said Grace, "and I'm going to nurse you through it. I never did nurse any one, but I think I shall do better than that thick-headed Ann or that careless Jane, and at any rate I shall be better than any Mrs. Gamp Miss Sharpe might have in. When you get better you'll go home with me to the Grange. I've settled it aU with Miss Sharpe, and she's going to send my father away." "But— but I don't understand," said Anne.

What did this change mean in the girl who had been so unruly and fro ward 1 Certainly, she had been gentle enough in the last few days, but that was hardly more than might have been ex pected under the changed circumstances ; but what could cause this sudden devotion to herself? "I'll tell you," said Grace; "but you mustn't talk. You kept us all quiet when we were ill, now I'm going to keep you so. I've got to like you very much ; I'm ashamed of the way I behaved to you. I was a brute and a pig, and you must let me nurse you and get you well, or else I shah never be happy again the longest day I live." Then she burst into tears, and the patient had to lecture the nurse upon exciting her self in her still delicate health, and the nurse had to tell the patient only to think of herself, and to remember that she bad From Tiiistles — Grapes ? nothing to do but to lie there and get well.

" But you're not strong enough for nursing," said Anne. " I'm strong enough to nurse you," was the reply; "if it were Milly Green or Bertie Dale, it would be another thing. What a fuss those girls made when they were ill, to be sure ! But it will be quite another thing with you. You were always quiet — you'll be quieter now than ever. And you'll give no trouble — no, not even if your mind goes wandering — that you can possibly help. If there were hospitals in heaven and angels in it that wanted nursing, they'd be just like you. Besides, I must do it. If you did but know all I've gone through while you've been half-killing yourself with slaving night and day for me and the rest, you'd see that the kindest thing you could do would be to let me wait upon you just a little. Talk of coals of fire! oh, good gracious, Miss Cundleigh, how you've been heaping them on my bead all this time.

Don't be so cruel as to keep them there, and insist upon my leaving you." "You were no worse than the others," said Anne, putting out her poor hot hand to take hold of Grace's cold one. " Yes, I was," said Grace, squeezing the hand she held. " All the school looks up to me because I'm the cleverest in it. I am clever ; I suppose it's being so much with my cousin in the holidays ; there wasn't much in the school to bring the cleverness out of one. I suppose it's no worse than other girls' schools, but it's certainly no better. How I should like, if ever I had the money, to start a model boarding-school, and have you for the super intendent. But there, I mustn't talk — 2 vol. n. — Grapes ? 18 only you let me stop, unless you want to make me wretched for life. As to my not being strong enough, don't be afraid, I've plenty of strength to last as long as you want me."

Dr. Macree came after a time, and Grace shyly acquainted him with the patient's symptoms, and took bis directions respecting her as gravely as if she had been used to sick nursing from her cradle. " But how about yourself, young lady V •said the doctor, when he bad concluded. " I shall do," said Grace ; " people are always strong enough for what they really want to do, and I really do want to do this. Don't cross me, doctor, and say I can't." A minute after, Mr. Rosslyn was at the school. He had driven over in a hired close carriage that Grace might not catch cold, to fetch her, and Miss Sharpe was busy telling him of Grace's self-devotion and heroism in a style that fairly puzzled John Rosslyn, her words were so many, and some of them so long. But he scouted the idea of leaving the house without seeing his daughter.

He laughed at Miss Sharpe's dread of contagion, and so Grace was sum moned down, and when she came her father took her in his arms and kissed her heartdy, Miss Sharpe standing by the while sniffing at her flask of aromatic vinegar. " Grace, child, what's this ? You're only out of a sick bed yourself, and you want to nurse somebody that's down on one." " It's Miss Cundleigh, father, and you'll break my heart if you make me leave her. If you only knew what a life I and the other girls led her before we were taken ill"- — then Grace saw Miss Sharpe, and thought it better to say nothing more on that point for fear of ulterior consequences to her schoolfellows. " But I want to stop 2—2 — Grapes ? 20 with her, and nurse her — the servants don't know how — and there's no getting any one into the house, they're all such cowards.

We should have died — every one of us — if it hadn't been for Miss Cundleigh. She caught the fever in nursing us. It's only fair that one of us should nurse her in turn." " You're a good lass," said John Ross lyn, " but I doubt your spirit's better than your strength. What does the doctor say ?" Then Dr. Macree, who had by this time come into the room, gave it as bis opinion that Miss Rosslyn would suffer less by having her own way than by being denied it. " At any rate, it's the only chance for the other poor thing," was his thought, and so Grace remained, and nursed Anne tri umphantly through all, and they came home together to the Grange, and Nurse Stokes fed them up with jellies and beeftea, chickens and new-laid eggs, till Grace was her own healthful buoyant self again, and in Anne Cundleigh's pale cheeks a faint gleam like a wintry rose showed forth at last.

" I shall stand by you when we go back to school," said Grace one day ; "let any one of them put on you if they dare ! I hope you've forgiven me by this," she added, penitently, " and some day, per haps, you'll like me a little. Do you know, I like you very much indeed ?" Anne looked at her with a strange dreaminess in her eyes, such as Grace would have thought could never have shone in them. "Like you," she said, "oh, Grace ! if you knew all that you have done for me. What a return for what I did ! So different from that which was given me once. She clasped her thin pale hands together — Grapes ? 22 — Grace was sure she found it bard to keep from crying. What had moved her so ? Was it the beat of the day, or was she still so weak from her illness ? " Let us go in," said Grace, " I. have tired you with my chatter ; you shall he down, and I won't come near you for an hour."

" I like this best," said Anne, " it is so sweet after the four walls of the schoolroom, and I like you too, Grace, near me ; your chatter never tires." They were sitting in the wood, near the very spot where, two years afterwards, Grace first espied Dick Girling. The day was sultry and oppressive, so that Grace bad brought Anne there directly after breakfast, as the best place to beguile the long hot hours. She had told her the legend of the wood, brought her flowers, and bad a short discussion on their significance, then read some pages of Elizabeth Browning, and at last bad wandered into a discourse which had led to the conversation I have quoted. It was no wonder that Anne liked to sit in the wood, where the thick greenery above shut out all glare of the sun, and only let in such a softened light as might have streamed down a cathedral aisle ; where the twittering of the birds, or the rich melo dies into which, now and then, some ex ultant songster broke forth, formed such a blessed contrast to the jingling of the piano, or the untrained voices of girls to whom nature had denied every qualification of a singer but the ambition ; and no wonder that Grace's chatter did not weary her — Grace, who was giving to the poor unlovely teacher a devotion and affection she would never have thought it possible she could call forth.

From Tliistles — Grapes ? 24 " Grade," she said, suddenly, " I didn't think, when you and the rest feU ill, and I volunteered to do what I could for you, I was earning such a reward as you have given me. Shall I tell you the reward that was given me once for such a service as I rendered you ?" Grace nestled up to her, and placed her arm around her. What change was it that had come over Anne Cundleigh ? she was no longer the school teacher,- — grave and almost prim, looking an embodiment of rules and proprieties, — still less was she the heroine of saintly duty Grace had been making her, — she was just a woman some years older than Grace, with a sorrow weighing her down, and a grief that Grace was sure had a romance and a tenderness about it. Anne Cundleigh had a story ! And the story turned upon love ; she was a heroine still, only after a softer, lovelier fashion than Grace had imagined her.

With her own unspoken precious secret, this was something to make her turn yet more lovingly to Anne — Anne, who might have been wronged, slighted, deceived, but yet who stood on the same level with her, in asmuch as she had loved, and for a time, at least, had been loved again. " I was pretty once," said Anne ; " but it is a long time ago. I am only five-and thirty now, though I suppose I look a great deal older. We were living at C , some years ago. My father's congregation was not what it had been — he was already fading in strength, and could not under take a large ministry with many duties — but it was better than it is here, and there was no need for me to go out teaching to add to his income. People thought a great deal of my playing then, especially — Grapes ? 26 one family of the congregation, where the mamma was very musical, and wished her daughters to become so too.

I was there a great deal — often of an evening — and then the only son, (I won't tell you his surname, Grace ; you might meet him by and-bye in after life, and I shouldn't like you to be prejudiced against him if you did, so we will caU him Walter) — well, Walter used to come in after business ; his father was a manufacturer, one of the wealthiest in the place, and Walter, when of age, was to have a share in the business. He liked my playing too, but he liked me better after a while, and I wasn't very hard to win, Gracie, though I dare say you have often thought that I had never bad a love-dream in my life. I had it then ! ah ! dear, that what was never to be anything but a dream should be so sweet — I was so happy. Gracie, dear, some day, who knows bow soon, such happiness may come to you ; then think of me, and pray that no such blight as mine may ever rest on you !

It seems as if it could not be me — that girl who aU those years ago thought heaven had come to earth, and the gods were walking among men, just because one of them told her of his love. Well, his people did not like it, they had other views for him, and my father, hearing this, was as stern on his part as they were on theirs, and I was very wretched, at least I thought I was wretched then — I wonder now how I dared, with Walter loving me and sharing my trouble. Wretched ! and through it all, Walter declaring he was mine, and nothing should part us ! " They were not unkind or unjust, his people. It was only natural they should wish him to look higher than the minister's daughter ; but finding that he would think — Grapes ? of nobody else, bis father temporised a little with him. He should go away for a couple of years — there was a branch house of theirs abroad where there was an opening for him.

If he worked well during his absence, and came back in the same frame of mind that he wrent away, and I was still unchanged, they would throw no further obstacles in his way. How eagerly he accepted this offer ! He change — he forget ! — he laughed at the bare idea, and went away rejoicing and triumphant in the thought that at last a way had been found for him to win me. "I was as confident as himself; the dread of losing him altogether made the separation of two years seem nothing. I had no fear of him — it was his people only that I dreaded, and they and my father had promised then consent if we were still true to each other when the two years had past. " They were not long in gliding by. I think those two years, though Walter was away, were the happiest time of all my life. He wrote constantly — hopefully — happily — picturing the home that he would give me — the bright days we were to live together.

To know, to feel that I was so loved — so worked for, was enough even without his presence — enough to make the days go by as fleetly as only happy days can pass, and at last, at the end, Walter came home. " His family had hardly expected him so soon. They thought that he would travel after the fashion of other travellers, — but he had gone on night and day. They were not at C when he came, having gone to a little sea-side watering place, twelve — Grapes ? 30 miles off, while the house in the town was being renovated and painted. He had gone there first as a matter of duty, but I think he was not sorry when he found his family aAvay, and the house in such a state that his sleeping there was impossible, so that he bad to come to us and throw himself on my father's hospitahty. It was too late and he was too tired, to travel another twelve mfles, and so that night he was to sleep under our roof and go to Sandstone early in the morning.

He had won the evening with me, he said, by his speed in journeying ; he ought not to be defrauded of the privilege he had won. How happy we were that night ! How handsome he looked ! How full he was of the life abroad — of the men and things that he had seen ! and when we were alone ■ — my mother contrived that for us for a few minutes — how tenderly he spoke of the future ! Oh, Gracie ! Gracie ! I think I see his eyes yet as they were fixed upon my face, fixed with a look that after that night they were never to wear again. " The next morning he was late in coming down ; at last my father went to his room, and found him ill, feverish and wandering. We sent for a medical man — my father himself went to Sandstone to tell the news to his family, and his mother came back at once to see him. .But when she heard, what by that time we knew, that it was the small-pox which had seized her son, she shrank terrified from going near him.