Alison Walsh: a study of to-day

Front matter

"TVlI S O N \\ ALS H BY Constance Evelyn "UNTIL THE day break, and the shadows flee away" T. NELSON A" SO N S [OffDOy, EDINBURGH _9_ 2W£W--y-OJR_H Alison IValsh a stu&s of Holiday BY Constance Evelyn " This world's no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good; To find its meaning is my meat and drink.'' Browning. T. NELSON AND SONS London, Edinburgh, and New York I89I (SsonUnts. 1. FRIENDS MEETING, ... ... ... ... ... ... 9 II. KNOW THYSELF, ... ... ... ... ... ... 32 III. UNWELCOME NEWS, ... ... ... ... ... ... 55 IV. LITTLE BETHEL MEETING-HOUSE, ... ... ... ... 85 V. THE MINISTER'S STUDY, ... ... ... ... ______&S& VI. MISS ROBINA UNDER REVIEW, ... ... ... ... ... 125 VII. NORA AT HOME, ... ... ... ... ... ... 116 VIII. DOROTHY, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 165 IX. A LILY BROKEN DOWN, ... ... ... ... ... 178 X. THE THREE MONTHS' BOND, ... ... ... ... ... 200 XL DOROTHY IN FAULT, ... ... ... ... ... ... 214 XII.

THE BOND OF FIFTY YEARS, ... ... ... ... ... 236 XIII. BAFFLED, NOT BEATEN, ... ... ... ... ... 263 XIV. SETTLED AT LAST, ... ... ... ... ... ... 283 XV. MR. THWAITES DISCOMFITED, ... ... ... ... ... 299 XVI. WOMANLY BLISS, ... ... ... ... ... ... 326 XVII. LITTLE BETHEL TWO SUNDAYS FOLLOWING, ... ... ... 343 XVIII. THE END OF THE QUEST, ... ... ... ... ... 363 XIX. WEDDING BELLS, ... ... ... ... ... ... ALISON WALSH.

Chapter I. Friends Meeting

" A name is a label ; A dress is the wrapper ; Shoddy or sable, What matter ? what matter ? " REALLY this is kind ! I never dreamt of seeing any one so soon ! " And the speaker, a young man not much over thirty years of age, gripped his friend's hand in a way that made him inwardly wince. The truth was, he was very glad to see a friend just then. For the last hour or more he had been engaged in the prosaic work of superintending the unloading of a furniture-van. Sometimes he had given the men a word of direction as to where the articles should be placed ; some times he had followed them upstairs and protected the newlyvarnish ed walls from scratches and blows. Once he had sharply rebuked a man for swinging round a box so heedlessly as to break a pane of glass ; the next minute he had noticed what a poor, weak fellow he was, and himself had helped to shoulder the box into the adjoining room.

In all his movements there had been exhibited an abun dance of energy and physical strength. Clearly Arthur Heywood, M.D., was not a man to allow the grass to grow beneath his feet. He knew what he wanted done, and meant' to see it accomplished too. Even afterwards, as he stood leaning up against the window-frame of an empty ground-floor room, henceforth to be the surgery, his easy attitude was far from suggestive of indolence. His keen eyes swept up and down the road, taking in every feature of the unfamiliar scene. It was the High Street of a cheerful old-fashioned town into which he was gazing now — a street that was quaint and picturesque, just because the larger part of it had been built before these modern days, when individuality of taste has too often been made to give way to uniformity of style, and one house only differs from the next in number and name.

The street itself was long and straggling, and presented many curious contrasts — small houses and large ones ; long stretches of blank wall overshadowed with ivy ; shops with the newest plate -glass fronts, and shops with small old fashioned panes ; roomy old family mansions that had a history, and poor little cottages with cakes and jumbles displayed in their small windows, or with laundresses' names hung up on modest cards. Here and there were open spaces whereon the children played, or patches of garden ground filled in summer time with gaily-coloured flowers, the poorest cottages often displaying the richest collection of roses and stocks and climbing plants. Altogether, the street carried with it a look of comfort and pleasantness not to be found in many more pretentious spots, and Arthur Heywood was well content to make his home right in the midst of such heterogeneous .surroundings.

He took that healthy intere.st in his fellow-beings which is quite independent of their position in society. A ragged child crying over a halfpenny dropped down through a grating in the road was quite as likely to stir his sympathy as a duchess mourning the loss of her diamonds. And it pleased him to know there were unfashionable dwellings and unfashionable people to be found not far from his own house, while he was not in the least disturbed by the fact that that same house bordered on the pavement, without even the dignity of an area in front. It was true that any mischievous passing boy might ring the bell without stepping so much as a foot out of his way ; but if that was a drawback, it seemed the only one. The rooms within were large and convenient, and the garden at the back well stocked with shrubs and trees.

Having lately come from a small London villa with ill-fitting windows, and thin walls, and smoky chimneys, and a patch of ground in the rear that could be overlooked by a score of similar villas, Arthur Heywood had every reason to rejoice in the change. And there was a frank and happy smile on his face as he stood contemplating the front garden opposite, and wondering how long it would be before he had made himself known in the neighbourhood. That he might not succeed in the end never seemed to enter his mind ; a cheerful hopefulness underlay all his ordinary views of life. " Really this is kind ! I never dreamt of seeing any one so soon ! " The exclamation had burst from him as he hurried for ward to welcome a middle-aged man stepping in through the open door. And then he looked comically round at the dusty passage with the bare apartments on either side, and shrugging his shoulders, added laughingly, — " But such a den as this is to invite you in !

If you want a chair I must ask you to step upstairs. All the bedroom furniture has come in first." " Nonsense, Heywood!" replied the other: " I came to see you, not the place. 'Besides, according to your theory, it will do me good to stand." " I never said that," the young doctor replied. " Standing is not exercise, man, and exercise is what you want ! How ever, I won't bother you with professional advice first go off". You had too much of that in Germany, I fear. So now how are you yourself ? And how is Miss Ellis too ? " " Quite well, thank you, both of us, — except that my sister is in great distress to find you have put up at the Railway Arms the last two nights. Visions of damp sheets and underdone mutton chops have been running in her head ever since ; and she begs you will consider our house your home until your own is set to rights."

" She is very good, very good indeed," replied Heywood heartily ; but he treated his visitor to one of his shrewd glances as he spoke. The two men had first met abroad about three years before, and staying for some time in the same place, had become companions in many a day's excursion through the land — Mr. Ellis learning to feel a great admiration for the athletic feats of the young doctor, who could keep up with his even-paced mule as many hours as he cared to ride, and Heywood in return growing conscious of an increasing respect for the wide knowledge and profound thought of the minister. Moreover, Miss Robina Ellis had been of the party too, and had caused the young man no small amount of good-humoured amusement with her deep-rooted British prejudices, and her unconquerable dislike of all foreign ways.

He had never forgotten the occasion of their first meeting. With knapsack on shoulder he was making his way from one town in South Germany to another, when sud denly he became aware of a lady in a flat broad-brimmed hat, not unlike an inverted plate, standing on one side of a river, making frantic appeals to a little German girl gatheringflowers on the other side, to " go away, go away," at the same time pointing to the water flowing between. Thinking that a gentleman's help might be required, Heywood went forward, and courteously raising his cap, asked if he could be of any use. Miss Ellis turned towards him a pair of very red cheeks, and explained excitedly that the odours there were atrocious — atrocious ! — and the child would be .stricken with fever if she stopped about on the banks like that !

She herself had never met with so many pestilential smells in all her life before ! Surely the foreigners could have no noses at all ! Heywood caught the humour of the situation, and answered with a laugh, " Hardly that, I think ; some of them are so pronounced. But perhaps their olfactory nerves have not been properly developed yet. I must con fess to not always finding the atmosphere very fragrant myself." " But cannot something be done . " the lady asked. " In England people would write to the papers, I know. And even here, if they can't use their own — what did you call them ? olfactory nerves ? — they might believe the testimony of those who can." Heywood shook his head. " It would be of no good writing, I fear. It would only get ourselves into bad odour instead. However, the little girl has run away now, out of danger for the time.

So good-afternoon, unless indeed you are going the same way." Miss Robina shook her head. " Coming by-and-by," she said, and they parted with a friendly bow. But afterwards, looking back from a neighbouring height, Heywood caught sight of the broad-brimmed hat still perambulating up and down near the unsavoury spot, as if in readiness to warn off some other unwary child. Still later in the day they found themselves sitting opposite to each other at table d'hSte. Miss Ellis gave her acquaintance a pleased smile of recognition, then intro duced him to her brother, the Rev. John Ellis of Milhurst, England. There was a touch of affectionate pride in her voice as she spoke ; and Heywood, taking stock of the gentleman by her side, found him to be an intellectuallooking, middle-aged man, with a broad, high forehead, surmounted by a few straggling locks, a clean-shaven face, rather set lines about the eyes and mouth, shoulders that were slightly bent, and a hand that was white and delicate enough to have belonged to a woman.

All this he noted with the quickness to which his eye had been trained ; and then, conscious of being examined in his turn, considerately looked another way. And this was what Mr. Ellis saw : a tall young man in a travelling suit of gray, with a mass of dark wavy hair, deep-set brown eyes, ruddy cheeks, a firm, decided mouth, though with traces of much latent humour in its curves, and that general appearance of health afforded by a sound digestion and undisturbed nights. The result of the scrutiny was apparently to his satisfaction, for on their eyes meeting again, the minister began to converse, and by-and-by the two found themselves launched in a poli tical argument that threatened to last until midnight, each being well up in his subject, and able to fight well with his tongue. However, the argument ended in a friendly recognition that something was to be said on both sides, and the acquaintance thus begun soon ripened into an in timacy that was mutually agreeable.

Mr. Ellis had been ordered to the spot for the benefit of his health ; and Heywood, with no kith nor kin to share his travels, was glad to stay on too for the sake of the companionship. Miss Ellis rarely joined in their excursions. She had not the strength to walk so far, she said, and nothing would have induced her to mount a mule. But she sat with them at other times, and vastly entertained Hey wood, towards whom she showed an elder-sisterly regard, by the unerring instinct with which she was sure to get into a dilemma whenever one was possible. She would come home with bespattered boots and dress through havingfloundered into a bog ; or if she had chosen to go for a drive instead, would have so bewildered the coachman by her directions that in the end she had found herself exactly opposite where she had most wished to go.

Her brother sometimes came to the rescue with his ready use of the German tongue ; but left to herself, she dealt out Jas and Neins — the two words that formed her stock-in-trade — with strict impartiality as to their meaning, and with a confused sense that the building of the Tower of Babel was somehow responsible for every un happy predicament in which she found herself. Moreover, Miss Ellis's English palate was being con stantly disgusted with the oily mixtures presented for its delectation. It raised a broad smile on many a face to see the way in which she would pass by dish after dish, and then ask for some simple thing, such as milk-porridge, which was quite unattainable in that part of the world. However, she resigned herself to the inevitable at last, not without some satisfaction in having discovered why so many men and women of ample proportions, with infants of corresponding size, were to be found round about that neighbourhood.

Oil was the great cause of it all, she was sure. But after awhile, the young doctor's amusement gave way to respect. He began to find that Miss Ellis possessed other qualities than an unhappy knack of blundering. Once he overheard her administering a severe reprimand to two English lads who had evidently thought it a manly thing to indulge in profane language, winding up, how ever, with a tender appeal to their affections ; for what would their mothers say to .such talk as that ? Another day he and Mr. Ellis came across her sitting on a bench outside a cottage door, nursing a four-week-old baby, and somehow managing to express her interest in it to the German mother looking on. Still later, she took charge of an invalid girl for three whole days rather than permit any of the party belonging to her to stay at home, and so miss the distant excursion they had planned.

Nor were her constant kindly attentions to her brother to be despised — the way, for instance, in which she would look after his wraps, see that his boots were dry, and otherwise care for his creature comforts. She might seem a trifle too fussy at times ; but Arthur Heywood, with a great sense of loneliness still brooding over him because of the recent death of his mother, thought he could well have tolerated more of such fussiness without complaint. Finally he made this discovery, that in spite of what looked at first sight like incapacity, Miss Ellis was the moving spring of everything active in her brother's life. Mr. Ellis was too much given to fits of learned abstraction to be relied upon in practical affairs ; it was his sister wTho thought of the things to be done, and as far as possible carried them out.

It was the remembrance of this latter feature in her character that had made Heywood glance up with an odd, comprehending smile when his visitor offered the hospi^ tality of his home. Well he guessed he might have put up at the Railway Arms a month before such an idea would have dawned spontaneously on the minister's mind. But he thanked him cordially, nevertheless, and so far accepted the invitation as to promise to spend the evening at his house. After that, he said, he must return, or his women-servants might take fright at being left that first night alone. The cordiality was not assumed. The prospect of spending an hour or two with the minister was really an agreeable one. More than once he had wondered what the home-relations of the brother and sister were like, but only letters had passed between them since they had parted at a London railway terminus three years before.

Indeed, it had been something of a shock to see Mr. Ellis walk in in his professional black coat and white tie, so different from the loose travelling suit he had worn before ; his holiday freedom of manner also was gone, and as a consequence Heywood dropped the light, bantering tone that had seemed natural at first, and spoke with more of formal courtesy. Mr. Ellis noticed the change, and was man enough not to appreciate it. He had grown accustomed to such liberties as the young doctor had taken abroad, and liked them from their sense of novelty. Moreover, he was anticipating much pleasure from his present settlement in the town, though not unmixed with apprehension of being knocked up at an unreasonable hour to take a six miles' constitutional before breakfast, with a header into a stream by the way.

For some time they stood together in the window, dis cussing the weather, the neighbourhood, Heywood's pros pects, the shameful negligence of his predecessor in the practice, his own regret at leaving London, where, he laughingly declared, he had been as much the hero of the old people in the almshouses as ever a duke or a prince, and then of his need of a horse if he would visit any of the outlying districts. They were still talking when a young lady emerged from a house a little higher up the road. She was about twenty-five years of age, of a tall, erect figure, and clad in a plain, tight-fitting ulster suitable to the uncertain weather. Following her was a huge retriever of dignified aspect, which invariably skirted all the pools in its way, and seemed to look on the frolicsomeness of a young terrier also accompanying them with a kind of pitying regard.

At first all the attention of their mistress was given to the protection of her skirts ; the road was under repair, and an unusual amount of mud was the consequence. But as she came opposite the doctor's residence, her eye wandered exploringly from window to window, catching sight of the inverted back of a wash-hand stand in one, and the disjointed pieces of a wardrobe in another, until finally it rested for a moment on the figure of Mr. Ellis in the surgery. Instantly she smiled and bowed, then withdrew her eyes and passed on. " Who is that lady ?" asked the young doctor. The face with its fine expressiveness had wonderfully attracted him. " Which lady do you mean ? That tall girl opposite ? She is the granddaughter of the old man I was speaking of just now as the best judge of horse-flesh for twenty miles around."

" But I understood you to say the man Walsh was an illiterate old fellow who could neither read nor write." " Just so. All the same, this is his granddaughter, and she is one of the most cultivated girls — women, I should say rather — in the town. But theirs is a strange family history, and you will hear as many versions of it as you will find people to talk." " Let me hear your version then," said Heywood, his eye still watching the retreating figure. " Mine will not take long to tell. All I could ever learn for certain was that this grandfather of hers — ' th' old maister,' as he is called half the country round — rose from working as a common labourer in the brick-fields to being by repute the richest man anywhere about. At one time half the population was in his employ. He seems to have had a perfect genius for business, and to have been able to keep all his accounts in his head without so much as one mistake.

Some say he spent some time in prison in his early days, but that is probably a myth. He had one son, and he married into a well-to-do family — well-to-do from the Milhurst point of view, that is — and when both the son and his wife died, the child was brought up by an aunt, and is what you see her now. By the way, that is another of her aunts, a Mrs. Naylor, crossing the road lower down. — But you are busy, and I ought not to keep you talking any longer now. So au revoir until the afternoon. My sister will be sorry you cannot give us any more of your time." The minister took his leave ; but Arthur Heywood seemed in no haste to get back to work, though by this time Alison Walsh was too far off for him to perceive the half-scornful, half-quizzical expression with which she turned to greet her relative.

Two small children had followed Mrs. Naylor across the road, begging for a halfpenny. Taking no notice of their request, she exclaimed to her niece instead, — " Did ever you remember so much wet and mud before ? And of course, to aggravate matters, one of the horses has lamed its foot, and can't be taken out, the coachman says. I have been obliged to attend a committee meeting at the orphanage, and walk there instead. It really is very tiresome, very indeed!" " Very !" echoed Alison, who was used to using her own two feet, mud or no mud in the roads. The children continued to beg, and Mrs. Naylor turned round on them with a gesture of annoyance, and a few sharp words as to the nuisance that they were. Appa rently she had forgotten that even the convenience of a crossing demands some kind of acknowledgment — a thank you, if nothing more.

Then she faced back towards Alison. Having found a dry spot on the pavement owing to the proximity of a baker's shop, she seemed in no hurry to leave it again. " We had such an interesting case brought before us to day : a sweet little girl, whose father has deserted her — the brute ! — and whose mother is a very superior sort of person, a reduced gentlewoman in fact. I am sure she looked every inch a lady in her old black silk. Of course, we had to tell her that ours was strictly an orphanage, and there was nothing we could do, though, poor thing, she had travelled sixty miles in order to see us to-day. But really the child was such a charming little thing, it seemed a pity too." Alison could not help a side thought of Carlyle's de scription of Marie Antoinette, of her willingness to help the poor, such poor, at least, as came picturesquely in her way.

But she merely asked, — " Was Miss Ellis there as well ?" " No ; that is, she only put in an appearance for a minute to say she could not stay. She had left before this poor lady came, and a good thing too. She has such very quixotic ideas, you know. I often pity the minister, with only her for company. — By the way, Alison, why don't you become a member of the committee too ? I am sure I could get you on, and really you are not engaged in good work of any kind !" " Thank you," said Alison quietly, " but I have a notion that charity begins nearer home." Her eye wandered significantly as she spoke to the two children who had taken refuge in a doorway opposite. The youno-er one was sobbing now, and the girl was trying to hush his cries. But Mrs. Naylor possessed the doubtful advantage of a mind too obtuse and too self-satisfied to perceive the hidden irony of her niece's reply.

That such a young per son should venture either to quiz or to criticise her own doings was beyond question impossible. " Ah, quite so, my dear," she returned, " charity does begin nearer home ; so now, what do you say to becoming a district visitor instead ? We can always make room for another on our list." Alison appeared to weigh the suggestion. " What would be my duties ?" she asked. " Oh, chiefly to talk to the women in their own homes. You must not give to them in any case, — that is a very bad plan, condemned by all persons of experience, — but you must see that they keep their houses clean, and you must tell them to cook nice little dishes for their husbands when they come home, and of course you must insist on total abstinence. Nothing but total abstinence will do. The poor do waste so much in drink."

" But do you think they would like being lectured on such subjects as these ?" " But they don't look on it as lecturing ; they know it is all for their good. We are their superiors, of course, and they are grateful to us for our interest." " There are only three objections that I can see," said Alison meditatively. " The first is, that I do not know how to cook very well myself ; the next, that I am not a total abstainer ; and the third — " " But you need not be an abstainer yourself," inter rupted her aunt. " You need not talk about yourself at all." " But might it not be awkward," suggested Alison, " if they saw the wine-bottles being delivered at our door ?" " Nonsense, child ! " Mrs. Naylor replied. " They can't expect to live like richer people, of course. You and I wear gloves, for instance, but they must go without ; and of what harm is that ?"

"Ah ! what indeed?" said Alison. "In fact I often wish we could all return to a state of nature in such matters as these. Only, no doubt, it was wisely ordained that some should wear feathers and some should wear rags. There would be no distinguishing refinement from unrefinement without." And whether by accident or design, Alison's eye rested for a moment on Mrs. Naylor's rich velvet mantle and bonnet to match. " But to return to our subject," observed her aunt. " Yes, to return to our subject," said Alison. " My third objection is, that I should not like it at all." Then seeing her aunt flush and look annoyed, she added hastily, " I mean I am not good enough. Such work is higher than I dare undertake." Mrs. Naylor still looked annoyed, and her voice was many degrees colder as she replied, " Of course, my dear, you are the best judge of that.

But I am glad that my Isabel is troubled with no such' scruples as yours." Alison thought she could remember various private remarks from her cousin to the contrary, but she only answered quietly, — " I am glad too. It must be a very comfortable frame of mind." And then they parted company — Mrs. Naylor walking on in the direction of home, and Alison looking after her and wondering if it was all fancy that every inch of her mantle seemed to be crying aloud, " A guinea a yard, at least ! a guinea a yard !" Then she crossed the road to where the girl sat nurs ing the little boy, and Arthur Heywood, unable to watch her any longer, resumed his work of superintending the men. The little fellow's sobs ceased on hearing a stranger's voice, and as Alison asked the older child their names, he turned towards her a round baby face so innocent and sweet it raised the question as to whether the little daughter of the reduced gentlewoman could be more at tractive than that.

The girl mumbled out something in reply, but she looked frightened and ready to run away. Alison supposed she was afraid of the dogs. " They will not hurt you," she said encouragingly. "Now, won't you tell me this little boy's name 1" The girl began twisting up a corner of her pinafore for reply, but the small boy broke the silence by saying with a pretty childish lisp, " Davie hungry, Davie cold, Davie want to go to mumma now !" "Is Davie your little brother?" asked Alison. "Can't you take him home ?" But she gained no more reply than before, except that the girl set him down on the pavement, and, taking hold of his hand, prepared to move away. " Stop a minute !" said Alison: " your little brother would like a bun, I daresay. Come into the baker's with me." Thereupon she led the way, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing the small Davie munch away as if he had tasted no food that day.

The girl seemed still too frightened to eat. And Alison could do no more than give them each a sixpenny-piece, and send them away. But everybody seemed to be out in the High Street that day, taking advantage of the cessation of the rain, and Alison's action had been observed first by a handsome old man coming along on the other side with a quick, swinging step, and then by a girl about her own age walking in his rear. The old man took in the scene as he took in everything else that came within range of his eyes, but he never paused for a moment, and was soon out of sight. But the girl waited until Alison had dismissed the children, and then came forward with a quick, light step, patting Bimbo by the way, and bidding Fads keep down. Evi dently she was on familiar terms with both. For herself, she was a compact little body with merry black eyes, and an animated bird-like manner both in action and speech.