Part 21 (1/2)
She was standing lost in delight, when a rude voice called to her from half-way up a stair:
”You're to come this way, miss.”
With a start, she turned and went. It was a large room to which she was led. There was no one in it, and she walked to an open window, which had a wide outlook across the fields. A little to the right, over some trees, were the chimneys of Thornwick. She almost started to see them--so near, and yet so far--like the memory of a sweet, sad story.
”Do you like my prospect?” asked the voice of Hesper behind her. ”It is flat.”
”I like it much, Miss Mortimer,” answered Mary, turning quickly with a bright face. ”Flatness has its own beauty. I sometimes feel as if room was all I wanted; and of that there is so much there! You see over the tree-tops, too, and that is good--sometimes--don't you think?”
Miss Mortimer gave no other reply than a gentle stare, which expressed no curiosity, although she had a vague feeling that Mary's words meant something. Most girls of her cla.s.s would hardly have got so far.
The summer was backward, but the day had been fine and warm, and the evening was dewy and soft, and full of evasive odor. The window looked westward, and the setting sun threw long shadows toward the house. A gentle wind was moving in the tree-tops. The spirit of the evening had laid hold of Mary. The peace of faithfulness filled the air. The day's business vanished, molten in the rest of the coming night. Even Hesper's wedding-dress was gone from her thoughts. She was in her own world, and ready, for very, quietness of spirit, to go to sleep. But she had not forgotten the delight of Hesper's presence; it was only that all relation between them was gone except such as was purely human.
”This reminds me so of some beautiful verses of Henry Vaughan!” she said, half dreamily.
”What do they say?” drawled Hesper.
Mary repeated as follows:
”'The frosts are past, the storms are gone, And backward life at last comes on.
And here in dust and dirt, O here, The Lilies of His love appear!'”
”Whose did you say the lines were?” asked Hesper, with merest automatic response.
”Henry Vaughan's,” answered Mary, with a little spiritual s.h.i.+ver as of one who had dropped a pearl in the miry way.
”I never heard of him,” rejoined Hesper, with entire indifference.
For anything she knew, he might be an occasional writer in ”The Belgrave Magazine,” or ”The Fireside Herald.” Ignorance is one of the many things of which a lady of position is never ashamed; wherein she is, it may be, more right than most of my readers will be inclined to allow; for ignorance is not the thing to be ashamed of, but neglect of knowledge. That a young person in Mary's position should know a certain thing, was, on the other hand, a reason why a lady in Hesper's position should not know it! Was it possible a shop-girl should know anything that Hesper ought to know and did not? It was foolish of Mary, perhaps, but she had vaguely felt that a beautiful lady like Miss Mortimer, and with such a name as Hesper, must know all the lovely things she knew, and many more besides.
”He lived in the time of the Charleses,” she said, with a tremble in her voice, for she was ashamed to show her knowledge against the other's ignorance.
”Ah!” drawled Hesper, with a confused feeling that people who kept shops read stupid old books that lay about, because they could not subscribe to a circulating library.--”Are you fond of poetry?” she added; for the slight, shadowy shyness, into which her venture had thrown Mary, drew her heart a little, though she hardly knew it, and inclined her to say something.
”Yes,” answered Mary, who felt like a child questioned by a stranger in the road; ”--when it is good,” she added, hesitatingly.
”What do you mean by good?” asked Hesper--out of her knowledge, Mary thought, but it was not even out of her ignorance, only out of her indifference. People must say something, lest life should stop.
”That is a question difficult to answer,” replied Mary. ”I have often asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer.”
”I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it,” returned Hesper, with a shadow of interest. ”You know what you mean when you say to yourself you like this, or you do not like that.”
”How clever she is, too!” thought Mary; but she answered: ”I don't think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I read--not at the time, I mean. If I like it, it drowns me; and, if I don't like it, it is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you know you can't sink, if you try ever so.”
Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was so stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she had taken to her began to sink like water in sand. The two were still on their feet, near the window--Mary, in her bonnet, with her back to it, and Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to the sunset, so that the one was like a darkling wors.h.i.+per, the other like the radiant G.o.ddess. But the truth was, that Hesper was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a heavenly messenger to her. Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for the angels are essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended to any angel out of her own cla.s.s.
”I think I know good poetry by what it does to me,” resumed Mary, thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pa.s.s to the business of the hour.
”Indeed!” rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the word should be used where there was no effort to understand. Poetry had never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed no shadow of an idea.