The Laurel Bush by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

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THE LAUREL BUSH

An Old-Fashioned Love Story

by

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK

Author of _John Halifax, Gentleman_,
&c., &c., &c.

Chapter 1.

It was a very ugly bush indeed; that is, so far as any thing in nature
can be really ugly. It was lopsided--having on the one hand a stunted
stump or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to the
gravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarled trunk or stem, hollow enough to
entice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there--only it was so near
to the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the owners of
the garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to place
between a fork in its branches a sort of letter-box--not the government
regulation one, for twenty years ago this had not been thought of; but a
rough receptacle, where, the house being a good way off, letters might be
deposited, instead of; as hitherto, in a hole in the trunk--near the foot
of the tree, and under shelter of its mass of evergreen leaves.

This letter-box; made by the boys of the family at the instigation and
with the assistance of their tutor, had proved so attractive to some
exceedingly incautious sparrow that during the intervals of the post she
had begun a nest there, which was found by the boys. Exceedingly wild
boys they were, and a great trouble to their old grandmother, with whom
they were staying the summer, and their young governess--"Misfortune,"
as they called her, her real name being Miss Williams--Fortune Williams.
The nickname was a little too near the truth, as a keener observer than
mischievous boys would have read in her quiet, sometimes sad, face; and
it had been stopped rather severely by the tutor of the elder boys, a
young man whom the grandmother had been forced to get, to "keep them in
order!" He was a Mr. Robert Roy, once a student, now a teacher of the
"humanities," from the neighboring town--I beg its pardon--city; and a
lovely old city it is!--of St. Andrews. Thence he was in the habit of
coming to them three and often four days in the week, teaching of
mornings and walking of afternoons. They had expected him this
afternoon, but their grandmother had carried them off on some pleasure
excursion; and being a lady of inexact habits--one, too, to whom tutors
were tutors and nothing more--she had merely said to Miss Williams, as
the carriage drove away, "When Mr. Roy comes, tell him he is not wanted
till tomorrow."

And so Miss Williams had waited at the gate, not wishing him to have the
additional trouble of walking up to the house, for she knew every minute
of his time was precious. The poor and the hard-working can understand
and sympathize with one another. Only a tutor and only a governess: Mrs.
Dalziel drove away and never thought of them again. They were mere
machines--servants to whom she paid their wages, and so that they did
sufficient service to deserve these wages, she never interfered with
them, nor, indeed, wasted a moment's consideration upon them or their
concerns.

Consequently they were in the somewhat rare and peculiar position of
a young man and young woman (perhaps Mrs. Dalziel would have taken
exception to the words "young lady and young gentleman") thrown together
day after day, week after week--nay, it had now become month after
month--to all intents and purposes quite alone, except for the children.
They taught together, there being but one school-room; walked out
together, for the two younger boys refused to be separated from their
older brothers; and, in short, spent two-thirds of their existence
together, without let or hindrance, comment or observation, from any
mortal soul.

I do not wish to make any mystery in this story. A young woman of
twenty-five and a young man of thirty, both perfectly alone in the
world--orphans, without brother or sister--having to earn their own
bread, and earn it hardly, and being placed in circumstances where they
had every opportunity of intimate friendship, sympathy, whatever you like
to call it: who could doubt what would happen? The more so, as there was
no one to suggest that it might happen; no one to watch them or warn
them, or waken them with worldly-minded hints; or else to rise up, after
the fashion of so many wise parents and guardians and well-intentioned
friends, and indignantly shut the stable door _after_ the steed is
stolen.

No. That something which was so sure to happen had happened; you might
have seen it in their eyes, have heard it in the very tone of their
voices, though they still talked in a very commonplace way, and still
called each other "Miss Williams" and "Mr. Roy." In fact, their whole
demeanor to one another was characterized by the grave and even formal
decorum which was natural to very reserved people, just trembling on the
verge of that discovery which will unlock the heart of each to the other,
and annihilate reserve forever between the two whom Heaven has designed
and meant to become one; a completed existence. If by any mischance this
does not come about, each may lead a very creditable and not unhappy
life; but it will be a locked-up life, one to which no third person is
ever likely to find the key.

Whether such natures are to envied or pitied is more than I can say; but
at least they are more to be respected than the people who wear their
hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at, and very often are all the
prouder the more they are pecked at, and the more elegantly they bleed;
which was not likely to be the case with either of these young folks,
young as they were.

They were young, and youth is always interesting and even comely; but
beyond that there was nothing remarkable about either. He was Scotch;
she English, or rather Welsh. She had the clear blue Welsh eye, the
funny _retrousee_ Welsh nose; but with the prettiest little mouth
underneath it--firm, close, and sweet; full of sensitiveness, but a
sensitiveness that was controlled and guided by that best possession to
either man or woman, a good strong will. No one could doubt that the
young governess had, what was a very useful thing to a governess, "a will
of her own;" but not a domineering or obnoxious will, which indeed is
seldom will at all, but merely obstinacy.

For the rest, Miss Williams was a little woman, or gave the impression of
being so, from her slight figure and delicate hands and feet. I doubt if
any one would have called her pretty, until he or she had learned to love
her. For there are two distinct kinds of love, one in which the eye
instructs the heart, and the other in which the heart informs and guides
the eye. There have been men who, seeing an unknown beautiful face, have
felt sure it implied the most beautiful soul in the world, pursued it,
worshiped it, wooed and won it, found the fancy true, and loved the woman
forever. Other men there are who would simply say, "I don't know if such
a one is handsome or not; I only know she is herself--and mine." Both
loves are good; nay, it is difficult to say which is best. But the
latter would be the most likely to any one who became attached to Fortune
Williams.

Also, perhaps to Robert Roy, though no one expects good looks in his sex;
indeed, they are mostly rather objectionable. Women do not usually care
for a very handsome man; and men are prone to set him down as conceited.
No one could lay either charge to Mr. Roy. He was only an honest-looking
Scotchman, tall and strong and manly. Not "red," in spite of his name,
but dark-skinned and dark-haired; in no way resembling his great
namesake, Rob Roy Macgregor, as the boys sometimes called him behind
his back--never to his face. Gentle as the young man was, there was
something about him which effectually prevented any one's taking the
smallest liberty with him. Though he had been a teacher of boys ever
since he was seventeen--and I have heard one of the fraternity confess
that it is almost impossible to be a school-master for ten years without
becoming a tyrant--still it was a pleasant and sweet-tempered face. Very
far from a weak face, though; when Mr. Roy said a thing must be done,
every one of his boys knew it _must_ be done, and there was no use saying
any more about it.

He had unquestionably that rare gift, the power of authority; though this
did not necessarily imply self-control; for some people can rule every
body except themselves. But Robert Roy's clear, calm, rather sad eye,
and a certain patient expression about the mouth, implied that he too had
enough of the hard training of life to be able to govern himself. And
that is more difficult to a man than to a woman.

"all thy passions, matched with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight,
and as water unto wine."

A truth which even Fortune's tender heart did not fully take in, deep as
was her sympathy for him; for his toilsome, lonely life, lived more in
shadow than in sunshine, and with every temptation to the selfishness
which is so apt to follow self-dependence, and the bitterness that to a
proud spirit so often makes the sting of poverty. Yet he was neither
selfish nor bitter; only a little reserved, silent, and--except with
children--rather grave.

She stood watching him now, for she could see him a long way off across
the level Links, and noticed that he stopped more than once to look at
the golf-players. He was a capital golfer himself, but had never any
time to play. Between his own studies and the teaching by which he
earned the money to prosecute them, every hour was filled up. So he
turned his back on the pleasant pastime, which seems to have such an
extraordinary fascination for those who pursue it, and came on to his
daily work, with that resolute deliberate step, bent on going direct to
his point and turning aside for nothing.

Fortune knew it well by this time; had learned to distinguish it from all
others in the world. There are some footsteps which, by a pardonable
poetical license, we say "we should hear in our graves," and though this
girl did not think of that, for death looked far off, and she was
scarcely a poetical person, still, many a morning, when, sitting at
her school-room window, she heard Mr. Roy coming steadily down the
gravel-walk, she was conscious of--something that people can not feel
twice in a life-time.

And now, when he approached with that kind smile of his, which brightened
into double pleasure when he saw who was waiting for him, she was aware
of a wild heartbeat, a sense of exceeding joy, and then of relief and
rest. He was "comfortable" to her. She could express it in no other
way. At sight of his face and at sound of his voice all worldly cares
and troubles, of which she had a good many, seemed to fall off. To be
with him was like having an arm to lean on, a light to walk by; and she
had walked alone so long.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Williams."

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Roy."

They said no more than that, but the stupidest person in the world might
have seen that they were glad to meet, glad to be together. Though
neither they nor any one else could have explained the mysterious fact,
the foundation of all love stories in books or in life--and which the
present author owns, after having written many books and seen a great
deal of life, is to her also as great a mystery as ever--Why do certain
people like to be together? What is the inexplicable attraction which
makes them seek one another, suit one another, put up with one another's
weaknesses, condone one another's faults (when neither are too great to
lessen love), and to the last day of life find a charm in one another's
society which extends to no other human being. Happy love or lost love,
a full world or an empty world, life with joy or life without it--that is
all the difference. Which some people think very small, and that does
not matter; and perhaps it does not--to many people. But it does to
some, and I incline to put in that category Miss Williams and Mr. Roy.

They stood by the laurel bush, having just shaken hands more hastily than
they usually did; but the absence of the children, and the very unusual
fact of their being quite alone, gave to both a certain shyness, and she
had drawn her hand away, saying, with a slight blush:

"Mrs. Dalziel desired me to meet you and tell you that you might have a
holiday today. She has taken her boys with her to Elie. I dare say you
will not be sorry to gain an hour or two for yourself; though I am sorry
you should have the trouble of the walk for nothing."

"For nothing?"--with the least shadow of a smile, not of annoyance,
certainly.

"Indeed, I would have let you know if I could, but she decided at the
very last minute; and if I had proposed that a messenger should have been
sent to stop you, I am afraid--it would not have been answered."

"Of course not;" and they interchanged an amused look--these
fellow-victims to the well-known ways of the household--which, however,
neither grumbled at; it was merely an outside thing, this treatment of
both as mere tutor and governess. After all (as he sometimes said, when
some special rudeness--not himself, but to her--vexed him), they were
tutor and governess; but they were something else besides; something
which, the instant their chains were lifted off, made them feel free and
young and strong, and comforted them with comfort unspeakable.

"She bade me apologize. No, I am afraid, if I tell the absolute truth,
she did not bid me, but I do apologize."

"What for, Miss Williams?"

"For your having been brought out all this way just to go back again."

"I do not mind it, I assure you."

"And as for the lost lesson--"

"The boys will not mourn over it, I dare say. In fact, their term with
me is so soon coming to an end that it does not signify much. They told
me they are going back to England to school next week. Do you go back
too?"

"Not just yet--not till next Christmas. Mrs. Dalziel talks of wintering
in London; but she is so vague in her plans that I am never sure from one
week to another what she will do."

"And what are your plans? _You_ always know what you intend to do."

"Yes, I think so," answered Miss Williams, smiling. "One of the few
things I remember of my mother was hearing her say of me, that 'her
little girl was a little girl who always knew her own mind.' I think I
do. I may not be always able to carry it out, but I think I know it."

"Of course," said Mr. Roy, absently and somewhat vaguely, as he stood
beside the laurel bush, pulling one of its shiny leaves to pieces, and
looking right ahead, across the sunshiny Links, the long shore of
yellow sands, where the mermaids might well delight to come and "take
hands"--to the smooth, dazzling, far-away sea. No sea is more beautiful
than that at St. Andrews.

Its sleepy glitter seemed to have lulled Robert Roy into a sudden
meditation, of which no word of his companion came to rouse him. In
truth, she, never given much to talking, simply stood, as she often did,
silently beside him, quite satisfied with the mere comfort of his
presence.

I am afraid that this Fortune Williams will be considered a very
weak-minded young woman. She was not a bit a coquette, she had not the
slightest wish to flirt with any man. Nor was she a proud beauty
desirous to subjugate the other sex; and drag them triumphantly at her
chariot wheels. She did not see the credit, or the use, or the pleasure
of any such proceeding. She was a self-contained, self-dependent woman.
Thoroughly a woman; not indifferent at all to womanhood's best blessing;
still she could live without it if necessary, as she could have lived
without anything which it had pleased God to deny her. She was not a
creature likely to die for love, or do wrong for love, which some people
think the only test of love's strength, instead of its utmost weakness;
but that she was capable of love, for all her composure and quietness,
capable of it, and ready for it, in its intensest, most passionate, and
most enduring form, the God who made her knew, if no one else did.

Her time would come; indeed, had come already. She had too much
self-respect to let him guess it, but I am afraid she was very fond
of--or, if that is a foolish phrase, deeply attached to--Robert Roy.
He had been so good to her, at once strong and tender, chivalrous,
respectful, and kind; and she had no father, no brother, no other man
at all to judge him by, except the accidental men whom she had met in
society, creatures on two legs who wore coats and trousers, who had been
civil to her, as she to them, but who had never interested her in the
smallest degree, perhaps because she knew so little of them. But no; it
would have been just the same had she known them a thousand years. She
was not "a man's woman," that is, one of those women who feel interested
in any thing in the shape of a man, and make men interested in them
accordingly, for the root of much masculine affection is pure vanity.
That celebrated Scottish song,

"Come deaf, or come blind, or come cripple,
O come, ony ane o' them a'!
Far better be married to something,
Than no to be married ava,"

was a rhyme that would never have touched the stony heart of Fortune
Williams. And yet, let me own it once more, she was very, very fond of
Robert Roy. He had never spoken to her one word of love, actual love, no
more than he spoke now, as they stood side by side, looking with the same
eyes on the same scene. I say the same eyes, for they were exceedingly
alike in their tastes. There was no need ever to go into long
explanations about this or that; a glance sufficed, or a word, to show
each what the other enjoyed; and both had the quiet conviction that they
were enjoying it together. Now as that sweet, still, sunshiny view met
their mutual gaze, they fell into no poetical raptures, but just stood
and looked, taking it all in with exceeding pleasure, as they had done
many and many a time, but never, it seemed, so perfectly as now.

"What a lovely afternoon!" she said at last.

"Yes. It is a pity to waste it. Have you any thing special to do? What
did you mean to employ yourself with, now your birds are flown?"

"Oh, I can always find something to do."

"But need you find it? We both work so hard. If we could only now and
then have a little bit of pleasure!"

He put it so simply, yet almost with a sigh. This poor girl's heart
responded to it suddenly, wildly. She was only twenty-five, yet
sometimes she felt quite old, or rather as if she had never been young.
The constant teaching, teaching of rough boys too--for she had had the
whole four till Mr. Roy took the two elder off her hands--the necessity
of grinding hard out of school hours to keep herself up in Latin, Euclid,
and other branches which do not usually form a part of a feminine
education, only having a great natural love of work, she had taught
herself--all these things combined to make her life a dull life, a hard
life, till Robert Roy came into it. And sometimes even now the desperate
craving to enjoy--not only to endure, but to enjoy--to take a little of
the natural pleasures of her age--came to the poor governess very sorely,
especially on days such as this, when all the outward world looked so
gay, so idle, and she worked so hard.

So did Robert Roy. Life was not easier to him than to herself; she knew
that; and when he said, half joking, as if he wanted to feel his way,
"Let us imitate our boys, and take a half holiday," she only laughed, but
did not refuse.

How could she refuse? There were the long smooth sands on either side
the Eden, stretching away into indefinite distance, with not a human
being upon them to break their loneliness, or, if there was, he or she
looked a mere dot, not human at all. Even if these two had been afraid
of being seen walking together--which they hardly were, being too
unimportant for any one to care whether they were friends or lovers, or
what not--there was nobody to see them, except in the character of two
black dots on the yellow sands.

"It is low water; suppose we go and look for sea-anemones. One of my
pupils wants some, and I promised to try and find one the first spare
hour I had."

"But we shall not find anemones on the sands."

"Shells, then, you practical woman! We'll gather shells. It will be
all the same to that poor invalid boy--and to me," added he, with that
involuntary sigh which she had noticed more than once, and which had
begun to strike on her ears not quite painfully. Sighs, when we are
young, mean differently to what they do in after-years. "I don't care
very much where I go, or what I do; I only want--well, to be happy for
an hour, if Providence will let me."

"Why should not Providence let you?" said Fortune, gently. "Few people
deserve it more."

"You are kind to think so; but you are always kind to every body."

By this time they had left their position by the laurel bush, and were
walking along side by side, according as he had suggested. This silent,
instinctive acquiescence in what he wished done--it had happened once or
twice before, startling her a little at herself; for, as I have said,
Miss Williams was not at all the kind of person to do every thing that
every body asked her, without considering whether it was right or wrong.
She could obey, but it would depend entirely upon whom she had to obey,
which, indeed, makes the sole difference between loving disciples and
slavish fools.

It was a lovely day, one of those serene autumn days peculiar to
Scotland--I was going to say Saint Andrews; and any one who knows the
ancient city will know exactly how it looks in the still, strongly
spiritualized light of such an afternoon, with the ruins, the castle,
cathedral, and St. Regulus's tower standing out sharply against the
intensely blue sky, and on the other side--on both sides--the yellow
sweep of sand curving away into the distance, and melting into the
sunshiny sea.

Many a time, in their prescribed walks with their young tribe, Miss
Williams and Mr. Roy had taken this stroll across the Links and round by
the sands to the mouth of the Eden, leaving behind them a long and
sinuous track of many footsteps, little and large, but now there were
only two lines--"foot-prints on the sands of Time," as he jestingly
called them, turning round and pointing to the marks of the dainty feet
that walked so steadily and straightly beside his own.

"They seem made to go together, those two tracks," said he.

Why did he say it? Was he the kind of man to talk thus without meaning
it? If so, alas! she was not exactly the woman to be thus talked to.
Nothing fell on her lightly. Perhaps it was her misfortune, perhaps even
her fault, but so it was.

Robert Roy did not "make love;" not at all. Possibly he never could
have done it in the ordinary way. Sweet things, polite things were very
difficult to him either to do or to say. Even the tenderness that was in
him came out as if by accident; but, oh! how infinitely tender he could
be! Enough to make any one who loved him die easily, quietly, if only
just holding his hand.

There is an incident in Dickens's touching _Tale of two Cities_, where a
young man going innocent to the guillotine, and riding on the death-cart
with a young girl whom he had never before seen, is able to sustain and
comfort her, even to the last awful moment, by the look of his face and
the clasp of his hand. That man, I have often thought, must have been
something not unlike Robert Roy.

Such men are rare, but they do exist; and it was Fortune's lot, or she
believed it was, to have found one. That was enough. She went along
the shining sands in a dream of perfect content, perfect happiness,
thinking--and was it strange or wrong that she should so think?--that if
it were God's will she should thus walk through life, the thorniest path
would seem smooth, the hardest road easy. She had no fear of life, if
lived beside him; or of death--love is stronger than death; at least this
sort of love, of which only strong natures are capable, and out of which
are made, not the lyrics, perhaps, but the epics, the psalms, or the
tragedies of our mortal existence.

I have explained thus much about these two friends--lovers that may be,
or might have been--because they never would have done it themselves.
Neither was given to much speaking. Indeed, I fear their conversation
this day, if recorded, would have been of the most feeble kind--brief,
fragmentary, mere comments on the things about them, or abstract remarks
not particularly clever or brilliant. They were neither of them what you
would call brilliant people; yet they were happy, and the hours flew by
like a few minutes, until they found themselves back again beside the
laurel bush at the gate, when Mr. Roy suddenly said:

"Do not go in yet. I mean, need you go in? It is scarcely past sunset;
the boys will not be home for an hour yet; they don't want you, and I--I
want you so. In your English sense," he added, with a laugh, referring
to one of their many arguments, scholastic or otherwise, wherein she had
insisted that to want meant _Anglice_, to wish or to crave, whereas in
Scotland it was always used like the French _manquer_, to miss or to
need.

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