Meantime a month was gone.Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House,and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them,as governesses in a large, fashionable,south-of-England city,where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess—which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study—and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his—when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.
Looking up as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said.
“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?”
“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago;but as you seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.”
“And they will go in three days now?” I said.
“Yes; and when they go,I shall return to the parsonage at Morton:Hannah will accompany me;and this old house will be shut up.”
I waited a few moments,expecting he would go on with the subject first broached:but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection:his look denoted abstraction from me and my business.I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.
“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers?I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it. ”
“Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept.”
He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue.I grew impatient: a restless movement or two,and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face,conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done,and with less trouble.
“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said:“let me frankly tell you,I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest.Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice,clearly given, that if I helped you,it must be as the blind man would help the lame.I am poor; for I find that,when I have paid my father’s debts,all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange,the row of scathed firs behind,and the patch of moorish soil,with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front.I am obscure: Rivers is an old name;but of the three sole descendants of the race,two earn the dependent’s crust among strangers,and the third considers himself an alien from his native country—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’”
St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons,with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek,and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed—
“And since I am myself poor and obscure,I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity._You_ may even think it degrading—for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but _I_ consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself.”
“Well?” I said, as he again paused—“proceed.”
He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed,he seemed leisurely to read my face,as if its features and lines were characters on a page.The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.
“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while: not permanently,though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.”
“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more.
“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how cramping.I shall not stay long at Morton,now that my father is dead,and that I am my own master.I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month;but while I do stay,I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement.Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school:the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress.I established one for boys:I mean now to open a second school for girls.I have hired a building for the purpose,with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house.Her salary will be thirty pounds a year:her house is already furnished, very simply,but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady,Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr.Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley.The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?”
He put the question rather hurriedly;he seemed half to expect an indignant,or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer:not knowing all my thoughts and feelings,though guessing some,he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me.In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered,and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but then,compared with that of a governess in a rich house,it was independent;and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron:it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I made my decision.
“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers,and I accept it with all my heart.”