Chapter 2

Edna drew up the blind, and stood gazing out meditatively upon the sunshiny sea.

"What are you thinking of?" Letty asked.

" Of that poor fellow, and whether this place will do him any good — whether he will live or die."

"The latter seems most likely."

"Yes; and it seems to me so sad, especially — " and her voice sank a little — "especially since, thank God! we have passed through our time of terror, and are safe again. So very sad, with every-

THE woman's kingdom. 21

thing outside bright and happy: trees budding, birds singing, the sky smiling all over, and the sea smiling back at it again, as if there was no such thing as death in the world. How the brother's heart must ache through it all!"

''The big brother — the doctor you mean?"

"Yes; and, being a doctor, he must know the truth — that is, if it is to be — if the young man is not likely to recover."

" Yet the doctor seems cheerful enough. As it sounded outside in the hall, I thought I never heard a more cheerful voice."

"People often speak cheerfully — they are obliged to learn to do it — when — " here Edna suddenly stopped. It was not wise to enlighten Letty, still an invalid, upon her own sad sick-room experience. "But things may be more hopeful than we suppose. Nevertheless, I am very sorry for our new neigh- bours — for them both."

"So am I. We must ask the landlady all about them when she brings in tea."

But though, in her extreme dearth of outside interests, Letty's curiosity became so irresistible that she hurried on the tea by half an hour, her inquiries resulted in very little.

Mrs. Williams knew no more of her new inmates than most sea-side landladies do of their lodgers. The gentlemen had come from the inn; they were named Stedman — Dr. and Mr. Stedman — and she rather thought they were from London. "As the ladies also lived in London, perhaps they might know something about them," suggested the simple

22 THE woman's kingdom.

island "woman, who was quite as eager to get as to give information, for she owned to being rather sorry- she had taken them in.

"Why?" asked Edna.

"I do believe the young gentleman is only brought here to die-, and death is such a bad thing to happen in any lodgings."

"Nay, we will hope for the best. This fine, pure air may restore him. See how strong my sister is getting."

"Yes, indeed, miss-, and so I told his brother. I wished be could have seen how wonderfully the young lady had picked up since she came. And he said, 'Yes, she didn't look a bit like an invalid now.' "

"Had he seen me?" asked Letty, half smiling.

"I don't know, miss; but he has got sharp, noticeable eyes — real doctor's eyes."

"Oh!" said Letty, and subsided into silence.

"Does he seem very anxious about his sick brother?" Edna inquired.

"Ay, sometimes, to judge by his look. But he talks quite cheerful like. Just hark! you can hear 'em a-laughing together now."

"How I wish we had anything to make us laugh!" sighed Letty, when the door closed; and the im- portant event of tea being over, she relapsed into her former dulness, leaned back again in her easy chair, letting her luuids fall drearily on her lap — such soft, handsouio, idle, helpless hands.

"Shall 1 read?" said Edna, with an anxious

THE woman's kingdom. 23

glance at the clock. It was too late to go out, and it Avas many — oli! so many hours till bed-time.

"You know I never cared for reading, especi- ally poetry books, Avliich are all you brought with us."

"Shall I try to get a novel from the library?"

"Threepence a volume, and you'll grumble at the extravagance, and I shall be sure to go to sleep over it, too. Well, I think I will lie down and sleep a little, for I am so tired I don't know what to do."

She rose, walked once or twice across the room, looking most majestic in her long, soft, flowing draperies — for it was twenty years ago, and women's draperies Avere both graceful and majestic then — with her large lovely form and classical face she was the personification of Tennyson's line, —

"A daughter of the gods: divinely tall, And most divinely fair."

And when she lay down, she idealised the common horse-hair, lodging-house sofa by an outline most artistically beautiful — fit for a sleeping Dido or dying Cleopatra. Such women nature makes rarely, very rarely, queens of beauty, crowned or uncrowned, who instinctively take their places in the tournament of life, and "rain influence," whether consciously or not, to an almost fearful extent upon us weak mortals, especially men mortals who, even the best of them, are always prone to reconstrue the dogma that the good is necessarily the beautiful, and to presuppose the highest beauty to be the highest good.

24 THE woman's kingdom.

But this is wandering into metaphysics, of whicli, however she might be the cause of them in others, there certainly was no trace in Letty Kenderdine. She lay down and made herself comfortable, or rather was made comfortable by her sister, with shawls and pillows; then she fell sound asleep, like any other mortal woman, breathing so peacefully and deeply that, if it would not utterly destroy the romance about her, I feel bound to confess she almost snored.

Edna sat beside her till certain of her repose, and then crept softly away. Not for idleness, and not for pleasure, though the sweet evening tempted her sorely, with its sunset of rose and grey, its fresh sea-breeze, and, as is found along most of the south coast of England, and especially the Isle of Wight, its delicious mingling of sea and country pleasures. Above the lap-lapping of the tide on the beach below was heard the good-night warble of the robins, and the deep note of the thrush; and, besides the salt sea smell, there was an atmosphere of trees budding and flowers blossoming, giving a sense of vague delight, and tender foreboding of some unknoAvn joy.

It touched Edna; she could not toll why, except that she loved the spring, and this was the iirst April she had spent out of London for several years; scarcely since those dimly remembered years of their country house in Hampshire, which, to her, balanced Letty's memories of the Brighton esplanade. One had been the summer, the other the winter residence of the rich merchant , who , absorbed in money- making, and losing fortune and life together, had

THE woman's kingdom. 25

left no remembrances to his motherless twin girls but these.

They recurred at times, each in their turn, and to each sister according to her nature. To Edna at this moment came a rush of the old child- life — the pony she rode — a pretty, little, gentle thing, loved like a human companion; a trout stream, which danced through a primrose wood, and over which dragon-flies used to skim, and where endless hand- fuls of king-cups grew; an upland meadow, yellow with cowslips — Edna could smell the odour of it yet.

"How I should like to make another cowslip- ball! I believe I could do it as well as ever. I wonder if cowslips grow anywhere about here?"

And then she smiled at the silliness of a school- mistress wanting to make cowslip-balls, and wondered at the foolish feeling which came over her in her monotonous life; and why it was, that just rising up out of the long strain of anxiety, her heart was con- scious of a sudden rebound — a wild longing after happiness; not merely the busy content of her level life, but actual happiness. In pictviring it, though it was very vague, too, and formless, she, however, did not picture the usual sort of happiness which comes most natural at her age. Unlike her sister, no lover had ever troubled Edna's repose. In the dull city family, where she had been governess ever since leaving school, no such things were ever tliought of; besides, Edna was plain, and knew it — felt it too — perhaps all the keener for her sister's beauty, and her own intense admiration of the same. No; Edna

26 THE woman's kingdom.

Kenderdine was not a marrying woman. She herself was convinced she would be an old maid, and had laid her plans accordingly; and mapped out her future life, with a quiet acquiescence in, and yet a full recognition of — alas ! what woman was ever without that? — its sad imperfectness.

Thus, her ideal of happiness was not love, or, at least, not consciously, and certainly not love on her own account. This golden dream — this seeming height of complete felicity — was thought of with reference to Letty alone. For herself, she hardly knew what she Avanted; perhaps a better school, more pupils, and these of a higher class, for it was hard and thankless work trying to make little common girls into little gentlewomen. Or possibly — though to that El Dorado Edna scarcely dared to lift her eyes — some extraordinary windfall of fortune — a legacy, or the like — which would for ever lift her out of the necessity of keeping school at all, and enable her to set up a cottage in the country — ever so small, she did not care, so that it was only in the country, and had a garden to it, and fields around it, where she might do as she liked all day long, Avithout being haunted by the necessity of school- teaching, or by that dread of the future, of breaking down helpless in the midst of lier career, whicli, since the fever time, had often painfully pursued her. She herself, though not exactly ill, had been very much enfeebled-, and ]jrobably it was this weak condition of body which made the little Avoman mentally less brave than usual; caused her to long, Avith a sore yearning, not merely to be sheltered from evil, but

THE woman's kingdom. 27

to have her dull life turned into brightness by some absolute tangible good.

So, while Letty slept — the sound, healthy sleep, of which her easy temperament never made any difficulty — Edna stood looking out on the twilight sea, still thinking — thinking — till the tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down.

They were soon wiped away — not dashed off, but quietly wiped away with a resolute hand. She could not have repressed them , they would have choked her-, but she could not help indulging in them — taking a sentimental pleasure over them, or exalt- ing them into a real grief Alas! she knew what real grief was, when Letty was at the crisis of scarlet-fever.

"No! I'll not cry — it's wicked! What have I to cry about? when my sister is nearly well, and we shall be able to gather the school together very soon, and meantime we have enough money to last us, and no other cares. There is much more to be thankful for than afraid of And now, before she wakes, let me see exactly how we stand."

She took her little writing-desk to the window, that she might catch the utmost of the fading night, and with one anxious glance at the sofa, set herself to a piece of work which always fidgeted Letty — the balancing of their weekly accounts. Nominally the sisters kept these, week and week about; but Letty's week was always behindhand, and caused her such distress, that gradually Edna took the whole upon herself — a very small whole, a ledger that a man and a millionnaire, or even a petty merchant.

28 THE woman's kingdom.

would have laughed at, and wondered how it could possibly make the womanish head ache and the womanish heart beat, as it did many a time. For Edna was uo genius at arithmetic; besides hers was not the amateur masculine arithmetic, worked upon paper, in thousands and tens of thousands, though the total, be it loss or gain, aflfects little the current expenses of daily life — since in this strange com- mercial world of ours, a man may risk or lose a quarter of a million, or go through a bankx'uptcy or two, yet still keep his carriage, and eat his diurnal dinner — just as handsome a dinner as ever — though oftentimes the appetite brought to it must be small.

But Edna's arithmetic was a different thing. To her a balance on the one side or other of that tiny page implied either an easy mind and a gay heart, or else — well, it imjilied want of needful clothes, of household comforts , perhaps even of suf- ficient food. Only want — the sacrifice of things pleasant and desirable. That other alternative, debt, in all its agonies, humiliation, and terrors, these poor schoolmistresses knew not: never would be likely to know, since, opposite as their characters were, the two Misses Kenderdine had one grand point in common — they would have starved rather than have owed any one a halfpenny.

So poor little Edna sat at her task; and it was a task, for slie did not like it any more tlian she liked school-teaching: l)ut Letty liked it still less than she, and since it liad inevitably to be done, of

THE woman's kingdom. 29

course Edna bad to do it. Tliis was tlie law of their life together, and always had been.

She sat, her head propped on her two hands, quite absorbed. Pathetically so, for she could not make her accoiants meet; there was a halfcrown gone a-missing somewhere; and a halfcroAvn was an im- portant sum to her, j)oor thing! Not for itself, but for what it represented — a fortnight's butter, or a pair of gloves for Letty, or something else that other- wise would rctjuire to be done without. She racked her bi'ains to remember how she had spent it, added up the conflicting columns of figures again and again, and counted and re-counted the contents of her two purses — one for current coin, the other the grand receptacle of the family income.

Vain, vain! Poor Edna could not make matters right. Her head burned , her brow throbbed — she pushed her hair back from it with trembling fingers — she was very nearly crying.

It was a small thing — a silly thing almost; but then she had been weakened by anxiety and fatigue, and, do what she could, the future rose up before her darker, and reasonably darker, than it had even done before. What if the pupils, scared by fever, should not readily return? What if she and her sister were to be left with a hoixse on their hands, the rent to be paid, the servant to be kept, and nothing to do it with? That morbid dread of the future — that bitter sense of helplessness and for- lornness which all working women ha^e at times, came upon Edna, and made lier think with a strange momentary envy of the women who did not work.

30 THE woman's kingdom.

wlio had brothers and fathers to work for them, or at least to help them with the help that a man, and only a man, can give.

And then looking up, for the first time for many minutes, Edna became aware of two eyes watching her, resting on her with such an expression of kind- liness and pity, the sort of half-amused pity that a man would show to a troubled and perplexed child, that this \)00Y child — she was strangely young still in many ways — looked fearlessly back into them, almost with a sort of appeal, as if the observer had been an authorised friend, who could have helped her had he chosen. But the moment after she drew back, exceedingly annoyed; and the gazer also drew back, made a slight apologetic half-bow, then blushed violently all over his face, as if conscious that he had been doing a most unwarrantable and ungentlemanly thing, rose from his bench by the window, and walked hastily away.

As he turned, by the broad stooping shoulders and well-worn coat rather than by the face, Avhich she had not seen i;ntil now, being so attracted by the face of the invalid brother, Edna recognised the doctor, Dr. Stedmau.

THE woman's KINCxDOJr. 31

CHAPTEK II.

This will be a thorough "love" story. I do not pretend to make it anything else. There are other things in life besides love: but everybody who has lived at all, knows that love is the very heart of life, the pivot upon which its whole machinery turns: without which no human existence can be complete, and with which, however broken and worn, in part, it can still go on working somehow, and working to a comparatively useful and cheerful end.

An author once ■RTote a book, of which the heroine was supposed to be painted from a real living woman, whose relations were rather pleased than not at the accidental resemblance: "Only," said they, with dignified decorum, "in one point the likeness fails: our Anastasia was never in love with anybody." "Then," replied the amused author, "I certainly cannot have painted her, for she would have been of no use to me; such an abnormal sj)e- cimen of humanity is not a woman at all."

No. A life without love in it must of necessity be an imperfect, an unnatural life. The love may be happy and unhappy, noble or ignoble, requited or unrequited-, but it must be, or have been, tftere. Love absolute. Not merely the tie of blood — the bond of friendship — the many close aftections which make existence sweet; but the one, closest of all, the

32 ' THE woman's kingdom.

love between man and woman — wliicli is tlie root of the family life, and the family life is the key to half the mysteries of the universe.

And so, Avithoiit disguise of purpose, and rather glorying in the folly, if folly it be, I confess this to be a mere love-tale, nothing more. No grand "pur- pose" in it: no dramatic effects — scarcely even a "story:" — but a few pages out of the book of daily life, the outside of which looks often so common and plain ; and the inside — But One only reads that.

Under Mrs. Williams's commonjilace, unconscious roof were gatliered these four young people, strangers to one another, and ignorant of their mutual and individual destinies, afterwards to become so inex- tricably mingled, tangled, and crossed. The like continually happens, in fact it must, in most cases, necessarily happen. The first chance meeting — or what a])pears cliance: the first indifferent word, or hap-hazard incident — ■ from these things do almost all love-stories date. For in all true marriages now, as in Eden, the man and woman do not deliberately seek, but are brought to one another; — ^ happy those who afterwards can recognise that the hand which led his Eve to Adam was that of an invisible God!

But this only comes afterwards. No sentimental premonitions weighed on the hearts of any of these — the two young men, and two young women, who had, each and all, their own lives to live, their own separate cares and joys. For even if blessed with tlie closest l)onds of fraternity, every soul is more or less alone, or feels so — till the magic other soul appears, whicli, if fate allows, shall remove

THE woman's kingdom. 33

solitude for. ever. There may or may not be a trutli in tlie doctrine of loA'e at iirst sight, but it is, like the doctrine of instantaneous conversion, too rarely experienced to be much understood. Ordinary men and women walk blindfold to the very vei'ge of their fate, nor recognise it as fate till it is long past. Which fact ought to be, to both young folks and their guardians, at once a consolation and a warning.

Edna, when immediately after the doctor's dis- appearance, the entrance of candles wakened Letty, told her sister frankly, and with considerable amuse- ment, of the steadfast stare which for the moment had annoyed her.

"At least, I should have been annoyed, had it been you, Letty. But with me, of course it meant nothing; merely a little harmless curiosity. Cer- tainly, as Mrs. Williams says, he has thorough 'doc- tor's eyes.' They seem able to see everything. As a doctor ought to see, you know."

"And what colour were they? and what sort of a face Avas it altogether?"

"1 really cannot tell. A nice, kindly sort of face, and that is all I knoAv."

"But, Edna, if I am to marry him, you ouglit to know. So look more closely, next time, and tell me exactly what he is like."

"Very Avell," said Edna, laughing; thankful for any little joke that lightened the heavy depression Avhich was the hardest thing- to contend Avith in Letty's present state. And then she took to her Avork and forgot all about it. Not until, after put- ting her sister to bed, she came down again for one

The \Y(muin's Kingium. I. O

34 THE woman's kingdom.

quiet hour, to do some needful sewing, and institute a last and finally successful search among the odd corners of her tired brain, for the missing half-crown, did Edna remember the doctor or his inquisitive stare.

"I wonder if he noticed what I am doing, and whether he thought me silly, or was sorry for me. Perhaps he is good at arithmetic. Well, if there could be any advantage in having a man belonging to one, it would be to help in adding up one's weekly accounts. I shall advise Letty to make that proviso in her marriage settlement."