George MacDonald - The Vicar's Daughter

So home I went, to be queen again. Friends came to see me, but I returned few of their calls. I liked best to sit in my bedroom. I would have preferred sitting in my wonderful little room off the study, and I tried that first; but, the same morning, somebody called on Percivale, and straightway I felt myself a prisoner. The moment I heard the strange voice through the door, I wanted to get out, and could not, of course. Such a risk I would not run again. And when Percivale asked me, the next day, if I would not go down with him, I told him I could not bear the feeling of confinement it gave me.

"I did mean," he said, "to have had a door made into the garden for you, and I consulted an architect friend on the subject; but he soon satisfied me it would make the room much too cold for you, and so I was compelled to give up the thought."

"You dear!" I said. That was all; but it was enough for Percivale, who never bothered me, as I have heard of husbands doing, for demonstrations either of gratitude or affection. Such must be of the mole-eyed sort, who can only read large print. So I betook myself to my chamber, and there sat and worked; for I did a good deal of needle-work now, although I had never been fond of it as a girl. The constant recurrence of similar motions of the fingers, one stitch just the same as another in countless repetition, varied only by the bother when the thread grew short and would slip out of the eye of the needle, and yet not short enough to be exchanged with still more bother for one too long, had been so wearisome to me in former days, that I spent half my pocket-money in getting the needle-work done for me which my mother and sister did for themselves. For this my father praised me, and my mother tried to scold me, and couldn't. But now it was all so different! Instead of toiling at plain stitching and hemming and sewing, I seemed to be working a bit of lovely tapestry all the time,—so many thoughts and so many pictures went weaving themselves into the work; while every little bit finished appeared so much of the labor of the universe actually done,—accomplished, ended: for the first time in my life, I began to feel myself of consequence enough to be taken care of. I remember once laying down the little—what I was working at—but I am growing too communicative and important.

My father used often to say that the commonest things in the world were the loveliest,—sky and water and grass and such; now I found that the commonest feelings of humanity—for what feelings could be commoner than those which now made me blessed amongst women?—are those that are fullest of the divine. Surely this looks as if there were a God of the whole earth,—as if the world existed in the very foundations of its history and continuance by the immediate thought of a causing thought. For simply because the life of the world was moving on towards its unseen goal, and I knew it and had a helpless share in it, I felt as if God was with me. I do not say I always felt like this,—far from it: there were times when life itself seemed vanishing in an abyss of nothingness, when all my consciousness consisted in this, that I knew I was not , and when I could not believe that I should ever be restored to the well-being of existence. The worst of it was, that, in such moods, it seemed as if I had hitherto been deluding myself with rainbow fancies as often as I had been aware of blessedness, as there was, in fact, no wine of life apart from its effervescence. But when one day I told Percivale—not while I was thus oppressed, for then I could not speak; but in a happier moment whose happiness I mistrusted—something of what I felt, he said one thing which has comforted me ever since in such circumstances:—

"Don't grumble at the poverty, darling, by which another is made rich."

I confess I did not see all at once what he meant; but I did after thinking over it for a while. And if I have learned any valuable lesson in my life, it is this, that no one's feelings are a measure of eternal facts.

The winter passed slowly away,—fog, rain, frost, snow, thaw, succeeding one another in all the seeming disorder of the season. A good many things happened, I believe; but I don't remember any of them. My mother wrote, offering me Dora for a companion; but somehow I preferred being without her. One great comfort was good news about Connie, who was getting on famously. But even this moved me so little that I began to think I was turning into a crab, utterly incased in the shell of my own selfishness. The thought made me cry. The fact that I could cry consoled me, for how could I be heartless so long as I could cry? But then came the thought it was for myself, my own hard-heartedness I was crying,—not certainly for joy that Connie was getting better. "At least, however," I said to myself, "I am not content to be selfish. I am a little troubled that I am not good." And then I tried to look up, and get my needlework, which always did me good, by helping me to reflect. It is, I can't help thinking, a great pity that needlework is going so much out of fashion; for it tends more to make a woman—one who thinks, that is—acquainted with herself than all the sermons she is ever likely to hear.

My father came to see me several times, and was all himself to me; but I could not feel quite comfortable with him,—I don't in the least know why. I am afraid, much afraid, it indicates something very wrong in me somewhere. But he seemed to understand me; and always, the moment he left me, the tide of confidence began to flow afresh in the ocean that lay about the little island of my troubles. Then I knew he was my own father,—something that even my husband could not be, and would not wish to be to me.

In the month of March, my mother came to see me; and that was all pleasure. My father did not always see when I was not able to listen to him, though he was most considerate when he did; but my mother—why, to be with her was like being with one's own— mother , I was actually going to write. There is nothing better than that when a woman is in such trouble, except it be—what my father knows more about than I do: I wish I did know all about it.

She brought with her a young woman to take the place of cook, or rather general servant, in our little household. She had been kitchen-maid in a small family of my mother's acquaintance, and had a good character for honesty and plain cooking. Percivale's more experienced ear soon discovered that she was Irish. This fact had not been represented to my mother; for the girl had been in England from childhood, and her mistress seemed either not to have known it, or not to have thought of mentioning it. Certainly, my mother was far too just to have allowed it to influence her choice, notwithstanding the prejudices against Irish women in English families,—prejudices not without a general foundation in reason. For my part, I should have been perfectly satisfied with my mother's choice, even if I had not been so indifferent at the time to all that was going on in the lower regions of the house. But while my mother was there, I knew well enough that nothing could go wrong; and my housekeeping mind had never been so much at ease since we were married. It was very delightful not to be accountable; and, for the present, I felt exonerated from all responsibilities.

I woke one morning, after a sound sleep,—not so sound, however, but that I had been dreaming, and that, when I awoke, I could recall my dream. It was a very odd one. I thought I was a hen, strutting about amongst ricks of corn, picking here and scratching there, followed by a whole brood of chickens, toward which I felt exceedingly benevolent and attentive. Suddenly I heard the scream of a hawk in the air above me, and instantly gave the proper cry to fetch the little creatures under my wings. They came scurrying to me as fast as their legs could carry them,—all but one, which wouldn't mind my cry, although I kept repeating it again and again. Meantime the hawk kept screaming; and I felt as if I didn't care for any of those that were safe under my wings, but only for the solitary creature that kept pecking away as if nothing was the matter. About it I grew so terribly anxious, that at length I woke with a cry of misery and terror.