She exclaimed, whereupon he began to criticise the speakers with a good deal of acuteness, exposing the weak points, but magnanimously owning that it was tolerable for the style of thing, and might go down at Stoneborough.
"I wonder you did not stay away as Harry did."
"I thought it would be marked," observed the thread-paper Tom, as if he had been at least county member.
"You did quite right," said Meta, really thinking so.
"I wished to hear Dr. Spencer, too," said Tom. "There is a man who does know how to speak! He has seen something of the world, and knows what he is talking of."
"But he did not come near Norman."
"I hated listening to Norman," said Tom. "Why should he go and set his heart on those black savages?"
"They are not savages in New Zealand."
"They are all niggers together," said Tom vehemently. "I cannot think why Norman should care for them more than for his own brothers and sisters. All I know is, that if I were my father, I would never give my consent."
"It is lucky you are not," said Meta, smiling defiance, though a tear shone in her eye. "Dr. May makes the sacrifice with a free heart and willing mind."
"Everybody goes and sacrifices somebody else," grumbled Tom.
"Who are the victims now?"
"All of us. What are we to do without Norman? He is worth all of us put together; and I--" Meta was drawn to the boy as she had never been before, as he broke off short, his face full of emotion, that made him remind her of his father.
"You might go out and follow in his steps," said she, as the most consoling hope she could suggest.
"Not I. Don't you know what is to happen to me? Ah! Flora has not told you. I thought she would not think it grand enough. She talked about diplomacy--"
"But what?" asked Meta anxiously.
"Only that I am to stick to the old shop," said Tom. "Don't tell any one; I would not have the fellows know it."
"Do you mean your father's profession?"
"Ay!"
"Oh, Tom! you don't talk of that as if you despised it?"
"If it is good enough for him, it is good enough for me, I suppose," said Tom. "I hate everything when I think of my brothers going over the world, while I, do what I will, must be tied down to this slow place all the rest of my days."
"If you were away, you would be longing after it."
"Yes; but I can't get away."
"Surely, if the notion is so unpleasant to you, Dr. May would never insist?"
"It is my free choice, and that's the worst of it."
"I don't understand."
"Don't you see? Norman told me it would be a great relief to him if I would turn my mind that way--and I can't go against Norman. I found he thought he must if I did not; and, you know, he is fit for all sorts of things that-- Besides, he has a squeamishness about him, that makes him turn white, if one does but cut one's finger, and how he would ever go through the hospitals--"
Meta suspected that Tom was inclined to launch into horrors. "So you wanted to spare him," she said.
"Ay! and papa was so pleased by my offering that I can't say a word of the bore it is. If I were to back out, it would come upon Aubrey, and he is weakly, and so young, that he could not help my father for many years."
Meta was much struck at the motives that actuated the self-sacrifice, veiled by the sullen manner which she almost began to respect. "What is done for such reasons must make you happy," she said; "though there may be much that is disagreeable."
"Not the study," said Tom. "The science is famous work. I like what I see of it in my father's books, and there's a splendid skeleton at the hospital that I long to be at. If it were not for Stoneborough, it would be all very well; but, if I should get on ever so well at the examinations, it all ends there! I must come back, and go racing about this miserable circuit, just like your gold pheasant rampaging in his cage, seeing the same stupid people all my days."
"I think," said Meta, in a low, heartfelt voice, "it is a noble, beautiful thing to curb down your ambition for such causes. Tom, I like you for it."
The glance of those beautiful eyes was worth having. Tom coloured a little, but assumed his usual gruffness. "I can't bear sick people," he said.
"It has always seemed to me," said Meta, "that few lives could come up to Dr. May's. Think of going about, always watched for with hope, often bringing gladness and relief; if nothing else, comfort and kindness, his whole business doing good."
"One is paid for it," said Tom.
"Nothing could ever repay Dr. May," said Meta. "Can any one feel the fee anything but a mere form? Besides, think of the numbers and numbers that he takes nothing from; and oh! to how many he has brought the most real good, when they would have shut their doors against it in any other form! Oh, Tom, I think none of you guess how every one feels about your father. I recollect one poor woman saying, after he had attended her brother, 'He could not save his body, but, surely, ma'am, I think he was the saving of his soul.'"
"It is of no use to talk of my being like my father," said Tom.
Meta thought perhaps not, but she was full of admiration of his generosity, and said, "You will make it the same work of love, and charity is the true glory."
Any inroad on Tom's reserved and depressed nature was a benefit; and he was of an age to be susceptible of the sympathy of one so pretty and so engaging. He had never been so much gratified or encouraged, and, wishing to prolong the tete-a-tete, he chose to take the short cut through the fir-plantations, unfrequented on account of the perpendicular, spiked railings that divided it from the lane.
Meta was humming-bird enough to be undismayed. She put hand and foot wherever he desired, flattered him by letting him handily help her up, and bounded light as a feather down on the other side, congratulating herself on the change from the dusty lane to the whispering pine woods, between which wound the dark path, bestrewn with brown slippery needle-leaves, and edged with the delicate feathering ling and tufts of soft grass.
Tom had miscalculated the chances of interruption. Meta was lingering to track the royal highway of some giant ants to their fir- leaf hillock, when they were hailed from behind, and her squire felt ferocious at the sight of Norman and Harry closing the perspective of fir-trunks.
"Hallo! Tom, what a guide you are!" exclaimed Norman. "That fence which even Ethel and Mary avoid!"
"Mary climbs like a cow, and Ethel like a father-long-legs," said Tom. "Now Meta flies like a bird."
"And Tom helped me so cleverly," said Meta. "It was an excellent move, to get into the shade and this delicious pine tree fragrance."
"Halt!" said Norman--"this is too fast for Meta."
"I cannot," said Harry. "I must get there in time to set Dr. Spencer's tackle to rights. He is tolerably knowing about knots, but there is a dodge beyond him. Come on, Tom."
He drew on the reluctant Etonian, who looked repiningly back at the increasing distance between him and the other pair, till a turn in the path cut off his view.
"I am afraid you do not know what you have undertaken," said Norman.
"I am a capital walker. And I know, or do not know, how often Ethel takes the same walk."
"Ethel is no rule."
"She ought to be," said Meta. "To be like her has always been my ambition."
"Circumstances have formed Ethel."
"Circumstances! What an ambiguous word! Either Providence pointing to duty, or the world drawing us from it."
"Stepping-stones, or stumbling-blocks."
"And, oh! the difficult question, when to bend them, or to bend to them!"
"There must be always some guiding," said Norman.
"I believe there is," said Meta, "but when trumpet-peals are ringing around, it is hard to know whether one is really 'waiting beside the tent,' or only dawdling."
"It is great self-denial in the immovable square not to join the charge," said Norman.
"Yes; but they, being shot at, are not deceiving themselves."
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"I suppose self-deception on those points is very common."
"Especially among young ladies," said Meta. "I hear so much of what girls would do, if they might, or could, that I long to see them like Ethel--do what they can. And then it strikes me that I am doing the same, living wilfully in indulgence, and putting my trust in my own misgivings and discontent."
"I should have thought that discontent had as little to do with you as with any living creature."
"You don't know how I could growl!" said Meta, laughing. "Though less from having anything to complain of, than from having nothing to complain of."
"You mean," he said, pausing, with a seriousness and hesitation that startled her--"do you mean that this is not the course of life that you would choose?"
A sort of bashfulness made her put her answer playfully--
"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.
"Toys have a kindly mission, and I may be good for nothing else; but I would have rather been a coffee-pot than a china shepherdess."
The gaiety disconcerted him, and he seemed to try to be silent, or to reply in the same tone, but he could not help returning to the subject. "Then you find no charm in the refinements to which you have been brought up?"
"Only too much," said Meta.
He was silent, and fearing to have added to his fine-lady impression, she resumed. "I mean that I never could dislike anything, and kindness gives these things a soul; but, of course, I should be better satisfied, if I lived harder, and had work to do."
"Meta!" he exclaimed, "you tempt me very much! Would you? --No, it is too unreasonable. Would you share--share the work that I have undertaken?"
He turned aside and leaned against a tree, as if not daring to watch the effect of the agitated words that had broken from him. She had little imagined whither his last sayings had been tending, and stood still, breathless with the surprise.
"Forgive me," he said hastily. "It was very wrong. I never meant to have vexed you by the betrayal of my vain affection."
He seemed to be going, and this roused her. "Stay, Norman," exclaimed she. "Why should it vex me? I should like it very much indeed."
He faced suddenly towards her-- "Meta, Meta! is it possible? Do you know what you are saying?"
"I think I do."
"You must understand me," said Norman, striving to speak calmly. "You have been--words will not express what you have been to me for years past, but I thought you too far beyond my hopes. I knew I ought to be removed from you--I believed that those who are debarred from earthly happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and-- and I cannot turn back," he added quickly, as if fearing himself.
"No indeed," was her steady reply.
"Then I may believe it!" cried Norman. "You do--you will--you deliberately choose to share it with me?"
"I will try not to be a weight on you," answered the young girl, with a sweet mixture of resolution and humility. "It would be the greatest possible privilege. I really do not think I am a fine lady ingrain, and you will teach me not to be too unworthy."
"I? Oh, Meta, you know not what I am! Yet with you, with you to inspire, to strengthen, to cheer--Meta, Meta, life is so much changed before me, that I cannot understand it yet--after the long dreary hopelessness--"
"I can't think why--" Meta had half said, when feminine dignity checked the words, consciousness and confusion suddenly assailed her, dyed her cheeks crimson, and stifled her voice.
It was the same with Norman, and bashfulness making a sudden prey of both--on they went under its dominion, in a condition partaking equally of discomfort and felicity; dreading the sound of their own voices, afraid of each other's faces, feeling they were treating each other very strangely and ungratefully, yet without an idea what to say next, or the power of speaking first; and therefore pacing onwards, looking gravely straight along the path, as if to prevent the rabbits and foxgloves from guessing that anything had been passing between them.
Dr. May had made his call at Drydale, and was driving up a rough lane, between furzy banks, leading to Cocksmoor, when he was aware of a tall gentleman on one side of the road and a little lady on the other, with the whole space of the cart-track between them, advancing soberly towards him.
"Hallo! Why, Meta! Norman! what brings you here? Where are you going?"
Norman perceived that he had turned to the left instead of to the right, and was covered with shame.
"That is all your wits are good for. It is well I met you, or you would have led poor Meta a pretty dance! You will know better than to trust yourself to the mercies of a scholar another time. Let me give you a lift."
The courteous doctor sprang out to hand Meta in, but something made him suddenly desire Adams to drive on, and then turning round to the two young people, he said, "Oh!"
"Yes," said Norman, taking her hand, and drawing her towards him.
"What, Meta, my pretty one, is it really so? Is he to be happy after all? Are you to be a Daisy of my own?"
"If you will let me," murmured Meta, clinging to her kind old friend.
"No flower on earth could come so naturally to us," said Dr. May. "And, dear child, at last I may venture to tell you that you have a sanction that you will value more than mine. Yes, my dear, on the last day of your dear father's life, when some foreboding hung upon him, he spoke to me of your prospects, and singled out this very Norman as such as he would prefer."
Meta's tears prevented all, save the two little words, "thank you;" but she put out her hand to Norman, as she still rested on the doctor's arm, more as if he had been her mother than Norman's father.
"Did he?" from Norman, was equally inexpressive of the almost incredulous gratitude and tenderness of his feeling.
It would not bear talking over at that moment, and Dr. May presently broke the silence in a playful tone. "So, Meta, good men don't like heiresses?"
"Quite true," said Meta, "it was very much against me."
"Or it may be the other way," said Norman.
"Eh? Good men don't like heiresses--here's a man who likes an heiress--therefore here's a man that is not good? Ah, ha! Meta, you can see that is false logic, though I've forgotten mine. And pray, miss, what are we to say to your uncle?"
"He cannot help it," said Meta quickly.
"Ha!" said the doctor, laughing, "we remember our twenty-one years, do we?"
"I did not mean--I hope I said nothing wrong," said Meta, in blushing distress. "Only after what you said, I can care for nothing else."
"If I could only thank him," said Norman fervently.
"I believe you know how to do that, my boy," said Dr. May, looking tenderly at the fairy figure between them, and ending with a sigh, remembering, perhaps, the sense of protection with which he had felt another Margaret lean on his arm.
The clatter of horses' hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame and his servant overtook them.
"We will be in good time for the proceedings," called out the doctor. "Tell them we are coming."
"I did not know you were walking," said Sir Henry to Meta.
"It is pleasant in the plantations," Dr. May answered for her; "but I am afraid we are late, and our punctual friends will be in despair. Will you kindly say we are at hand?"
Sir Henry rode on, finding that he was not to be allowed to walk his horse with them, and that Miss Rivers had never looked up.
"Poor Sir Henry!" said Dr. May.
"He has no right to be surprised," said Meta, very low.
"And so you were marching right upon Drydale!" continued Dr. May, not able to help laughing. "It was a happy dispensation that I met you."
"Oh, I am so glad of it!" said Meta.
"Though to be sure you were disarming suspicion by so cautiously keeping the road between you. I should never have guessed what you had been at."
There was a little pause, then Meta
said, rather tremulously, "Please--I think it should be known at once."
"Our idle deeds confessed without loss of time, miss?"
Norman came across the path, saying, "Meta is right--it should be known."
"I don't think Uncle Cosham would object, especially hearing it while he is here," said Meta-- "and if he knew what you told us."
"He goes to-morrow, does he not?" said Dr. May.
A silence of perplexity ensued. Meta, brave as she was, hardly knew her uncle enough to volunteer, and Norman was privately devising a beginning by the way of George, when Dr. May said, "Well, since it is not a case for putting Ethel in the forefront, I must e'en get it over for you, I suppose."
"Oh, thank you," they cried both at once, feeling that he was the proper person in every way, and Norman added, "The sooner the better, if Meta--"
"Oh, yes, yes, the sooner the better," exclaimed Meta. "And let me tell Flora--poor dear Flora--she is always so kind."
A testimony that was welcome to Dr. May, who had once, at least, been under the impression that Flora courted Sir Henry's attentions to her sister-in-law.
Further consultation was hindered by Tom and Blanche bursting upon them from the common, both echoing Norman's former reproach of "A pretty guide!" and while Blanche explained the sufferings of all the assembly at their tardiness, Tom, without knowing it, elucidated what had been a mystery to the doctor, namely, how they ever met, by his indignation at Norman's having assumed the guidance for which he was so unfit.
"A shocking leader; Meta will never trust him again," said Dr. May.
Still Blanche thought them not nearly sufficiently sensible of their enormities, and preached eagerly about their danger of losing standing-room, when they emerged on the moor, and beheld a crowd, above whose heads rose the apex of a triangle, formed by three poles, sustaining a rope and huge stone.
"Here comes Dr. Spencer," she said. "I hope he will scold you."
Whatever Dr. Spencer might have suffered, he was far too polite to scold, and a glance between the two physicians ended in a merry twinkle of his bright eyes.
"This way," he said; "we are all ready."
The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations Page 79