Widow's Tale

And Other Stories

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• Publisher: The Floating Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781776529919

Born in Scotland and later a transplant to London, Margaret Oliphant was an accomplished and popular writer whose body of work includes historical novels, romances, and supernatural fiction. Despite the wide-ranging spectrum of genres she tackled, a common theme throughout is a gentle and insightful skewering of social mores and class stratification in the Victorian era. This collection of short stories is an engaging introduction to her unique literary style.

The Lily and the Thorn

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Chapter I

The Murrays of Overbeck, in the parish of Waterdale, among the hills, were nothing but a family of peasants. Nevertheless they were the cause of so much trouble and confusion that no ducal house could have done more to excite and interest the neighbourhood, which is the reason why we now attempt to give a sketch of their earlier story. The later part of it has, alas, by other means and in other ways, been blazoned before all the world.

Elizabeth Murray, the mother, was always considered a woman out of the common. She was tall and strong and handsome even in her old age, and in her youth it was said she had been as powerful as a man, doing many feats of strength altogether beyond the power of either men or women of ordinary calibre. She it was from whom the children took their beauty. It was not beauty of the full-blown rustic kind, but that of finer quality, the only true beauty, perhaps, in the formal meaning of the word: that which involves regularity and nobleness of features rather than the evanescent charms of complexion and colour. Elizabeth was not even exalted enough in position to be called Mrs Murray. She was addressed by everybody by her Christian name. She was a woman who drove her beasts to the field, milked her cows and churned her butter with her own hands, and would hoe and dig her potatoes without flinching, had there been need. But she had the carriage and bearing of a queen, and a majestic style of form and feature such as few queens possess. When she stood in the little market-place in Waterside, with her eggs and chickens for sale, she might have been a Roman matron—Portia, stately in old age, or the mother of Coriolanus. It was said that there was Gipsy blood in her veins, and no one knew where she came from, or how it was that a peaceable countryman like Abel Murray should have wanted to marry her. There were many who did not hesitate to say that she had driven the poor man to death. But it is easy to say such things, and very difficult to prove them. If her strength, high spirit, and imperious temper were too much for him, Abel Murray was not the man to say it; but he died, nevertheless, leaving her open to such accusations, as he might have done had he married a white maiden with no character at all. But he left all he had in her hands, with the three little children, who were as yet too young to be anything but encumbrances; and Elizabeth had worked for her children like a slave, like a heroine. All that they had in the world was a little house among the hills, far from all other habitations of men, and a few bare, unproductive fields, less profitable than they were sacred, as having been "in the family" for generations. Here the widow toiled and struggled alone, telling nobody of her privations and indebted to nobody, making out of her few cows and her poultry-yard enough to support her children and bring them safely through the simple dangers of childhood. From dangers more serious, however, where is the mother, however exalted, who can defend her sons and daughters? She was absolutely and passionately devoted to them, and during all the best years of her life toiled for them night and day; and if afterwards, when those perils befell them which she could not guard them from, Elizabeth, used to sacrifice everything in her own person, became selfish for her children and exacted sacrifices from others, such as she herself felt it natural to make, may not a little pity mingle with the blame her fault deserved? The passion of motherhood does not bear so high a place among human passions as it once was supposed to do, being set down now as a sort of animal instinct merely, we are told. But high or low, it is a very great and strong and overwhelming sentiment, and now and then works harm enough as well as good.

She had three children, all dark and handsome like herself. The eldest boy, Abel, was a young Hercules, stronger and taller for his age than any boy in the neighbourhood; and his little sister Lily, almost as soon as she reached her teens, had been talked of far and near as the beauty of Waterdale. Abel had other qualities besides. When he was about twelve years old his mother deprived herself of his services, then just becoming valuable, in order to send him to school. He went through storms and sunshine, never missing a day, whatever might be the weather, and in a year had driven the parish schoolmaster to despair, who had no more to teach him. He was as clever as he was handsome, and he was more ambitious than either, and full of that intellectual curiosity which is the making of a scholar. It was a fatal day for Elizabeth when she sent the boy to school, as all who knew them said. He could read and write very well before he went there at all, and what does a country boy want more? But after he had begun there was no getting him to care for anything else but learning. He borrowed all the schoolmaster's store of books, which was not great, and devoured them; then interested the clergyman and got admission to his library; then, best and worst of all, so caught the attention of a visitor that his whole lot in life was changed. This stranger took the boy and sent him to a school where he could learn more than was possible in Waterdale; then finding him worth the trouble, sent him to the university and made "a gentleman" of him. Thus, instead of labouring upon the tiny miserable farm, cultivating the late little patch of corn and working among the "beasts," and taking his share in the labours which his mother had carried on since he was a child, the boy carried his handsome face and keen intellect into the world, and throve, as was supposed, though the little house at Overbeck heard little of him. In one point of view, it was hard that he should thus deprive his mother of his legitimate assistance and leave her to toil alone; but then she, of all others, was the one most anxious that he should improve his position and rise into a higher place than that in which he was born. If she felt a pang at his complete desertion of her, she never put it into words, but rejoiced that he had made his way to better things, and exulted with the whole force of her being in the consciousness that her boy was "a gentleman." She bore the additional labour without grudging, and toiled on with a high heart, never fearing work. The work was sweet so long as Abel went on prospering and progressing; and the proud mother, rejoicing in his advancement, never betrayed to any one how soon this boy for whom she had toiled forgot all about his home.

By-and-by, however, it became necessary to think how Lily, her only daughter, was to set out in life. Lily had grown to be seventeen amid the silence of the hills. She had the education of her class, could read well enough, and write decently, though without any clear principles as to spelling, and she was no doubt in her turn a help to her mother, who was still strong and vigorous bodily, and in the prime of her days. Lily had plenty to do at home, and might have gone on there, never venturing upon the world, if she had chosen. But in that humble class it is recognised that a lass as well as a lad may naturally desire to see something of the world and to try her wing and her fortune even out of the cosiest nest. It never occurred to Elizabeth Murray to question this law of nature; indeed, had Lily chosen to remain under the shelter of her mother's shadow for ever, it is probable that the mother would have held it her duty to send her forth to try her own powers and strength. The only question was, what was Lily to do? To go to service was the first thing they thought of, and indeed tried; and the beautiful girl, looking like a half-savage princess, full of natural dignity, but untrained to conventional "manners," sometimes rude in youthful ignorance, if always sweet in natural temper, marched down from her native hills where all was wild and solitary and free, into the restraint of a little genteel home in a little gossiping village, and there made, as was very natural, a disastrous failure in her first place. Lily did not understand the many restraints nor the unceasing scoldings; and the minute and constant supervision to which she was subjected drove her wild with indignation and resentment. What was she, the daughter of a woman who sold butter and eggs in the market, to "speak back" to a lady—and to be as fond of her own way as if she had been a lady too? Elizabeth was sent for, and there were storms and passions; but the upshot was that Lily, after having been smoothed down and calmed on Saturday by her mother's representations and remonstrances, overcome by home-sickness and love of freedom, and general disgust with the world which was so contrary, ran away secretly on Sunday evening, and got home at midnight, to the great scandal of the gossips in the village she had left, who were very eager to find out who had been with her. But no one had been with her. Lily had not learned enough by that time either of herself or others to be vain. She was as yet more annoyed and angered by the stare of wondering admirers than pleased by their admiration. All life was still before her, a vague sweet chaos, undiscerned and undivined.

But after this it became more impossible still that Lily should tamely stay at home and help her mother. Though "the town" had been disagreeable to her while she was in it, it had a certain charm when recollected in the fields at Overbeck, where she never saw any one. The excitement of a carriage passing now and then, a party of tourists—strangers, perhaps foreigners—or of great people of the county, lords and ladies like those in the story-books: the wild exhilaration of a show or pedlar's van, the errand to a shop where countless desirable things were to be seen at least, if not to be had—all these sweetnesses, once tasted, leave a want, a void, when they have passed away, that nothing else can fill up. Lily felt this, though she did not wish to feel it. The remembrance of the constantly exacted obedience, the unrelaxing rule, and all the crosses of her first "service," were very distasteful to her. Home at a distance had seemed heaven. But, if the flaming sword had been swept aside, and Adam and Eve had found the entrance to Paradise reopen to them after the excitement of the struggle with barren earth, would they have gone back, one wonders? Home was (theoretical) Paradise to Lily; but how gay and how exciting, if not pleasant, looked now the little Purgatory below, which had seemed no better that an Inferno to the girl cribbed and cabined and confined! The very gleam of the light in the shop window, the lamp over the inn door—what a sense of dissipation and gaiety was in them! There was nothing like this on the hills, where the stars were the only lamps, and the tinkling of the beck all the music; whereas on the other hand sometimes an organ-grinder would come into the town, and once there had been a German band! The silence and the loneliness overcame Lily after that taste of the excitements of life. She was sick of her old familiar mountains; and the horizon on the landward side, a horizon which was contracted within the limits of a tree or two and a village steeple—that was the best of all.

Then there came sinkings of heart, and fitful ill-temper upon the part of the girl, who did not know what she would be at. But Elizabeth was learning wisdom, and knew. She said, "Lily, my lass, you must not bide here. It's fine to have you, but when I'm dead and gone, what would you do up on the fells? You would have to dig potatoes like me. Service is no heritage, but to have a good trade at your fingers' ends, what a thing that would be! I think I will speak to Miss Prentice on Saturday; that's lively. You could see whatever's going on out of her windows, and folks passing by to the castle; the young squire is at home, and there's balls, and I don't know what. I'm 'most sure you will like that, Lily, my dear."

Lily was too wild to respond with immediate approval, but her heart jumped. She had seen the young ladies and the young gentlemen out riding, and what a sight it was! They filled the streets, the horses' hoofs ringing like soldiers, and the ladies' long habits sweeping down, and the horses arching their shining necks. And when there was a ball, if you knew one of the servants you might be let in to see the ladies in their beautiful dresses, and to hear the music; and sometimes Miss Prentice would be sent for with one of her girls to hold the pins. Lily's heart danced at the thought of these delights. Miss Prentice was the dressmaker in Waterside, and lived in the street which was nearest to the gate of the castle, and where everything could be seen that was going on.

Here Lily went accordingly, after there had been various consultations between her mother and the dressmaker. "My Lily is a good lass; there's no harm in her," Elizabeth said. "You may think I'm partial; but who should know her like me; and who so anxious to see if there's ill in her? She's a good lass, but she's fanciful: she takes things into her head."

"Most folks does," said Miss Prentice; "especially them that is good for something. So long as she is not taken up with lads and nonsense—"

"Never such a thought has been in her head," said Elizabeth, with some heat.

"Ah! that's more than I would say of a saint. I'm not fond of the pretty ones, for my part; they're fine to try things on, for all looks well on them; but they seldom settle to the business as I could like. Lads are the destruction of the business; but you're an honest woman, Elizabeth Murray, and you've had a fight to bring up your bairns. I'll take her and I'll try her, to show my respect for her mother; and that's as fair as I can say."

Elizabeth made her acknowledgments like a duchess, with conscious dignity. "I cannot think a bairn of mine will ever shame me," she said; "if you take her canny, you'll never get a saucy word from my Lily. It's the unmannerly that make bad manners. If I saw her with a good business at her finger-ends I think I could die happy."

"Die! not you! You're not of the dying kind," said Miss Prentice, briskly; "and as for the business, if she will stick to the business, it will never forsake her: if she be not too bonnie for the business," the dressmaker added with a sigh. She was an enthusiast for her profession, as all artists should be, and sighed at the thought of those temptations of intrusive life which tempt the neophyte astray.

Thus it was that Lily came to Waterside to learn the dressmaking. She was a great deal too pretty for the business. Miss Prentice, who was a wise woman in her way, and who felt the advantage of having a girl (in such lonely places not yet called a young lady) upon whom every garment looked well, took great precautions in her treatment of the mountain Lily, and grew fond of her, and made much of her. And by-and-by Lily became enlightened as to the sweetness of admiration. She learned after a time why it was that the young squire rode past so slowly, staring at the dressmaker's window, and why other young men of less high degree passed the same way so often. She pretended even to herself that she was very angry with them all, for staring at her thus. But in her heart she soon ceased to be angry, and began to find the universal homage not unsweet. When she heard the horse's hoofs she was not averse to being visible or half-visible behind the fashion-book in the window. How handsome he looked on his horse, handsomer than the lads on foot—the town-lads who went and came, and saw nothing but the book of fashions! Lily's heart began to beat a little quicker at certain hours of the day when (she began to divine) he was likely to pass. He! of course; who could any one mean by that but the chief gentleman of the place, young Squire Ridley, who up the water and down the water was better known than any other man?

Meanwhile, Elizabeth had to help her with the beasts and the potatoes, and all her work, only the other boy, the youngest, of whom nothing has been said. No one thought it necessary to say anything about him. He was only Dick—he was the man of all work, though he was but sixteen. He was Elizabeth's prop, her right hand, whom she could always depend upon; but she did not make much account of Dick, any more than other people did. He never gave any trouble,—whatever anxiety came, it would not be by his means.

Chapter II

When Lily began her dressmaking in the Waterside village, her brother Abel had just attained the highest object of his ambition. He had become a fellow of his college, and thus was provided at once with the means of living, and with a position which was doubly dear to him, in that it supplied his greatest want, a recognised standing-ground and social rank, such as it is. Nothing could be more honourable to a man than thus to have gained, by his own exertions, a position so entirely satisfactory; but there were elements involved which made his success very different from that of most of his contemporaries. He did not announce it to his family, or indeed give them the least hint of this new step in life, with all the advantages it brought. This was not because he wanted to be unkind, or from any mean desire to keep his prosperity to himself. Could he have sent to them anonymously, without risk of inquiry, a share of his income, he would have been glad to do so; but he did not know how to resume his intercourse with them in his changed circumstances. What pleasure could there be in any meeting now, he asked himself? It seemed to him that any contact with the rude homely habits of his own class would be intolerable: all the more intolerable that he could not deceive himself on the subject, or deny that the honest, thrifty peasant folk were a credit to him, as he, were he as good as they, would be a credit to them. It must be allowed in his defence that a young University man of distinguished talents and prospects, to whom the best society in the country might be open, and who was already on intimate terms with many young great people and dawning notabilities, had need be of heroic strain to be capable of confessing that his mother was a woman who sold eggs and butter in the market. And Abel was not heroic. He was excitable, susceptible, nervous, and visionary, doing little credit, so far, to his mountain breeding. Perhaps it was because the fact of his dependence, and the extreme goodness of the patron who had done so much for him, had been unduly impressed upon his young mind, that he was so anxious now to conceal his origin entirely, and shrank from his family and kind with so much dread and horror. But it is more difficult to explain how, doing this, he should yet have accepted the invitation which young Charley Landale, a much humbler member of his college, pressed upon him eagerly yet timidly. The Landales were well known to Abel, though they knew him only as a great scholar and "rising man," of whose friendship their son was proud. They were gentry of Waterdale, and it was thus to his own district, the very parish in which he had been brought up, that he was invited to go. It was madness to do so; yet he did it with rash excitement in consciousness of the danger, and foolish hankering after his birthplace: a kind of loyalty in disloyalty, very strange and unusual. Though the idea that his parentage might be found out alarmed him beyond measure, yet the thought of going "home" was sweet, in the most inconsistent way. Discovery would be ...

Table of contents

• A WIDOW'S TALE
• Contents
• Introductory Note
• A Widow's Tale
• Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond
• Mademoiselle
• The Lily and the Thorn
• The Strange Adventures of John Percival
• A Story of a Wedding-Tour
• John
• The Whirl of Youth
• The Heirs of Kellie
• Endnotes