CHAPTER III. MACKAREL LANE
“For I would lonely stand
Uplifting my white hand,
On a mission, on a mission,
To declare the coming vision.”
“Well, Grace, all things considered, perhaps I had better walk down with you to Mackarel Lane, and then I can form a judgment on these Williamses without committing Fanny.”
“Then you do not intend to go on teaching?”
“Not while Conrade continues to brave me, and is backed up by poor Fanny.”
“I might speak to Miss Williams after church, and bring her in to Myrtlewood for Fanny to see.”
“Yes, that might do in time; but I shall make up my mind first. Poor Fanny is so easily led that we must take care what influences fall in her way.”
“I always wished you would call.”
“Yes, and I would not by way of patronage to please Mr. Touchett, but this is for a purpose; and I hope we shall find both sisters at home.”
Mackarel Lane was at right angles to the shore, running up the valley of the Avon; but it soon ceased to be fishy, and became agricultural, owning a few cottages of very humble gentility, which were wont to hang out boards to attract lodgers of small means. At one of these Grace rang, and obtained admittance to a parlour with crazy French windows opening on a little strip of garden. In a large wheeled chair, between the fire and the window, surrounded by numerous little appliances for comfort and occupation, sat the invalid Miss Williams, holding out her hand in welcome to the guests.
“A fine countenance! what one calls a fine countenance!” thought Rachel. “Is it a delusion of insipidity as usual? The brow is good, massive, too much for the features, but perhaps they were fuller once; eyes bright and vigorous, hazel, the colour for thought; complexion meant to be brilliant brunette, a pleasant glow still; hair with threads of grey. I hope she does not affect youth; she can’t be less than one or two and thirty! Many people set up for beauties with far less claim. What is the matter with her? It is not the countenance of deformity—accident, I should say. Yes, it is all favourable except the dress. What a material; what a pattern! Did she get it second-hand from a lady’s-maid? Will there be an incongruity in her conversation to match? Let us see. Grace making inquiries—Quite at my best—Ah! she is not one of the morbid sort, never thinking themselves better.”
“I was afraid, I had not seen you out for some time.”
“No; going out is a troublesome business, and sitting in the garden answers the same purpose.”
“Of air, perhaps, but hardly of change or of view.”
“Oh! I assure you there is a wonderful variety,” she answered, with an eager and brilliant smile.
“Clouds and sunsets?” asked Rachel, beginning to be interested.
“Yes, differing every day. Then I have the tamarisk and its inhabitants. There has been a tom-tit’s nest every year since we came, and that provides us with infinite amusement. Besides the sea-gulls are often so good as to float high enough for me to see them. There is a wonderful charm in a circumcribed view, because one is obliged to look well into it all.”
“Yes; eyes and no eyes apply there,” said Rachel.
“We found a great prize, too, the other day. Rosie!”
At the call a brown-haired, brown-eyed child of seven, looking like a little fawn, sprang to the window from the outside.
“My dear, will you show the sphynx to Miss Curtis?”
The little girl daintily brought a box covered with net, in which a huge apple-green caterpillar, with dashes of bright colour on his sides, and a horny spike on his tail, was feasting upon tamarisk leaves. Grace asked if she was going to keep it. “Yes, till it buries itself,” said the child. “Aunt Ermine thinks it is the elephant sphynx.”
“I cannot be sure,” said the aunt, “my sister tried to find a figure of it at Villars’, but he had no book that gave the caterpillars. Do you care for those creatures?”
“I like to watch them,” said Grace, “but I know nothing about them scientifically; Rachel does that.”
“Then can you help us to the history of our sphynx?” asked Miss Williams, with her pleasant look.
“I will see if I have his portrait,” said Rachel, “but I doubt it. I prefer general principles to details.”
“Don’t you find working out details the best way of entering into general principles?”
It was new to Rachel to find the mention of a general principle received neither with a stare nor a laugh; and she gathered herself up to answer, “Naming and collecting is not science.”
“And masonry is not architecture, but you can’t have architecture without it.”
“One can have broad ideas without all the petty work of flower botanists and butterfly naturalists.”
“Don’t you think the broad ideas would be rather of the hearsay order, at least to most people, unless their application were worked out in the trifle that came first to hand?”
“Experimental philosophy,” said Rachel, in rather a considering tone, as if the notion, when presented to her in plain English, required translation into the language of her thoughts.
“If you like to call it so,” said Miss Williams, with a look of arch fun. “For instance, the great art of mud pie taught us the porous nature of clay, the expansive power of steam, etc. etc.”
“You had some one to improve it to you?”
“Oh dear no. Only afterwards, when we read of such things we remembered how our clay manufactures always burst in the baking unless they were well dried first.”
“Then you had the rare power of elucidating a principle?”
“No, not I. My brother had; but I could only perceive the confirmation.”
“This reminds me of an interesting article on the Edgeworth system of education in the ‘Traveller’s Review.’ I will send it down to you.”
“Thank you, but I have it here.”
“Indeed; and do you not think it excellent, and quite agree with it?”
“Yes, I quite agree with it,” and there was an odd look in her bright transparent eyes that made Grace speculate whether she could have heard that agreement with the Invalid in the “Traveller’s Review” was one of the primary articles of faith acquired by Rachel.
But Grace, though rather proud of Rachel’s falling under the spell of Miss Williams’ conversation, deemed an examination rather hard on her, and took the opportunity of asking for her sister.
“She is generally at home by this time; but this is her last day at Cliff Cottages, and she was to stay late to help in the packing up.”
“Will she be at home for the present?” asked Grace.
“Yes, Rose and I are looking forward to a festival of her.”
Grace was not at all surprised to hear Rachel at once commit herself with “My cousin, Lady Temple,” and rush into the matter in hand as if secure that the other Miss Williams would educate on the principles of the Invalid; but full in the midst there was a sound of wheels and a ring at the bell. Miss Williams quietly signed to her little attendant to put a chair in an accessible place, and in walked Lady Temple, Mrs. Curtis, and the middle brace of boys.
“The room will be too full,” was Grace’s aside to her sister, chiefly thinking of her mother, but also of their hostess; but Rachel returned for answer, “I must see about it;” and Grace could only remove herself into the verandah, and try to attract Leoline and Hubert after her, but failing in this, she talked to the far more