Pages from a Journal with Other Papers eBook

The Elizabethan studies had now altogether come to an end.  In about a couple of months I heard that M. and B. were engaged.  M. went home, and B. moved into a larger town.  In a twelvemonth the marriage took place, and M. wrote to me after her wedding trip.  I replied, but she never wrote again.  I heard that she had said that I had laid myself out to catch B. and that she was afraid that in so doing I had hinted there was something against her.  I heard also that B. had discouraged his wife’s correspondence with me, no other reason being given than that he would rather the acquaintanceship should be dropped.  The interpretation of this reason by those to whom it was given can be guessed.  Did he fear lest I should boast of what I had been to him or should repeat his calumny?  Ah, he little knew me if he dreamed that such treachery was possible to me!

I remained at the vicarage for three years.  The children grew up and I was obliged to leave, but I continued to teach in different families till I was about five-and-forty.  After five-and-forty I could not obtain another situation, and I had to support myself by letting apartments at Brighton.  My strength is now failing; I cannot look after my servant properly, nor wait upon my lodgers myself.  Those who have to get their living by a lodging-house know what this means and what the end will be.  I have occasionally again wished I could have seen my way partially to explain myself to M., and have thought it hard to die misrepresented, but I am glad I have not spoken.  I should have disturbed her peace, and I care nothing about justification or misrepresentation now.  With eternity so near, what does it matter?

INSCRIPTION ON THE ENVELOPE.

“To my Niece Judith,—­You have been so kind to your aunt, the only human being, at last, who was left to love her, that she could not refrain from telling you the one passage in her history which is of any importance or interest.”

JAMES FORBES

“It is all a lie, and it is hard to believe that people who preach it do not know it to be a lie.”

So said James Forbes to Elizabeth Castleton, the young woman to whom he was engaged.  She was the daughter of a clergyman, and James, who had been brought up at Rugby and Oxford, was now in his last year at a London hospital, and was going to be a doctor.

“I am sure my father does not know it to be a lie, and I do not myself know it to be a lie.”

“I was not thinking of your father, but of the clergy generally, and you do know it to be a lie.”

“It is not true of my brother, and, excepting my father and brother, you have not been in company with parsons, as you call them, for half an hour in your life.”

“Do you mean to tell me you have any doubts about this discredited rubbish?”

“If I have I would rather not speak about them now.  Jim, dear Jim, let us drop the subject and talk of something else.”