CHAPTER V.
"I am for other, than for dancing measures."
A few months after Jane entered her aunt's family, an unusual commotion had been produced in the village of by an event of rare occurrence. This was no less than the arrival of a dancing-master, aed the issuing of proposals for a dancing-school.
This was regarded by some very zealous persons as a ruse de guerre of the old Adversary, which, if not successfully opposed, would end in the establishment of his kingdom.
The plan of the disciple of Vestris, was to establish a chain of dancing-schools from one extremity of the county to the other; end this was looked upon as a mine which would be sprung to the certain destruction of every thing that was 'virtuous and of good report.' Some clergymen denounced the impending sin from their pulpits. One said that he had searched the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and he could not find a text that expressly treated of that enormity, but that was manifestly because it was a sin too heinous to be spoken of in holy writ; he said that dancing was one of the most offensive of all the rites of those savage nations that were under the immediate and visible government of the prince of this world; and, finally, he referred them to the church documents, those precious records of the piety, and wisdom, and purity of their ancestors; and they would there find a rule which prohibited any church member from frequenting, or being present at, a ball, or dance, or frolic, or any such assembly of Satan; and they would moreover find that such transgressions had been repeatedly punished by expulsion from the church, and exclusion from all christian ordinances. Some of this gentleman's brethren contented themselves by using their influence in private advice and remonstrance; and a few said they could not see the sin nor the danger of the young people's indulging, with moderation, in the healthful exercise and innocent recreation adapted to their season of life; that what the moral and pious Locke had strenuously advocated, and the excellent Watts approved, it did not become them to frown upon; but they should use their efforts in restraining the young people within the bounds of moderation.
The result was that our dancing-master obtained a few schools, and one in the village which enjoyed the privilege of such a light as Mrs. Wilson. She, filled with alarm, 'lifted up her voice and spared not.' Some of her warmest admirers thought her clamour had more of valour in it than discretion.
Notwithstanding the violence of the opposition, and perhaps aided by it, the dancing-school was at length fairly established, and some of the elderly matrons of the village, who had considered dances as the orgies of Satan, were heard to confess that when properly regulated, they might furnish an amusement not altogether unsuited to youth, and that they did not, in point of propriety, suffer by a comparison with the romps, forfeits, and cushion-dances of their younger days.
At Mrs. Wilson's instance, two new weekly meetings were appointed, on the same evenings with the dancing-school; the one to be a conference in the presence of the young people, and the other a catechetical lecture for them. These her daughters were compelled to attend, in spite of the bold and turbulent opposition of Martha, and the well-concerted artifices of Elvira.
Elvira expressed her surprise at Jane's patience under the new dispensation. "To be sure, Jane," she said, "you have not the trial that I have, about the dancing-school, for a poor girl can't expect such accomplishments.—I do so long to dance! It was in the mazy dance Edward Montreville first fell in love with Selina;—but then these odious—these hateful meetings! Oh, I have certainly a natural antipathy to them; you do not always have to attend them; mother is ready enough to let you off, when there is any hard job to be done in the family;—well, much as I hate work, I had rather work than go to meeting. Tell me honestly, Jane, would not you like to learn to dance, if you was not obliged to wear deep mourning, and could afford to pay for it?"
Jane, all used as she was to the coarseness of her cousins, would sometimes feel the colour come unbidden to her cheeks, and she felt them glow as she replied, "I learned to dance, Elvira, during the year I spent at Mrs. B.'s boarding school."
"La, is it possible? I never heard you say a word about it."
"No," said Jane; "many things have happened to me that you never heard me say a word about."
"Oh! I dare say, Miss Jane. Every body knows your cold, reserved disposition. My sensibility would destroy me, if I did not permit it to flow out into a sympathizing bosom."
"But now, Jane," said she, shutting the door, and lowering her voice, "I have hit upon a capital plan to cheat mother. There is to be a little ball to-night, after the school; and I have promised Edward Erskine to go with him to it. For once, Jane, be generous, and lend me a helping-hand. In the first place, to get rid of the meeting, I am going to put a flannel round my throat, to tell my mother it is very sore, and I have a head-ach; and then I shall go to bed; but as soon as she is well out of the house, I shall get up and dress me, and wind that pretty wreath,of yours, which I'm sure you will lend me, around my head, and meet Erskine just at the pear-tree, at the end of the garden. Then, as to the return, you know you told mother you could not go to meeting, because you was going to stay with old Phillis, and I just heard the Doctor say, he did not believe she would live the night through. This is clear luck, what mother would call providential. At any rate, you know, if she should not be any worse, you can sit up till 12 o'clock, and I will just tap at Phillis's bed-room window, and you won't refuse, Jane, to slip the bolt of the outside door for me."
Jane told her she could not take part in her projects; but, Elvira trusting to the impulse of her cousin's good-nature, adhered to her plan.
Mrs. Wilson was not, on this occasion, so keen-eyed as usual. She had, that very day, received proposals of marriage from a broken merchant. and though she had no idea of jeopardizing her estates and liberty, she was a good deal fluttered with what she would fain have believed to be a compliment to her personal charms. Every thing succeeded to Elvira's most sanguine expectations. Her mother went to the conference. Elvira, arrayed in all the finery her own wardrobe supplied, and crowned with Jane's wreath, went off to her expecting gallant, leaving Jane by the bedside of Phillis; and there the sweet girl kindly watched alone, till after the return of the family from the conference, till after the bell had summoned the household to the evening prayer, and till after the last lingering sound of fastening doors, windows, &c. died away.
The poor old invalid was really in the last extremity; her breathing grew shorter and more interrupted; her eyes assumed a fearful stare and glassiness. Jane's fortitude forsook her, and she ventured to call her aunt, who had but just entered the room, when the poor creature expired.
In the last struggle she grasped Jane's hand, and as her fingers released their hold, and the arm fell beside her, Jane raised it up, and gently laying it across her body, and retaining the hand for a moment in her own, she said, "Poor Phillis! how much hard work you have done with this hand, and how many kindnesses for me. Your troubles are all over, now."
"You take upon you to say a great deal, Jane," replied her aunt. "Phillis did not give me satisfying evidence of a saving faith."
"But," said Jane, as if she did not quite comprehend the import of her aunt's remark, "Phillis was very faithful over her little."
"That's nothing to the purpose, Jane," answered Mrs. Wilson.
Jane made no reply, unless the tear she dropped on her old friend might be deemed one, and Mrs. Wilson added,
"Now, child, you must get the things together, to lay her out." Then saying, that Phillis's sickness had been a bill of cost to her, and quite overlooking her long life of patient and profitable service, she gave the most sordid directions as to the selection of provisions for the last wants of the poor menial. Jane went out of the room to execute her orders.
She had scarcely gone, when Mrs. Wilson heard the window carefully raised, and some one said, "Here I am, Jane; go softly and slip the bolt of the west door, and don't for the world wake the old lady." By any brighter light than the dim night lamp that was burning on the hearth, Elvira could not have mistaken her dark harsh visaged mother for her fair cousin. A single glance revealed the truth to Mrs. Wilson. The moonbeams were playing on the wreath of flowers, and Edward Erskine, who was known as the ringleader of the ball-faction, stood beside Elvira. She smothered her rage for a few moments, and creeping softly to the passage, opened the door, and admitted the rebel, who followed her to Phillis's room, saying, "Oh, Jane, you are a dear good soul for once. I have had an ecstatic time. Never try to persuade me not to trick the old woman." By this time they had arrived at Phillis's room, where Jane had just entered with a candle in her hand.
Mrs. Wilson turned to her child, who stood confounded with the sudden detection, "I have caught you," said she, almost bursting with rage; "caught you both!" Then seizing the wreath of flowers, which she seemed to look upon as the hoisted flag of successful rebellion, she threw it on the floor; and crushing it with her foot, she grasped the terrified girl, and pushed her so violently that she fell on the cold body of the lifeless woman: "and you, viper!" continued the furious creature, turning to Jane, "is this my reward for warming you in my bosom? You, with your smooth hypocritical face, teaching my child to deceive and abuse me. But you shall have your reward. You shall see whether I am to be browbeaten by a dependant child, in my own house."
Jane had often seen her aunt angry, but she had never witnessed such passion as this, and she was for a moment confounded; but like a delicate plant that bends to the ground before a sudden gust of wind, and then is firm and erect as ever, she turned to Mrs. Wilson, and said, "Ma'am, I have never deceived or aided others to deceive you."
"I verily believe you lie!" replied her aunt, in a tone of undiminished fury.
Jane looked to her cousin, who had recoiled from the cold body of Phillis, and sat in sullen silence on a trunk at the foot of the bed,—"Elvira," said she, "you will do me the justice to tell your mother I had no part in your deception." But Elvira, well pleased to have any portion of the storm averted from her own head, had not generosity enough to interpose the truth. She therefore compromised with her conscience, and merely said,—"Jane knew I was going."
"I was sure of it,—I was sure of it; I always knew she was an artful jade; 'still waters run deep;' but she shall be exposed, the mask shall be stripped from the hypocrite."
"Aunt," said Jane, in a voice so sweet, so composed, that it sounded like the breath of music following the howlings of an enraged animal, "Aunt, we are in the chamber of death; and in a little time you, and I, and all of us, shall be as this poor creature; as you will then wish your soul to be lightened of all injustice—spare the innocent now; you know I never deceived you; Elvira knows it; I am willing to bear any thing it pleases God to lay upon me, but I cannot have my good name taken, it is all that remains to me."
This appeal checked Mrs. Wilson for a moment, she would have replied, but she was interrupted by two coloured women, whom she bad sent for, to perform the last offices for Phillis. She restrained her passion, gave them the necessary directions, and withdrew to her own room: where, we doubt not, she was followed by the rebukes of her conscience; for however neglected and stifled, its 'still small voice' will be heard in darkness and solitude.
It may seem strange, that Mrs. Wilson should have manifested such anxiety to throw the blame of this affair on Jane; but however a parent may seek by every flattering unction vanity can devise, to evade the truth, the misconduct of a child will convey a reproach, and reflect dishonour on the author of its existence.
Jane and Elvira crept to their beds without exchanging a single word. Elvira felt some shame at her own meanness; but levity and selfishness always prevailed in her mind, and she soon lost all consciousness of realities, and visions of dances and music and moonlight floated in her brain; sometimes 'a change came o'er the spirit of her dream,' and she shrunk from a violent grasp, and she felt the icy touch of death; and wherever she turned, a ray from her cousin's mild blue eye fell upon her, and she could not escape from its silent beautiful reproach. The mother and the daughter might both have envied the repose of the solitary abused orphan, who possessed 'a peace they could not trouble.' She soon lost all memory of her aunt's rage and her cousin's injustice, and sunk into quiet slumbers. In her dream she saw her mother tenderly smiling on her; and heard again and again the last words of the old woman: "the Lord bless you, Miss Jane! the Lord will bless you, for your kindness to old Phillis."
If Mrs. Wilson had not been blinded by self-love, she might have learnt an invaluable lesson from the melancholy results of her own mal-government. But she preferred incurring every evil, to the relinquishment of one of the prerogatives of power. Her children, denied the appropriate pleasures of youth, were driven to sins of a much deeper die, than those which Mrs. Wilson sought to avoid could have had even in her eyes; for surely the very worst effects that ever were attributed to dancing, or to romance-reading, cannot equal the secret dislike of a parent's authority, the risings of the heart against a parent's tyranny, and the falsehood and meanness that weakness always will employ in the evasion of power; and than which nothing will more certainly taint every thing that is pure in the character.
The cool reflection of the morning pointed out to Mrs. Wilson, as the most discreet, the very line of conduct justice would have dictated. She knew she could not accuse Jane, without exposing Elvira, and besides she did not care to have it known that her sagacity had been outwitted by these children. Therefore, though she appeared at breakfast more sulky and unreasonable than usual, she took no notice of the transactions of the preceding night, and they remained secret to all but the actors in them; except that we have reason to believe, from Mr. Lloyd's increased attention to Jane, shortly after, that they had been faithfully transmitted to him by Mary Hull, the balm of whose sympathy it cannot be deemed wonderful our little solitary should seek.