Testamentary Intentions.
All this history of the Harmers I have told nearly as I heard it, passing briefly over such parts as were not essential to the understanding of the story, and retaining all that was necessary to be told in order that the relative position of the various inmates of Harmer Place may be quite understood by any one who may hereafter read this story of mine. And having done so, I can now proceed with the regular course of my journal.
That visit of ours to Harmer Place was a very memorable one, and exercised not a little influence upon my fortunes, although certainly I little dreamt at the time of our return that evening, that it had done so. To Polly and I it had been simply an extremely pleasant day. We had rambled about the garden with Sophy Needham, and had taken tea in the summer-house, while papa and Mr. Harmer were at dinner. We had then gone into desert, and, that over, had again rambled out, leaving the gentlemen over their wine. It was while thus engaged, that a conversation took place, which I did not hear of for more than a year afterwards, but which entirely altered my worldly prospects. It was began by Mr. Harmer, who had been for some time sitting rather silent and abstracted.
"I think it is high time, my dear doctor, for me to speak to you frankly and openly, of what my intentions are in reference to the disposal of my property. I mentioned somewhat of this to you four or five years since, but I should like now to speak explicitly. I am aware that such matters are not usually gone into; but I think in many cases, of which this is one, it is right and better that it should be so. I have no relations whatever in the world, with the exception of my sisters, who have an ample life provision, and Sophy Needham, my son's child. My property is very large; I have the Harmer estates, my own savings in India, and the accumulation of my brothers, who never lived up to their income for very many years. In all about seven thousand a year. As I have said, Sophy Needham is my only connection in the world—you my only friend. To Sophy I have left half my fortune, the other half I have bequeathed to your children. Do not start, my dear Ashleigh, or offer any fruitless objection, my decision is fixed and immovable. For the last thirteen years my existence has been brightened by your friendly intercourse, in you I have found a scientific guide and friend; indeed, I may say that my life as far as this world is concerned, has been entirely made what it is, tranquil, contented, and happy by your friendship. Ten years ago you will remember I begged you to retire from practice, and to take up your abode here with your family, upon any terms you might name, but in fact as my adopted family. This offer you, from motives I could not but respect, declined. You loved your profession, and considered it incompatible with your duty to leave a career of active usefulness. Things, therefore, went on as before. Towards Sophy my intentions were not fixed, but she has turned out a very good girl, and I shall therefore leave her half my fortune, about seventy-five thousand pounds. Had I any other relation, or any person who could have the smallest claim upon me, you might hesitate; as it is, not even the most morbid feeling of delicacy can tell you that you are depriving others of their expectations. Being so, let the matter be tacitly understood, and say nothing whatever about it; you ought not to have known of it till my death, just suppose that you do not know of it now. You will ask me why have I then told you. For this reason. I wish to benefit your children. My life is uncertain; but I may live for many years yet, and my money might come too late to do good. Your son may have spent the best years of his life struggling in some profession which he does not like; your daughters may have suffered too. I therefore wish at once to place Harry with the best man in the profession he wishes to enter, which I have heard him say is that of a civil engineer, and I shall allow him a hundred and fifty pounds a year for the present. Your daughters I should wish sent to some good school in London to finish their education; and when the time shall come, when such an event may be considered probable, I should wish it to be publicly known that they will each have upon their wedding day ten thousand pounds. Your son shall have a like sum when the time comes for him to enter into a partnership, or start in business for himself. These sums to be deducted from their moiety of my fortune at my death. And now, doctor, let us shake hands and not mention the matter again, and as you do not seem to be drinking your wine, let us go out and join the young ladies in the garden."
It was not until after several further discussions upon the subject of Mr. Harmer's kind intentions towards us that papa agreed to accept his offer. When he at last consented to do so, no time was lost in carrying out the plans, and in a month or two Harry went up to London to be articled to a well-known engineer. As for us, it was settled that Miss Harrison should remain with us until Christmas, and that after the holidays we should go up to a school near London. How delighted we were at the prospect, and how very slowly that autumn seemed to pass; however, at last the time came, and we started under papa's charge for London. When we were once there, and were fairly in a cab on our way to school, we felt a little nervous and frightened. However, there was a great comfort in the thought that there would, at any rate, be one face we knew, that of Clara Fairthorne, who came from our part of the country we had met her at some of our Christmas parties, and it was by her parents the school had been recommended to papa. But although we felt rather nervous, it was not until we were in sight of the school that our spirits really fell; and even at the lapse of all these years, I do think that its aspect was enough to make any girl's heart sink, who was going to school for the first time.
Any one who has passed along the road from Hyde Park Corner to Putney Bridge may have noticed Grendon House, and any one who has done so, must have exclaimed to himself "a girls' school." Palpably a girls' school, it could be nothing else. With the high wall surrounding it, to keep all passers-by from even imagining what was going on within, with the trees which grew inside it, and almost hid the house from view, with its square stiff aspect when one did get a glimpse of it, and with its small windows, each furnished with muslin curtains of an extreme whiteness and primness of arrangement, and through which no face was ever seen to glance out,—certainly it could be nothing but a girls' school.
On the door in the wall were two brass plates, the one inscribed in stiff Roman characters "Grendon House;" the other "The Misses Pilgrim," in a running flourishing handwriting. I remember after we had driven up to the door, and were waiting for the bell to be answered, wondering whether the Misses Pilgrim wrote at all like that, and if so, what their character would be likely to be. In the door, by the side of the plate, was a small grating, or grille, through which a cautious survey could be made of any applicant for admission within those sacred precincts.
On passing through the door, and entering the inclosure, one found oneself in a small, irregular piece of ground, dignified by the name of the garden, although, from its appearance, it would be supposed that this was a mere pleasantry; but it was not so. Indeed, no such thing as a pleasantry ever was or could be attempted about anything connected with "Grendon House." Certain it is that nothing in the way of a flower was ever acclimatized there. The gloom and frigidity of the place would have been far too much for any flower known in temperate climates to have supported.
I remember, indeed, Constance Biglow, who had a brother who had just started on an Arctic expedition, lamented that she had forgotten to ask him to bring home some of the plants from those regions, as an appropriate present for the Misses Pilgrim, for their garden. I know at the time we considered it to be a very good, although a dreadfully disrespectful, joke towards those ladies.
In spring, indeed, a few crocuses (Miss Pilgrim spoke of them as croci) ventured to come up and show their heads, but they soon faded away again in such an uncongenial atmosphere. The only thing which really flourished there was the box edging to the borders, which grew luxuriantly, and added somehow to the funereal aspect of the place. It was no wonder nothing grew there, for the house, and the high walls, and the trees within them, completely shaded it, and cut it off from all light and air. Round the so-called flower-beds the gravel path was wider, and was dignified by the name of the carriage drive, though how any coachman was to have turned a carriage in that little confined space, even had he got through the impassable gate, was, and probably ever will remain, a mystery.
Behind
