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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Flora
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Flora

Creator: A. L. O. E.

Release date: November 22, 2016 [eBook #53581]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLORA ***

Dust cover art
Cover art
"How are you feeling to-day?" said Flora.
 FLORA

BY
A. L. O. E.
(Charlotte Maria Tucker)

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.

LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT

THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS.

CONTENTS.

I. Town and country

II. The village
III. Confession
IV. The rajah's dream
V. Secret influences
VI. The nursery
VII. The touchstone
VIII. Pleasures and pains
 IX. The novel
X. Recall
XI. Doubts
XII. Decision
XIII. The mother's trial
XIV. The visit
XV. The wife
XVI. Rising clouds
XVII. Darkening clouds
VIII. The dark journey
XIX. Conclusion

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

"How are you feeling to-day?" said Flora . . . Frontispiece

Slowly, very slowly, she descended from the carriage

She threw herself on her mother's bosom

"Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the

baronet

FLORA; OR, SELF-DECEPTION.

 CHAPTER I.
TOWN AND COUNTRY.

"Well, there certainly is a charm in the country!" exclaimed Ada

Murray, as, with the assistance of the hand of her companion, she
sprang lightly down from a stile on the soft daisy-spangled grass
beneath.
"The charm of novelty, I suppose," replied Flora.
"Well, I am afraid that I must plead guilty to knowing very little
more of rural life than I have gathered from, 'Let me Wander not
Unseen.' Ever since I came down here I have been looking out for the
shepherds telling tales 'under the hawthorn,' and the village maidens
dancing to the sound of the rebeck; but no livelier piece of gaiety can
I hear of than a feast to the school-children in a field! I suppose that
you could not have archery here?" she added, suddenly, as the
thought crossed her mind.
"Oh yes; we have an old bow and some arrows at home, that
belonged to my brother."
"Oh, that's not what I mean," replied Ada, laughing; "bows and
arrows do not make an archery-meeting, they are a mere excuse for
drawing people together. But you don't seem to have any
neighbours?"
"How can you say so?" cried Flora, playfully, pointing to a village
on their right, nestling amidst elm-trees, above which the spire of a
little church gleamed in the evening sun.
"You will not understand me, you malicious little thing! You don't
call visiting old women and sickly children, and questioning a prim
class of tidy girls in a school-room, seeing anything of society? Have
you no neighbours in your own rank of life within ten miles round?"
"Not many," replied Flora; "but a few. There's the clergyman--you
have seen him--good old Mr. Ward--"
"Oh yes, I have seen him,--the bald-headed little man, with such
a benevolent look and patronising smile, that I quite expected him to
pat me on the head and say, 'There's a good little dear!'"
"Naughty little dear, I should say," laughed Flora. "Oh, he is such
a kind old friend, and preaches so beautifully, I don't know what we
should do without him. We have known him and his dear old lady so
long--he was a school-fellow of my dear father. Then there's Captain
Lepine--"
"A captain! that sounds more lively. Is he an agreeable
individual?"
"Yes; he takes care of my garden, and brings me cuttings of his
roses. He's an invalid--"
"Interesting of course."
"And he lost a leg in battle--"
"I hope that he does not stump about on a wooden one; one
could hardly stand that, even in a romance. I suppose that he was
wounded at Sobraon, or some of those Indian battles with
unpronounceable names?"
"No; he was wounded at Navarino."
"Navarino!" exclaimed Ada, with affected horror; "then he must
be a century old at the least! Does no one live in this place under
eighty years of age?"
"Yes; the doctor and his wife, and half-a-dozen little ones, the
eldest not out of the school-room."
"And nobody besides?"
 "Mrs. Lacy, the widow of a banker, who occupies the white house
which you observe yonder; but she does not see a great deal of
society."
"I should think not," observed Ada, drily. "It is a case of 'the
Spanish fleet thou canst not see, for it is not in sight.'"
"And she is often ill--"
"With ennui, no doubt."
"Ah! and I was forgetting old Miss Butterfield; we passed her just
as we turned into the fields."
"Almost bent into a hoop, like an old witch, and dressed after the
fashion of our great-grandmothers. If she had only sported a red
cloak in addition to her poke-bonnet, I should have gone and asked
her to tell my fortune!"
"Fie! fie! how can you talk so?" cried Flora.
"Well, well, my good coz," exclaimed Ada, as she threw herself
down on the roots of a gnarled oak, which, green with moss, offered
a tempting seat; "I can only say that I consider you buried alive here-
-quite buried alive!" she repeated with emphasis, plucking a daisy and
pulling it to pieces; "and you so charming and fair, I am always
fancying how Eddis would paint you, or whether you have not sat to
him already, you are so like one of his soft, saintly beauties!"
"Don't be so absurd," said Flora, colouring.
"Ah! that was all that was wanting, a little heightened blush on
the pale white rose," cried Ada, looking with real admiration, perhaps
not unmixed with envy, at the fair delicate features before her; for the
gipsy hat which Flora wore had fallen back on her shoulders, and as
the breeze played amongst her auburn tresses, and the shadow of the
young leaves fell on her gentle brow, she looked one whom to behold
was to love.
 "Come, come," said Flora, willing to change the conversation,
which embarrassed her at the time, though, sooth to say, she found
her mind frequently recurring to it afterwards, and with no
disagreeable sensation; "if you think that to live here is so dreadful,
how is it that you can submit for a whole fortnight to be 'buried alive'
in the country?"
"Well, my dear, I must not take credit for too sublime heroism.
The London season had hardly commenced, not a single dance was in
view. I think that the melody of all your nightingales, and the perfume
of your flowers, would hardly have tempted me away after Easter."
"And what are the delights which you prize so much?" inquired
Flora, with some little curiosity. "You know that I have never spent
two days together from my home, that I know nothing of what passes
in the world, that though I was born in London, I was so young when
we left Golden Square--"
"Golden Square! my dear, never mention such a place, nobody
lives in Golden Square."
Flora coloured again, and felt uncomfortable, she scarcely knew
why.
"You asked me," continued Ada, "what are the delights of town.
It is hard to describe them, they are so utterly different from any
which you experience here. Bustle and noise, incessant rattling of
carriages and thundering raps at the door, late breakfasts--perhaps in
bed--dinner at the hour of your supper; and when you, innocent dear,
are retiring to rest, the maid is placing the flowers in my hair, and I
am off in a flutter of muslin or tulle, to mount step by step a crowded
staircase, and enter some room where it is impossible to move, and
barely possible to breathe!"
"And this night after night?" inquired Flora.
 "Yes, night after night; that is to say, unless the season is a dull
one."
"And do you not feel knocked up in the morning?"
"Well, not inclined for a long country walk through fields
garnished with stiles, nor for teaching stupid children in a school, nor
for listening to a very sober, sensible book, such as that to which my
dear good aunt is treating us; but just inclined to rest on a sofa with a
diverting novel in my hand, to chat to amusing visitors, or to fill up
the time till dinner with a concert or a botanical fête."
"Ah! these are what I should enjoy," cried Flora; "I am so fond of
music and of flowers."
"Dear simplicity, do you imagine that any one goes to a concert
to listen, or to a garden to look at the flowers? You go to talk, and to
see your friends, and quiz the company, and--kill time!"
"And do you never grow weary?" asked Flora,
"Weary; yes, half tired to death, quite ennuyée; but then the only
way to restore one's jaded spirits is to plunge deeper into gaiety; the
excitement, and the bustle, and the diversion, become quite a
necessity at last."
"It reminds me--but I'll not say of what it reminds me."
"Not say? but you must, and shall. What does it remind you of,
little philosopher?"
"The craving which some very vulgar people, to whom I should
never dream of comparing my friends, have for another kind of
stimulant."
"It is a sort of intoxication, you mean," said Ada, gaily. "I will not
deny it; a very pleasant sort of intoxication. I wish that you would
come to Grosvenor Square and try it."
Flora gently shook her head.
 "What! you are afraid of being contaminated by my evil example,
I suppose! You look on gaiety as a dangerous glass of champagne;
and have all here taken the pledge not to go beyond a cup of the very
weakest green tea?"
"It is not that," said Flora, looking diverted.
"Then I shall carry you off with me--I positively shall; you shall be
the belle of the London season; your time shall be crammed so full
with engagements, balls, operas, concerts, fêtes, that you will
scarcely know day from night!"
"I do not think that my mother would approve of that."
"Well, then, you shall go to no place of which your mother, and
Mr. Ward, and the whole clerical body from bishop to curate, would
not approve. We'll take you to Exeter Hall, and the Museum, and the
Royal Institution, panoramas, cycloramas, dioramas! Oh! there is no
place like London for opening the mind. A green bud of rusticity
expands at once into a full-blown rose there."
"May there not be such things as over-blown roses?"
"No fear; I'll answer for you, coz, if you'll only go back with me to
London. Say that you will--only say that you will," and Ada placed her
arm caressingly around Flora.
"I really cannot, at present," replied her cousin, "though I should
very much enjoy paying you a visit. But it would be impossible for me
to quit home just now, when we are expecting my sister-in-law from
Barbadoes--"
"Ah! yes; the widow of your half-brother," said Ada. "John
married a Creole lady, did he not, rather against the wishes of your
poor father?"
Flora bowed her head in assent.
"Then your sister-in-law is a perfect stranger to you?"
 "Quite; and as she dislikes her pen, and never answers a letter,
we have not even the knowledge of each other which one gains from
correspondence."
"I think I heard that there were children," said Ada.
"Yes; four poor dear little orphans."
"And all coming to your home?"
"My mother will welcome them all."
"Ahem! I wish you joy of your West Indian importation. My aunt
must have been remarkably fond of her step-son!"
"On the contrary," replied Flora, lowering her voice to a
confidential whisper, though the birds that twittered on the branches
above them were the only living creatures near--"poor John was never
anything but a trial to mamma. He behaved very ill to her indeed, at
the time when poor dear papa's affairs were settled; he wrote in so
insolent a manner; he cost my precious mother such bitter tears when
she had been already suffering so much, that no one but an angel, as
she is, would ever have forgotten or forgiven his conduct. You do not
know how I felt it," continued Flora, her colour rising at the
recollection; "I could have better borne unkindness to myself, but
insolence to my widowed mother was not to be endured! Yet, no
sooner did we hear that John had died, leaving his family poorly
provided for, than the heart and home of my mother were opened at
once; no feeling was left in her bosom but generous sympathy and
compassion; and I believe that she will receive the widow as warmly
and tenderly as if she were her own cherished child."
"That is Christianity!" exclaimed Ada. "Ah! if profession and
practice thus always went hand in hand--if 'good people,' as they are
called, were always really good, they would win a great deal more
respect from the world than they do now, and have a great deal more
influence in it besides! But what I can't bear is, when people talk as
though they believed themselves to be saints and all the rest of the
world sinners, and look as though they thought it wicked to smile or
raise their voice above a whisper; and when you come really to know
them, when you can glance a little behind the curtain, they are as
selfish, and avaricious, and mean, and spiteful, as the veriest
worldling in creation! This is what disgusts one, and inclines one to
set down great profession at once as hypocrisy!"
"My mother says that it is more by our lives than by our lips that
we should show what we are, and to whom we belong," was Flora's
quiet reply.

CHAPTER II.
THE VILLAGE.

"Now, charming as I find this mossy seat, and the waving boughs,
and the lights and shadows, and the beautiful view before me, and,
above all, the lovely companion beside me, it strikes my unpoetical
mind," said Ada, "that if we sit longer here, we may find rheumatism
added to other country delights."
Flora sprang up at once from her seat. "I quite forgot that you
were not a country lass like myself," she said; "as it must be almost
tea-time now, perhaps we had better return home."
"Dinner at one, tea at six--how deliciously old-fashioned and
rural!"
"Would you object to return by the village? I wished to inquire for
poor old Mrs. Arkwright?"
 "Object! I am only too much delighted to go where there is
anything stirring, be it only a baker's cart!"
"I think that some day, Ada, I must introduce you to some of my
favourite poor people."
"I must get up a little appropriate small-talk first," laughed her
cousin. "I should feel almost as much out of my element in a cottage
as one of your plough-boys would do in a ball-room. I could neither
speak of amusements, nor fashions, nor pictures, nor parties; I
cannot imagine what one would say after the first 'Good morning' and
the usual observations on the weather."
"Oh! how diverting it would be," cried Flora, with sudden
animation, "to set you to teach a class at the school!"
"I'd make it a dancing-class at once, and substitute graceful
courtesies for the little short bob which always reminds me of Jack in
the box; and the little boys should learn to make elegant bows,
instead of pulling down their own heads by tugging at the fore-locks!"
"You would not be so hard upon the simple salutations of our
little rustics, Ada, had you seen our village in the old time, when a
bob or a bow was an unheard-of piece of politeness."
"It is a very pretty village," said Ada, as the picturesque row of
white cottages opened on their view; the latticed windows glowing
bright in the sun's setting rays, the small neat gardens gay with many
a flower; while in the foreground the church, of simple but graceful
architecture, raised its glittering spire towards heaven.
"It was a very different place twelve years ago," said Flora,
"when my dear parents first came to reside here. There was not a
church then within four miles, and the people here lived in a state of
almost heathen darkness. The cottages were miserable hovels, I have
heard, and seemed purposely contrived to keep out sun and air, and
admit the snow and the rain. Half of the children had never been
baptized, and ran about bare-foot and bare-headed, as dirty and as
ignorant as the very pigs with which they associated! The only
thriving establishments were the ale-houses, and the character of the
place was altogether so bad that it was really dangerous to be out
after dark."
"And what worked such a wonderful change?"
"Oh, everything was gradually done, by patience and untiring zeal
and benevolence. My dear father expended much money, and more
time, in improving the dwellings of the poor, combating prejudices,
inviting the lazy to exertion, raising a spirit of order. My mother
exerted herself amongst the women. They regarded her with
suspicion at first, and were very jealous of interference. They seemed
to consider it as their privilege to be ragged and dirty. But nothing
could withstand the power of her gentleness and kindness. The first
great step was gathering some of the children to a little class in our
own house."
"Oh!" exclaimed Ada, "and could your mother really endure to
have a set of ragged, bare-footed little wretches, with unwashed faces
and uncombed hair, in her house?"
"She not only endured them, but she loved them; and soon, very
soon, they were neither ragged nor untidy. A smile and a word from
mamma accomplished more than a long lecture from another would
have done. As the children learned to read, they carried Bibles and
little religious publications into their parents' miserable homes:
gradually a taste for reading was produced, and my father took care
that it should be gratified by useful and improving works. All this time
my parents were making every effort to collect subscriptions for
building and endowing a church--regular schools followed, until at
length our poor village became the dear, peaceful, happy little place
that you behold it now."
"Well," cried Ada, "it must have given your parents a great deal
of pleasure to see all the good that they had done."
"You do admit then," said Flora, archly, "that even the country
may have its pleasures?"
"Yes; but only think at what a price the pleasure was purchased!
Only think of the misery of being imprisoned in a place quite out of
the world, with no society at all; your only occupation--picking your
way into dirty hovels through rivers of mud, tumbling over ragged
urchins, lecturing poachers and sheep-stealers, coaxing and coddling
sick old women, and then returning home to write begging-letters for
subscriptions to friends who are sure to have 'so many calls' that they
wish you at Nova Zembla for adding another!"
Ada interrupted herself as a sweet golden-haired little boy lifted
the latch of the gate of a tiny garden, and timidly, as if abashed by
the presence of a stranger, offered a bunch of violets to Flora. She
received them as graciously as though they had been a chaplet of
pearls, and her words of thanks made the face of the child radiant
with joy.
"Quite a chivalrous attention," said Ada, as they moved on.
"Oh, my children love me, and often bring me their little
offerings. On my birth-day our myrtle was quite covered with their
garlands of early spring flowers."
She now stopped at the door of a cottage and knocked. A feeble
"Come in" sounded from the interior, and she entered, followed by
Ada, who gathered together the folds of her silk dress, afraid to let
them come in contact with the walls of the lowly dwelling. But her
own luxurious home could not have presented a picture of more
perfect cleanliness and neatness than that humble abode; there was
nothing to shock even the refined taste of a lady of fashion.
An aged woman, in a snowy cap, was seated in an arm-chair
beside a small fire; while a woman who had been engaged in ironing,
paused in her occupation to drop a humble courtesy to Flora.
"How are you feeling to-day?" said Flora, in a tone of gentlest
sympathy, approaching the invalid, and laying her soft fingers on the
thin wrinkled hand that feebly grasped the arm of the chair.
"All the better for a sight of your sweet face--blessings on it! But
I'm going--going fast! I shall soon be in my home. God be praised for
His mercies!"
Ada sat down on the wooden three-legged stool which the
washerwoman, after wiping it with her apron, placed for her
accommodation, and listened silently and wonderingly to the dialogue
between the aged woman and her visitor. There was no forced
conversation, no difficulty in finding themes for discourse. Their
subjects were the highest, the most solemn, the most interesting
which can occupy the minds of immortals. Mrs. Arkwright was near
the grave, and she knew it. She was calmly standing on the brink of
the Jordan awaiting the signal from the Lord whom she had loved,
and leaning upon the staff of His promise, "When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee."
Ada had ever connected the idea of death with terror and gloom.
The struggle, the darkness, the parting from everything once prized,
the hatchment, the hearse with its black nodding plumes, the cold
desolation of the grave,--such were the images brought to her mind
by the word; and she had turned from them with repugnance and
horror. But here she beheld death in a totally different aspect, as a
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