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Chapter Five Why Priscilla Peel went to St. Benets
Mr Peel managed to save a little money out of his earnings. He took year by year these savings to the nearest County Bank, and invested them to the best of his ability. The bank broke, and in one fell stroke he lost all the savings of a life. This affected his health, and he never held up his head or recovered his vigour of mind and body again.
He died, and two years afterwards his wife followed him. Priscilla was then fourteen, and there were three little sisters several years younger. They were merry little children, strong, healthy, untouched by care. Priscilla, on the contrary, was grave, and looked much older than her years.
On the night their mother was buried, Aunt Rachel Peel, their fathers sister, came from her home far away on the borders of Devonshire, and told the four desolate children that she was going to take them away to live on her little farm with her.
Aunt Raby spoke in a very frank manner. She concealed nothing.
Its only fair to tell you, Prissie, she said, addressing the tall, gawky girl, who stood with her hands folded in front of her its only fair to tell you that hitherto Ive just made two
ends meet for one mouth alone, and how Im to fill four extra ones the Lord knows, but I dont. Still, Im going to try, for it shall never be said that Andrew Peels children wanted bread while his sister, Rachel Peel, lived.
We have none of us big appetites, said Priscilla, after a long, solemn pause; we can do with very little food very little. The only one who ever is really hungry is Hattie.
Aunt Raby looked up at the pale face, for Prissie was taller than her aunt even then, and said in a shocked voice
Good gracious, child! do you think Id stint one of you? You ought all to be hearty, and I hope you will be. No, no, it isnt that, Prissie, but therell be no luxuries, so dont you expect them.
I dont want them, answered Priscilla.
The children all went to Devonshire, and Aunt Raby toiled, as perhaps no woman had ever toiled before, to put bread into their mouths. Katie had a fever, which made her pale and thin, and took away that look of robustness which had characterised the little Yorkshire maiden. Nobody thought about the childrens education, and they might have grown up without any were it not for Priscilla, who taught them what she knew herself. Nobody thought Priscilla clever; she had no brilliance about her in any way, but she had a great gift for acquiring knowledge. Wherever she went she picked up a fresh fact, or a fresh fancy, or a new idea, and these she turned over and over in her active, strong, young brain, until she assimilated them, and made them part of herself.
Amongst the few things that had been saved from her early home there was a box of her fathers old books, and as these comprised several of the early poets and essayists, she might have gone farther and fared worse.
One day the old clergyman who lived at a small vicarage near called to see Miss Peel. He discovered Priscilla deep over Carlyles History of the French Revolution. The young girl had become absorbed in the fascination of the wild and terrible tale. Some of the horror of it had got into her eyes as she raised them to return Mr Hayes courteous greeting. His attention was arrested by the look she gave him. He questioned her about her reading, and presently offered to help her. From this hour Priscilla made rapid progress. She was not taught in the ordinary fashion, but she was being really educated. Her life was full now; she knew nothing about the world, nothing about society. She had no ambitions, and she did not trouble herself to look very far ahead. The old classics which she studied from morning till night abundantly satisfied her really strong intellectual nature.
Mr Hayes allowed her to talk with him, even to argue points with him. He always liked her to draw her own conclusions; he encouraged her really original ideas; he was proud of his pupil, and he grew fond of her. It was not Priscillas way to say a word about it, but she soon loved the old clergyman as if he were her father.
Some time between her sixteenth and seventeenth birthday that awakening came which altered the whole course of her life. It was a summers day. Priscilla was seated in the old wainscotted parlour of the cottage, devouring a book lent to her by Mr Hayes on the origin of the Greek Drama, and occasionally bending to kiss little Katie, who sat curled up in her arms, when the two elder children rushed in with the information that Aunt Raby had suddenly lain flat down in the hayfield, and they thought she was asleep.
Prissie tumbled her book in one direction, and Katie in the other. In a moment she was kneeling by Miss Peels side.
What is it, Aunt Raby? she asked, tenderly. Are you ill?
The tired woman opened her eyes slowly.
I think I fainted, dear love, she said. Perhaps it was the heat of the sun.
Priscilla managed to get her back into the house. She grew better presently, and seemed something like herself, but that evening the aunt and niece had a long talk, and the next day Prissie went up to see Mr Hayes.