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100% found this document useful (5 votes)
20 views

Solution Manual for Oracle SQL By Example, 4/E 4th Edition Alice Rischertdownload

The document is a promotional piece for the Solution Manual for 'Oracle SQL By Example, 4/E' by Alice Rischert, highlighting its comprehensive coverage of Oracle SQL techniques and practical exercises. It emphasizes the book's suitability for both beginners and experienced users, providing insights into various SQL functions, optimization, and database security. Additionally, it includes links to other related solution manuals and test banks available for download.

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Foreword xxxi
Preface xxxiv
Chapter 1: SQL and Data 1
Chapter 2: SQL: The Basics 49
Chapter 3: The WHERE and ORDER BY Clauses 101
Chapter 4: Character, Number, and Miscellaneous Functions 133
Chapter 5: Date and Conversion Functions 189
Chapter 6: Aggregate Functions, GROUP BY, and HAVING Clauses 263
Chapter 7: Equijoins 285
Chapter 8: Subqueries 323
Chapter 9: Set Operators 377
Chapter 10: Complex Joins 399
Chapter 11: Insert, Update, and Delete 429
Chapter 12: Create, Alter, and Drop Tables 503
Chapter 13: Indexes, Sequences, and Views 571
Chapter 14: The Data Dictionary, Scripting, and Reporting 615
Chapter 15: Security 661
Chapter 16: Regular Expressions and Hierarchical Queries 695
Chapter 17: Exploring Data Warehousing Features 741
Chapter 18: SQL Optimization 803
Appendix A: Answers to Quiz Questions 839
Appendix B: SQL Formatting Guide 855
Appendix C: SQL*Plus Command Reference 859
Appendix D: STUDENT Database Schema 873
Appendix E: Table and Column Descriptions 875
Appendix F: Additional Example Tables 881
Appendix G: Navigating the Oracle Documentation 887
Appendix H: Resources 893
Appendix I: Oracle Data Types 897
Index 899
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Chavasse not well? A carriage waiting to take me to the Grange?
Thank fortune at least that I have not to walk there.
May 22nd.—Four days, and nothing noted down. But I have been
very busy, what with Lady Chavasse and other patients. The doubt is
over, and over well. The little child is a boy, and a nice little fellow,
too; healthy, and likely to live. He was born on the 20th. Lady
Chavasse, in her gladness, says she shall get well all one way. I think
she will: the mind strangely influences the body. But my lady is a
little hard—what some might call unforgiving. Her mother came very
many miles, posting across country, to see her and be reconciled,
and Lady Chavasse refused to receive her. Mrs. Cust had to go back
again as she came. I should not like to see my wife treat her mother
so.
May 30th.—The child is to be named Geoffry Arthur. Sir Peter had a
dislike to his own name, and had said he hoped never to call a boy
of his by the same. Lady Chavasse, mindful of his every wish, has
fixed on the other two. I asked her if they were the names of
relatives: she laughed and said, No; she chose them because she
thought them both nice-sounding and noble names.

The above is all that need be copied from Mr. Layne: one has to be
chary of space. Little Sir Geoffry grew and thrived: and it was a
pleasure, people say, to see how happy his mother and he were, and
how she devoted herself to him. He had come to her in the midst of
her desolation, when she had nothing else to care for in life. It was
already seen that he would be much like his father, who had been a
very good-looking man in his day. Little Geoffry had Sir Peter’s fair
complexion and his dark-blue eyes. He was a sweet, tractable child;
and Lady Chavasse thought him just an angel come down from
heaven.
Time went on. When Geoffry was about seven years old—and a very
pretty boy, with fair curls—he went out surreptitiously on a fishing
expedition, fell into the pond, and was nearly drowned. It left a
severe cold upon him, which his nurse, Wilkins, said served him
right. However, from that time he seemed to be less strong; and at
length Lady Chavasse took him to London to show him to the
doctors. The doctors told her he ought to be, for a time, in a warmer
climate: and she went with him into Devonshire. But he still kept
delicate. And the upshot was that Lady Chavasse let the Grange for
a long term to the Goldingham family, and went away.
And so, many years passed. The Goldinghams lived on at the
Grange: and Lady Chavasse nearly slipped out of remembrance. Mr.
Layne fell into ill health as he grew older, and advertised for a
partner. It was Duffham who answered it (a youngish man then) and
they went into arrangements.
It is necessary to say something of Mr. Layne’s children. There were
four of them, girls. The eldest, Susan, married a Lieutenant Layne
(some distant relative, who came from the West Indies), and went
with him to India, where his regiment was serving, taking also her
next sister, Eleanor. The third, Elizabeth, was at home; the young
one, Mary, born several years after the others, was in a school as
governess-pupil, or under-teacher. It is not often that village
practitioners can save money, let alone make a fortune.
The next thing was, that Mr. Layne died. His death made all the
difference to his family. Mr. Duffham succeeded to the practice; by
arrangement he was to pay something yearly for five years to Mrs.
Layne; and she had a small income of her own. She would not quit
the house; it was hers now her husband was gone. Mr. Duffham
took one opposite: a tall house, with a bow-window to the parlour:
before that, he had been in apartments. Mary Layne came home
about this time, and stayed there for some weeks. She had been
much overworked in the school, and Mrs. Layne thought she
required rest. She was a pleasing girl, with soft brown eyes and a
nice face, and was very good and gentle; thinking always of others,
never of self. Old Duffham may choose to deny it now he’s grown
older, but he thought her superior then to the whole world.
Matters were in this state when news spread that the Goldinghams
had received notice to quit the Grange: Sir Geoffry, who would be of
age the following year, was coming home to it with his mother.
Accordingly the Goldinghams departed; and the place was re-
embellished and put in order for the rightful owner. He arrived in
April with Lady Chavasse: and I’ll copy for you what Duffham says
about it. Mr. Layne had then been dead about two years.

[From Mr. Duffham’s Diary.]

April 29th.—The new people—or I suppose I ought to say the old


people—reached the Grange yesterday, and I was called in to-day to
the lady’s-maid—Wilkins. My lady I don’t like; Sir Geoffry I do. He is
a good-looking, slight young man of middle height, with a fair
refined face and honest eyes, blue as they tell me Sir Peter’s used to
be. An honourable, well-intentioned young fellow I am sure; affable
and considerate as his mother is haughty. Poor Layne used to cry
her up; he thought great things of her. I do not. It may be that
power has made her selfish, and foreign travel imperious; but she’s
both selfish and imperious now. She is nice-looking still; and though
she wants but a year of forty, and her son is only one-and-twenty,
they are almost like brother and sister. Or would be, but for Sir
Geoffry’s exceeding consideration for his mother; his love and
deference for her are a pattern to the young men of the present day.
She has trained him to be obedient, that’s certain, and to love her
too: and so I suppose she has done her duty by him well. He came
down the broad walk with me from the hall-door, talking of his
mother: I had happened to say that the place must seem quite
strange to Lady Chavasse. “Yes, it must,” he answered. “She has
exiled herself from it for my sake. Mr. Duffham,” he continued
warmly, “you cannot imagine what an admirable mother mine has
been! She resigned ease, rest, society, to devote herself to me. She
gave me a home-tutor, that she might herself watch over and train
me; she went to and fro between England and foreign places with
me everlastingly; even when I was at Oxford, she took a house a
mile or two out, that we might not be quite separated. I pray
Heaven constantly that I may never cross her in thought, word, or
deed: but live only to repay her love.” Rather Utopian this: but I
honour the young fellow for it. I’ve only seen him for an hour at
most, and am already wishing there were more like him in the world.
If his mother has faults, he does not see them; he will never honour
any other woman as he honours her. A contrast, this, to the
contempt, ingratitude, and disrespect that some sons think it manly
to show their best and truest earthly parent.
My lady is vexed, I can see, at this inopportune illness of her maid’s;
for the Grange is all upside down with the preparations for the grand
fête to be held on the 20th of next month, when Sir Geoffry will
come of age. Wilkins has been in the family for many years: she was
originally the boy’s nurse: and is quite the right hand of Lady
Chavasse, so far as household management goes. Her illness just
now is inopportune.

[End, for the present, of Mr. Duffham’s Diary.]

Nothing was talked of, in the village or out of it, but the grand
doings that were to usher in the majority of Sir Geoffry. As to Lady
Chavasse, few people had seen her. Her maid’s illness, as was
supposed, kept her indoors; and some of the guests were already
arriving at the Grange.
One morning, when it wanted about a week to the 20th, Mrs. Layne,
making a pillow-case at her parlour window, in her widow’s cap and
spectacles, with the Venetian blind open to get all the light she
could, was startled by seeing Lady Chavasse’s barouche draw up to
her door, and Lady Chavasse preparing to descend from it. Mrs.
Layne instinctively rose, as to a superior, and took her glasses off: it
has been said she was of a humble turn: and upon Lady Chavasse
fixing her eyes upon her in what seemed some surprise, dropped a
curtsy, and thought to herself how fortunate it was she happened to
have put a clean new cap on. With that, Lady Chavasse said
something to the footman, who banged the carriage-door to, and
ordered the coachman across the road. Mrs. Layne understood it at
once: she had come to the house in mistake for Duffham’s. Of
course, with that grand carriage to look at opposite, and the
gorgeous servants, and my lady, in a violet velvet mantle trimmed
with ermine, alighting and stepping in to Duffham’s, Mrs. Layne let
fall her pillow-case, and did no more of it. But she was not prepared,
when Lady Chavasse came out again with Mr. Duffham, to see him
escort her over the road to her gate. Mrs. Layne had just time to
open her parlour-door, and say to the servant, “In the other room:
show her ladyship into the other room,” before she went off into
complete bewilderment, and ran away with the pillow-case.
The other room was the best room. Mary Layne sat there at the old
piano, practising. She had seen and heard nothing of all this; and
rose in astonishment when the invasion took place. A beautiful lady,
whom Mary did not know or recognize, was holding out a delicately-
gloved hand to her, and saying that she resembled her father. It was
Mary Layne’s first meeting with Lady Chavasse: she had just come
home again from some heavy place of teaching, finding her strength
unequal to it.
“I should have known you, I think, for a daughter of Mr. Layne’s had
I met you in the street,” said Lady Chavasse, graciously.
Mary was blushing like anything. Lady Chavasse thought her an
elegant girl, in spite of the shabby black silk she was dressed in:
very pretty too. At least, it was a nice countenance; and my lady
quite took to it. Mrs. Layne, having collected her wits, and taken off
her apron, came in then: and Mary, who was humble-minded also,
though not exactly in the same way that her mother was, modestly
retired.
My lady was all graciousness: just as much so that morning as she
used to be. Perhaps the sight of Mrs. Layne put her in mind of the
old days when she was herself suffering trouble in a widow’s cap,
and not knowing how matters would turn out for her, or how they
would not. She told Mrs. Layne that she had, unthinkingly, bid her
servants that morning drive to Mr. Layne’s! and it was only when she
saw Mrs. Layne at the window in her widow’s cap, that she
remembered the mistake. She talked of her son Geoffry, praising his
worth and his goodness; she bade Mrs. Layne to the fête on the
20th, saying she must come and bring her two daughters, and she
would take no denial. And Mrs. Layne, curtsying again—which did
not become her, for she was short and stout—opened the front-door
to her ladyship with her own hands, and stood there curtsying until
the carriage had dashed away.
“We’ll go on the 20th,” she said to her daughters. “I didn’t like to say
nay to her ladyship; and I should be glad to see what the young
heir’s like. He was as pretty a boy as you’d wish to see. There’ll no
doubt be some people there of our own condition that we can mix
with, and it will be in the open air: so we shan’t feel strange.”
But when the day arrived, and they had reached the Grange, it
seemed that they felt very strange. Whether amidst the crowds they
did not find any of their “own condition,” or that none were there,
Mrs. Layne did not know. Once, they came near Lady Chavasse.
Lady Chavasse, surrounded by a bevy of people that Mrs. Layne took
to be lords and ladies—and perhaps she was right—bowed distantly,
and waved her hand, as much as to say, “Make yourselves at home,
but don’t trouble me:” and Mrs. Layne curtsyed herself to a
respectful distance. It was a fine bright day, very warm; and she sat
on a bench in the park with her daughters, listening to the band,
looking at the company, and wondering which was the heir. Some
hours seemed to pass in this way, and gradually the grounds grew
deserted. People were eating and drinking in a distant tent—the
lords and ladies Mrs. Layne supposed, and she did not presume to
venture amongst them. Presently a young man approached, who
had observed from a distance the solitary group. A fat old lady in
widow’s mourning; and the younger ones in pretty white bonnets
and new black silks.
“Will you allow me to take you where you will find some
refreshment?” he said, raising his hat, and addressing Mrs. Layne.
She paused before answering, taken aback by his looks, as she
described it afterwards, for he put her in mind of Sir Peter. It was as
nice a face as Sir Peter’s used to be, clean-shaved, except for the
light whiskers: and if those were not Sir Peter’s kindly blue eyes,
why, her memory failed her. But the dress puzzled Mrs. Layne: he
wore a dark-blue frock-coat and grey trousers, a white waistcoat
with a thin gold chain passed across it and a drooping seal: all very
nice and gentlemanly certainly, but quite plain. What she had
expected to see the heir attired in, Mrs. Layne never afterwards
settled with herself: perhaps purple and miniver.
“I beg your pardon sir,” she said, speaking at length, “but I think you
must be Sir Geoffry?”
“Yes, I am Sir Geoffry.”
“Lord bless me!” cried Mrs. Layne.
She told him who she was, adding, as an apology for being found
there, that her ladyship had invited her and her girls, and wouldn’t
take a denial. Geoffry held out his arm cordially to lead her to the
tent, and glanced behind at the “girls,” remembering what his
mother had said to him of one of them: “a sweet-looking young
woman, Geoffry, poor Layne’s daughter, quite an elegant girl.” Yes,
she was sweet-looking and elegant also, Geoffry decided. The elder
one was like her mother, short, stout, and—Geoffry could not help
seeing it—commonplace. He told Mrs. Layne that he could remember
her husband still: he spoke of a ride the doctor had taken him,
seated before him on his horse; and altogether in that short minute
or two won, by his true affability, the heart of the doctor’s widow.
The tent was crowded to confusion. Waiters were running about,
and there was much rattle of knives and forks. Sir Geoffry could find
only two places anywhere; at which he seated Mrs. Layne and her
daughter Elizabeth, according to precedence.
“I will find you a place in the other tent, if you will come with me,”
he said to Mary.
She wished to refuse. She had a suspicion that the other tent was
the one for the “lords and ladies,” people who were altogether above
her. But Sir Geoffry was holding up the canvas for her to pass out,
and she was too timid to disobey. He walked by her side almost in
silence, speaking a courteous word or two only, to put her at her
ease. The band was playing “The Roast Beef of Old England.”
But the other tent seemed in worse confusion as far as crowding
went. Some one turned on her seat to accost Sir Geoffry: a slight,
upright girl, with finely-carved features of that creamy white rarely
seen, and a haughty expression in her very light eyes.
“You are being waited for, Geoffry. Don’t you know that you
preside?”
“No; nonsense!” he answered. “There’s to be nothing of that sort,
Rachel; no presiding. I am going to walk about and look out for stray
people. Some of the strangers will get nothing, if they are not seen
after. Could you make room for one by you?”
“Who is it?” she asked.
Sir Geoffry said a word in her ear, and she moved a few inches
higher up. He stepped back to Mary Layne. She had been looking at
the young lady, who was so richly dressed—in some thin material of
shimmering blue and lace—and who was so utterly at her ease as to
be sitting without her bonnet, which she had put at her feet.
“We have made a place for you,” said Sir Geoffry. “I fear you will be
a little crowded. Miss Layne, Rachel.”
Mary waited to thank him before taking it. Her cheeks were full of
blushes, her soft dark eyes went out to his. She felt ashamed that
he should take so much trouble for her, and strove to say so. Sir
Geoffry held her hand while he answered, his own eyes looking back
again.
But Mary sat for some minutes before any one came to wait on her.
The young lady whom Sir Geoffry had called Rachel was busy with
her own plate, and did not observe. Presently, she looked round.
“Dear me! what are they about? Field!” she imperatively called to the
butler, who was passing. He turned at once.
“My lady?”
“Have the goodness to attend here,” said Lady Rachel, indicating the
vacant space before Miss Layne. “This young lady has had nothing.”
“So I really am amidst the lords and ladies,” thought Mary, as the
butler presented her with a card of the dishes, made out in French,
and inquired what she would be pleased to take. She was
inexperienced and shy; and did not know where to look or what to
say. Lady Rachel spoke to her once or twice, and was civilly distant:
and so the half-hour was got over. When Sir Geoffry’s health was
proposed by Lord L., the young baronet suddenly appeared in his
rightful place at the head of the table. He thanked them all very
heartily in a few words; and said he hoped he should live long, as
they had all just been wishing him, live that he might repay his dear
mother one tithe of the sacrifices she had made, and the love she
had lavished on him.
The cheers broke forth as he finished, his eyes wet with the sincerity
of his feeling, the music burst out with a crash, “See the conquering
hero comes,” and Mary Layne felt every nerve thrill within her; as if
she would faint with the excess of unwonted emotion.

[Mr. Duffham’s Diary.]

June 2nd.—The rejoicings are well over, and Sir Geoffry Chavasse is
his own master. In law, at any rate; but it strikes me he will never
know any will but his mother’s. It’s not that he possesses none of his
own—rather the contrary, I fancy; but in his filial love and reverence
he merges it in hers. It is, on the one hand, good to see; on the
other, one can but fancy his ideal of the fifth commandment is
somewhat exaggerated. Lady Chavasse on her part seems bound up
in him. To him there is no sign of imperiousness, no assertion of self-
will: and, so far as can be seen, she does not exact deference.
“Geoffry, would you wish this?” she says. “Geoffry, would you like
the other? My darling Geoffry, don’t you think it might be well to do
so-and-so?” No. It is a case of genuine filial respect and love; and
one can but honour Lady Chavasse for have gained it.
My lady has condescended to be almost confidential with me. The
illness of her maid has been a long and serious one, and I have had
to be a good deal at the Grange. “Sir Geoffry is engaged to be
married, Mr. Duffham,” she said to me yesterday, when our
conversation had turned—as it often does turn—on Sir Geoffry. I
could not help showing some surprise: and, one word leading to
another, I soon grasped the whole case. Not so much by what she
directly said, as by the habit I have of putting two-and-two together.
Conspicuous amidst the guests at the fête on the 20th of May, was
Lady Rachel Derreston: a cold, self-possessed girl, with strictly
classical features, and the palest blue eyes I ever saw. It would be a
very handsome face—and indeed is so—but for its cold, proud
expression; she is the daughter of one of Lady Chavasse’s sisters,
who married the Earl of Derreston, and is now a very slenderly-
portioned widow with some expensive daughters. It is to this Lady
Rachel that Sir Geoffry is engaged. The engagement is not of his
own seeking, or of hers; the two mothers settled it between them
when the children were young; they have been brought up to look
on each other as future husband and wife, and have done so as a
matter-of-course. Neither of them, by what I can gather, has the
slightest intention, or wish, to turn aside from fulfilling the contract:
they will ratify it in just the same business manner and with the
same calm feelings that they would take the lease of a house. It is
not their fault: they should not have been led into it. Human nature
is cross and contrary as a crab: had the two young people been
thrown together now for the first time, and been warned not to fall
in love with each other, the chances are they would have tumbled
headlong into it before the week was out: as it is, they like each
other as cousins, or brother and sister, but they’ll never get beyond
that. I can see. The two old sisters have a private understanding
with each other—and my young Lady Rachel dutifully falls in with it
—that after the marriage Lady Chavasse shall still live and rule at the
Grange. Indeed she implied it when she let fall the words, perhaps
unthinkingly—“Geoffry would never marry to put me out of my home
here, Mr. Duffham.” And I am sure that he never would.
Lady Rachel is here still. I often see her and Sir Geoffry together,
indoors or out; but I have never yet seen a symptom of courtship on
either side. They call each other “Geoffry” and “Rachel;” and are as
indifferently familiar as brother and sister. That they will be
sufficiently happy with a quiet, moonlight kind of happiness, is
almost sure. I find that I am not at liberty to mention this
engagement abroad: and that’s why I say my lady has grown
confidential with me.
June 29th.—Wilkins continues very ill; and it puts my lady about
amazingly. The maid who has been taking Wilkins’s duties, Hester
Picker, is a country girl of the locality, Goody Picker’s daughter; her
services being as different from those of the easy, experienced
Wilkins, as darkness is from light. “She manages my hair
atrociously,” cried my lady to me, one day, in her vexation; “she
attempted to write a note for me in answer to inquiries for the
character of my late page, and the spelling was so bad it could not
be sent.”
Lady Rachel has left. Sir Geoffry escorted her to her home (near
Bath), stayed two days there, and came back again. And glad to be
back, evidently: he does not care to be long separated from his
mother. The more I see of this young fellow, the more I like him. He
has no bad habits; does not smoke or swear: reads, rides, drives,
loves flowers, and is ever ready to do a good turn for rich or poor.
“You appear to have grown up quite strong, Sir Geoffry,” I said to
him to-day when we were in the greenhouse, and he leaped on a
ledge to do something or other to the broken cord of the window.
“Oh, quite,” he answered. “I think I am stronger and heartier than
most men: and I owe thanks for it to my mother. It was not only my
health of body she cared for and watched over, but of mind. She
taught me to love rational pursuits; she showed me how to choose
the good, and reject the evil: it is she alone who has made me what
I am.”
July 5th.—Mary Layne is going to the Grange as companion to Lady
Chavasse. “Humble companion,” as my lady takes care to put it. It
has been brought about in this way. Wilkins is slightly improving: but
it will be months before she can resume her duties about Lady
Chavasse: and my lady has at length got this opinion out of me.
“Five or six months!” she exclaimed in dismay. “But it is only what I
have lately suspected. Mr. Duffham, I have been thinking that I must
take a companion; and now this has confirmed it. A humble
companion, who will not object to do my hair on state occasions,
and superintend Picker in trimming my dresses, especially the lace;
and who will write notes for me when I desire it, and read to me
when Sir Geoffry’s not here; and sit with me if I wish it. She
wouldn’t dine with us, of course; but I might sometimes let her sit
down to luncheon. In short, what I want is a well-educated, lady-like
young woman, who will make herself useful. Do you happen to know
of one?”
I mentioned Mary Layne. She has been wishing not to return to the
heavy work and confinement of a school, where she had to sit up
late, night after night, correcting exercises, and touching up
drawings by gas-light. My lady caught at it at once. “Mary Layne! the
very thing. I like the look of the girl much, Mr. Duffham; and of
course she won’t be above doing anything required of her: Layne,
the apothecary’s daughter, cannot be called a gentlewoman in
position, you know.”
She forgot I was an apothecary also; I’ll give her that credit. But this
is a specimen of the way my lady’s exclusive spirit peeps out.
And so it is settled. And if Miss Mary had been suddenly offered a
position in the Royal household, she could not have thought more of
it. “Mr. Duffham, I will try my very best to satisfy Lady Chavasse,”
says she to me, in an ecstasy; “I will do anything and everything
required of me: who am I, that I should be above it?” And by the
glistening of her sweet brown eyes, and the rose-blush on her
cheeks, it would seem that she fancies she is going into fairy-land.
Well, the Grange is a nice place: and she is to have thirty guineas a-
year. At the last school she had twenty pounds: at the first ten.

[End of the Diary for the present.]

Miss Layne entered the Grange with trepidation. She had never been
inside the house, and at first thought it was fairy-land realized and
that she was out of place in it. A broad flight of three or four steps
led up to the wide entrance-door; the brilliant colours from the
painted windows shone on the mosaic pavement of the hall; on the
right were the grand drawing-rooms; on the left the dining-room and
Sir Geoffry’s library. Behind the library, going down a step or two
was a low, shady apartment, its glass doors opening to a small grass
plat, round which flowers were planted; and beyond it lay the
fragrant herbary. This little room was called the garden-room; and
on the morning of Miss Layne’s arrival, after she had taken off her
things, Hester Picker (who thought almost as much of the old
surgeon’s daughter as she did of my lady) curtsyed her into it, and
said it was to be Miss Layne’s sitting-room, when she was not with
my lady.
Mary Layne looked around. She thought it charming. It had an old
Turkey carpet, and faded red chairs, and a shabby checked cloth on
the table, with other ancient furniture; but the subdued light was
grateful after the garish July sun, and a sweetness came in from the
herbs and flowers. Mary stood, wondering what she had to do first,
and not quite daring to sit down even on one of the old red chairs.
The Grange was the Grange, and my lady was my lady; and they
were altogether above the sphere in which she had been brought
up. She had a new lilac muslin dress on, fresh and simple; her
smooth brown hair had a bit of lilac ribbon in it; and she looked as
pretty and ladylike as a girl can look. Standing at the back, there
beyond the able, was she, when Sir Geoffry walked in at the glass
doors, his light summer coat thrown back, and a heap of small paper
packets in his hands, containing seeds. At first he looked astonished:
not remembering her.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” he exclaimed, his face lighting up, as he
took off his straw hat. “Miss Mary Layne, I think. I did not know you
at the moment. My mother said she expected you to-day.”
He came round to her with outstretched hand, and then put a chair
for her, just as though she had been a duchess—or Lady Rachel
Derreston. Mary did not take the chair: she felt strange in her new
home, and as yet very timid.
“I am not sure what Lady Chavasse would wish me to do,” she
ventured to say, believing it might be looked upon as next door to a
crime to be seen idle, in a place where she was to receive thirty
guineas a-year. “There appears to be no work here.”
“Get a book, and read!” cried Sir Geoffry. “I’ll find you one as soon
as I have put up these seeds. A box of new novels has just come
from town. I hope you will make yourself at home with us, and be
happy,” he added, in his kindness.
“Thank you, sir; I am sure I shall.”
He was putting up the seeds, when Lady Chavasse entered. She had
a way of taking likes and dislikes, and she never scrupled to show
either. On this first day, it seemed that she did not know how to
make enough of Mary. She chose to forget that she was only to be
the humble companion, and treated her as a guest. She carried her
in to take luncheon with herself and Sir Geoffry; she made her play
and sing; she showed her the drawing-rooms and the flower-
gardens, and finally took her out in the barouche. She certainly did
not ask her in to dinner, but said she should expect her to come to
the drawing-room afterwards, and spend the evening. And Miss
Layne, not ignorant of the customs obtaining in great houses,
dressed herself for it in her one evening dress of white spotted
muslin, and changed the lilac ribbon in her hair for blue.
So that, you perceive, the girl was inaugurated at the Grange as a
young lady, almost as an equal, and not as a servant—as Lady
Chavasse’s true opinion would have classed her. That was mistake
the first. For it led Sir Geoffry to make a companion of Miss Layne;
that is, to treat her as though she belonged to their order; which
otherwise he certainly would not have done. Had Miss Layne been
assigned her true place at first—the place that Lady Chavasse meant
her to fill, that of an inferior and humble dependent—Sir Geoffry, out
of simple respect to the girl and to his mother, would have kept his
distance.
As the time passed on they grew great friends. Lady Chavasse
retained her liking for Mary, and saw no harm in the growing
intimacy with Sir Geoffry. That was mistake the second. Both of
them were drifting into love; but Lady Chavasse dreamt it not. The
social gulf that spread itself between Sir Geoffry Chavasse, of
Chavasse Grange, and Mary Layne, daughter of the late hard-worked
village apothecary, was one that Lady Chavasse would have said
(had she been asked to think about it) could never be bridged over:
and for this very reason she saw no danger in the intercourse. She
regarded Mary Layne as of a totally different caste from themselves,
and never supposed but Sir Geoffry did so too.
And so time went on, on the wings of love. There were garden walks
together and moonlight saunterings; meetings in my lady’s presence,
meetings without it. Sir Geoffry, going in and out of the garden-
parlour at will, as he had been accustomed to do—for it was where
all kinds of things belonging to him were kept: choice seeds, his
fishing-rods, his collection of butterflies—would linger there by the
hour together, talking to Mary at her work. And, before either of
them was conscious of the danger, they had each passed into a
dream that changed everything about them to Paradise.
Of course, Sir Geoffry, when he awoke to the truth—that it was love
—ought to have gone away, or have contrived to get his mother to
dismiss Miss Layne. He did nothing of the sort. And for this, some
people—Duffham for one—held him even more to blame than for
anything that happened afterwards. But how could he voluntarily
blight his new happiness, and hers? It was so intense as to absorb
every other feeling; it took his common sense away from him. And
thus they went dreaming on together in that one spring-time (of the
heart, not of the weather), and never thought about drifting into
shoals and pitfalls.
In the autumn my lady went to the seaside in Cornwall, taking Mary
as her maid, and escorted by her son. “Will you do for me what I
want while I am away? I do not care to be troubled with Picker,” she
had said; and Mary replied, as in duty bound, that she would. It is
inconvenient to treat a maid as a lady, especially in a strange place,
and Mary found that during this sojourn Lady Chavasse did not
attempt it. To all intents and purposes Mary was the maid now; she
did not sit with her lady, she took her meals apart; she was, in fact,
regarded as the lady’s-maid by all, and nothing else. Lady Chavasse
even took to calling her “Layne.” This, the sudden dethroning of her
social status, was the third mistake; and this one, as the first, was
my lady’s. Sir Geoffry had been led to regard her as a companion;
now he saw her but as a servant. But, servant or no servant, you
cannot put love out of the heart, once it has possession of it.
At the month’s end they returned home: and there Mary found that
she was to retain this lower station: never again would she be
exalted as she had been. Lady Chavasse had tired of the new toy,
and just carelessly allowed her to find her own level. Except that
Miss Layne sat in the garden-parlour, and her meals were served
there, she was not very much distinguished from Hester Picker and
the other servants; indeed, Picker sometimes sat in the parlour too,
when they had lace, or what not, to mend for my lady. Geoffry in his
heart was grieved at the changed treatment of Miss Layne; he
thought it wrong and unjust; and to make up for the mistake, was
with her a great deal himself.
Things were in this position when Lady Chavasse was summoned to
Bath: her sister, Lady Derreston, was taken ill. Sir Geoffry escorted
her thither. Picker was taken, not Miss Layne. In the countess’s small
household, Mary, in her anomalous position—for she could not be
altogether put with the servants—would have been an
inconvenience; and my lady bade her make herself happy at the
Grange, and left her a lot of fine needlework to get through.
Leaving his mother in Bath, Sir Geoffry went to London, stayed a
week or so, and then came back to the Grange. Another week or
two, and he returned to Bath to bring his mother home. And so the
winter set in, and wore on. And now all that has to be told to the
paper’s end is taken from diaries, Duffham’s and others. But for
convenience’ sake, I put it as though the words were my own,
instead of copying them literally.

Spring came in early. February was not quite at an end, and the
trees were beginning to show their green. All the month it had been
warm weather; but people said it was too relaxing for the season,
and they and the trees should suffer for it later. A good deal of
sickness was going about; and, amongst others who had to give in
for a time, was Duffham himself. He had inflammation of the lungs.
His brother Luke, who was partner in a medical firm elsewhere,
came to Church Dykely for a week or two, to take the patients. Luke
was a plain-speaking man of forty, with rough hair and a good heart.
The afternoon after he arrived, an applicant came into the surgery
with her daughter. It was Mrs. Layne, but the temporary doctor did
not know her. Mrs. Layne never did look like a lady, and he did not
mistake her for one: he thought it some respectable countrywoman:
she had flung a very ancient cloak over her worn morning gown. She
expressed herself disappointed at not seeing Mr. Duffham, but
opened the consultation with the brother instead. Mrs. Layne took it
for granted she was known, and talked accordingly.
Her daughter, whom she kept calling Mary, and nothing else, had
been ailing lately; she, Mrs. Layne, could not think what was the
matter with her, unless it was the unusually warm spring. She grew
thinner and weaker daily; her cheeks were pale, her eyes seemed to
have no life in them: she was very low in spirits; yet, in spite of all
this, Mary had kept on saying it was “nothing.” My Lady Chavasse—
returning home from London yesterday, whither she had
accompanied her son a week or two ago, and whom she had left
there—was so much struck with the change she saw in Mary, who
lived with her as humble companion, Mrs. Layne added, in a
parenthesis, that she insisted on her seeing Dr. Duffham, that he
might prescribe some tonics. And accordingly Mary had walked to
her mother’s this afternoon.
Mr. Luke Duffham listened to all this with one ear, as it were. He
supposed it might be the warm spring, as suggested. However, he
took Mary into the patients’ room, and examined her; felt her pulse,
looked at her tongue, sounded her chest, with all the rest of it that
doctors treat their clients to; and asked her this, that, and the other
—about five-and-twenty questions, when perhaps five might have
done. The upshot of it all was that Mary Layne went off in a dead
faint.
“What on earth can be the matter with her?” cried the alarmed
mother, when they had brought her round.
Mr. Luke Duffham, going back to the surgery with Mrs. Layne, shut
the doors, and told her what he thought it was. It so startled the old
lady that she backed against the counter and upset the scales.
“How dare you say so, sir!”
“But I am sure of it,” returned Mr. Luke.
“Lord be good to me!” gasped Mrs. Layne, looking like one terrified
out of her seven senses. “The worst I feared was that it might be
consumption. A sister of mine died of it.”
“Where shall I send the medicine to?” inquired the doctor.
“Anywhere. Over the way, if you like,” continued Mrs. Layne, in her
perturbation.
“Certainly. Where to, over the way?”
“To my house. Don’t you know me? I am the widow of your brother’s
late partner. This unhappy child is the one he was fondest of; she is
only nineteen, much younger than the rest.”
“Mrs. Layne!” thought Luke Duffham, in surprise, “I wish I had
known; I might have hesitated before speaking plainly. But where
would have been the good?”
The first thing Mrs. Layne did, was to shut her own door against
Mary, and send her back to the Grange in a shower of anger. She
was an honest old lady, of most irreproachable character; never
needing, as she phrased it, to have had a blush on her cheek, for
herself or any one belonging to her. In her indignation, she could
have crushed Mary to the earth. Whatever it might be that the poor
girl had done, robbed a church, or shot its parson, her mother
deemed that she deserved hanging.
Mary Layne walked back to the Grange: where else had she to go?
Broken-hearted, humiliated, weak almost unto death, she was as a
reed in her mother’s hands, yielding herself to any command given;
and only wishing she might die. Lady Chavasse, compassionating her
evident suffering, brought her a glass of wine with her own hand,
and inquired what Mr. Duffham said, and whether he was going to
give her tonics. Instead of answering, Mary went into another faint:
and my lady thought she had overwalked herself. “I wish I had sent
her in the carriage,” said she kindly. And while the wish was yet
upon her lips, Mrs. Layne arrived at the Grange, to request an
audience of her ladyship.
Then was commotion. My lady talked and stormed, Mrs. Layne
talked and cried. Both were united in one thing—heaping reproaches
on Mary. They were in the grand drawing-room—where my lady had
been sitting when Mrs. Layne was shown in. Lady Chavasse sat
back, furious and scornful, in her pink velvet chair; Mrs. Layne
stood; Mary had sunk on the carpet kneeling, her face bent, her
clasped hands raised as if imploring mercy. This group was suddenly
broken in upon by Sir Geoffry—who had but then reached the
Grange from town. They were too noisy to notice him. Halting in
dismay he had the pleasure of catching a sentence or two addressed
to the unhappy Mary.
“The best thing you can do is to find refuge in the workhouse,”
stormed Lady Chavasse. “Out of my house you turn this hour.”
“The best thing you can do is to go on the tramp, where you won’t
be known,” amended Mrs. Layne, who was nearly beside herself with
conflicting emotions. “Never again shall you enter the home that was
your poor dead father’s. You wicked girl!—and you hardly twenty
years old yet! But, my lady, I can but think—though I know we are
humble people, as compared with you, and perhaps I’ve no right to
say it—that Sir Geoffry has not behaved like a gentleman.”
“Hold your tongue, woman,” said her ladyship. “Sir Geoffry——”
“Sir Geoffry is at least enough of a gentleman to take his evil deeds
on himself, and not shift them on to others,” spoke the baronet,
stepping forward—and the unexpected interruption was startling to
them all. My lady pointed imperatively to the door, but he stood his
ground.
It was no doubt a bitter moment for him; bringing home to him an
awful amount of self-humiliation: for throughout his life he had
striven to do right instead of wrong. And when these better men
yield to temptation instead of fleeing from it, the reacting sting is of
the sharpest. The wisest and strongest sometimes fall: and find too
late that, though the fall was so easy, the picking-up is of all things
most difficult. Sir Geoffry’s face was white as death.
“Get up, Mary,” he said gently, taking her hand to help her in all
respect. “Mrs. Layne,” he added, turning to face the others; “my
dear mother—if I may dare still to call you so—suffer me to say a
word. For all that has taken place, I am alone to blame; on me only
must it rest, The fault——”
“Sin, sir,” interrupted Mrs. Layne.
“Yes. Thank you. Sin. The sin lies with me, not with Mary. In my
presence reproach shall not be visited on her. She has enough
trouble to bear without that. I wish to Heaven that I had never—
Mrs. Layne, believe me,” he resumed, after the pause, “no one can
feel this more keenly than I. And, if circumstances permit me to
make reparation, I will make it!”
Sir Geoffry wanted (circumstances permitting, as he shortly put it) to
marry Mary Layne; he wished to do it. Taking his mother into
another room he told her this. Lady Chavasse simply thought him
mad. She grew a little afraid of him, lest he should set her and all
high rules of propriety at nought, and do it.
But trouble like this cannot be settled in an hour. Lady Chavasse, in
her great fear, conciliated just a little: she did not turn Miss Layne
out at once, as threatened, but suffered her to remain at the Grange
for the night.
“In any case, whatever may be the ending of this, it is not from my
family that risk of exposure must come,” spoke Sir Geoffry, in a tone
of firmness. “It might leave me no alternative.”
“No alternative?” repeated Lady Chavasse. “How?”
“Between my duty to you, and my duty to her,” said Sir Geoffry. And
my lady’s heart fainted within her at the suggested fear.
They were together in the library at Chavasse Grange, Lady
Chavasse and her only son Geoffry. It was early morning; they had
sat in the breakfast-room making a show of partaking of the
morning meal, each of them with that bitter trouble at the heart that
had been known only—to my lady, at least—since the previous day.
But the farce of speaking in monosyllables to one another could not
be kept up—the trouble had to be dealt with, and without delay; and
when the poor meal could not be prolonged by any artifice, Sir
Geoffry held open the door for his mother to pass through, and
crossed the hall with her to the library. Shut within its walls they
could discuss the secret in safety; no eye to see them, no ear to
hear.
Sir Geoffry mechanically stirred the fire, and placed a chair for his
mother near it. The weather appeared to be changing. Instead of
the unseasonable relaxing warmth that had been upon the earth up
to the previous day, a cold north-east wind had set in, enough to
freeze people’s marrow. The skies were grey and lowering; the trees
shook and moaned: winter was taking up his place again.
So much the better. Blue skies and brightness would hardly have
accorded with Sir Geoffry’s spirit. He might have to endure many
cruel visitations ere he died, but never a one so cruel as this. No evil
that Heaven can send upon us, or man inflict, is so hard to bear as
self-reproach.
If ever a son had idolized a mother, it had surely been Geoffry
Chavasse. They had been knit together in the strongest bonds of
filial love. His whole thought from his boyhood had been her
comfort: to have sacrificed himself for her, if needs must, would
have been a cheerful task. When he came of age, not yet so very
many months ago, he had resolved that his whole future life should
be devoted to promote her happiness—as her life had been devoted
to him in the days of his sickly boyhood. Her wishes were his; her
word his law; he would have died rather than cause her a moment’s
pain.
And how had he, even thus early, fulfilled this? Look at him, as he
leans against the heavy framework of the window, drawn back from
it that the light may not fall on his subdued face. The brow is bent in
grievous doubt; the dark-blue eyes, generally so honestly clear, are
hot with trouble; the bright hair hangs limp. Yes; he would have died
rather than bring his mother pain: that was his true creed and belief;
but, like many another whose resolves are made in all good faith, he
had signally failed, even while he was thinking it, and brought pain
to her in a crushing heap. He hated himself as he looked at her pale
countenance; at the traces of tears in her heavy eyes. Never a
minute’s sleep had she had the previous night, it was plainly to be
seen; and, as for him, he had paced his chamber until morning, not
attempting to go to rest. But there was a task close before him,
heavier than any that had gone before; heavier even than this silent
repentance—the deciding what was to be done in the calamity; and
Sir Geoffry knew that his duty to his mother and his duty to another
would clash with each other. All the past night he had been earnestly
trying to decide which of the two might be evaded with the least sin
—and he thought he saw which.
Lady Chavasse had taken the chair he placed for her; sitting upright
in it, and waiting for him to speak. She knew, as well as he, that this
next hour would decide their fate in life: whether they should still be
together a loving mother and son; or whether they should become
estranged and separate for ever. He crossed to the fireplace and put
his elbow on the mantelpiece, shielding his eyes with his hand. Just
a few words, he said, of his sense of shame and sorrow; of regret
that he should have brought this dishonour on himself and his
mother’s home; of hope that he might be permitted, by Heaven and
circumstances, to work out his repentance, in endeavouring daily,
hourly constantly, to atone to her for it—to her, his greatly-loved
mother. And then—lifting his face from the hand that had partially
hidden it—he asked her to be patient, and to hear him without
interruption a little further. And Lady Chavasse bowed her head in
acquiescence.
“Nothing remains for me but to marry Miss Layne,” he began: and
my lady, as she heard the expected avowal, bit her compressed lips
“It is the only course open to me; unless I would forfeit every claim
to honour, and to the respect of upright men. If you will give your
consent to this, the evil may be in a degree repaired; nothing need
ever be known; Mary’s good name may be saved—mine, too, if it
comes to that—and eventually we may be all happy together——”
“Do not try me too much, Geoffry,” came the low interruption.
“Mother, you signified that you would hear me to the end. I will not
try you more than I can help; but it is necessary that I should speak
fully. All last night I was walking about my room in self-commune;
deliberating what way was open, if any, that it would be practicable
to take—and I saw but this one. Let me marry her. It will be easy of
accomplishment—speaking in reference to appearances and the
world. She might go for a week or two to her mother’s; for a month
or two, if it were thought better and less suspicious; there is no
pressing hurry. We could then be married quietly, and go abroad for
a year or so, or for longer; and come back together to the Grange,
and be your dutiful and loving children always, just as it was
intended I and Rachel should be. But that you have liked Mary Layne
very much, I might have felt more difficulty in proposing this.”
“I have liked her as my servant,” said Lady Chavasse, scornfully.
“Pardon me, you have liked her as a lady. Do you remember once
saying—it was when she first came—that if you had had a daughter
you could have wished her to be just like Mary Layne. Before I ever
saw her, you told me she was a sweet, elegant young woman; and—
mother—she is nothing less. Oh, mother, mother!” continued Sir
Geoffry, with emotion, “if you will but forget your prejudices for my
sake, and consent to what I ask, we would endeavour to be ever
repaying you in love and services during our after-life. I know what a
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