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Title: Odd Made Even
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Illustrator: Harold Copping
Release date: May 22, 2025 [eBook #76138]
Language: English
Original publication: London: The Religious Tract Society, 1902
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ODD MADE EVEN ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: "BUT LIFE IS NOT ALWAYS HAPPY," SAID GERALD.]
STORIES
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE.
[Illustration]
Heather's Mistress. 3s. 6d.
On the Edge of a Moor, 3s. 6d.
The Carved Cupboard. 2s. 6d.
Jill's Red Bag. 2s.
A Puzzling Pair. 2s.
Dwell Deep; or, Hilda
Thorn's Life Story. 2s.
Legend Led. 2s.
Odd. 2s.
A Little Maid. 2s.
Bulbs and Blossoms. 1s. 6d.
His Little Daughter. 1s. 6d.
A Thoughtless Seven. 1s.
Probable Sons. 1s.
Teddy's Button. 1s.
Bunny's Friends. 1s.
Eric's Good News. 1s.
[Illustration]
_London:_
_The Religious Tract Society._
ODD MADE EVEN
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
Author of "Heather's Mistress," "Odd,"
"Probable Sons," "Teddy's Button,"
"On the Edge of a Moor," etc.
With Full-page Illustrations
by HAROLD COPPING
_THIRD IMPRESSION_
London
The Religious Tract Society
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard
TO THE ONE
WHO MADE ME WRITE
IT.
_"And your joy no man taketh from you"_
PREFACE
———
I FEEL this sequel needs an apology, and to the many little ones who
have besought me by letter and voice to "make more about Betty," I
offer this apology, for I fear they will be disappointed. The story
will be above their heads.
But to their elders who have found enjoyment in the child's short
history, I venture to send her forth when a little of earth's soil has
dusted her feet.
And perhaps some of the little ones who first read "Odd," may even now
be old enough to follow with interest the older Betty.
AMY LE FEUVRE.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A Child of Moods
II. An Old Friend
III. A Strange Encounter
IV. Rose Songs
V. The Red Manor
VI. Altered Circumstances
VII. Old Women
VIII. New Owners
IX. Through a Dark Cloud
X. Home Duties
XI. In Town Again
XII. A Thunderbolt
XIII. Motherless
XIV. A Meeting
XV. Molly's Invitation
XVI. His Home
XVII. Mr. Russell's Picture
XVIII. Terrible News
XIX. For Little Betty's Sake
XX. Changing Corners
XXI. Odd made Even
XXII. "The Little White Wild Rose"
ODD MADE EVEN
————————
CHAPTER I
A Child of Moods
...Scarcely formed or moulded—
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
BYRON.
"I WISH you would not say such things, Betty!"
"What things?"
"You know. It only vexes mother; and what is the good of it?"
"What is the good of anything? I always say what I feel; I can't help
myself!"
"Well, you ought not to feel like it. You are always so discontented.
Other girls—"
"Oh, shut up, Molly! Don't quote 'other girls.' I hate them all. I hate
everybody at this present moment. I'm sick of them; I'm sick of town;
I'm—yes, I think I'm sick of life altogether!"
Betty had been poking the fire fiercely as she spoke; now she dashed
down the poker and ran out of the room. Molly looked after her with a
little sigh.
"Betty is so—so uneven," she said to herself. "She is always getting
upset over nothing at all. She'll be back in a minute full of remorse
and repentance. It would wear me out to live as she does!"
Her fair head bent over some manuscript paper on the table before her.
A dreamy look took possession of her deep blue eyes.
"Now, where was I when she interrupted me? Poor Elfrida! I must make
her see Roderick once again before he dies; she must have the comfort
of a last farewell!"
But Molly was not to be left in peace to the woes of her heroine. A
maid came into the room.
"Mrs. Stuart would like to see you, miss."
Molly rose at once.
"All right, Margaret. Has the doctor been?"
"He has just gone, miss."
Molly left the room, and made her way upstairs to her mother's bedroom.
Mrs. Stuart lay on a couch by the fire. A square table covered with
papers was drawn up by her side. She was a very beautiful woman still,
though threads of silver ran through her wavy brown hair, and many fine
wrinkles and lines were discernible round her dark expressive eyes. She
looked at her eldest daughter a little keenly.
Molly was always a fair sight to look upon—a sweet, fresh English
maiden, with a sunny golden head and irreproachable features, and soft
red lips that looked as if only smiles could come from them. Molly was
blest with a happy, sunshiny disposition. She took life easily, and her
cares and sorrows at present were bound up in the life of the heroine
of her imagination. She was young enough and gay enough to like to
revel in imaginary misery. She was devoted to her mother, and now bent
down lovingly, and kissed her forehead.
Only Molly dared to be demonstrative with Mrs. Stuart; she was not one
who liked or encouraged tokens of affection from her children.
"Are you better, mother?"
"I suppose so. I must be, after this long period of rest and
convalescence. Just look at my batch of correspondence! I have been
unable to touch it yet, and Dr. Forsyth actually forbade me to write a
line to-day. You must give me an hour, and answer all those that are
important. Where is Betty? I want her too, for I must speak to you
both. Dr. Forsyth wants me to leave town at once."
Molly looked surprised.
"I will fetch Betty," she said; and, leaving her mother's room quietly,
she sped up another flight of stairs, and knocked at her sister's door.
It was locked. Betty herself was standing by her window, looking down
with wistful restless eyes into the dreary rain-sodden London square
below her. Her heart was hot within her. Betty could not take life
so easily as Molly did. It did not satisfy her; it was continually
disappointing her. She looked for such great things; she had such a
capacity for enjoyment; and yet the very gold seemed to turn to dust
when she touched it.
Her life was in the same groove as Molly's, they shared their pleasures
and friends together; yet what seemed natural and pleasant to the one,
worried and irritated the other.
It was as Molly said, "over nothing at all" that Betty vexed her soul.
For three years the young girls had been enjoying London Society
under their mother's wing. Their father had died when they were still
in the schoolroom. They had never seen much of him, as his whole
life was absorbed in politics; and it was only after their education
was finished, and they had been presented at court, that mother and
daughters drew nearer together. Mrs. Stuart saw that it was her duty to
accompany her daughters to entertainments which otherwise would have
been distasteful to her. She was herself more interested in literary
clubs and soirées than in ballrooms; and philanthropic objects appealed
to her more than garden-parties, regattas, and the various amusements
that her daughters were supposed to require.
She conscientiously tried to attempt both lines of living. She took the
girls abroad, accompanied them to Scotland every autumn, and gave them
the orthodox season in town every year. In addition she followed her
own pursuits with untiring and unflagging energy. A member and, in some
instances, secretary of many important and influential committees, a
patroness of hospitals, clubs, and other charitable institutions, Mrs.
Stuart wore herself out with writing, interviewing, and visiting; and
at length nature asserted its sway, and a serious breakdown in health
occurred. For two months she had been unable to leave her bed, and now,
on this rainy day in March, she was for the first time feeling well
enough to discuss future plans with her daughters.
When Betty broke away from her sister, the girls had been discussing
together a conversation held with their mother the night before. An
invitation had arrived for them from an old friend of their mother's—a
woman with a large family of young people. She wished them to join her
house-party in an old château in Brittany, and Mrs. Stuart was willing
that they should go. Molly acquiesced. Neither she nor Betty cared much
for the girls, who were, as they expressed it, "silly, empty-headed
creatures"; but she would not have thought of rebelling so furiously
against the visit as Betty did.
"Why should we go?" she had said. "Why should we pretend to enjoy their
hospitality when all the time we despise them in our hearts? Their talk
makes me ashamed of being a girl, and their brothers imagine every
other girl is like them! Mrs. Railley is always telling me how Reggie
dotes on Molly; how much in love he is with her! Molly scorns him, and
yet smiles at his mother's talk as if she liked it. I hate hypocrisy!
I hate pretence! And a visit to the Railleys always makes me sick of
everybody and everything. No one is real there. It is all artificiality
and affectation!"
Mrs. Stuart had listened to this very quietly; then she said,—
"You can please yourselves. There is no occasion for such vehemence,
Betty. If you feel yourself on such a superior level to the Railleys,
you had better decline the invitation, and wait for another that
satisfies your requirements. But I think it is better taste to conceal
such thoughts about an old friend of mine, who has always been most
kind and considerate towards you. Leave me now, for I do not feel able
to discuss the matter further with you."
Betty had dropped the subject then, but she renewed it the next
morning, when she and Molly were together in their own sitting-room.
"It is this continual talk of marriage that sickens me so, Molly. The
Railleys can think and talk of nothing else. Mrs. Railley thinks it
quite dreadful that neither you nor I are engaged yet. It makes me long
to get away from men altogether. I feel I want to be free, and fill my
mind with other things. The world is so big, so full, it could be so
different to what all these town people make it!"
"I think," said Molly slowly, "you sound conceited. Why should you
judge every one so hardly?"
Betty did not answer for a moment. Molly never could enter into all her
thoughts. She viewed life so differently; she was so placidly content
with all that came in her way that it was impossible to ruffle her.
But Betty tried hard to defend herself from the charge of conceit, and
in the end, as we have seen, she judged retirement the wisest course
to pursue. Now, unlocking her door, she presented two flushed cheeks,
bright eyes, and an untidy head of hair.
"Does mother want me? I'll come at once. Molly dear, I didn't mean to
be cross."
Mrs. Stuart looked at her as she entered the room, much in the same way
as she had looked at Molly, but there was not the same satisfaction in
her eyes.
Betty was not considered a beauty. Many found her interesting, but she
owed her chief charm to her expression, and that varied from moment to
moment in a bewildering and thoroughly inexplicable fashion. She was
tall and graceful, her quick, impulsive movements were never awkward;
her little curly head and dark speaking eyes were nearly always in
motion; but many wondered at the wistful curves of her sensitive lips,
the sadness that seemed to peep out so unexpectedly from under her long
curled eyelashes.
"An untamed soul," her mother would say, shone out of its environment.
Would fashion, love, or religion tame it?
Betty was an interesting study to her mother,—little more.
"Did you want me, mother?" she asked; and Betty was too full of her
own thoughts to enquire how the invalid was. Mrs. Stuart noticed the
omission.
"Yes, I want you. Sit down. Dr. Forsyth wishes me to leave town at
once."
"And go abroad?" asked Molly.
"No; he wants me to have perfect quiet and seclusion; to vegetate, in
fact, if I can manage to do it. And he suggests a country farmhouse out
of the beaten track. I think I must let him have his way, but where to
go I know not. And then I am wondering about you girls: whether to take
you with me, or leave you with your Aunt Dora."
"Aunt Dora is not going to be in town this season," said Molly quickly.
"She is going to Switzerland. I met her out yesterday, and she told me
so."
"Of course," said Mrs. Stuart, "if you go to Mrs. Railley, she would be
delighted to keep you for a couple of months; but Dr. Forsyth wants me
to try six months of quiet."
"Oh, mother, let us go into the country with you!" said Betty eagerly.
"It will be delicious to get away from everybody for a time."
"Of course we must go with you," said Molly more quietly. "We could not
think of letting you go alone."
"I shall put my veto against a farmhouse," said Mrs. Stuart; "I could
find a small furnished house, I suppose—perhaps a vicarage. Farmhouses
are generally uncomfortable except in the height of summer, when one is
able to spend all one's time out of doors."
"Do you remember, Molly," said Betty, turning eagerly to her sister,
"that delightful farm we went to when we were quite small? Did it not
belong to some of nurse's relations?"
"You mean where the Fairfaxes used to live? Of course I remember it;
but mother doesn't wish for a farmhouse."
"Perhaps the Fairfaxes' house may be to let," said Betty. "Mrs. Fairfax
was trying to let it before she went abroad with Grace."
"You might ask Turnbull," said Mrs. Stuart musingly; "she always
corresponds with nurse. I do not mind where we go, so long as we are
comfortable."
Molly left the room to make enquiries of their housekeeper, who had
been with them for many years. Betty got up from her seat and began to
pace the room restlessly. Then she turned and confronted her mother.
"Mother, need I go with Molly to Mrs. Thorn's 'At Home,' this
afternoon?"
"Why should you not? I forget who is going to take you. Mrs. Sinclair,
is she not?"
"Yes; but I shall not be missed. We have been to so many lately. I am
tired of them."
"Is that your only reason?"
A rich colour dyed Betty's cheeks, making her look very handsome.
"Hugh Sinclair is going," she said, with downcast eyes; "and he bothers
so."
There was silence. Mrs. Stuart's eyebrows contracted slightly.
"Some months ago you and Hugh were inseparable. Have you quarrelled?"
"Not exactly."
Betty's tone was hesitating. She always found it difficult to talk
freely to her mother.
"If you cannot confide in me, I cannot help you," said Mrs. Stuart, a
little stiffly.
"I did like Hugh as a—a friend," stammered Betty; "but I don't want him
as a husband, and—and he won't take 'No' from me."
"When did he speak to you definitely?"
"Just when you were first taken ill. He says I don't know my own mind,
and that he will wait till I change it."
"Do you know your own mind?" asked Mrs. Stuart. "Hugh must notice, as
we all do, how many moods you have. Your 'friendship'—as you express
it—with him, has been very marked. I do not wonder at his mistaking
your feelings towards him."
Betty felt her mother's censure keenly. Then she threw up her head with
a little defiance.
"It is very hard that I cannot enjoy being with one of Douglas's old
schoolfellows whom I have known since he was a boy, without people
talking. That is why I shall be thankful to get into the country."
"May I ask why Hugh is objectionable to you? He is a steady young
fellow, with good prospects."
Betty hesitated again.
"He isn't my idea of a man," she said confusedly. "He won't think
deeply on any subject; he laughs at everything, and only goes with the
stream."
"You require a genius to content you," said Mrs. Stuart, with a smile
that was tinged with sarcasm. "Women who go through life with ideals
are seldom satisfied. They are like the dog who snapped at the shadow,
and lost his bone."
"I think I could live without a bone," said Betty hotly.
"We will not discuss it any more. If you are quite certain of your own
mind, stay at home this afternoon, and be more careful in future in
your behaviour toward young men."
Betty slipped out of the room with burning cheeks and tearful eyes.
"I wish I could be coldly pleasant like Molly," she said to herself.
"I talk too fast, and laugh too much, and then I am sorry afterwards.
I shall be thankful to be away from Hugh, and everybody else. I know
mother is displeased with me. I think she would like me married and
done for. I never seem to please her. But I won't—oh, I won't be
married to a man without a soul!"
She went into the library and seated herself at a small organ there. It
had been a birthday gift to her from her great friend Nesta St. Clair,
who was now in India with her husband. If there was one thing of which
Betty was passionately fond, it was music. It soothed and satisfied her
as nothing else did; and as Mrs. Stuart listened to the distant strains
of passionate melody, now flooding the library, she gave a little sigh,
saying,—
"I wish she were settled in a home of her own."
CHAPTER II
An Old Friend
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
_Macbeth._
BETTY stood on a green lawn surrounded by a tangled belt of shrubs and
trees. It was a fresh bright spring morning. Blackbirds and thrushes
were lifting up their sweet voices in song; the scent of primroses
and other spring flowers was in the air, which had that intoxicating
life-giving effect that a bright May morning only can give.
Betty glanced at the old vicarage which for the time had become her
home. It was a low long grey stone building with casement windows
and thatched roof. The walls were covered with creepers—jasmine and
clematis, roses and wisteria, vied with one another in clustering round
the windows; low beds of daffodils and narcissus edged the gravel walk.
The lilacs and laburnums lightened a somewhat dark shrubbery. Between
the sprouting chestnuts and elms at the end of the drive peeped the old
church tower. Betty glanced at one window darkened by closed shutters.
It was only nine o'clock. Her mother was not up. Molly and she had had
an early breakfast, and Molly was now making acquaintance with store
cupboards and pantries. For the next hour or two she was free; for who
would stay indoors to watch their maids unpacking, when the young world
outside was so entrancing? Not Betty. She danced over the lawn and down
the drive with a song on her lips and in her heart.
"Oh, it is lovely! Lovely! And this is only the beginning of it!"
They had arrived the night before. It had not taken long to formulate
their plans and carry them out. And, strangely enough, a vicarage had
been found in the very place that Betty had proposed visiting again.
The vicar had a delicate wife, and had taken her abroad, leaving his
parish to the care of his curate, who lodged in the very farmhouse that
the little Stuarts had visited when children.
Betty opened the little wicket-gate that led into the churchyard,
pausing as a flood of memories came rushing uppermost. How little
changed it was! Perhaps smaller than she remembered it, and more
crowded with green graves; the rooks on the top of the old elms did
not seem quite so near to heaven as they did in days gone by. When
she opened the heavy oak door, and found herself inside the darkened
church, it seemed a little dustier and stuffier than it used to be.
But when she made her way with soft footsteps up the aisle and saw
again the monument of little Violet Russell, it did not disappoint
her. The pure, sweet outline of the small figure was all that could be
desired, and though the afternoon sun was not streaming through the
stained window above, the light seemed to gather round the beautiful
bit of sculpture, and make it stand out conspicuously in its dusky
surroundings.
Memory took Betty back to when she had her first vision of it, and she
smiled when she thought of how much it had meant to her. She looked up
at the window, and at the group of little children clustering round
their Saviour's knee. A shadow passed over her sensitive face.
"I almost wish I were a child again," she said. "I was so sure then of
His love."
She turned and made her way to the organ, that organ which under the
influence of Nesta Fairfax's fingers had sent away a little child
sobbing her heart out with unexpressed longing. To her delight she
found it unlocked.
"Oh, I wish I could get a blower! I will try. I must see if I can make
it sound as it used to do in my ears."
She left the church hastily, and entered the nearest cottage. A
fresh-faced young woman was cleaning up her kitchen.
"A blower, miss?" she said in reply to Betty's request. "I hardly know
if there's any one free. The boys and girls be to school, the lads at
work. The schoolmaster plays on a Sunday, and his eldest boy do blow
for him."
"Is there no old man?" asked Betty. "Is the old sexton still alive? I
used to know him when I was a child."
"Bless ye, miss, old Reuben be dead this ten year. 'Tis John Smith be
the sexton now, an' he be one of Farmer Gadd's hands at present. Wonder
now if Mat Lubbock might oblige ye? He be quite blind from a blasting
mishap, and he be a strong fellow too. He works at baskets and such
like; but there be not much call for 'em, and he idles away most o' his
days. He be just comin' down the road, miss. Would you like to put it
to him?"
Betty stepped out into the road, and met the man described. He was a
fine, strong-looking fellow, with a powerful face, but an unpleasant
smile came to his lips when Betty made her request.
"Church be not much in my line, mum. It and I be as far as east from
west. 'Tis all rotted foolery; an' I don't care who hears me say it!"
The fierceness with which he uttered the last sentence startled Betty.
For a moment she felt inclined to give it up; then her beloved music
conquered.
"I should be so grateful if you could oblige me this once," she said
sweetly. "I will not keep you long."
Mat tapped his stick impatiently on the road. Then he said, in a surly
tone,—
"If you be put about this mornin' for some 'un, I'll oblige ye, but
never agen!"
"Thank you!" said Betty with delight. "Can you follow me? Do you know
the way?"
"I should be a born fool if I didn't," was the gruff retort. "I were
bell-ringer for eight year or more."
"That was before your accident?"
"You're right there! Not likely I'd give a helpin' hand after! I'd cut
the cursed bells wi' pleasure if I could. Don't know which be worst,
the parson's clapper or theirn! I go two mile every Sunday to get out
o' hearin' o' them!"
Betty could think of nothing to say to this character. She judged that
it was his trouble that had made him bitter. He followed her into
church without another word, groped his way up to the organ, and began
to blow with dogged energy.
Betty was soon lost in her music. She was delighted with the full sweet
tone of the instrument, and woke up with a start at last, to find that
she had been playing nearly an hour.
She apologised to her blower; but he cut her short, and tramped out of
the church muttering as he did so,—
"I'll never do it agen!"
And Betty sauntered back to the house, a happy light shining in her
eyes. She stood for a moment gazing again at the green meadows and
woods in the distance, and then at the fresh foliage around her. Then
her gaze went upwards to the blue sky above.
"It is 'so' beautiful!" she murmured. "I shall never feel discontented
here."
Mrs. Stuart adapted herself with great ease to her quiet surroundings.
She would lie on the couch in the vicarage drawing-room by the open
window, with her books and correspondence by her side. Sometimes she
would take a short walk round the old-fashioned garden leaning on
Molly's arm. In the evenings after dinner the girls would play and sing
to her, or read aloud from the current periodicals of the day. A few
days after their arrival the curate called. He was a thin, nervously
strung man of scholarly tastes. Mrs. Stuart found him a ready and
appreciative listener; and he was fascinated and charmed by the society
of a well-read, cultured woman. They gradually dropped into discursive
arguments, which wearied and bored Molly, but which interested Betty.
She would sit in the recess of the farthest window, and listen eagerly
to the conversation.
One evening they were talking about the laws of compensation.
"I believe our joys and sorrows are pretty equally divided," said Mr.
Benson. "I grant you that some appear to suffer more than others, but
if their life—the inner one as well as the outer one—were to be mapped
out before us, we should see they had their enjoyments in proportion.
Those who have the greatest capacity for trouble have also the greatest
capacity for joy. The deepest natures feel the most."
Mrs. Stuart shook her head.
"You do not see the pathos and tragedy of life in these small country
villages. Your country people live in a placid happy groove. It is
the starving panting struggling population of our big towns that
experience the full burden and toil of life. I have cases before me of
two generations reared and bred in dogged sullen misery, Ishmaels—every
one's hand raised against them; hopelessness and helplessness written
on the features of the tiny children, hatred of all, and bitterness
against their fate, on the features of their elders."
"I have only been curate here for five years, and yet in this tiny
village alone, amongst those who appear to you to live in a placid
happy groove, I have buried three who literally died of broken hearts.
I could count five on my fingers who carry about with them a load too
heavy to speak about; and there is not a single family which has been
exempt from trouble in some shape or form.
"One poor man I have on my heart at present. He was our village
Hercules—as handsome a fellow as you could wish to see. He married the
sweetest girl in the neighbourhood, and had a baby boy he worshipped.
He was a mason, and in superintending some blasting operations one
day was blinded in an explosion. His wife, in bad health at the time,
received such a shock when he was carried home to her that she died
within twenty-four hours from the effects of it. When he recovered his
health, he devoted himself more than ever to his boy.
"One day he took him down to the river with him. The child fell in,
and though the father dashed after him, he failed to rescue him, owing
to his blindness. He used to be one of our bell-ringers, and a regular
communicant, now I cannot get him to enter the church. He cannot see
the mercy of God in his affliction. It has embittered and spoiled his
life."
"Poor man!" said Mrs. Stuart. "His is a sad case. I see you believe
that trouble is equally distributed."
"And joys also," Mr. Benson said, a light coming over his face.
But Betty listened no more. She slipped out of the room with unshed
tears glistening in her eyes.
"Oh, poor man!" she repeated. "Poor man! How I wish I could comfort
him! How I should love to be somebody's comforter! But I feel it must
be the most difficult thing in the world to do. Sympathy isn't comfort,
though a good many people think it is. If you cannot alter the facts of
trouble—the cause of it, I suppose I mean—you cannot comfort."
Betty's heart seemed weighed down by another's sorrow as she walked
in the evening sunshine along the garden paths. Life was full of
perplexities to her at present. Shadows were continually crossing
her sensitive little soul, but they only served to make the sunshine
brighter when it came.
The next day was Sunday. Molly and she went to church together, and
their fair fresh young faces attracted much attention amongst the
village congregation. Betty enjoyed everything—the music, the service,
the sermon, and her surroundings. There was an open window close to
her, and a blackbird sang with his whole heart from a lilac-bush
outside. The song and the scent of the lilac sent a throb of joy
through her. If, as Molly expressed it, little things upset her, little
things also delighted her, and she came out of church in radiant
spirits.
At the gate Molly stopped to give a message to Mr. Benson from her
mother.
Betty went out into the green lane, and began picking some budding
hawthorn from the hedge. Hearing steps behind her, she looked up, and
confronted a tall, grey-haired man. The colour rushed into her cheeks;
though it was many years since she had seen him, his face was engraved
on her memory. Impulsively she put out her hand.
"I am sure you must be Mr. Russell."
For an instant he looked astonished, as he raised his hat.
"Ah," said Betty, with a little droop in her smiling lips, "I have been
forgotten. You do not remember me. I saw you in London the year after
we were at the farm, and that must be quite fourteen years ago."
A light came into Mr. Russell's eyes.
"Surely you cannot be little Betty Stuart? And yet you must be. Your
eyes have not changed."
He was shaking her warmly by the hand, and enquired how she came to
that part again.
Betty told him briefly. He listened to her rather dreamily.
"Fourteen years seem such a little bit of my life," he said. "But it is
such a big piece in yours. It seems only the other day that my sweet
little child friend was here, stealing into the life of an embittered
man, and softening and charming him by her quaint earnestness of
sympathy and purpose. Now she is no more. She is dead and gone. A
fragrant memory is all that is left me."
Betty felt rather embarrassed.
"You only liked the child," she said, somewhat wistfully; "I cannot
count upon your friendship now?"
He looked at her, and a smile came to his lips.
"My mind must be readjusted," he said. "But you are a fashionable young
lady now. My Betty was always in cotton frocks and sun-bonnets. It will
take time for the two to merge into one."
Betty laughed merrily. Then, in her most winning way, she laid her hand
on his arm.
"I am your little friend still, if you will have me; and though I have
grown, I really do not feel so very different from what I did when I
was here before."
"'The little odd one,'" said Mr. Russell musingly, as he looked her up
and down.
"And I feel 'odd' still," asserted Betty stoutly. "Quite 'odd' enough
to be very disappointed that one of my old friends is looking at me so
disapprovingly."
Mr. Russell smiled again.
"You are fast stealing your way back into that old man's preserves. Is
your mother well enough to receive visitors? May I come and renew my
very slight acquaintance with her?"
"I am sure she will be very pleased to see you," said Betty, in a
sedate tone; then, turning to Molly, who was approaching them, she
said,—
"Molly, do you remember Mr. Russell when we were at Brook Farm with
nurse that summer? I have had to introduce myself, for he did not know
me."
"We looked for you in church," said Molly, smiling as she shook hands;
"but as we were seated in the very front pew, it was difficult to see
anybody. I don't think I should have recognised you; but then you were
always Betty's friend, not mine."
"And what has become of your brother, the sturdy pickle? And the two
roly-poly boys who always followed his lead?"
"Oh, Douglas is in the army. He is in the Artillery, and went to India
last autumn. Bobby and Billy are both middies now. They are still
inseparable, and have had the good fortune to get appointed to the same
ship, which is cruising about the Mediterranean at present. Betty and I
feel very dull without the boys. Do come and see mother, Mr. Russell!
She is an invalid at present, but not too ill to see friends. We are at
the vicarage. I think mother will be wondering where we are, Betty. We
must go."
Molly moved away with a sweet grace, and Betty followed her a little
reluctantly.
"Do you ever wish yourself a child again, Molly?" she asked, as they
walked up the vicarage drive together.
"No," said Molly decidedly; "grown-up people are much more interesting.
There are so many possibilities for them. Children have such a narrow
outlook."
Betty did not answer. She had expected a great deal from this meeting
with her old friend, and she had found it distinctly disappointing.
"I think people liked me better as a child than they do now," she
mused, a little sadly. "I expect I have grown up very uninteresting. I
don't seem to make half so many friends as Molly does."
Mrs. Stuart expressed herself quite willing to see Mr. Russell when he
called.
"I remember him," she said; "for his sculpture was in the Academy for
some years. Did he not take you as his model, Betty?"
"Yes," said Molly; "with her dog. Don't you remember, Betty? Have you
been to see his grave? I wonder if it has been touched, or whether it
is still at Brook Farm. We ought to go and see Mrs. Giles, ought we
not?"
"I mean to go this afternoon," said Betty decidedly.
"You had better not go alone," said her mother. "I shall be lying down
for an hour or two, and shall want neither of you."
So a little later the two girls walked down to the old farm, and were
welcomed delightedly by Mrs. Giles.
"Us have often talked of you—John and me—but really you have grown such
grand young leddies, I can hardly believe you be the fly-away children
us had here so many year ago! Miss Molly, I might aknowed you, for
your face be the same sweet smiling one, but Miss Betty she do look
different. I mind her little dark curly head, and her mischievous ways,
and the way she were wrapped up in that poor little dog of hern!—Yes,
Miss Betty, his grave is still in the orchard, and 'tis a beautiful
ornament. Many's the gentry that I've taken to see it, and they all do
say that for a stone dog it be wonderful life-like!"
She led the way into the orchard as she spoke; and Betty was soon
standing on the spot that was associated with the biggest tragedy in
her child life. She looked at the rusty iron railing and the little
stone monument with pathetic interest.
"How do you feel?" Molly asked, with a little mischief in her eyes. "I
remember you said you were broken-hearted at the time, but it seems a
very small sorrow now, doesn't it?"
"I suppose it does—comparatively," Betty admitted slowly; "but I
haven't forgotten it."
She stayed there after Molly had wandered away round the flower garden
with Mrs. Giles; and her thoughts went backwards with a bound.
"What a funny little thing I was! How important and grand I felt, in
spite of all my broken-heartedness, when I was told it was my bit of
tribulation! How near heaven I felt then! As if I were quite fit and
ready to be translated at once! I don't feel half so near it now,
and yet I want to be. I don't know what I want exactly, but I'm not
satisfied, my life seems so empty. Molly is so entirely content. When
she isn't occupied with her own love-affairs, she is quite absorbed
with inventing some for her heroines. And she and mother are all in
all to each other. I wonder if there is a corner for everybody in this
world, for somehow I don't think I have found mine!"
She gave herself a little shake presently, which was a trick of hers,
saying to herself as she ran away to find Molly,—
"I will 'not' be always thinking about myself and my feelings!"
And she chattered away to Mrs. Giles so merrily for the rest of the
time that they were there, that that worthy woman remarked to her
husband afterwards,—
"They be two beauties, John, but Miss Betty be as giddy as ever she
were, her tongue have the same saucy turn to it, and her eyes be
twinkling with mischief all the while. 'Tis Miss Molly that will take
the prize, I'm thinking. Her voice and smile be just queenly!"
CHAPTER III
A Strange Encounter
Deep grief is better let alone;
Voices to it are swords.
FABER.
"MOLLY, Molly! Where are you?"
"Here—in the study. What do you want? Oh, Betty, what a noise! You will
disturb mother. She is lying down."
"How can you stay in this stuffy little room when it's so lovely out of
doors? I have had a little adventure, and I must tell it to some one!"
Betty had jumped in at the low window with a light bound. Her hat was
at the back of her head, her curls were flying in disorder over her
forehead. She looked flushed and excited, and threw herself into an
easy-chair with a little sigh.
Molly was bending over her beloved story. This was her time, when her
mother was resting, to pour forth on paper all the pretty thoughts and
fancies of her imaginative brain.
She was not best pleased at Betty's interruption.
"I suppose you have met some one, or picked some wonderful flower. It
can't be anything very exciting."
"It was dreadful!" Betty said, clasping her little hands over her face,
and blushing at the remembrance of it. "Listen, Molly,—now you shall
listen to me, if I have to throw your manuscript into the fire!"
Molly hastily closed her writing-case, as Betty came towards her.
"I am listening, so make haste," she said, leaning back in her chair
with patient resignation.
Betty swung herself up on the table by her sister's side, and sat there
with a mixture of seriousness and fun gleaming out of her eyes.
"I was taking a walk in the direction of Holly Grange, and I climbed
a hill, and skirted a plantation, coming out into a sunny field
overlooking such a lovely bit of country! A delightful old red manor
house peeped out between some trees, the river—a silver streak of
light—wound along at the foot of some blue hills."
"Oh, do stop your scenery, and get on to your adventure!" interrupted
Molly.
"I am coming to it, only you have quite spoilt my description. I
climbed a low hedge at the corner of the field, to get a better view;
and there, lying by a sheltered bank, was the body of a man!"
Molly's eyes were open now.
"Not a dead man? I suppose he was drunk."
"He lay quite motionless, and I stood still staring at him for a
minute, and then I was filled with horror, for I thought he might have
shot himself by accident, or been murdered; and, without thinking, I
rushed up to him, and laid my hand on his shoulder, and asked him if he
was hurt."
"Well?"
For Betty had paused, and her eyes looked troubled.
"He sprang to his feet, Molly, so suddenly, that I sprang away from
him. He wasn't a bit hurt."
Molly laughed.
"You must have looked sillies, both jumping away from each other! I
wish I had seen you!"
"Oh, it isn't anything to laugh at! I felt so ashamed of myself, for
when he looked at me I saw he was in deep trouble. I don't think I ever
saw such misery on any one's face before. He looked as if he had been
having an awful fight with himself. His face was knotted and lined, and
his eyes full of despair."
Molly's laugh died away. She was interested now.
"Go on," she said. "What did he say?"
"He only looked in my direction for a moment, then he wheeled round,
raised his hat, and walked away haughtily. I just caught his words:
'I am perfectly well, thanks!' And oh, Molly, I felt so ashamed of
intruding upon him at such a time, and I do feel so sorry for him!"
"What was he like?"
"A tall, good-looking man—not very young—he was in a grey suit of
clothes and brown leggings. I only saw his face for a minute—dark
eyes—I think. But wouldn't you have been overwhelmed with confusion if
you had been in my place?"
"I never get myself into such awkward predicaments," said Molly. "I
shouldn't have dreamt of going up and taking hold of a strange man
asleep on the grass!"
"But he wasn't asleep. And I thought he was hurt; I couldn't have
passed him by. It would have been heartless!"
"You might have called out to him, before you went up to him. I should
have asked him the way somewhere, to be sure whether he was alive or
dead!"
"Oh, of course you would have done the proper thing! I never do,
and—and I'm glad I don't!"
Betty dashed out of the room, slamming the door after her as she went.
Molly put her hands up to her ears.
"I wish she were not so vehement. I think this stranger must be rather
interesting. I will put him into my book. A kind of Byron, perhaps.
Dark and bitter and passionate, and scorned by the one he loves!"
Betty was by this time in her bedroom leaning her elbows on her
window-sill, and looking out with dreamy eyes into the sunny garden
below.
"I wish I knew who he was! His hands were clenched as he got up. He
looked at me in that one glance as if he hated me. He must have been
angry to be found like that. He looked a proud man, and I expect he
came out and away from everybody, on purpose to give vent to his
feelings. I wonder if he has a wife,—if he has quarrelled with her!
I should know him again anywhere. Oh, dear, why is it that even in
this sweet country trouble seems to come upon people? It is only the
flowers and birds that are really happy, and even they—if I knew it, I
expect—have their troubles. I shall go into church and play. It will
take my thoughts away from disagreeable things!"
She ran lightly downstairs again, and, softly singing to herself, made
her way down the village lane to look for a blower. She came to a
standstill when she saw Mat Lubbock smoking his pipe and leaning over a
stile.
"I will try him again," she thought; "it won't hurt me if he refuses."
So, in her pretty winning tones, she asked him if he would oblige her
once again.
"There be plenty o' lads in the village without askin' of me," he said
in a gruff tone.
"Yes, but I like you best. You are so strong. I am always afraid of
tiring the little boys; and they sometimes blow so jerkily."
"I'll oblige ye this once," said Mat, taking his pipe out of his mouth
and tapping it against the wooden bar upon which he leant; "but never
agen, mind ye!"
"Not until next time," Betty murmured under her breath, with a twinkle
of amusement in her eye.
Then the two walked off to the church together, and in a minute soft
strains were rising and falling, and Betty's face and eyes were shining
with a happy light. An hour went by, and still she sat there until the
church clock striking, reminded her of the time. Then she finished by
singing Gounod's "King of Love."
Mat's face in his corner worked strangely as her sweet joyous notes
rang out,—
"'The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
When the last words had died away, Betty, in the fulness of her heart,
spoke to him,—
"Aren't those delicious words, Mat? I love them. They always cure my
restless, discontented feelings. 'I nothing lack if I am His!' If I
could feel that through every hour of the day! Not only when I sing
them in church!"
"There be very few who be lackin' nothin'!" said Mat in his gruffest
tone.
"I suppose," said Betty, with a wistful look in her eyes, "there are
very few who can say those words that follow,—
"'I am His, and He is mine, for ever.'"
Mat did not reply, but tramped down the side aisle with one of his most
sullen looks. Then, as Betty softly followed him, he suddenly turned
round and, planting his back against the church door, delivered his
mind.
[Illustration: PLANTING HIS BACK AGAINST THE CHURCH DOOR,
MAT DELIVERED HIS MIND.]
"A young leddy, as you be, may well sit down and sing them pretty
fancical words. Ye know nought of sin nor grief nor wrong; ye may
patter on about the loving Shepherd and the pastures, an' havin'
comfort through death's darkness. It be a meaningless thing to ye,
arter all said and done. I tell ye, missy, if you had bin treated
by the God ye sings such nice things of, as He have treated me, you
wouldn't be so ready to sing His praises! A good Shepherd! A King of
Love! He be a cruel Tyrant, to my thinkin'!"
"Oh, hush, hush, Mat! How can you speak so in God's house? But I've
heard of your troubles, and I do feel so sorry for you."
She put her little hand on his arm, and looked up at him with tears in
her eyes. Then she said,—
"When I was a little girl I used to long for trouble, for I thought
that all God's people must have it; I never dreamt then that trouble
would keep people away from God; I thought it must bring them closer
to Him. I believe God means it to do so still. But, as you say, I have
no experience, so I cannot talk to you. Only I was thinking as I was
singing that verse,—
"'Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,'—
"that we shall never see God's love in anything in our lives, if our
backs are turned to it. We stray on away from it, and perhaps some of
our troubles are our own making. If you turned right round, Mat, you
would meet the love that is following you. You never will see it so
long as your back is turned to it."
Mat made no reply. He opened the door and went out.
It was astonishing to Betty how easily he felt his way along with his
stick. She called out a "Good afternoon" to him, but he did not answer.
As she went up the drive she sang again,—
"'I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
And the words reached Mat's ear, and a heavy sigh escaped him.
Tea was in the drawing-room when Betty came in, and a visitor; Mr.
Russell was seated by the window talking to Mrs. Stuart.
"Ah," he said, rising and taking Betty's hand in his; "here is my
little friend. I am not going to make a stranger of her, Mrs. Stuart.
I am going to take up my friendship with her where I left off. And she
must adopt no young lady airs and graces with me, for I will have none
of them."
He spoke playfully, and Betty answered him in the same spirit.
"I promise you to put on a white sun-bonnet and holland gown the next
time you call. And I am quite sure I shall enjoy a drive in your high
dog-cart now as much as I used to do."
"Which means I must take you for a drive. When will you come?
To-morrow?"
"If mother can spare me," said Betty demurely.
"Oh yes," Mrs. Stuart replied; "Molly will be here. It will be very
kind of you, Mr. Russell."
Conversation turned on other topics. Then a certain Gerald Arundel was
mentioned, whom Mrs. Stuart knew in town, and who was now living at the
Red Manor near.
"I remember his maiden speech in the House," Mrs. Stuart said; "my
husband thought a great deal of it, and he often dined with us. He
was interested in philanthropy, and was very strong on the Temperance
Question. I always thought him a particularly well-read, cultured man,
and wondered that he so soon sank into obscurity."
"It was his mother's doing. She was an irascible old lady, who
quarrelled with the land agents so often, that no one could be got to
stay. The property became hopelessly involved, and the only thing was
for Gerald to come home and turn agent himself. He gave up his seat at
the following election; said he could not work both—and I think he was
right. Mrs. Arundel died two years ago. But Gerald has lost his taste
for London life. He always was devoted to his home, and he is still
full of philanthropic schemes for his tenants. It is a large property.
I have known him since he was a boy, and I admire his grip and grit of
purpose. Nothing daunts him."
"Is he married?"
"No; he spends his leisure time in his library, which is a very rare
unique collection. His father, if you remember, was a great bookworm,
and the son inherits his tastes."
"It is a good thing to have a hobby," remarked Mrs. Stuart. "I am
always telling my girls to get a purpose into their lives. Something
that will interest and occupy them if their surroundings should not
be congenial. Half the misery in the world is caused through lack of
occupation."
"And the other half through lack of rest," said Mr. Russell musingly.
"Molly has her hobby," said Betty impulsively; "but I haven't found
mine yet."
Molly blushed as she met Mr. Russell's keen searching gaze.
"And what is it?" he asked her.
"I mean to write books," she said modestly.
Mrs. Stuart smiled at her favourite daughter.
"Molly has a riotous imagination," she said. "If that were all that is
necessary for successful authorship, she would succeed. But, as I tell
her, imagination may amuse or distract; it cannot uplift or instruct;
and, to my mind, the world will never lack amusing books. I wish her a
nobler pursuit."
"I don't feel I shall ever do anything grand or noble," said Molly. "I
am sure I am not made for it."
She did not look crushed by her mother's criticism.
"And Betty is lacking in this gift of imagination?" said Mr. Russell
enquiringly.
Betty laughed.
"I couldn't have the patience to wade through imaginary sorrows as
Molly does. She makes herself miserable sometimes. I think it is quite
wicked. It's like deliberately cutting a fly in half, and crying as you
do it! Douglas used to do that when he was a small boy!"
"And so you have no hobbies?"
Betty shook her small head.
"I love playing the organ," she said; "but I seem to like something
different every day. And then there are days that I like nothing.
Mother says I'm undisciplined."
"I shall have to take you in hand," said Mr. Russell, smiling at her.
He lingered on, unwilling to leave the old-fashioned vicarage
drawing-room, with the scent of roses in the air, the two young girls
in their white dresses, and their mother with her graceful beauty. His
artistic soul was satisfied with its environment.
When he left at last, Betty accompanied him down the drive. Stretching
out her hand to a bush of pink roses, she gathered some, and put them
into her belt.
"I wish it was sunshine and roses all the year round," she said
enthusiastically. "Isn't early summer delicious, Mr. Russell? And isn't
the country the place to live in, if you wish to be happy and good?"
"You would like to be a lotus-eater?" said Mr. Russell, shaking his
head at her. "Don't wish to shirk the stern realities of life, Betty;
your character will suffer if you do. Sunshine and roses do not brace
and strengthen; they too often enervate. Women, as well as men, want
adverse winds to prove the grit and purpose in them."
Betty's merry smile faded, her lips took a wistful curve.
"I haven't found the purpose of my life yet," she said, stealing a
shy look up at her old friend through her long lashes. "I wonder if
you will help me to discover it, Mr. Russell? Only—" here dimples and
smiles appeared again—"don't tell me it is to be married!"
"Is that what most people tell you?"
"They infer it."
"And is it a fate that you despise? Have you developed into one of
those young women who think a married life a state of slavery?"
"I don't think I have," said Betty demurely, "for that idea has never
entered my mind. But I really hear so much about the subject in town
that I am quite sick of it. Now I am in the country I mean to forget
all about it. I want to fill my mind with other things."
"I will try to help you."
"Yes, please do. You're a man; your head isn't full of the nonsense
that a girl's is! I want—oh, I want so much to have a full and happy
life. Tell me what fills yours."
Betty looked so earnest and child-like in her unconventional speech,
that Mr. Russell refrained from smiling. He was touched to the heart.
"My dear little friend," he said, "you came into my life many years
ago when it was an empty one. You were the means of leading me to the
source of true satisfaction and fulness. I would that I could help you
now. I am sorry that your life is not a full one. You have everything
in this world to make you happy—youth and health and strength, and,
may I hope that you have not lost, what you possessed so strongly as a
child, your faith in and love of God?"
Betty flushed with deep feeling.
"No, I haven't lost that, Mr. Russell, but I am doing no good to any
one; and I get moody and discontented, and sometimes I'm enchanted with
everybody and everything, and then I hate them all just as heartily!
And I'm not a bit good. I don't think I ever was. I always long to
be, but I can never manage it. There now, I've made you my father
confessor! Now what are you going to say to me?"
They were standing by the gate at the end of the drive, and Betty
raised mischievous eyes to Mr. Russell's face. In spite of the fun
sparkling in them, he saw they were trembling with unshed tears.
"I will keep my lecture for another day," he said lightly.
Betty dropped a little curtsey.
"Thank you, sir."
Then she gave him her hand.
"Good-bye; and next time you will see me in a white sun-bonnet!"
She tripped away singing, "'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme
grows;'" and Mr. Russell walked home feeling that, in spite of years,
growth, and change, Betty was Betty still, with her quick-silvery
transition of mood and thought.
CHAPTER IV
Rose Songs
That music breathes all through my spirit,
As the breezes blow through a tree;
And my soul gives light as it quivers,
Like moons on a tremulous sea.
New passions are wakened within me,
New passions that have not a name
Dim truths that I knew but as phantoms
Stand up clear and bright in the flame.
And my soul is possessed with yearnings
Which make my life broaden and swell;
And I hear strange things that are soundless,
And I see the invisible.
FABER.
IT was an exquisite evening. Mrs. Stuart lay on her couch by the open
window. Molly was seated on a low chair, gazing out into the dusky
garden. Her hands were idly clasped in her lap, and her blue eyes were
filled with dreaminess and content. Bowls of roses—pink, crimson, and
white—scented the room with their fragrance. At the piano sat Betty; an
old-fashioned silver lamp above her threw its soft light upon her small
dark curly head, her eager sensitive face, and her slight graceful
little figure. She was singing, and singing in one of her most pathetic
moods. Her voice thrilled to the soul, one unseen hearer outside.
"'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?'
'That can I not tell thee, my child;
Not one on the bosom of earth ever grows
But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.'
"'Would I'd a rose on my bosom to lie,
But I shrink from the piercing thorn:
I long, but I dare not its point defy;
I long, and I gaze forlorn.'
"'Not so, O my child; round the stem again
Thy resolute fingers entwine;
Forego not the joy for its sister, pain—
Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine.'"
Steps on the gravel made themselves heard as her voice died away.
And then Mr. Russell's voice broke upon them,—
"Mrs. Stuart, may we come in? This is very unceremonious, but Arundel
has been dining with me, and the night is such a lovely one that we
have been tempted out for a stroll. Let me introduce him to you—but you
have met before."
The two men stepped in through the open French window. Mrs. Stuart
welcomed them gladly. She missed the constant intercourse with her
acquaintances in town, and always enjoyed a chat with Betty's old
friend.
Betty rose from the piano with a pretty flush of pleasure on her
cheeks, as she shook hands with Mr. Russell.
"You are not to leave the piano," he said. "We have been enjoying your
music outside. We saw a little white figure surrounded by roses in a
pale light, and we stood still to watch and listen, only half believing
that she was real flesh and blood. No! Please, Mrs. Stuart, do not ring
for lights. May we sit in the dusk and listen to another song? And let
it be about roses still, Betty, only let us forget they have thorns."
Betty turned over the leaves of her music irresolutely.
"I have not many songs about roses, Mr. Russell," she said. Then,
sitting down again, she sang,—
"'It was peeping through the brambles—
That little wild white rose,
Where the hawthorn hedge was planted,
My garden to enclose.
All beyond was fern or heather
On the breezy open moor;
All within was sun and shelter
And the wealth of beauty's store.
But I did not heed the fragrance
Of floweret or of tree,
For my eyes were on that rosebud,
And it grew too high for me.'
"'In vain I strove to reach it,
Through the tangled mass of green—
It only smiled and nodded
Behind its thorny screen.
Yet through that summer morning
I lingered near the spot;
Oh I why do things look sweeter
If we possess them not?
My garden buds were blooming,
But all that I could see
Was that mocking little white rose,
Hanging—just too high for me!'"
"Thank you, Betty," said Mr. Russell, as she shut up her music and
came away from the piano. "You are bent upon teaching us to-night the
undesirability of taking possession of roses. We must look at them, but
they are not to be ours."
"A high standard ensures a high aim," said Gerald Arundel. "An easy
possession is apt to be despised."
He had a pleasant, mellow voice, and as Molly turned up a lamp in her
corner, which shed its light full in his face, Betty started violently.
Where had she seen him before? Surely this calm, self-assured man was
not the same whom she had seen in the full violence of emotion in that
quiet field corner a few days before! Yet even in that short glimpse
she had had of him, his face was too riveted on her memory ever to be
forgotten. She sat down by Molly, and listened to the conversation
without taking part in it.
"You would not sit down contented with that singer's conclusion," said
Mr. Russell, smiling—"that it is 'just too high for me'?"
Gerald's eyes looked mirthful.
"There are always ladders," he said, "to everything!"
"But forbidden fruit is best not touched," said Mrs. Stuart.
"It depends on who forbids it."
"Arundel has the fighting element in him," said Mr. Russell. "I often
tell him that his blood will cool with age."
"We want combativeness," said Mrs. Stuart, smiling; "I think the sin of
our age is easy indifference."
"Yes; combativeness on the side of right is good, but not combativeness
with fate."
"What is fate?"
"I will not use that word, for I do not believe in it. With what
Providence ordains for us."
"Our circumstances, you mean? Do you preach the gospel of resignation,
Mr. Russell, to all things that befall us? I must allow that I cannot
tolerate those who drift with every wind that blows. I am on Mr.
Arundel's side. The greater the difficulties, the more effort I should
make to overcome them. I do not like that word 'Providence.' It is made
use of to excuse laziness and indifference."
"I have expressed myself badly," said Mr. Russell. "I quite agree that
easy acquiescence to whatever comes to us, without any effort to remedy
the evil, is cowardly and weak. But there is a crisis in men's lives
sometimes, when it is useless to fight with the inevitable."
"Your argument is, to fight till you know you are conquered, and then
make the best you can of your defeat?"
It was Gerald Arundel who spoke, but he spoke as a man in a dream.
"Come," said Mrs. Stuart lightly, "let us leave arguments alone. Mr.
Arundel, tell me what you have been doing since I saw you last."
"That seems a long time ago. I do not think I have been idle."
He drew up a chair to her, and was soon deep in many philanthropic
subjects which seemed as dear to his heart as to hers.
Mr. Russell turned to the girls.
"When are you coming over to see me?" he said. "Betty, I want you to
sit for me again. Will you?"
"I don't know," she said, a little mischievously; "I have a vivid
recollection of the torture I underwent when you made me lie down and
pretend to be asleep. How I longed to move! And how frightened I felt
if I so much as winked my eyelid! It is like an endless photo being
taken. I am afraid I could not have the patience to sit still."
"But you could talk," said Mr. Russell; "and I fancy that would
compensate for a good deal."
Betty laughed merrily. Gerald Arundel, catching the sound of her laugh,
turned round for a minute, then went on with what he was saying.
"I chatter too much, don't I, Molly? My tongue is always getting me
into hot water."
"You never think out what you're going to say before you say it," said
Molly.
"Who does? Only prigs and preachers—and I hope I'm not that sort."
"Molly," said Mrs. Stuart, turning to her eldest daughter, "can you
find me the last report I had of the S.P.S.H.? I want to show it to Mr.
Arundel."
"What are those magic letters?" asked Mr. Russell, as Molly left the
room in quest of the pamphlet.
"The Society for Promoting Self-Help," said Betty promptly.
"One of the best societies going," said Mrs. Stuart warmly. "I
thoroughly approve of its principles. It is true charity to teach those
in need to help themselves."
"Yes," said Gerald Arundel musingly; "but I have come across some who
are absolutely helpless to help themselves."
"Are you sure? Such cases are few and far between. I want to show you
how this society meets the needs of the most improbable cases. Even
bedridden cripples have been taught to support themselves. And you do
not feel, in supporting such a charity, that your money will be wasted
or thrown away."
"I don't see that it is a charity at all, mother," said Betty, in
her reckless fashion. "I would much rather help the poor in the good
old-fashioned way. Every one is so dreadfully afraid nowadays of giving
to the undeserving. It makes me always want to do it. I hate all these
societies, made up with red-tape machinery! Feeling and sympathy and
love are all wrong, they say. I'm sure the Bible doesn't tell us to
help our neighbours through societies!"
"You are on the side of freedom, Miss Stuart," said Gerald Arundel,
smiling. "But if you have had any experience in charity, you will know
that indiscriminate almsgiving sometimes aggravates the misery that you
are anxious to relieve."
"Yes, that is what mother says, and I know she must be right; but I do
hate to be tied and bound down by rules and regulations, don't you?"
"Mr. Arundel has seen a little more of life than you have," said Mrs.
Stuart pleasantly. "It is only a question of time, Betty; you want a
wider view of life."
"But, mother, I think I take a wider view than you do."
"Of course you think so. All young people do."
Molly came in at that minute, and soon afterwards, the gentlemen took
their leave.
But before they went, Gerald Arundel asked Mrs. Stuart to bring her
daughters over with her to lunch with him one day.
"I should like you to see my library," he said. "I am sure you would
enjoy it. It is almost a snare to me sometimes, for when I get
inside it I become entirely engrossed, and forget the outside world
altogether."
"Perhaps we might drive over one day when I feel a little stronger,"
said Mrs. Stuart. "I should like to come very much."
They went; and Betty watched them go down the drive with interest.
Gerald Arundel was filling her mind and thoughts. She dwelt again on
every word that she had heard him say. His tone of voice was light and
pleasant; his grey-blue eyes had a frank, honest look in them, with an
occasional twinkle of humour, which lightened up his naturally stern
face. Nothing in his manner or conversation betrayed any secret passion
or grief. Yet she could not forget the glimpse she had caught of him a
short time before.
"He is not married," she said to herself. "He lives in that sweet
old Red Manor House. He has everything that the world can give him.
What can his trouble be? Was it only a passing feeling, I wonder? But
his face looked so fiercely miserable. I wish I knew more about him.
Perhaps Mr. Russell knows, and yet I would not tell any one for worlds.
I shall not tell Molly that I have seen my unknown hero. She is putting
him into her story already. I am sure that he did not recognise me, and
that is one thing for which I am thankful!"
Down the drive, the two men were discussing their visit.
"Mrs. Stuart has changed very little since I last saw her. What a
handsome woman she is!"
"Yes; and the girls take after her—only in a different style."
Gerald was silent; then he said,—
"Little Miss Betty is your favourite."
"She used to be as a child; I cannot quite get reconciled to the change
in her, but she is a winsome little creature still. Molly is too
sedate, too placid, to interest me much."
Another silence. Then Gerald spoke in a different tone.
"My fighting powers are at an end, Russell. I knew what you were
driving at when you talked of being resigned to the inevitable. You
were only continuing our conversation of a few days ago. I told you
then that I was fighting what I hoped would prove a shadow, but it has
turned into a very substantial foe, and I am worsted in the combat."
"I wish you would enlighten me a little."
"I can't. It is only a question of time, and then you will know fast
enough."
"Then I can only assure you of my sympathy, and hope that the
inevitable may prove a blessing."
Gerald gave a short hard laugh. Then he said,—
"You had better turn that into a prayer. You and I both believe in its
power; but I tell you the powers of evil seem to have been let loose on
my soul! I have not, I will not, lose my faith; but it has been tested
to breaking point."
"Thank God it is not broken. Faith, to some, seems mere acquiescence
in what they see and understand. True faith can only be tested in the
dark, when sight and understanding have been swept away—when it has
been strained to breaking point, and does not break!"
Gerald stood still and bared his head in the moonlight.
Mr. Russell noted his upward gaze, and the light that was reflected
on his face from within seemed to match the soft chastened beams from
without. It is good to watch the sunshine pour out from a human soul;
it is better to see the impress of the peaceful silvery light that only
comes in black darkness.
They walked on in silence; then Gerald spoke again,—
"I have been roused to-night by a quick, sweet vision of what might
have been, and what can never be. Thank you for your words. They have
helped me."
He began to talk of other things, and the deep earnestness that had
vibrated in his tone died away. Gerald could be very good company when
he chose. He struck his friend as being singularly light-hearted when
they parted that night, and Mr. Russell said to himself as he turned
into his lonely home,—
"He is young, and troubles will not vex him long. A good constitution,
a hopeful disposition, and a firm belief in God above, will carry him
through triumphantly."
But he would not have spoken so certainly if he had seen Gerald in his
library that night.
Till the small hours of the morning he was pacing to and fro; his brows
were knitted and his hands clenched, but his lips moved in prayer.
As the dawn broke, he flung open the window shutters, and leaning out,
drew in with deep long breaths the dewy sweetness of the morning. And
then a subtle fragrance stealing upwards took his thoughts back with
a bound to a sweet little figure framed in roses, and a still sweeter
voice.
He put his hand out of the window and plucked a small climbing rose,
then a smile played about his eyes and lips, and he murmured,—
"'But all that I could see
Was that mocking little white rose,
Hanging—just too high for me!'"
CHAPTER V
The Red Manor
His home, the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
J. MONTGOMERY.
ABOUT a week later, Mr. Russell drove Mrs. Stuart and the two girls
to the Red Manor to lunch. Betty was very quiet, and her old friend
rallied her on her loss of spirits.
But if her tongue was still, her eyes were busy. As they drove up an
old chestnut drive, with long sweeps of green lawn on either side, she
noted every tree and flowering shrub they passed. She felt an intense
interest in the Red Manor and its master. She could not get him out
of her thoughts. The house itself, with its Elizabethan turrets and
gables, its casement windows, and glowing weather-beaten walls, charmed
her.
Gerald was on the steps to welcome them, and by his side were two
handsome deerhounds. As Betty glanced shyly at him, again she wondered
if the past might have been a bad dream. He looked so strong, so
self-contained, so free from anxious thought or care. He led them
into a square hall which seemed abounding in antiquities, but withal
had a very habitable and cosy look about it. Large pots of geraniums
and hydrangeas lightened up its sombreness, and the sunshine streamed
freely through an old stained window on the staircase. The drawing-room
was rather stiff and decorous, but rare old china and paintings adorned
its walls, and four large windows looked over an expanse of wooded park
and hills.
They lunched in the dining-room, a handsome oak-panelled room, with
family portraits hanging on its walls. Gerald was a delightful host,
and though the conversation was carried on chiefly between Mrs. Stuart
and himself, Betty and Molly enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Afterwards
he took them to his library, and here Mrs. Stuart became completely
absorbed in looking over the many rare and valuable works on the
shelves.
"This is where I live," he said, smiling, as he turned to the girls.
"If I had only this one room, I could be content for the rest of my
life."
Mrs. Stuart looked up from a book of which she had taken possession.
"There is no sense of loneliness amongst books," she said.
"But it is a one-sided companionship," said impulsive Betty. "Books
talk to me, but I can't talk back; that is what I should want—some one
to talk to!"
"Don't you ever feel lonely here, Mr. Arundel?" asked Molly.
"I never have yet," he replied, passing his hand caressingly across
some of his calf-bound favourites.
Then a shadow fell across his face.
"It is all part and parcel of my life. I have loved it too much. As a
little chap at school I was a puzzle to many, because I would spend my
holidays alone here, in preference to visiting some cousins of mine
in London. That is one thing I shall look back to with thankfulness
hereafter—that I made the best use of the opportunities that were given
to me, of spending all the time I could here."
His tone vibrated with earnestness and feeling.
Again Betty wondered at his words. She wandered round the room whilst
he and her mother pored over his books. One of the deerhounds followed
her. She laid her hand on his head. "I wonder how much you know, or how
little?" she said softly, under her breath. "Do you ever sit beside
your master when he is going through a bad time? Do you stuff your nose
into his hand and assure him of your love and faithfulness?"
Floy, the hound, looked at her with intelligent eyes, but only wagged
his tail in response.
Then Betty walked to the window, and as she looked out upon the sweep
of green turf and grand old trees, with a few cattle grazing in the
distance, and then again at the comfortably furnished library within,
with its lounge chairs and every convenience for writing or reading,
she announced in a dreamy tone,—
"If I were the mistress of this house, I should be perfectly happy."
Mrs. Stuart looked up with a little consternation in her eyes. Gerald
laughed aloud.
"And which room would you make your headquarters?" he asked.
Betty was so utterly unconscious that she had said anything at all
peculiar, that she continued in the same tone, "I should use them all;
but I would come in here when I wanted to think and be good."
"And would that be often?"
"Sometimes it would."
"We must not monopolise your time too much," said Mrs. Stuart, rising
from her seat. "I think you said you would like to show us round the
house, so shall we make a move? I cannot tell you how I envy you such a
library. I think, with Betty, that I should spend a good bit of my time
here, were it mine."
Gerald led them up the old staircase to the music-room.
"This is where I fancy you would be found oftenest," he said, turning
to Betty, with an amused sparkle in his eyes.
"Yes—what a lovely piano! May I try it? But an organ is what I love.
Ah, you have one over there!"
"It has never been touched since my mother died," said Gerald gravely.
"She used to play on it. I am afraid it may be out of repair. Would you
like to try it?"
Betty shrank back and shook her head.
"Oh no; it would be—be sacrilege. You must keep it from being touched
by any one else. She must have been fond of music?"
"Very fond. She handed on the love of it to me, but not the power of
execution."
"That is sometimes the better gift of the two," said Mrs. Stuart. "An
appreciative soul has the power of bringing more happiness to others, I
think, than mere talent and execution. Genius is apt to be very selfish
and autocratic in its demands."
"And the world wants more sympathy and appreciation than genius," said
Gerald musingly; "and that is in a beggar's power to give."
"And the moral is," broke in Betty, with twinkling eyes, "that no one
need live in vain."
Gerald looked at her.
"I wish all would believe that, Miss Betty. It would save many from
despair."
Betty did not reply, but a thoughtful look stole into her pretty eyes.
They soon wandered out into the grounds. Molly was busy peopling every
nook and corner with her imaginary heroes and heroines. To her, Gerald
was "copy,"—nothing more. His house, his lands, were interesting to her
from that view alone. She lived in a land of dreams at present, which
the quiet seclusion of the country vicarage only served to foster and
encourage. Betty's quick eager eyes were everywhere. She loved the
old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the walled kitchen gardens, the
roses on the terraces, and the quaint old summer-houses in unfrequented
spots; but through it all, the master, with his hidden trouble, stood
persistently forward in her thoughts. She listened to his conversation
with her mother with wonder and increasing interest. How much he seemed
to know! How every subject interested him! What a busy useful life he
seemed to lead!
Just before the carriage came round to take them home, Betty caught
sight of her organ-blower leaving the stable yard.
"Do you know Mat Lubbock?" she asked.
"Indeed I do, and feel an intense pity for him."
"But," said Betty, a little pucker settling between her eyes, "pity
does him no good. Everybody pities him. I want to do more than that for
him!"
Gerald looked at her with a grave smile.
Mrs. Stuart was resting on an old stone seat by the hall door. Molly
was carefully wrapping a shawl round her. For a moment Betty was alone
with her host.
"What do you want to do for him?" he asked.
"Oh, I want to comfort him, to make him pleased and satisfied with
life."
"That can be done, but not by you or me."
Gerald spoke with a far-away look in his eyes.
"I don't think any one can do it," said Betty, with a little sigh.
'There was silence for a minute, then very slowly, almost under his
breath, Gerald said,—
"'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and
restore comforts unto him.'"
A light came into Betty's face. She looked up at her companion with a
radiant smile, though a rush of feeling had almost brought tears to her
eyes.
"That is from the Bible," she said, "but I don't remember where it
comes. It is lovely. And it is true. Oh, Mr. Arundel, make him believe
it!"
She turned away. The carriage was at the foot of the steps, and not
another word passed between them.
When Betty went to her room that night, she took out her Bible, and
began to search for the verse that Gerald had quoted to her.
With the help of her Concordance, she found it.
"I knew it would be in Isaiah," she mused. "He is always so comforting;
and I am glad that Mr. Arundel is a good man, for he will know where
to get comfort himself. I wonder that he has such a trouble, if he is
good, or rather that he feels it so. But I suppose he wouldn't be human
if he didn't feel. He would be a stoic!"
She repeated the verse over to herself.
"I shall certainly say it to Mat next time I see him. It can't do him
harm, and it may do him good."
But it was some days before she saw her blower. Mrs. Stuart had one
of her bad attacks, and the two girls were anxious and engrossed with
her. When she rallied and came downstairs again, she was difficult to
please, and though Molly never incurred her displeasure, Betty did, and
was too young and impatient to realise that her mother's irritation was
due to weakness of nerves and bad health.
"Can you not keep still, Betty?" Mrs. Stuart demanded sharply one
afternoon, as she was wandering about the drawing-room touching things
with restless fingers, and singing softly to herself.
Betty dropped into a chair at once.
"I'm sorry, mother; I wasn't thinking."
"A restless woman is my special aversion," went on Mrs. Stuart
irritably. "Why cannot you have the repose of manner that Molly has? It
is so ill-bred to be constantly fidgeting. I have seen you entertain
visitors in the same excited jerky state."
"I can't be an exact duplicate of Molly," said Betty, a little hotly,
"and I shouldn't like to be if I could. She is distinctly heavy
sometimes."
"Disparaging others does not excuse yourself. It is want of occupation
that is your failing. Molly is never idle; you are perpetually so."
Betty began to feel that this was unjust. She had stayed in with her
mother to let Molly have a drive with Mr. Russell, who had in reality
called to take her out. But Molly had been tied to the house for
several days, and she persuaded her to go in her stead.
Mrs. Stuart was glad, for Molly's sake, that she had gone, but she
found Betty a poor substitute.
"I haven't anything to do now," said Betty, "because I am sitting with
you. You don't like me to write your letters for you, and you won't let
me read to you. I have finished my work. Would you like me to play, to
you?"
"No, thank you. My head is not in a fit state to stand it."
There was silence. Then Mrs. Stuart continued,—
"You are always so ready to excuse yourself, Betty, that you will never
learn to remedy your faults. You are wasting your life at present. You
have no pursuits, no resources. I have given you a good education, but
you seem to have derived no benefit from it. When I was your age I was
the secretary of an essay society, the treasurer for our local Girls'
Friendly Society, and founder of a small Workmen's Club. You seem to
take no interest in anything."
"I hadn't much chance in town to do anything but go to stupid 'At
Homes' and evening parties," said Betty. "I want to find something to
do, but I can't bear writing. I like to be out of doors always. I wish
I could live my life in a gipsy camp, and have perpetual summer."
"You only think of life as it may affect yourself," said her mother
severely. "It seems impossible to instil the sense of responsibility
into your motives. I often wonder if any forces will make you see
differently, or if you will drift into an aimless, discontented woman,
who will live and die a slave to her self-indulgence and indolence."
Betty's lower lip drooped. An overwhelming sense of her own
shortcomings seized her. Her mother's plain speaking always had the
result of depressing her. It never stimulated her.
Mrs. Stuart continued for some minutes in the same strain, and then
Molly's entrance set Betty free, and she rushed out of doors with a
sore heart.
"Mother always scolds me so. She only likes Molly. I never please her.
I am a dead failure, and I am good for nothing. Oh, what was I made
for? And how is it I seem to have missed my vocation? I should like to
leave home altogether, and go thousands of miles away to the other end
of the globe, and never come back again till I had become a brilliant
success. Men do that. They have been dunces at schools, and have
been plucked in exams., and sent down from college; and then they go
abroad, and the ne'er-do-weels turn into millionaires, or governors or
presidents of some colony; and they come home in triumph, and everybody
worships them. But girls can't do that kind of thing. I am one too many
in our family. I always felt I was. I wonder—"
She was leaning over a stile in the meadows as she mused, and a look up
into the deep blue sky formulated the thought.
"I wonder what God means me to do with my life. I wish He would show
me. I do believe I am His child. In a kind of way I have always tried
to serve Him, and I do love Him; but my life is full of faults, and I
am always forgetting. Mother is hopeless about me. I wonder if God is!"
Betty's eyes were filling with tears.
A brisk "Good afternoon" made her start.
Gerald Arundel was behind her, waiting to pass.
She hastily brushed away her tears, and spoke in an extra cheerful
tone, "Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Arundel. Where are you going? May I come
with you?"
[Illustration: BETTY WAS LEANING OVER A STILE IN THE MEADOWS AS SHE
MUSED.]
Then, as she met a surprised look in his eyes, she laughed confusedly.
"Of course, that's a thing I should not have said—at least, not to
you. Mr. Russell would have understood. I want some one to talk to
dreadfully."
Gerald smiled at her, and there was something in his smile that seemed
to warm her heart.
"I shall be delighted to talk to you," he said. "Shall we walk down to
the village? I want to see an old woman who has applied for a vacant
place in my almshouses."
"Oh, have you an almshouse? How delightful! I always think I should
like to end my days in one. They are so restful."
"Don't you think that depends on the inmates?"
"No; because they are always old, and they all sit by their fires with
their cups of tea on the hob, and knit and nod by turns."
"I wish you would visit mine, and see if they come up to your
expectation."
"Tell me where they are, and I will go at once," cried Betty
enthusiastically. "I was just feeling how empty my life was, and
wishing for something to do."
"I think you would find it too far to walk; it is a good three miles."
"Perhaps I had better not go to-day. Mother will wonder where I am."
Silence fell upon them as they trod the green meadow together, then
Gerald broke it,—
"What has happened to take away your sunshine to-day?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I last saw you, you were the personification of sunshine; now—"
"Ah, yes," interrupted Betty; "I know I am dull and doleful. It is from
thinking over my failings. I am no good to any one. I am not wanted at
home, and I am not wanted away from it. And I sometimes long to be a
real help to some one."
Gerald did not speak, but it was not want of sympathy that kept him
silent. The wistful hesitation in her tone vibrated through him.
She added, with an attempt at playfulness,—
"So if you come across an empty corner that you think I might fill, I
wish you would let me know."
Gerald gazed down upon her with a strange look in his eyes.
"And if I did, would you promise to fill it?"
Betty shook her head, and laughter came to her lips.
"It must be the right corner," she said; "a corner that would fit me,
and that I could fill satisfactorily. I have always felt an odd one
left out in the cold, a 'puss' trying to get in at some corner, but
never succeeding."
Gerald caught the infection of her bright face, and smiled.
"I will remember," he said simply.
Silence again. Talkative as Betty usually was, she did not break it.
A restfulness stole into her heart as she paced by Gerald's side. She
felt small and childish beside him, but was content to have it so. His
quiet strength was brought into greater prominence thereby. They had
reached the village, and when Gerald turned in at a small cottage,
Betty wished him good-bye.
"I wish I could offer to drive you over to the almshouses," he said, as
he held her hand for a moment in his; "but I am going up to town almost
immediately on business. Ask Mr. Russell to take you. My old women will
be enchanted to see you, for they love visitors."
Betty's face brightened.
"I shall like to see them."
"May a comparative stranger offer you a bit of advice?"
"Of course; what is it?"
"If you are feeling that your life is empty, fill it with others'
interests. We are all stewards entrusted with gifts to pass on."
"Thank you, Mr. Arundel."
Betty said no more, but walked away very soberly.
"What a good man he is! I wish I were like him! How I wonder what his
secret trouble is! His face is different from most people's. He knows
how to screen his soul from public view, but sometimes when he speaks,
as he did just now, one gets a glimpse of it. I wonder if I am a
steward. I must think it out, but I don't believe that I have any gifts
to pass on."
CHAPTER VI
Altered Circumstances
(For) of Fortune's sharp adversity
The worste kinde of infortune is this,
A man to have been in prosperite
And it remember when it passed is.
CHAUCER.
"THERE, Mat, haven't I tired you out?"
"'Twould take more nor that, miss, to tire me. And a tired body can
soon be put right. If there were no worse ills in life than that, us
would be happy!"
"You mean that your soul and spirit are tired. Well, I can give you a
text that was given me the other day. And I think it is a lovely one
for you: 'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him
also, and restore comforts unto him.'"
"Nothin' but words," muttered Mat, under his breath.
"Oh, Mat, you mustn't say that, because they aren't my words, they are
God's; and His words and promises are facts."
Mat began to shuffle down the aisle of the church. Betty had been
playing the organ for over an hour and a half; she found now that Mat
was always ready to act as her blower. His protests waxed fainter each
time, and a wintry smile would pass over his face when he heard Betty's
fresh young voice.
She would not let him go now, but laid her arm on his coat-sleeve.
"Listen, Mat; I long to comfort you and make you happy, but only God
can do this. Listen again to what He says, for I have thought over
this verse so much: 'I have seen his ways.' Your ways, that means,
your troubles, and difficulties, and doubts of God's goodness; 'and
will heal him,' heal your broken heart, and all your soul's aches and
pains 'I will lead him also.' He won't leave you. When He comes to
comfort and heal, He will stay by you, and lead you day by day, so that
temptation and trial will not be too much for you, with His hand in
yours. And now this is the best part of all: 'I will restore comforts
unto him.' You will be like Job, who had everything taken away from
him, and then had it restored fourfold. I don't think you can need more
than that."
Mat cleared his throat.
"Ye be a wunnerful praycher, miss. Good afternoon."
He hurried out of the church; and Betty sighed heavily, little knowing
that every word she uttered remained riveted on the blind man's memory.
Mat went to his solitary home, and sat down to his tea like a man
stunned. Slowly repeating the verse over to himself, the beauty and
simplicity of it seemed to strike him afresh.
"Ay!" he said at last, with a groan; "'tis more than I can expect, if
He have seen my goin's on! I be in sore need of healin' an' comfort,
an' as I can't get it nowhere else, I'd best let the Almighty have His
dealin's with me!"
His tea remained untouched, but the frozen ground in his soul was
thawing and softening rapidly. That night it yielded to the seed of
life, and though it was long before the sower knew about it, the seed
took root and sprang up.
When Betty left the church and retraced her steps to the vicarage, she
was met in the drive by Molly and Mr. Russell.
"Oh, here she is!" cried Molly joyously. "Betty, Mr. Russell is going
to carry us off to dinner with him. Mother has given her permission,
and he is going to let us see a new planet through his telescope this
evening."
"And as I have been waiting for your return for a full hour, I am going
to lay violent hands on you, and insist upon your coming with me this
very moment," said Mr. Russell.
"But," hesitated Betty, looking down at her dress, "I must—"
"You must do nothing but step into my trap, which is waiting for us at
the blacksmith's. My horse has been shoed. You young ladies are always
in such dainty white frocks that you do not need any extra adorning to
grace a bachelor's table!"
They were a merry party driving out to the Hall. Molly and Betty vied
with one another in old reminiscences, and Mr. Russell listened and
laughed at them.
But as they drove up to the front door he made a comical face of dismay.
"Visitors! Now if only we had been five minutes later! It is Mrs. Fitz
Hume and her sister; that means a good hour's gossip!"
"Let us go round to the stables before they see us!" cried Betty.
But it was too late. A stout lady in the act of descending the steps
caught sight of them approaching, and called out gaily,—
"Ah, Mr. Russell, here you are! What a blessing! My poor horses have
driven twenty-five miles to-day, and I have found no one at home."
In a few minutes they were all in the drawing-room, and tea was brought
in.
Mrs. Fitz Hume's sister, a Miss Allison, was as silent as Mrs. Fitz
Hume was discursive; but when she did make a remark, it was pithy and
to the point; only, as Betty afterwards remarked, she viewed life
through dark blue spectacles.
When Mrs. Fitz Hume had taken her second cup of tea she became
impressive.
"Now, my dear Mr. Russell, have you heard the news? And can you
enlighten us at all? For I assure you it was the greatest shock to me.
I always have liked Gerald Arundel. My dear husband used to say that
you and he were the only intellectual men in the county—men of books
and thought. And I know Gerald is a great crony of yours, so I suppose
he has told you all. I have heard rumours for some time that he was in
some difficulty, but I never dreamt of anything like this."
Betty's breath came and went quickly. Mr. Russell quietly helped
himself to another cup of tea. Not a muscle of his face moved. Mrs.
Fitz Hume looked at him, then gave a little laugh.
"Oh, how stolid and unemotional you men are! Matters of life and death
will not move you."
"Arundel was in good health when I saw him yesterday," Mr. Russell
remarked.
"It is a wonder that he is! If any man was ever wedded to his property,
he was, and now, at one blow, it is all taken from him!"
Molly opened her blue eyes in astonishment. "Is Mr. Arundel going to
leave that dear old house of his?" she asked.
"It is going to be put up for sale to-morrow fortnight," said Miss
Allison, in a sepulchral tone.
"And it is a marvel to me why he has kept his friends so in the dark,"
said Mrs. Fitz Hume.
"I actually saw a notice of the sale in the paper yesterday morning,
and till then I had not the remotest idea of such a catastrophe!
There are the wildest stories afloat, but none quite so interesting
as the truest version, and that I have heard from Dr. Strong, who has
Gerald's permission to make it public. Of course details are wanting,
so I should be glad to hear your version of it, Mr. Russell. Is it
true that an unknown uncle of his in Australia has been discovered,
and claims the whole property as his? And that, having no love for
the old place and no desire to live in it, he has written to give
directions for it to be sold? How is it that he can lay claim to it?
Is he senior to Gerald's father? And where has he been all this time?
Why did he not come forward before? And is he so desperately mean as to
make no allowance to his nephew? From what I gathered, Gerald will be
absolutely penniless."
"My dear Mrs. Fitz Hume," said Mr. Russell quietly, "you require no
information from me, for you have told me more than I know myself."
"Oh, poor Mr. Arundel!" said Molly. "How dreadful for him! Will he have
to sell that lovely old library?"
"It is most distressing; he will have to part with all that he loves
and values, and will not get a halfpenny himself! I feel inclined to
open my house to him, and offer him a home, but he is so proud that I
should be afraid of suggesting it."
"He is not too proud to thank you for the kindness of heart that
prompts such a suggestion."
Mrs. Fitz Hume looked round startled, and was not reassured when she
saw it was Gerald himself, who had entered the room unperceived. There
was an awkward silence. Gerald was the only one who seemed at ease. He
shook hands with Molly and Betty, bowed to Miss Allison, and took a
seat near Mrs. Fitz Hume.
"Please don't mind me," he said, a little twinkle of humour stealing
into the corners of his eyes. "I have had to pay three calls this
afternoon, and each time found myself the absorbing topic of
conversation. I came over here thinking that I could not be an
interruption. But I am afraid I was mistaken."
"Now, my dear Mr. Arundel," said Mrs. Fitz Hume, with more kindness
than tact, "let us be quite frank with each other. We are all friends
here; and I'm most distressed at this appalling news. Have you no way
out of your difficulties, except by the sale of the Red Manor? Just
think, some City man may buy it, and we shall have neighbours whom none
of us will care to visit! Can't you persuade this unknown uncle of
yours to come over and settle here himself? It is such a pity when a
sweet old family place like yours goes out of the family."
Gerald looked grave. Betty glanced at him shyly, wondering how he could
stand Mrs. Fitz Hume's well-meant sympathy.
She went on, unheeding Mr. Russell's frown,—
"Do tell me, now, what you mean to do? Are you going away? And are you
going to sell that valuable old library of yours?"
"I will send you a catalogue of the sale," answered Gerald
imperturbably, "and then you will see all the 'goods and effects.' As
for my own plans, they are not quite formulated yet; but when they are,
I will let you know."
"Meanwhile, it is kindest to leave you in peace," said Miss Allison
drily; then, turning to her sister, she said,—
"Marion, my dear, I don't want to take the initiative, but our drive is
a long one, and it is getting late."
Mrs. Fitz Hume reluctantly took her sister's hint, and rose from her
seat.
"You will come and dine with us, Mr. Arundel, one day this week? I
won't take a refusal. As I was saying to Mr. Russell just now, my dear
husband always had such a regard and liking for you. I don't know what
he would have said, had he known—"
Mr. Russell came to Gerald's rescue; he asked Mrs. Fitz Hume to give
her opinion on a picture in the hall that he had lately bought, and a
few minutes after her carriage rolled away.
Gerald stayed to dinner. His family affairs were not touched upon; but
both the girls wondered at his calm and cheerful composure. Betty was
so full of his trouble that she could not regain her spirits; and when,
after they had dined, they adjourned to the observatory, Mr. Russell
rallied her on her silence.
"Are abstruse calculations filling your mind and thoughts, or have you
made a resolve to practise discretion of speech, and think before you
speak?"
"I always try to do that," said Betty naïvely, "except when I'm in a
hurry and forget."
When, a few minutes after, Molly took up her position behind the big
telescope, and Mr. Russell was instructing her in the mysteries of the
planets, Betty turned to Gerald.
"Let us look up at the stars without a telescope, Mr. Arundel, like—I
was going to say—God meant us to do. Will you think me very silly if I
venture to criticise the telescope? Don't you think, if God had meant
us to see so much, He would have given us eyes to do so?"
Gerald smiled. He opened a window, and they leant out together. It was
a sweet, still June evening. The scent of mignonette and roses came
upwards from the garden. The sky was studded with its diamond-like
constellations; in the stillness the plaintive hoot of the owl and the
croaking of the frog in the meadow stream close by were the only sounds
that were heard.
"I don't think I can agree with you, Miss Betty. Every bit of science
discovered, by the intelligence given to us from above, only serves to
bring one great and important truth to light, and that is,—
"'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!'"
Betty raised her eyes to the dark blue above her. Gerald added almost
under his breath,—
"And His ways with us, though incomprehensible to our intelligence, are
full of the same riches and wisdom."
Then Betty turned impulsively to him, and her voice was unsteady,—
"Mr. Arundel, may I say how sorry I am for you? I do feel it. I wish I
could do something, but none of us can. How will you bear it?"
"Thank you for your sympathy," he said very quietly. "It is a wrench,
but the bitterness, thank God, is over."
"Now, Betty, it is your turn," cried Molly.
Betty turned, but her first peep through the telescope was not a
successful one, for her eyes were dim with tears.
Mr. Russell drove them home in his trap that evening, and on the way
told them a little more of Gerald's trouble.
"It was his father's eldest brother who ran away, and was supposed to
be dead. The property is really his, but it was only quite lately that
he wrote to the family lawyer saying that he was alive, and meant to
have his rights. He married a rich woman out in Australia—beneath him
in station, I believe, and has one son. Lately he has lost a good bit
of money, and for the first time seems to have thought of his property
here. I fancy, owing to his wildness in his youth and a quarrel with
his father, he believed old Mr. Arundel had disinherited him; but he
had no power to do so. It has always gone to the eldest son, with no
reservations. Owing to a flaw in the will, Gerald comes in for nothing,
and his uncle, whose only need seems to be ready money, with his
son's consent has the power of selling the whole for his own selfish
gratification. It comes very hard on Gerald, as he has such a love for
the place."
"What is he going to do?" asked Molly pityingly. "It is just like a
story-book. He can't starve. Will he write books, and make a name in
London?"
Betty gave a little impatient laugh.
"Your one idea is writing books, Molly! Too many people do that now."
"I am advising him to take a farm in this neighbourhood," said Mr.
Russell. "He has farming at his finger's ends, and has always been
accustomed to an outdoor life."
"But will he like seeing his own home in the hands of strangers?" said
Betty dubiously.
"Oh," cried Molly enthusiastically, "I see a way out. There must be an
only daughter, and he must fall in love with her, and marry; and then
in the end he will live in his old home again!"
"A delightful thought," said Mr. Russell, a little drily; "you had
better suggest that a stipulation should be made as to the buyer of the
estate: 'Only people with a marriageable daughter need apply.'"
"As if that would ever be the same!" cried Betty scornfully. "I hate
men who marry women with money; it is quite the wrong way round. Money
makes you the master of everything, and a woman ought not to be the
master of her husband."
"You have not advanced with the times," said Mr. Russell. "I thought
all young ladies liked to rule nowadays."
"I don't," said Betty emphatically; "at least I shouldn't like to rule
a man."
"No, I don't think that is your role, and I hope it never will be."
CHAPTER VII
Old Women
Each word of kindness,
Come whence it may, is welcome to the poor.
Her presence
Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a
prison.
LONGFELLOW.
MRS. STUART was very interested in hearing from her girls about the
Red Manor and its master. Betty felt impatient at her mother's view
of the case, and thought she did not show sufficient sympathy for
Gerald. She heard with consternation her mother discussing with Molly
the advisability of attending the sale, in order to obtain some of the
treasures in the library. Mrs. Stuart was a keen lover of books, and
the joy of obtaining at a moderate price some of the valuable works she
had so admired when lunching there, over-balanced the pity she felt for
their owner.
There was much excitement in the neighbourhood when it was known that
the goods and effects of the Red Manor were to be sold by auction.
Most of Gerald's friends and neighbours expressed their intention of
being present; and Betty grew angry and disgusted by turns, when she
heard the matter being so lightly discussed. She watched her mother
and sister drive off to the sale, when the day came round with a sore
heart. She was ashamed to own even to herself how much her thoughts
were with Gerald Arundel.
She pictured him taking his last farewell of his old home, with a happy
past behind him, and the future uncertain and dreary. She dwelt in
thought over his words in the library, when she asked him if he were
ever lonely,—
"The one thing I shall look back to with thankfulness hereafter is,
that I have made the best use of the opportunities that have been given
to me of spending all the time I could here."
Now that time was gone; and he knew, when he said those words, that
perhaps it would be the last time he could show friends over his house.
Betty went out into the garden, and paced the paths dejectedly. At
last her feelings got the better of her, and, sitting down on a low
garden-chair under an old elm, she buried her face in her hands, and
gave way to tears. She was startled by a voice close to her a few
minutes later.
"What is the matter with my little friend?"
Betty looked hastily up, and confronted Mr. Russell.
"Oh!" she said, stretching out her hand to him impulsively. "It is all
so miserable, Mr. Russell. Why does God let things all go wrong? Why
should some people have such trouble, and others none at all?"
"Are you in trouble?"
"No; I am thinking about Mr. Arundel. He seems so brave and cheerful
about it and people say such things, that he doesn't care a bit, and
has no heart, and is so cold-blooded,—and it makes my blood boil to
hear them! If they only knew!"
Mr. Russell's eyebrows elevated themselves very slightly.
"Don't take other people's troubles too hardly, Betty. You will have
enough to bear of your own, without adding to them."
"I hate people to be unhappy!" Betty cried vehemently. "And good people
oughtn't to be."
"Hush! Remember who sends trouble. You taught me that lesson long, long
ago Gerald is not unhappy, he will tell you."
Betty was silent.
"The bitterness is over," he had said to her, as they looked up at the
starry heaven above them. But she had seen him when it was full upon
him, and she could not forget that time.
"You feel things too much," Mr. Russell continued. "Come out for a
drive with me, and forget it all."
"And you call yourself his friend!" Betty said reproachfully. "I
thought Mat's trouble bad enough, but I think this is almost worse."
"No, no," said Mr. Russell quickly. "Death is a worse foe than poverty.
And Gerald has health and strength, and all his faculties perfect. Did
you not want to go and see the Red Manor almshouses? Shall we drive
there now?"
"Will those be sold too?" Betty enquired dolefully. "And why are you
not at the sale? Everybody is. It is quite a gala day."
"Do not let me see that twist to your lips, my little friend! I hope
you will leave sarcasm alone. It never suits a woman. I have now just
come from the sale."
Betty rose a little reluctantly from her seat. She would have been
better content if Mr. Russell had not roused her from her musings; but
a few minutes later, when she was driving swiftly along the roads in
his high dog-cart, her spirit revived.
"Isn't the world delicious?" she said, looking up at him with sparkling
eyes. "And aren't those bright green fields a picture in the sun? Young
wheat, is it not? And the smell of the hay is enchanting! Oh, I wish
I could be always in the country! I mean to make the very most of my
summer here."
For the rest of the drive Mr. Russell could not complain of Betty's
dulness; she seemed to have entirely shaken off her fit of the blues.
When they arrived at the almshouses, she was delighted afresh. They
were picturesque, red-bricked buildings with thatched roofs, built in a
row in a green meadow, with some old chestnuts standing like sentinels
in front.
"Now," said Mr. Russell, as he helped her to alight, "I am going to
leave you here while I drive on farther. There are six old women to
visit, and you must not leave out one, or you will hurt their feelings.
Will an hour be long enough for you?"
"Oh yes," Betty replied. "Perhaps I shall find they do not want me so
long. Must I portion out the time equally? Ten minutes to each?"
She laughed gaily, and waved her hand to him as he drove off, then made
her way to the first cottage. She was welcomed by a cheery talkative
old woman, who was cleaning up her hearth, and apologised for her
appearance.
"I've just bin a cookin' meself an apple pastie, me dear. Sit 'ee
down, for master did tell us of a young leddy a-comin' a-visitin'.
I be allays on me feet, for I be a terrible active body, an' if the
place be small, it takes a brave lot o' cleanin'. Now, Mary Dunster
nex' door, her be just t'other way. Her be allays groanin' an' wantin'
folk to do for her, an' never a word o' thanks. Her thinketh her be of
higher stock than me, because her lived in Lunnon town for a spell, an'
her took in dressmakin'. Her were maid to old Mrs. Fitz Hume, an' her
be allays mindin' us o' the quality her have a lived with. All said
an' done, I be an independent stock; for my father were head shepherd
to Farmer Watson, an' I kep' house after mother died, an' never went
to service, an' me dear husband were Squire Arundel's carpenter. Ah,
dearie me! What a day to see! 'Tis true what the Scripture saith, 'He
putteth down one, an' setteth up another.'"
Betty fancied there was a little suppressed satisfaction in her tone,
and felt indignant at once.
"I don't know what you will all do when your squire goes away. You will
never get another like him."
"Maybe not. He be a well-meanin' young man, an' I hath nought to say
agen he. But 'tis pitiful to see how folks taketh of him in; an' Martha
Button be a proper one to do it. Her be two door off, me dear, an' were
nurse to the fam'ly. You 'm be pretty well wearied wi' her lasting
chatteration of the squire's sayin's and doin's, when her tongue be
started. Her be allays looked to first an' foremost, an' her seeth to
it that her be so!"
"And who are your other neighbours?" asked Betty, not feeling quite
sure whether she liked this garrulous old woman.
"There be Widder Newcombe and Widder Long, an' they be that thick
together that, 'pon me word, us don't know which house belangs to
which. If so be you droppeth in to Widder Newcombe's, Widder Long be
havin' her cup o' tay by the fireside, if you looketh in at Widder
Long, Widder Newcombe be sittin' wi' her knittin' as if her never be
goin' to leave. An' then on washin' day there be a gran' bust up,
an' they be callin' each other all the bad names they can think on.
Us always calleth them the widders, though us be all that, save our
newcomer Susan Crane; but they losted their husban's in the same day in
a quarry explosion, an' allays have worked on the gentry's feelin's.
They be both out, for they be gone to the Red Manor sale, which is
onfeelin', to say nothin' of the disrespec', in thinkin' o' buyin' the
squire's saucepans an' such like. But Widder Newcombe be very savin',
an' her always go to the sales, and nice rubbish her doth pick up at
'em!"
"Susan Crane came from our village, did she not?" asked Betty, wishing
to stop this flow of talk.
"Her did that; but her be not much company for us. Her be the village
nurse, and maybe it made her turn pious. Her be overmuch that way,
if so be it be real, but I have me doubts. Folks can sit wi' the
Scriptures open before 'em, when squire cometh by, an' spout streams of
tex'es an' hymns till they right daze one; but 'tis a different song
when there be none to see an' praise 'em, an' Susan be too holy, I
fancy!"
"I don't think any one can be that," said Betty gravely. "I couldn't;
could you?"
"No, me dear, Lucy Finch be just a poor sinner, like the rest o' the
world. I doth not set meself above me neighbours."
Betty stayed a little longer, but she was glad to leave Mrs. Finch. She
did not seem to her to be her ideal old woman in an alms house.
Mary Dunster was a pale, sweet-faced woman, sitting in her chair, stiff
with rheumatism. To Betty, her little kitchen perhaps lacked the shine
and polish of her neighbour's, but it was clean and comfortable.
She brightened up at the sight of a visitor.
"I heard the voices through the wall, miss; and I hoped you might be
looking in here. We get very tired of each other, and the days are
long."
"I have been envying you," Betty said brightly. "I thought it must be
so restful in these sweet little cottages. Aren't you very happy here?"
Mrs. Dunster gave a heavy sigh.
"'Tis a difficult matter to be happy, when you suffer so, miss. I never
spend a night without pain. I am crippled up with rheumatism, just a
useless old creature sitting here till I die."
"But," said Betty, with shining eyes, "in all probability you are
nearer heaven than I am. You have that to look forward to, haven't you?
No more pain."
Mrs. Dunster sighed again.
"It seems unreal to me. I doubt sometimes if I shall get there."
"Why?"
Mrs. Dunster looked uneasy, but said nothing.
"May I come and read to you about heaven, to make it real?" asked Betty
eagerly. "Ever since I was quite a little girl I have loved reading
about it. It makes everything so bright when you think of it; and it is
the way to make it real to one. I have a brother out in India, he is at
a place called Quetta. I never took any interest in it before he went
there, but he tells us so much about it in his letters, and sends us
so many photos of it, and curiosities, that now I feel I know it quite
well."
"It would pass the time," said Mrs. Dunster, with a sigh. "It is such a
treat to hear a young lady speak. My neighbours have not received any
education, and I've always been accustomed to the gentry. What a sad
pity 'tis about the squire! Have you heard, miss, whether the place
have been bought? I've thought lately how worried the squire has been
looking! 'Tis a crying shame to turn him out so sudden like. And they
do say he hasn't a penny now! 'Tis a terrible business!"
"Yes," said Betty soberly, "it is. I can't think how he must feel
to-day."
"'Tis likely he'll be upset."
Betty stayed some time with Mrs. Dunster, then she went on to Mrs.
Button's. Here she met with a surprise. Mrs. Button was seated at a
round tea-table, and opposite her, leaning back in a grandfather's
chair with a smile on his face, and a cup of tea halfway to his lips,
was Gerald Arundel. The tea-table was daintily spread—a snow-white
cloth with a glass of old-fashioned moss-roses in the centre. A
home-made loaf, some honey in a glass dish, and some clotted cream,
all made a cosy picture; and Martha Button, in her snow-white cap and
apron, with her rosy cheeks and kindly smile, was the chief attraction
in it.
For an instant Betty hesitated, but Gerald was on his feet in an second.
"Why, nurse, here is Miss Stuart come to see you. Do you think you have
another cup of your excellent tea to give her?"
"Indeed I have, sir," said Martha, dropping Betty a curtsey; "and I do
feel highly honoured to have you both to tea."
"I feel I am intruding," Betty said, as she shook hands with Gerald;
"but you do look so cosy that I cannot resist joining you."
"When I am tired or low-spirited, I always come to my old nurse to be
heartened up," Gerald said, smiling. "She does me more good than some
of the medicines she is fond of recommending."
[Illustration: FOR AN INSTANT BETTY HESITATED, BUT GERALD WAS ON
HIS FEET IN A SECOND.]
"Ay, sir, but there be always two ways of looking at life, like both
ends of a spyglass—one makes all our trouble bigger than they be by
rights, the other smaller."
"You have made mine look much smaller this afternoon."
"She must be a wonderful person!" said Betty, almost under her breath.
Gerald laughed aloud.
"Now, Miss Betty, come and sit down. Do you like honey? Ah, that is
right! Nurse keeps bees, and always has a store of it. Well, have you
seen any of our inmates here?"
"Yes," said Betty brightly, "I have. Mrs. Finch kept me with her a long
time."
Mrs. Button smiled.
"She is a rare talker, is Lucy Finch. I dare say she have told you all
about us, miss; and I'm afraid not any of us stand in her good books."
"I didn't like the way she talked."
"'Tis only her tongue, miss. She can't help herself. If any one
is really ill or in trouble, Lucy comes to them at once, and is
first-rate. But she be a bit jealous of folks."
"So I gathered. And then I went to see Mrs. Dunster. And I am coming
another day to read to her. She seems so unhappy."
"She does suffer cruel with rheumatics, and if a body never goes
outside the door, 'tis very lonesome."
"I think there is only one more to see," Betty continued, "for two are
out."
"Yes," said Gerald quietly. "I met them on their way to the Manor. Pots
and pans at any sale are Mrs. Newcombe's specialties. I hope she will
pick up some bargain, poor soul!"
Betty wondered that he could speak so calmly. She thoroughly enjoyed
her tea, and, taking her cue from Gerald's mood, was as gay and joyous
as if no cloud had darkened her sunshine that day.
Mrs. Button's cheery society was certainly inspiriting.
"I've been telling the squire, miss, that he be only on the threshold
o' his life, and there be many greater things coming to him than the
Red Manor. 'Twas just a trust lent him by the Lord, and when he were
found faithful to it, the Lord took it away, to hand on to another and
give him a chance; and now another trust be waitin' for the squire.
It doesn't matter if it be a high or a low position, 'tis only a
stewardship. The Lord have small bits o' land as well as big that want
a steward; and 'tis faithfulness He looks for."
"We are all stewards, Miss Betty, are we not?" said Gerald, looking
across at her with a smile.
"I am not sure of my stewardship yet," replied Betty thoughtfully. Then
she got up to go.
"I was told I was not to miss seeing any one; so I must go to Mrs.
Crane. Good-bye, Mrs. Button, and thank you for your delicious tea. May
I come and see you another day? Good-bye, Mr. Arundel."
"I shall see you again, for I want to speak to Russell when he comes.
Well, nurse, I must be bidding you good-day."
"God bless you, sir! He will. I be quite sure of that. And I'm hopin'
that you will find a nice wife one o' these days. She'll be a comfort
to you, and make up for all you've lost."
A shadow fell across Gerald's face. He made no response, but crossed
the flagstones with Betty to Susan Crane's door.
They were both silent. Betty's smiles and dimples had disappeared. She
was thinking over stewardships and their responsibilities, wondering if
she were unknowingly wasting or hoarding what had been entrusted to her
care.
And Gerald's thoughts had wandered from stewardships to dreams in the
future.
He saw himself a lonely man in a dreary farm, forsaken by those who
judged a man by his possessions. He wondered if such comfort as his old
nurse had mentioned would ever be his lot.
Betty left him outside Susan Crane's door. She found her at her tea,
and was welcomed warmly.
"This be a lonesome place, miss. 'Tis right off the high road, and
us sees nought go by. I have bin accustomed to live in the middle of
a village where there be a good bit o' life goin' on, so I miss it
sorely, and get downhearted at times. I fretted to give up my work, but
I be gettin' old, and the young squire be good enough to offer me these
rooms. It was just an answer to prayer, so I ought to be content, but
it do seem nice to see a visitor. Us six old women living here together
do rub each other up wonderful. I tries to keep myself to myself, but
there be always such a lot o' talk one agen another that I do be fair
puzzled which side to take."
"I thought an almshouse was an abode of rest and peace," said Betty. "I
am a little disappointed to-day."
"So it be, miss, to most; and 'tis our own fault if us makes it other
than that. When us have the Lord and His goodness with us, what more
can us want?"
"'I nothing lack if I am His, and He is mine, for ever,'" quoted Betty
with a smile. "But we do forget it so, Mrs. Crane. I do, dreadfully."
They chatted on. Mrs. Crane,—for though she was not a married woman,
she had always been given that title, in respect for her office of
sick nurse,—was a tiny, wiry-looking old woman. She was an earnest
Christian, and could not perhaps understand why every one was not the
same as herself. She had scant sympathy with Lucy Finch, or with the
two friendly widows.
"They be all such ill-natured gossips, miss, and so hard of heart and
slow to believe."
"You will be a help to them," Betty suggested.
"Eh dear, no, miss; they don't take no notice of the likes o' me,
leastways only to make mock of. Now Mrs. Button and me does have some
nice talk together, but they say us holds ourselves too high."
"I shall come and see you all again soon," said Betty, as she departed;
"and I think I shall give you a scolding all round, for not living at
peace in such a sweet old resting-place."
She laughed merrily when she saw Susan Crane's face of dismay.
"Eh, dearie me! Us be like a set o' quarrelsome children; but us will
try to like each other better afore your nex' visit comes round."
The wheels of Mr. Russell's trap were heard on the high road. Betty ran
out, and found Gerald already at the gate waiting for his friend.
Mr. Russell insisted upon driving him back to his house to dine and
sleep that night.
"And we will drop this young lady on her way. I have just met Mrs.
Stuart on her way home."
"Mrs. Stuart is able to drive out again?" Gerald asked Betty.
"Yes," said Betty confusedly. Then with crimson cheeks she blurted out,—
"She was—at the sale to-day."
There was a minute's silence, then Gerald said quietly,—
"I am so glad. I can guess what attracted her there. If you are
benefitted by any of my well-worn favourites, Miss Betty, I shall be
very pleased."
Betty made no reply. She felt she could not. For the rest of the drive
she was strangely silent.
CHAPTER VIII
New Owners
We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky;
The roofs that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.
_In Memoriam._
MR. RUSSELL and Gerald sat out a couple of hours later on the
smoking-room verandah. Politics and county news had been discussed
during dinner; but now, as dusky silence began to steal over the
sweet-scented garden in front of them, Gerald lost his reserve and
spoke freely to his old friend.
"You can't think what a relief it will be to me when this day is over.
I wish I had gone up to town, but I had so many things to arrange this
morning, and then I wanted this talk with you, so I have been hanging
about all the afternoon trying to kill time!"
"Yes, I think you would have been better away. Now, about this farm. I
hope you are going to take it. You will be doing me a service, for I
want a good tenant. It seems to have fallen vacant at the right time."
"It is a generous offer of yours, but I do not know whether it is quite
wise to live on in this neighbourhood. I am not proud; it isn't that,
for I've lost the estate through no fault of mine, and I'm not ashamed
of any honest work. I mean to be a working farmer if I take your place,
and I don't care who knows it!"
"It isn't very near the Manor; it's a good eight miles away from it. I
don't think you would find it too close."
"It isn't that."
Gerald was looking out into the garden with an unfathomable expression
in his eyes. He did not speak for some minutes; then his question
sounded rather irrelevant,—
"How long are Mrs. Stuart and her daughters going to stay here?"
"They came for the summer. Why, Gerald, are they the attraction?"
"Good heavens! No!" exclaimed Gerald, almost fiercely. "Rather the
reverse. I want time to get over this. If only you would let me defer
my taking your farm till the autumn, I think I would go off to Norway
in Tom Deane's yacht. He wrote inviting me again yesterday."
"The very best thing you could do," said Mr. Russell, looking at him
gravely; "and I think I can tide over the next two months, by keeping
on the farm hands, and making my bailiff overseer."
"Thank you."
There was a silence. Then Mr. Russell said,—"Gerald, I hope you are
heart whole."
Gerald threw his head back with a little laugh, but it was a forced one.
"It will be a bad business if I'm not. A man in my position is out of
the running."
"Not my little Betty?"
Another silence; then, very slowly,—
"I owe you a grudge for taking me over that evening and introducing me—"
"My dear fellow!"
Mr. Russell could say no more; he seemed lost in thought.
"I'm only human," Gerald said, with an effort; "and the plain fact is
that I cannot stand meeting her so often."
"I found her weeping over your troubles this afternoon," said Mr.
Russell, unguardedly.
Gerald's gaze of astonishment and concern made his friend add hastily,—
"She weeps over everybody. That is one thing she has kept from her
childhood—a tender, sympathetic heart. She takes everything in dead
earnest—her pleasures, and others' sorrows."
Then, after further thought, he added, "I would give a good deal to
see you two brought together; but circumstances are against you at
present, and you are wise to go away before she sees too much of you.
She has the making of a splendid woman in her, and would be as happy in
a farmhouse as in a palace."
"Is she fitted to be a farmer's wife?" exclaimed Gerald. "Do you think
I could contemplate it for a moment?"
"I think her mother would very strongly object. Mrs. Stuart is
ambitious for her daughters. No, you are right. It is best not to
contemplate it at all."
Gerald felt unreasonably provoked by his friend's calmness. He curbed
his irritation, however, and began talking about his projected yachting
trip.
Betty was not mentioned again; but when the friends had parted for the
night, Mr. Russell paced his room with anxious brow.
"I don't half like her interest in him. My poor little Betty! May God
preserve you from real trouble coming into your life! It will go hardly
with you, if you are not heart whole!"
Betty had arrived home that afternoon, to find Molly in a great state
of excitement.
"Oh, Betty, it was a pity you did not come! Every one was there, and
fancy! Who do you think has bought the Manor? General Dormer! And Frank
was at the sale!"
Betty expressed her astonishment. The Dormers were very old friends of
theirs. Frank and Ella had played with them when children, and they had
all grown up together.
"But, Molly, the Dormers have their lovely place in Berkshire; why do
they want another?"
"Berkshire doesn't suit Mrs. Dormer; she is always ill there, and they
are selling it. They know the Fitz Humes here; and it was Mrs. Fitz
Hume who told them about the Red Manor. The general came down to see
it a week ago, and he settled it all within a very few days. Mother
says she can't think why he didn't buy the library as it stood, but
I believe he couldn't afford it. Frank told me as much. Frank was
delighted to see us. Mother has asked him to dinner to-morrow. He is
staying at a country inn, and isn't very comfortable. He has a lot of
business to do for his father, and he will be here for a week or two."
"And will they be moving in at once?"
"Yes, in about a month's time. Isn't it delightful? I'm longing to see
Ella. It makes me wish that we were going to stay on here altogether."
"I shall hate seeing them in the Red Manor!" Betty exclaimed
vehemently. "It doesn't properly belong to them. People have no
business to buy old family places and settle in them, when they have no
love for, or associations with them."
"But," said Molly, mysteriously and eagerly, "I have been thinking it
all out; and Mr. Arundel must fall in love with Ella, and marry her. I
shall try and make up the match."
"Don't be so stupid, Molly! What good would that do? The Manor will
belong to Frank, not to Ella, after General Dormer dies."
"Oh, Frank must have another place somewhere. I think it can be
managed. It could be in a story-book, and people say that facts are
stranger than fiction—"
Betty turned away impatiently from her sister, and went to the
drawing-room, where her mother was resting.
"Did you buy any books, mother?" she said.
"I was rather disappointed," her mother replied; "there were several
old savants down from town, and the most valuable were beyond my means.
Mr. Russell bought the greater part of them. I have that illustrated
copy of Chaucer we were looking at, and one or two very old editions of
Shakespeare and Froissart's 'Chronicles.' It went to my heart to see
that library demolished; and I suppose Molly has told you that General
Dormer has bought the property?"
"Yes."
"Such a pity! For not one of them have any literary tastes. Of course,
they have just let the library go. The collection of two or three
generations will now be scattered. I am glad to think that Mr. Russell
has taken the best part of it."
Betty took up the old vellum volume of Chaucer, and walked to the
window with it in her hand. The quaint woodcuts interested her, and
she turned the well-worn pages, wondering whose hand had scored pencil
lines here and there. She read the description of the knight in the
Canterbury pilgrims, and her heart quickened at the words,—
A knighte there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme that he first beganne
To ryden out had lovèd chivalry,
Truth and honoure, freedom and courtesie.
In the margin was written in round schoolboy hand:
"My father. Gerald Arundel."
Further down, against the words,—
And of his port as meek as is a maid,
He never yet no vilanie ne'er said,
In all his lyfe unto no manner wight,
He was a very perfait gentle knighte!
upon the margin was written,—
"A gentleman's model.
"G. A."
It was the same handwriting, but was dated ten years later.
Betty looked at it with eager interest, then, with flushed cheeks, she
murmured to herself,—
"It is a portrait of himself; 'A very . . . gentle knighte.'"
Then, putting the book down, she left the room, for she felt in no mood
for talking.
Frank Dormer was very much at the vicarage during the few weeks that
followed. He was a barrister by profession, but as yet was not a very
busy one, and had a great deal of idle time on his hands. Mrs. Stuart
liked him in fact, there were few who did not, for he was one of the
bright sunshiny spirits in the world who carry a fresh breeze with them
wherever they go, and his life about town had not spoilt his simple
straightforward nature.
"Betty," he demanded one morning, coming into the breakfast-room where
the two girls were sitting together, "I want you to make your mother
bring you over to the Red Manor to a picnic tea this afternoon. I want
you and Molly to advise me about a cartload of furniture arriving down.
We will have tea on the terrace."
"You won't get me to go," said Betty stoutly. "I don't want to see the
place again."
Molly looked up from her pile of manuscript.
"How do you spell inextinguishable?" she asked.
"Who is it?—A man or a woman?" asked Frank deferentially.
"It is 'the inextinguishable lightning fire in his eye,' that's how it
comes!"
Frank and Betty burst out laughing.
"Give it to him, Molly. 'The inexpressible roll of murderous thunder
that escaped from his soul!' Oh, what rot you waste your time over!
Can't you stop her from such folly, Betty? She lives in a world of
unreality all her days. She has not heard my invitation. Here! Give me
your productions!"
He made a feint of snatching some of her papers. Molly stood at bay,
making a pretty picture with her flushed cheeks and disordered hair, as
she began to remonstrate.
"Frank! I will never forgive you! You are like a great schoolboy. No
one told you to come here in the morning and interrupt us when we are
busy!"
"Busy, are you? Here is Betty twirling her thumbs on the window-seat,
and counting the flies on the window-panes! And you wasting your
ink and paper on love-making between imaginary puppets with
'inextinguishable sparks of fire in their eyes'! You want a little real
love-making to come into your life, then you would throw away this
rubbish."
"Now, Frank, you are going too far!"
The placid Molly was roused at last, and Frank looked at her hot cheeks
in surprise.
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to be too hard on you! Now I must
cry forgiveness, or you won't come to tea with me; and you are my only
hope, for Betty is obdurate."
Peace was soon made, for no one was ever angry with Frank for long.
Betty asked him if he had met Gerald yet.
"Oh yes; he came over yesterday to superintend the removal of a small
organ. I believe his mother used it, and he is having it taken to the
farm where he is going to settle. It's rather out of place there, and I
believe he does not play a note of music himself, so I think it is very
stupid of him making such a fuss over it. He is having some other bits
of furniture taken over too. He seems a nice friendly, cheerful kind of
fellow. I feel rather sorry for him."
"Well," said Molly, putting on a most mournful look, "he is a hero
going through the darkest hour of his life; but it is not going to
last. And I have a plan for him by-and-bye."
"You're a silly goose!" exclaimed Betty. "He wouldn't thank you for
your plans, nor any one else whom they concern."
"I must be off," announced Frank. "Molly, take my best respects to your
lady mother, and ask her to bring you over."
Molly left the room.
Betty went to the sideboard and took a plate of pears off it.
"Here, Frank, will you have one? I am going to."
He assented boyishly; Betty sat on the low window-sill and commenced
paring hers. As she did so, she swung her feet lightly to and fro, and
began singing under her breath,—
"If I but knew how the lilies brew
Nectar rare from a drop of dew."
Frank looked at her contemplatively.
"Betty, you're improving in looks."
"Thank you," said Betty, laughing. "I know you think there is great
room for improvement. You used to call me 'Froggie,'—I remember."
"Yes, because of your big eyes and your jumping ways. You were never
still a minute."
"I'm not often still now," Betty said. "I hate it. I always want to be
on the move."
"Molly wants to be shaken up with you! Betty, tell me like a sister,
has Molly any one after her?"
"What do you mean? You speak as if she is a cook! 'Any one after her!'
It sounds quite vulgar."
"Don't fence round the bush. I want to know."
"And why should you want to know? You are most impertinent this
morning."
"You are a little spitfire!"
"And you are impudence personified!"
Betty and Frank always engaged in a war of words, which meant very
little. When Molly came down from her mother's room, and said that Mrs.
Stuart would be glad to help Frank in any way, he rose to go.
"Good-bye, Molly. I wish I could get your 'hero' to meet you this
afternoon, but he fights shy of the place. Betty, walk down the drive
with me—do!"
Betty was nothing loth. She laughed and chatted as if she had not a
care. She accompanied him through the village, and on the way they met
Gerald Arundel, followed by his faithful hound Floy.
He did not stop, but only raised his hat and passed on. Betty thought
he was looking tired and careworn, and her gay laughter died away.
"Looks glum, doesn't he? Poor chap! I wouldn't be in his shoes for
something!"
Frank's tone was a little self-complacent.
Betty turned upon him in a fury.
"He has a good deal more in his shoes than you have! Money and a house
and all outside show aren't much to lose! He doesn't count his wealth
in the way you do; and I know which is the richest and the wisest and
the better man of the two!"
Frank burst into his rollicking laugh.
"You and Molly are a pair! This exalted, ill-treated saint and hero
ought to hear you fighting his battles! I am not worthy to enter into
the lists with him. I must take a back seat, I see!"
"You are always so sure of yourself," went on Betty scathingly. "If
you sometimes realised that you were inferior to men of brains and
cultivated intellect, there would be some hope of you."
This was going too far.
Frank stood still in the middle of the road, and made her a grand bow.
"I am sure of one thing, my lady—that my presence is required no
longer, so I will dismiss myself. Good morning!"
He walked away from her with offended dignity; but Betty, remembering
her woman's privilege, called after him,—
"I never asked you for your-company; you asked for mine, and I shall
tell mother and Molly how rudely you have treated me!"
CHAPTER IX
Through a Dark Cloud
To meet, to know, to love—and then to part,
Is the sad tale of many a human heart.
COLERIDGE.
BETTY'S spirits were always variable, but never quite so much as they
were in these days. One day she would puzzle and distract Molly by
her sparkling mirth; the next she would be plunged into the deepest
moodiness and melancholy. She spent a great deal of time at her organ,
and would come away from it wistful and sad. Molly always knew that she
would be unusually sweet and obliging for some hours following.
Betty went over several times to the old almswomen, and felt herself
the better for the interest they gave her. One afternoon she went to
the Hall with a message to Mr. Russell from her mother. She was told by
the butler that he was in the garden, and being on familiar ground, she
went in search of him. She was sauntering through a covered archway of
roses, when voices the other side of it brought her to a standstill. It
was an old-fashioned garden, and a high box-hedge hid her from view.
"If you are bidding some friends good-bye, I think it would be polite
to include Mrs. Stuart."
"I feel I cannot risk it, unless you could guarantee to have 'her' here
while I do it."
"Who? My little Betty? My dear fellow, you are bound to come across
her. Pluck up your courage. It is the very way to make her suspect your
frame of mind."
Betty's heart almost stood still. She realised that she was a listener,
yet her tongue seemed to cleave to her mouth, her feet seemed rooted to
the ground. She heard Gerald sigh.
"I am a fool, for I expect she considers me old enough to be her
father. But, Russell, the older you get, the deeper you feel! I shall
be thankful to be away, to have only memories left!"
Betty made a frantic rustle and rush along the path, then, in trying to
escape them and make her way back to the house unperceived, she took
the wrong turn and came out in front of them.
Mr. Russell turned to her at once.
"I—I have brought you a message from mother, and I told Sims that I
would come out and find you; but if you are engaged I can wait."
"We are two idle men," said Gerald, with remarkable self-possession, as
he shook hands with her. "We are enjoying a chat and a smoke."
"Come along to the lawn, and we shall have some tea sent out to us,"
said Mr. Russell.
But Betty refused.
"I will not stop to-day, thank you. Here is mother's note. It is about
a book you said you would lend her."
"Oh yes, I remember. I will go and get it; but I insist upon your
having a cup of tea. Bring her along, Gerald."
He hastened to the house. Betty felt instinctively that a crucial
moment in her life had arrived. Her heart was beating rapidly; her
whole soul was in a tumult, from the words that she had heard. And
then she felt a longing that this short walk towards the house would
last for ever and for ever. It seemed as if it was an eternity before
Gerald opened his lips, and then his calm, well-chosen words did much
to restore her self-possession and common sense.
"I am glad to have the opportunity of saying good-bye to you, Miss
Betty. I am off to-morrow on a trip to Norway, and before I return I
expect you will have gone back to London."
Betty plucked some roses that grew along the path nervously.
"I expect we shall," she said, with a slight quiver in her voice. "I—I
hope you will enjoy your trip, Mr. Arundel."
"Thank you. I hope I shall."
A pause. Then he said,—
"I must thank you for the pleasure you have given my old women. We
shall most likely never meet again, so may I offer you a bit of advice,
which I have gained by experience? It you get moody, discontented,
or restless with your circumstances, set to work to help or benefit
others. It is the surest way to bring happiness to yourself."
Betty struggled to speak, and as they drew near the house she came to a
standstill, and looked up at him bravely and sweetly. She did not know
that tears were glittering on her eyelashes, but Gerald's quick eyes
noted it, and took in, as if for the last time, every bit of the sweet
earnest little face raised towards his.
"Thank you, Mr. Arundel. It has done me good knowing you, for it shows
me how real trouble can be borne. And I hope that the verse you gave
me for Mat will come true to you. 'I will restore comforts to him.'
Good-bye; I see Mr. Russell coming, and I can't stay to tea."
She held out her hand. Gerald took it, and kept it for an instant in
his. For one moment their eyes met, and their tale was told. Betty
caught her breath, and resolutely turned away. Gerald's voice was
hoarse with emotion as he said,—
"May God bless and keep you till we meet above!"
And then Betty sped away, and seized the book out of Mr. Russell's hand
with the incoherent words,—
"I can't stay. Mother is waiting. I must get home, and I can't stop to
say good-bye."
She was off and away before Mr. Russell could understand her haste.
And Gerald was still standing in the same spot where she had left
him, and in his hand was one of the white roses she had gathered, and
dropped in her confusion.
He put it into his breast-pocket as Mr. Russell came in sight, and he
murmured to himself a few lines he had added to Betty's little song of
the white rose,—
"'The summer sun had faded
The flowers had drooped and died.
The clouds above were heavy,
And care was by my side,
I longed to shield the rose-bud
From storm and wind around,
But I dared not lift my hand
To drag it to the ground.
"'So through the gath'ring darkness
It hung and smiled on me;
Its fragrance seemed the sweeter,
When its form I could not see.
And I thought, as I gazed upwards,
And scanned the wintry sky,
"The future holds the summer;
There'll be roses by-and-bye.
"'"If my rose is now beyond me,
If my hopes seem all in vain,
There is a bright time coming,
I shall see the bud again;
It may be I shall reach it,
In its nest above so high;
It may be I shall gather
That rose-bud by-and-bye."'"
Mr. Russell joined him with a grave face.
"I am afraid that child must have overheard us."
"I don't think so," Gerald replied quietly; "she would not understand
if she did. Can you let me have a 'Baedeker'? I want to look out our
first stopping-place."
Mr. Russell wisely fell in with his mood, and though his thoughts were
much with Betty, he did not mention her name again.
Betty, meanwhile, had hurried home as if her life depended on it. She
tried not to let herself think. She took the book into her mother's
room, and Mrs. Stuart expressed her surprise at her quick return.
"I did not stay, mother; Mr. Arundel was there, and he and Mr. Russell
were busy talking. Mr. Arundel is going away to-morrow."
"I am glad to hear it. I think he would have shown better taste if he
had gone before."
"Why, mother?" asked Molly, looking up from a piece of fancy-work she
was doing. "He is going to stay in the neighbourhood; why ought he to
go away?"
"I am astonished to hear he is going to live near his old home. I don't
think he can realise the difference this will make in his position. He
will make it very awkward for all his former friends."
"I don't see why it should," Molly said wonderingly.
"Oh, my dear child, surely you have lived long enough in the world
to know that a young man in a penniless state, who is going to turn
working farmer, cannot be welcomed into society in the way that he has
been before his misfortunes! Mothers would not care to introduce him to
their daughters—"
"Mercenary mothers would not," said Betty, from the window where she
stood looking out. "People who value a man by his money of course will
cut him dead—no one else will."
"It ought to make his friends rally round him," said Molly hotly.
"That is the way all romantic young girls talk. Now, listen both of
you, while I tell you of an old schoolfriend of mine. A young fellow
to whom she was virtually engaged lost all his money, and honourably,
of course, wished to release her. She would not hear of it. Her mother
tried to reason with her; but she would not listen, and as her family
were all of her mother's mind, she actually persuaded him to marry her
secretly. Of course, when it came out, her parents did all they could
to help them, though it was more than they deserved. After some years
of miserable penury, in which two children came upon the scene to add
to their cares, the young wife became a hopeless invalid. The husband
took to drink, and the last I heard of her was that she was an inmate
of her county infirmary, and the two children in the workhouse."
"Oh, mother," said Molly, half-laughing; "you need not think we are in
want of such an awful warning! But if a penniless young man marries a
rich wife it is all right, and I have plans about Mr. Arundel."
"My dear child, Mr. Arundel has passed out of our lives; so do not let
us discuss him any further."
"He hasn't passed out of mine," thought Betty, as she slipped out of
the room.
Upstairs in her own little bedroom, she laid her head down on the low
window-sill, and cried as if her heart would break.
Oh, why was life so perplexing and so sad? In turning over the events
that had happened since she had come to the old vicarage, Betty almost
wished she had not left London. And yet she would not for all the
present pain have foregone the experience that had come to her. She
knew the secret of her heart now; she knew what had caused her uneasy
restlessness, her ceaseless surmises of what each day would bring her.
She was not ignorant of the meaning of the few words she had overheard,
and she wondered why she had been brought into contact with one who
would influence her so powerfully, to be separated from him, and to
know that the happiness that might have been hers was only just missed
through misfortune. Her cheeks grew hot as she dwelt again upon his
farewell look and words. She cried out passionately to herself,—
"I would scrub the farmhouse floors, I would go without servants, and
do what a poor farmer's wife does every day of my life, if I could only
be with him! And it is only the false ideas people have of money and
position that prevents my doing it!"
Life looked very empty and forlorn to her. And then she turned to the
One to whom she had always gone in trouble, even when she was quite a
little child.
"O God," she murmured, "it must be Thy will, but it seems so hard. Do
have pity upon me; I am so lonely; I have nothing to live for, and I
feel as if I always shall be alone now for the rest of my life. Do
comfort me; do help me! Do make me happy serving Thee. It is all that
is left to me."
Betty stopped here; the selfish spirit of her prayer struck her. And a
still, small voice that reached to her heart's depths seemed to say,—
"Am not I sufficient for Thee? Seek ye 'first' the Kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Betty bowed her head again in true contrition of soul. She knew lately
that thoughts of her own happiness had been absorbing her to the
exclusion of all higher things.
"God means to show me," she thought, "that His service must come first,
not last. And if He didn't put me into this world to have earthly love
and happiness, He must have put me here for something. He has work for
me to do, I know, and I will find it and do it; and perhaps He will
make me happy doing it."
Then very silently at her bedside, Betty definitely offered herself to
be taken body and soul for service for her King; and when she rose a
little later, she had the sweet realisation that her service had been
accepted.
When Betty came into the drawing-room that evening, Molly wondered
what made her look so strangely calm and restful. And when Mrs. Stuart
asked one of them to read her the articles in the "Times," Betty
offered at once to do it, though usually she would fidget through the
whole time of Molly's reading, and declare that the "Times" was a dry
old-fashioned paper, with no spark of life or humour in it.
For the next few days Betty's new-found peace brought great restfulness
into her life; then when she thought she was quite secure from all
moody feelings, they came back in an overwhelming rush, and the
struggle began.
Mr. Russell met her walking along the country lanes with a wistful
eagerness that went to his heart.
"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" she cried. "Talk to me, and make me feel
good and happy again. I am so disappointed in myself."
"That little self of yours must just be pushed into the background,"
said Mr. Russell playfully. "I have told you before that I think
you suffer from want of occupation. Have you been to see your old
almswomen?"
"Yes, last week. Mother won't let me go more than once a week. I enjoy
seeing them so much; but, Mr. Russell, I want a real serious talk with
you!"
"I am ready."
"And you won't laugh at me?"
With those grey eyes raised so trustingly to his, and the slight quiver
in the brave young voice, Mr. Russell could confidently assure her that
he would be serious.
"I have been thinking lately, and I know you will agree with me, from
what you have just said, that I ought to be doing something with my
life. I am idle now; there is so little to do here except amuse myself;
and I want you to come round and talk to mother; I want to leave home.
I think I should like to be a missionary best, if mother would let me
go. Because I want to do some work for God, and I know missionaries are
wanted, and no one wants me at home; and if I'm not to be a missionary,
I think there are other things in towns that I might do. I'm rather
afraid of being a hospital nurse, to tell you the truth, because I'm
such a coward about pain. I can't help crying when I see any one
suffering; but perhaps I would be able to get over that. What do you
think?"
Mr. Russell did not answer for a few minutes, then he said,—
"This is rather a sudden resolution on your part, Betty. I do honestly
think you want more occupation; but leaving home is a serious step, and
I do not think for one moment that your mother would consent. You are
too young."
"Oh, don't say that!"
Betty's eyes filled with tears. She slipped her hand into his arm
confidingly, and went on in a hushed tone,—
"I do believe that God wants me to do something for Him, Mr. Russell.
And I have been so happy since I have believed it. You will help me,
will you not? I have never found my corner yet; I have always been the
'odd one' at home, and I am sure a corner is waiting for me somewhere."
Her pathetic voice touched Mr. Russell's heart; he guessed the reason
of this desire to work, and admired her courage in thus facing her
future.
"I won't be the one to put hindrances in your path, child; but we must
think matters over, and must not act in a hurry. I do not think myself
that you are fitted to be a missionary. You are too nervously strung.
You would be invalided home as soon as you got out abroad. I quite
approve of your desire for work, and I will do my best to help you."
"Thank you; and you'll come round and talk to mother to-night. I must
tell her. I can't keep it to myself any longer."
"Little Impatience! You must wait till to-morrow. I have an engagement
to-night."
Betty sighed.
"I think mother ought to be glad; she is always wanting me to do
something. I want to fill my life so full, Mr. Russell, that I shan't
ever have time to think!"
Poor little Betty! Her laugh as she spoke had a trembling note in it—a
note that was very near tears.
When she had left him, Mr. Russell repeated her words to himself,—
"I want to fill my life so full that I shan't ever have time to think!"
It had come to that, then. Memories must not be allowed full sway, and
quiet thought was too full of pain to be borne.
"My poor little Betty! No one can help her; but it has been done by the
One who loves her best, and I can leave her to Him."
CHAPTER X
Home Duties
Duty, demands the parent's voice,
Should sanctify the daughter's choice,
In that is due obedience shown;
To choose, belongs to her alone.
THOMAS MOORE.
MR. RUSSELL was as good as his word. He came round to the vicarage the
next evening, and Betty's desire for work was discussed. Mrs. Stuart,
as her daughter feared, would not hear of her leaving home.
"I know it is the fashion nowadays," she said, "but I will not allow
one of my girls to do it. Betty's first duty is to make herself useful
at home; and until she does that, she will be of no use anywhere else.
I can find plenty of occupation for her. Molly will be glad of more
leisure, and Betty can take some of my correspondence off my hands."
"But, mother," pleaded Betty, "you say I write so untidily. I give you
more trouble than help when I take Molly's place."
"Is it not possible to improve in that respect?"
Betty coloured at her mother's words. Then, with a little burst of
enthusiasm, she made one more effort to obtain her freedom,—
"Oh, mother, don't keep me at home! You don't really want me. You would
never miss me if I went, and I want to do great things. I want to take
up a vocation. There is so much in the world to be done, and so few to
do it! You are always telling us so. You don't want us to be idlers.
Let me go!"
"Go where?" asked Mrs. Stuart. "You are not fitted for an independent
rôle, Betty. You are too unformed and childish—too uncontrolled. I will
never give my consent to your going into the Mission Field. You have
neither the health nor qualifications necessary. If you are anxious
for work, you can do it from your own home. We are going back to town
soon, and I shall be able, through various friends, to find you plenty
of occupation. Do not you agree with me, Mr. Russell? Is she fitted
to sally out into the world as so many young girls are doing in this
present generation, and discard her home and friends as if she had no
belongings?"
"I should not be happy if she did that," said Mr. Russell, smiling. "I
think she would be better for outside interests, and I am sure they
will be given her."
"This discontent with home is very sudden," Mrs. Stuart said. "I can
only suppose this country life is not to her taste."
The conversation was not satisfactory. Man like, Mr. Russell felt it
was useless to argue with such a woman as Mrs. Stuart. He tried to
comfort Betty afterwards.
"Your mother is right in her wish to keep you still under her wing.
Your life is all before you. There is plenty of time, and you know I
have a great belief in the corners first being filled up at home."
Betty sighed.
"I will try to be willing and patient. But I know what our London life
is, and I am sick of it. I love the country; I always feel it is so
much easier to be good in it. And can't say it well, Mr. Russell, but
I've given myself for God's service, and I did hope He was going to
take me."
"You need not doubt that," said Mr. Russell, smiling; "but I think
you had better look up the subject of service in your Bible. St. Paul
advises some of the converts—in fact, all of them—to 'abide in the
calling wherein they are called.' I am certain you can serve God in
your own home. Read the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians
when you get home, and see what was St. Paul's prayer and desire for
the young Christians—not that they should go out and do great things,
but that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being
fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God."
"Yes, 'good works,'" interrupted Betty; "and that is what I want to do."
"Wait a bit. If I remember rightly the passage goes on, 'Strengthened
with all might, according to His glorious power.' Now what does a young
Christian want this glorious, mighty strength for? Why should he need
God's almighty power? Is he to work miracles, or preach to thousands?
No. It is to teach him to practise or bring forth in his own home three
fruits of the Spirit—'Patience, long-suffering, joyfulness.'"
"I will look at that chapter," said Betty thoughtfully; "I know I am
not patient or long-suffering. Joyfulness seems a strange thing to
practise."
"It is most essential to recommend our religion to the world at large.
Can't you imagine the young Christian practising a mournful patience,
and a melancholy long-suffering, and exasperating all the members of
her family thereby."
Betty laughed.
"Yes, Mr. Russell, and I do hope I shan't turn into that type. I know a
girl in London who always adopts a superior kind of patience, as if she
were a long-suffering martyr, and she drives her sisters nearly mad!"
"Don't lose your gay spirits, Betty. It is a gift for which you will
have to account, and very few keep it when their youth slips away. I
often think it is such a pity, for it brightens and gladdens all who
come in contact with it."
"I was wondering if I had any gifts," said Betty; "but I am afraid
joyfulness is not mine now."
"I think it is. There is no reason why it should not be. If clouds
come, let them pass; don't hug hold of them, and coax them to stay."
A pink colour rose to Betty's cheeks. She was walking down the drive
with Mr. Russell, and her eyes wandered to the hills in the distance,
which formed a blue foreground to a golden sky behind them.
"The sun isn't always shining," she said wistfully; "but I'm going
to try hard, Mr. Russell, and if I sit indoors all day at mother's
writing-desk, and keep happy all the time, you think that will be a
kind of service?"
"I don't think your mother will be such a hard task-mistress as that,"
was Mr. Russell's amused reply; but Betty shook her little curly head
very doubtfully.
It was very soon after this that General Dormer and his family came to
the Red Manor. Ella Dormer, a bright, handsome girl about Molly's age,
appeared very often at the vicarage with her brother, and the request,—
"Please, Mrs. Stuart, may Molly and Betty come over and spend the day
with us? We want to make up a set for tennis or croquet."
Molly generally ended by going with them, but Betty withstood all
their invitations, and gradually began to take Molly's place in her
mother's sick-room. It was a trial to her at first, for Betty, as
she acknowledged, "was not an indoor person," and the bright summer
weather tempted her sorely to spend her time in the open air. But she
had set herself to learn lessons of "patience and long-suffering with
joyfulness," and if the little songs that she sang about the house had
a somewhat plaintive melody, they sweetened and enlivened her mother's
many quiet hours of seclusion and solitude.
The summer faded; the young green leaves turned from their early
freshness to their dull August tint, and then to their bright September
hues; the woods were clothed in their glorious russet and golden coats,
the days began to shorten, and the nights became cold and misty. And
Mrs. Stuart announced her intention of returning to town.
Molly was invited to stay at the Red Manor with her young friends for
a month later, and so it happened that Betty and her mother went up to
London together.
Betty walked over to wish her old women at the almshouses good-bye the
day before she left. Her heart was full; she tried to face the future
bravely, but it looked dreary and forlorn. There was much lamentation
over her departure; for by this time she had endeared herself to their
hearts. Even Lucy Finch had learnt to restrain her tongue a little
during Betty's visits.
"Eh, me dear, us will say nought about our neighbours to-day. They be
no better nor worse than usual, an uninterestin' set, it seems to me,
an' the fewer words us do have about 'em, the better you'll be pleased.
I've larned that from yer pretty face. For I sez to Mary Dunster
yester-morn, 'tis hard work for such a bright young leddy to listen to
the groans an' moans of those who make such a clamour over their aches
an' pains; an' for meself I allays have kep' a brave heart, an' should
be 'shamed to whine like some folks that I could tell on. Yes, me dear,
I've done; an' I wipe me hands o' their ways an' their folly! But what
us will do when youn'm gone be more than I can tell!"
Mary Dunster had a smile for her.
"You have brought sunshine to my heart, missy, for I'm learnin' fast
to look up and on. Hope keeps the heart young, they say; an' hope
is makin' my old heart quicken an' throb with expectation. When my
rheumatics keep me awake at night, I just count over the blessin's that
are comin' to me in the other land, an' my dreams are often on it now.
I shall miss our talks sorely."
Widow Newcombe and Widow Long received her with long faces. The latter
was always spokeswoman, and her friend echoed her words.
"Well to be sure, Miss Stuart. Us have only just begun to be friendly
wi' 'ee, and now you be departin'; an' tis the way o' the world—here
to-day and gone to-morrow; an' the young squire be gone too, and a
fam'ly already come in his stead. 'Tis to be hoped they have come to
stay. Us be very sorry to lose 'ee, miss. It whiles the time away to
see a young lady."
"It do," assented Widow Newcombe fervently.
Susan Crane cried as she wished her good-bye.
"It has been good, miss, to have a talk about good things. My prayers
will foller you, an' I hope us may see you down in these parts agen. I
have picked up wonderful since I had your visits to look to, an' I'm
settlin' in most comfortable!"
But Betty lingered longest at Martha Button's.
"Martha," she said, "give me some advice to take up to London. I
remember some time ago—the first time I called—you were talking about
stewards. Do you think I am one? Have I anything entrusted to me?"
Martha's face beamed.
"Ay, Miss Betty, ye have. Surely your youth and brightness is like dew
to the dry, parched ground. You have brought sunshine to us in this
little community; take it about you in London, for that be a place that
wants a power o' sunshine, I hear. And there be few folks that make the
best of life, and pick out their mercies; 'tis always the other way. If
only the Lord's people would mind that sunbeams glorify the sun they
come from, perchance they might think a bright face and word as much
their dooty as hymns an' prayers!"
"But, Martha, one can't always be bright. It is strange your talking to
me, too, about being happy. Mr. Russell—a friend of mine—said much the
same thing to me the other day. It seems that I am not to be allowed to
take life gravely. I hope I shan't be like the clown who looked upon
tears as an expensive luxury."
"We'll hope trouble will not touch you for many a day," said Martha.
Betty left her with a brave smile; but she felt that trouble which had
to be hidden, and which in a sense was not lawful, was a difficult
burden to carry. As she neared home she met Mat Lubbock.
"Arternoon, missy. Have 'ee said good-bye to the organ?"
"I'm afraid I have," Betty said, a sorrowful look coming to her face.
"I have a short time now at your biddin', missy."
"Then let us come into church now for half an hour," said Betty,
wondering that Mat should propose what once he had been so loth to do.
She was more surprised when, after she had played over several of her
favourite refrains, Mat said in his gruffest tone,—
"Will 'ee sing that there hymn, missy, on 'The King o' love my Shepherd
is'?"
Betty gladly complied with his request. When her sweet, glad notes rang
through the little church,—
"'The King of Love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever,—'"
she fancied she heard a hoarse echo of her words, but, thinking she was
mistaken, she said nothing.
As she was shutting up the organ, Mat came out of his corner, and stood
at her elbow. She looked at him, and, seeing he was struggling to
speak, said gently,—
"What is it, Mat?"
"I thought I'd tell 'ee that I hath bin up to passon an' given my name
for bell-ringer agen."
"Oh, Mat, I am so glad! I thought you were looking happier."
"I be that. Tell 'ee missy, I be fair overcome by the King o' Love. He
have bin hammer, hammer at my hard old heart, till He smashed un all to
shiver, an' then He have been soothin', an' comfortin', an' puttin' of
it together agen, till He have got a heart that'll hold Him, an' bless
Him all its days. Do 'ee mind the tex' that the young squire did pass
to 'ee to pass on to me?
"'I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, an'
restore comforts unto him.'
"That be a powerfu' tex', missy, and when I heerd the young squire
were a holdin' his head so straight an' cheerfu' like, for all his own
trouble; an' when he met me the day afore he went ower the sea, an'—
"'Mat, my man,' sez he, 'shake hands, an' wish me well, for I'm
beginnin' life at the bottom o' the ladder,' sez he,—
"I fair broke down, an' I sez to un, 'If the Lord have dealt me hard
knocks, certain He have thee, an' if thee hath not turned agen Him,
more shame to I that have.'
"'Ah, Mat,' he sez, 'we'll both live to thank Him yet, and to own up He
did just the very best for us.'
"An' I come home, and the tex' kept repeatin' of itself, till I thought
it would send me daft; but thank the Lord,—
"'Perverse an' foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
An' home, rejoicin', brought me.'"
Betty's eyes filled with happy tears.
"Oh, I am so glad, Mat,—so glad!"
She could say no more, but just outside the church porch she took the
man's hand in hers.
"Good-bye, Mat. I shan't forget you, We must both remember our
favourite hymn when things don't go well with us—
"'I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
"Ay," said Mat, grasping her little hand with both his; "an' I'd thank
the King o' Love's messenger for what her hath brought me!"
Betty came into her mother's presence a little later with such a
sparkling, radiant face, that Mrs. Stuart asked her where she had been.
"Saying good-bye to the old almswomen and to Mat, mother."
"You seem glad to get back to town," Mrs. Stuart said, looking at her.
"I shall be glad to go or stay now," was the happy reply.
And her mother looked at her again, and wondered.
[Illustration: "I'D THANK THE KING O' LOVE'S MESSENGER FOR WHAT HER
HATH BROUGHT ME."]
CHAPTER XI
In Town Again
Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand;
Whence harmonies we cannot understand,
Of God's will in His worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad perplexed minors. Deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land,
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur—"Where is any certain tune
Or measured music in such notes as these?"
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded! their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences;
And smiling down the stars, they whisper—"Sweet."
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
THE month that Betty and her mother were together without Molly was
beneficial to them both.
Betty set her mind and body to fulfil her different duties cheerfully,
but her heedless, impulsive ways were a sad trial to her mother. If
Betty had to bear with an invalid's exactness and irritability, Mrs.
Stuart also needed her share of patience for her youngest daughter's
incompetence.
"It is no good, mother," was Betty's despondent complaint one foggy
morning in November, as she sat at her mother's writing-desk, and
for the third time tore up a letter she was writing at Mrs. Stuart's
dictation. "You will never make a satisfactory secretary of me. I think
I was born to be an out-of-door person, not an indoor one. I'm trying
my very best this morning, but the first sheet blotted itself, and the
second I misspelt, and now this sheet I have upset a vase of flowers
over! Things will go wrong when I mean them to go right with all my
heart and soul."
"If you were a little quieter, and not quite so emphatic, you would do
better," remarked Mrs. Stuart drily.
"I thought I had been as quiet as a lamb this morning," Betty rejoined;
"at least, until this last half an hour, when I got the fidgets.
Perhaps if I went to the pantry and got a duster to wipe up the water
here, I should do better. A run will calm my fidgets."
She quitted the room as she spoke, and went singing down the passage at
the top of her fresh young voice,—
"Yet when a tale comes i' my head,
Or lasses gie my heart a screed,
As whyles they're like to be my deed,
Oh, sad disease;
I kittle up my rustic reed,
It gies me ease!"
Mrs. Stuart gave a sigh.
"Molly will be back next week. Betty means well, but she is so
undisciplined."
Yet Betty was learning lessons in God's own school, and He Himself was
her Teacher.
"Patience, long-suffering, with joyfulness," she kept repeating to
herself, and she chased away the shadows, and basked in the sun
whenever she got the chance. On this particular morning she had just
reseated herself at her desk, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall
figure wrapped in a thick ulster appeared.
"Harry!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, in astonishment.
"Uncle Harry! Where have you come from? We thought you were at
Gibraltar."
"Home on sick leave. Don't I look the invalid?"
Major Stuart's tones certainly did not sound like those of one; they
were as full and hearty as ever. He threw off his coat and sat down
by his sister-in-law, stretching out his long legs with infinite
satisfaction towards the ruddy blaze of the fire.
"I've been pretty nearly choked by this fog. We ought to have got in
last night. I landed at the Victoria Docks, and came straight here.
Where is Madam Molly?"
"Down in the country. You can have had no breakfast."
"No; I am starving, but I would rather wait till luncheon. That must be
pretty near—isn't it?"
"Oh, you must have something at once. I will go and see about it."
Betty tripped out of the room, delighted at the interruption to the
writing. Her uncle looked after her.
"Is Molly still the beauty?" he asked. "I haven't seen any of you for
three years."
"Is it really so long? I think Molly is still the most admired; Betty
is too variable. Now tell me about yourself. Have you been ill?"
"Nothing to speak of. A touch of fever again. Can you take me in for a
short time?"
"You know I shall be delighted."
Major Stuart brought a good deal of life into the house. He chaffed
Betty a good bit, and uncle and niece grew almost uproarious at times;
but they were firm friends notwithstanding, for Betty had always
occupied a big corner in her uncle's heart.
"Now, Betty, what is your present fad?" he asked her one afternoon, as
they were walking in the Park together.
"I haven't any," was the prompt reply.
"Rubbish! When you were eight, it was angels, when you were eighteen it
was dancing, now I suppose it is lovers!"
"Indeed it is not!"
Betty's cheeks grew hot at such an accusation.
"Well, upon what are you expending your superfluous energy?"
"On learning to sit still," Betty said, laughing, though there was a
little wistfulness in her tone.
Major Stuart gave a low whistle.
"And who has set you such a cruel and superhuman task as that?"
"It is time I learnt it," Betty said, gravity stealing into her sunny
eyes. "I have been taking Molly's place while she has been away. I
wanted work to do, so mother has been giving me plenty of it."
"And why did a young thing like you want work? You talk as if you
were a char-woman. Isn't that the name of the good lady who is always
looking out for jobs of work?"
"I had nothing to do," Betty said earnestly. "I wanted to go right
away from home, only mother wouldn't let me. When Molly comes back, I
shall fare badly. I bungle so that mother will thankfully dismiss me.
It isn't the kind of work I am fit for—writing and reading and planning
societies, but it seems the only thing that mother likes for me."
"I see, I see. I might have known that the dancing fervour would not
last. Work, with a big W, is now the cry. My dear child, we must get
you married, or there is no saying what you will not develop into."
Betty turned upon him indignantly.
"You are a man, and talk such stuff! As if girls cannot do something
with their lives as well as men."
"Well, what do you want to do? Go into the Army or Navy, study law and
buy a flaxen wig, or walk a hospital, and dissect cats and dogs and
human beings? Perhaps you would prefer the Church? In your young days,
I remember, you were much given to churches and graves."
"You never will be serious, Uncle Harry. I thought you might help me,
but you only laugh at me."
Major Stuart dropped his banter.
"My dear Betty, girls are needed at home, especially when their mothers
are delicate. You would repent it all your life if you left your mother
now."
Betty looked up alarmed.
"Uncle Harry, you don't think mother is really ill?"
Major Stuart was silent. He knew what his young nieces did not
know—that Mrs. Stuart's days were numbered.
"Tell me," Betty urged. "Why do you think I ought not to leave mother?"
"Because she is an invalid," Major Stuart said, trying to speak
lightly; "and invalids want cheery companionship. You can give her that
even better than Molly can."
"No," said Betty, shaking her head; "I am not quiet enough. I bang
doors, and I let things tumble, and I sing when I ought to be silent.
Molly suits mother perfectly. I never did."
"Your mother told me you had cheered her a good deal lately," said
Major Stuart.
"Did she really?" Betty exclaimed, whilst a flush of pleasure came to
her cheeks. "I have tried hard to supply Molly's place, but I did not
know I had been at all successful."
A few days later, and Molly returned. Betty welcomed her gladly.
Everything concerning the Red Manor and its neighbourhood interested
her, and the sisters had much to tell each other. They sat over their
sitting-room fire the day after Molly's return. Mrs. Stuart was resting
in her room, and they hoped they would be undisturbed.
Molly puzzled Betty by her manner; she seemed reticent and
self-absorbed, but it did not last long. She placed a cushion behind
her head, leant back in her easy-chair, and, gazing dreamily into the
fire, announced,—
"Something happened to me at the Dormers, Betty."
"What?" asked Betty, eyeing her curiously.
"Well, Frank made a stupid of himself."
"Oh, Molly, not Frank? I should have thought he was the last person to
do it. He is just like Douglas. Do you mean to say he proposed to you?"
"I'll tell you how he did it, and then you can say if you would have
liked it."
Molly roused herself to poke the fire viciously.
"Of course, we were always about together, and one day Ella had a
headache, and Frank drove me out in his trap to see an old ruin about
eight miles off. It was coming home—he asked me how my story was
getting on, and then he said, 'How do your heroes make love, Molly?'
I said, 'Different ways.' 'But,' he said, 'how do you think it ought
to be done to ensure success?' Of course, I hadn't a notion of what
was coming, so I considered, and I said I preferred one who did it in
a masterly way, and not in agitation. 'My hero,' I said, 'generally
clasps the heroine in his arms, before she knows what he is about.'
"'And does the heroine always like that?'
"'If he is the right man she does.'
"'And if he isn't?'
"'Oh, then he wouldn't have the cheek to do it,' I said.
"Frank seemed to think that over. 'He might be in a position where
such a proceeding would be risky,' he said. 'For instance, if he was
driving like I am, and the horse wanted a bit of holding in like Boy
does, while he is clasping his lady-love to his heart, the horse would
bolt, and the result would be a catastrophe!' 'Yes,' I said; 'but I
have never made any one propose when driving. It would want a good deal
of thought and care.' 'Thought and care be hanged!' Frank said quickly.
'I'm going to do it, Molly, so now you'll see how it can be done.'"
Molly paused.
"Well," said Betty eagerly. "This is very exciting. How did he go on? I
wish it had been any one but Frank."
"Oh, I can't remember all he said. He talked a lot of nonsense. He said
he was perfectly certain we should suit each other down to the ground,
and he said he had always liked me, and he was really in dead earnest,
and I would break his heart if I didn't say 'Yes.' At first I thought
he was chaffing me, but I soon saw he wasn't, and he kept twitching
Boy's mouth till I thought the creature would rear and fall back on the
top of us! It wasn't a pleasant proposal at all, Betty."
"What did you say?"
"I told him it was absurd, that he was like a brother, and nothing
else. And then he was furious, and said I hadn't any heart, and wasted
all my best feelings on paper men and women. That was when I told him
I had no desire to marry; I only wanted to write a book. He was very
rude, but he begged my pardon before the end of the drive, and besought
me to give him another answer."
"I expect," Betty said soberly, "he will make some one a good husband.
He is a very steady fellow, and every one likes him. He isn't a bit
conceited, and he has plenty of fun in him."
"Yes," assented Molly dreamily, her eyes trying to read her future in
the glowing coals in front of her. "But he is not my ideal, Betty. I
know him too well. I think, if I ever marry, I shall like my husband
to be a dark stern man, with a mystery about him—one who will give
me little shivers of delight and awe, and who will be a surprise to
me even after I marry him. A man who will overwhelm me with love
and tenderness when we are alone together, but who will be cold and
unapproachable to any one else."
"Yes, that sounds nice in—in a book," said Betty thoughtfully; "but I
would like to be quite sure of a man before I married him."
There was a little silence. The girls were following out their youthful
fancies; then. Molly said abruptly,—
"Anyhow, Frank is too—commonplace and unromantic for me. I would rather
not be married at all than to him."
"If you would marry him, I suppose by-and-bye the Red Manor would be
your home."
"But you forget, Betty," said Molly, who was singularly unworldly,
"that I want to arrange a match between Ella and Mr. Arundel; and I
want Ella to inherit the Red Manor, not Frank, only I don't quite know
how it is to be done. I was a little disappointed when they met the
other day."
"When was that?" asked Betty quietly, but her heart began fluttering in
a most uncomfortable way.
"We were riding out—Frank and Ella and I—and we met Mr. Arundel on the
way to his farm. He was going to pass us, but I would not let him, and
I introduced him to Ella, and then I asked him if we might see his
farm. He did not seem to mind a bit, and I tried to make Ella ride
behind with him, while I went on with Frank, but she wouldn't. I asked
her afterwards what she thought of him, and she said he was rather
grave and uninteresting, but she liked his farmhouse."
"What is it like?" asked Betty.
"It has a thatched roof and casement windows, and some late roses were
still climbing up it. I shouldn't mind living in it a bit, but, of
course, after the Manor it must be dreadfully cramped, and he hasn't
got it very tidy. It looks like a man's house. It is rather pretty
when you go in, or it might easily be made so. You step into what was
the old farmhouse kitchen, and a broad wooden staircase goes up from
the middle of it, so it really is the hall. I think he smokes there.
The fire was burning, and a chair was by it, with a book and a pipe on
it, and his coats and hats were lying about anywhere. One door to the
left led into the kitchen and dairy; the other into the dining-room,
and then there was another door which he never opened; he said it was
the best parlour, and had at present no furniture in it. The garden is
sweet, old-fashioned, and quaint, and there is a nice walled kitchen
garden. Ella asked him if he felt lonely, and he smiled, but it was a
sad smile. It made me feel quite unhappy to see him there. He has a
woman to cook and look after him; the rest of them there are farm men
and lads."
"Where is his mother's organ?" asked Betty.
"I never asked him. I forgot all about it. In the best parlour, I
expect, if the room is high enough to take it. We didn't go upstairs."
"I think it was intruding as it was," Betty said, with hot cheeks. "I
can't think how you could do it."
"You see, I was so anxious for him to know Ella. And I'm afraid I did
myself harm," Molly added, with a little sigh, "for Frank got it into
his head that I wanted to be with him. Stupid fellow! It was only to
give the others a chance, that I took him away."
"How long did you stay?"
"Not very long. He offered us a cup of tea, but I thought he wouldn't
be able to manage it very well. It looked so funny to see him there
doing everything himself. He went out into the yard, and brought some
logs to put on the fire. Of course, Floy was there. He lay on the rug
and looked just as comfortable as he did at the Manor. I told Ella
how dreadfully Mr. Arundel was to be pitied, and she made me angry by
saying it would have been much better if he had left the neighbourhood
altogether. She said it would be so awkward meeting him, though of
course she was very sorry for him."
"I am sure he doesn't need 'her' pity!"
Betty's tone was so emphatic that Molly looked up surprised.
"Well, of course, everybody is sorry for him, aren't you?"
"Not a bit," said Betty passionately, rising from her seat as she
spoke. "He has done nothing to be sorry for. He is not a poor weak
ailing creature that needs a girl's pity. He is one that is to be
envied, and people who talk about being sorry for him are fools!"
With which hasty, incoherent statement Betty left the room, shutting
the door behind her more quickly than quietly.
Molly shrugged her shoulders.
"Betty is so contradictious! I thought she quite felt for him in his
misfortunes. Now she doesn't seem to care a bit. I believe I am the
only one that really sympathises with him."
For the rest of the day Betty went about in a dream. One picture was in
her mind's eye.
The old hall, with a blazing log fire, and the staircase leading up
out of it. In a chair, leaning his head on his hand, the master of the
house. Stretched at his feet his faithful hound. A book open on his
knee, but unread. Where are his thoughts?
"Alone and silent, only his dog left, all his friends giving him the
cold shoulder. And yet I can see him smiling, and his eyes clear and
untroubled. Oh, God will 'restore comforts unto him.' I must not think
of him. It will make me miserable."
But thoughts are difficult to control, and Betty found them so. She
comforted herself by praying for him.
"I am sure it isn't wrong to do that," she said to herself, a little
defiantly. "And I shall pray that he may be made happy, and if he
marries Ella and goes back to the Red Manor, I shall be glad—yes,
really glad! I hope I shall be!"
Poor little Betty! She was very courageous in these days, very earnest
and conscientious in all she said and did, but her heart was in the old
thatched farmhouse, and there it remained, day after day, much as she
strove to tear it thence.
CHAPTER XII
A Thunderbolt
We scarce breathed anything but grief,
We almost held our breath:
We were inwardly unmanned and numbed
With the looking out for death.
FABER.
"Now, girls, what are you doing? I am to take you for a constitutional
in the Park—act nursemaid, in fact—your mother says so! What! Betty
deep with ink and paper! Heaven forbid that you should follow in your
sister's steps!"
"It is only a letter," said Betty, looking up with flushed face and
tearful eyes. "I am writing to Mrs. Fairfax. I heard such dreadful news
from Mrs. St. Clair this morning. And Molly and I have decided not to
tell mother. It is one of her bad days."
"I see it is; but I heard from St. Clair last mail, and they were all
first-rate."
"He is dead," said Betty softly; "haven't you heard?"
"Good heavens! No! You don't mean it?"
Major Stuart sat down heavily on a chair. Colonel St. Clair was an old
friend of his, and they corresponded as frequently as two men do who
have perfect confidence in each other.
"His horse bolted with him on parade, and threw him on a heap of
stones. He only lived four hours. He had concussion of the brain, and
never recovered."
"And his wife?"
"She is coming home at once. She has been very ill, and is still quite
an invalid."
"I wish he hadn't gone out to India," said Major Stuart slowly. "I
always told him it was a mistake—seconding from his battalion. It has
ruined his wife's health, and now killed him."
"But the accident might have happened anywhere," said Molly.
Major Stuart was silent. Then he asked,—
"May I see Mrs. St. Clair's letter, Betty? We were like brothers—he and
I. What steamer does she return in?"
"The 'Arethusa,' I think. She will be here in another week. Do advise
us, Uncle Harry. You know, Mrs. Fairfax is still in the south of
France. She has been there since Miss Grace's death. Mrs. St. Clair
wants to go to their old home. It was let to some friends of theirs,
but they left at the same time we left the vicarage. Some one ought to
go down and make it ready for her. Do you think Molly or I could?"
"That is a question your mother must settle. She ought to know—"
"I am writing to Mrs. Fairfax," said Betty, "to ask her if she is
coming over. But she was ill when we last heard from her. It seems
nothing but trouble."
"Your mother will ask Mrs. St. Clair here, perhaps?"
"I don't think so," Molly said decidedly. "Mother refused to have Aunt
Dora, who wanted to come last week. She seems to get so worried if
people are staying in the house."
"But she lets me come in and out."
"Yes, but you are at your club. That is different."
"Well, I shall be in town for some time longer, so I can easily offer
my services to Mrs. St. Clair on arrival. She can put up at an hotel
for the time being. Now get your hats, and come along. If we have had
bad news, we can bear it in the open air as well as in a stuffy house."
"I'm sure Betty inherits her love of being out of doors from you, Uncle
Harry," said Molly, as she left the room in obedience to her uncle's
wish. "You and she ought to have been born tramps."
Neither Major Stuart nor Betty replied; they were both absorbed in
their thoughts.
Betty had not seen Nesta St. Clair for seven years. She had as a child
worshipped her with a loving adoration, and though as she grew up she
had only seen her at rare intervals, her love had not lessened with
time. Nesta had never forgotten her little friend, and had corresponded
with her regularly from the time she went out to India. She had not
been without her own troubles, for she had lost three of her children
out there, and now had only her youngest boy left, who was about eight
years old.
Mrs. Stuart was told the news the following day; but she negatived the
idea of either of her girls going down to Holly Grange.
So when Nesta arrived in town, about a week later, she went with her
boy to a quiet private hotel, and there it was that Major Stuart took
Betty to see her one foggy afternoon.
Betty had been beside herself with excitement all the morning. When
Molly remonstrated with her, and begged her not to greet Nesta with
such abundant cheerfulness, Betty turned upon her,—
"Be quiet, Molly. How should you know my feelings? I am not going to
pretend I am sorry to see her, when in reality I am wild with joy. Of
course, I am sorry about her husband, but she is the only real woman
friend that I have got, and I love her!"
When Betty found herself face to face with Mrs. St. Clair she was
tongue-tied. Was this gentle fragile-looking woman in her widow weeds,
with her white, worn face and large sad eyes, the same as the bonny
young wife and mother that Betty had seen seven years previously? She
could hardly believe it, but when Nesta spoke, her low mellow voice
awoke a thousand memories in Betty's mind.
"Is this tall, fashionable young lady indeed my little Betty?"
Betty rushed at her impulsively.
"Oh, I hope I shall be your Betty still. I have wanted you so
sometimes, and now this is such a sad home-coming."
Tears were in her eyes as she kissed her friend, but Nesta was
strangely calm and collected. The time of tears for her was past; only
the dull constant ache of loneliness and bereavement remained.
"Dear child, I am so pleased to see you. Now let me introduce my boy to
you. He is your godson, remember."
She drew her boy forward. He was a white-faced, delicate-looking child,
but upright as a dart, and with a vigour and a briskness in his tone
that was a great contrast to his mother's sweet languor.
"How do you do, godmother? I want mother to come out of doors with me
and show me England, but it is full of dirty smoke this morning. Would
you like to see my parrot? Her name is Tittle-tattle. The captain on
the ship gave her that name, and when I grow up I'm going to have a
ship of my own, and a coat with 'very' big pockets, and I'm going to
walk up and down the bridge with my spyglass, and always keep my hands
in my pockets."
"What is your name?" asked Betty, smiling down upon the eager little
face. "Jocelyn, isn't it?"
"Jossy, I'm called. Will you come and see Tittle-tattle?"
"Not just now, dear," said his mother. "I want to talk to her first."
"Here, young shaver, we'll go off together, and give your mother a
little quiet."
Major Stuart took him off, and Betty sat with her friend. Nesta, with
her usual unselfishness, did not touch much upon her own sorrow. She
was full of interest in Betty and her surroundings.
"I did so enjoy your letters about Tiverstoke, Betty; it brought up so
many happy memories! I hope my mother may like to come back to Holly
Grange, and live with me there. I am sure Jossy will brighten her up. I
have found a letter from her waiting for me here. Her doctor will not
let her return to England just yet. Do you think your mother would let
you come and stay with me till she can join me?"
A rush of colour swept into Betty's face. Mrs. St. Clair wondered a
little at the brilliant light in her eyes. She thought that she was
growing into a beautiful woman.
"It would be heavenly!" was Betty's earnest ejaculation.
Nesta smiled.
"You are the same earnest little soul, Betty. What have you been doing
with your life since you left school?"
"Not much," said Betty, shaking her head and a shadow creeping across
her eyes. "I have been wasting a good part of it in discontent and
restlessness."
"Have you passed that stage now?" asked Nesta sympathetically.
"I am trying hard to," said Betty gravely. "I have longed to go out in
the world and work, Mrs. St. Clair. I felt I 'must' a little time ago,
but mother would not let me, and so I'm trying to do my best at home.
Mr. Russell helped me so when we were at Tiverstoke."
"You were very happy there?"
Betty did not answer. She looked dreamily into the blazing fire in
front of her; then she turned her speaking eyes upon her friend, and
there were truth and candour in her glance.
"I was very happy, and very miserable, and now, I think, I am content."
Nesta leant forward and kissed her.
"You have been learning in a great school, dear, if you have learnt
that lesson."
"I haven't learnt it yet—not perfectly," said Betty wistfully. "I get
such sudden overpowering longings, that they almost run away with me.
But I do want to do what is right. Mr. Russell gave me such a beautiful
text to practise. Three things to think of every day, when worries
come,—'Patience, long-suffering, with joyfulness!'"
As Nesta looked into the sweet girlish face by her side, she could
almost see the impress of those three virtues stamped upon it. But she
wondered dimly what trouble had crept into Betty's life at Tiverstoke,
and being a woman she nearly understood.
When Betty left her that morning, she said enthusiastically to her
uncle,—
"Isn't she perfectly charming? Do you think mother would let me go
to Holly Grange? I think I should be doing some good if I went. Do
persuade her, Uncle Harry."
"I think," said Major Stuart gravely, "that you and Molly should stay
with your mother this winter. Do not urge her to send you away from
her."
Betty's face fell. She could not understand her uncle's wish to keep
them both in attendance on their mother; and when he insisted upon
taking them out in turn, and in persuading Mrs. Stuart to let them each
spend an equal time in her sick-room, Betty thought he was very lacking
in discernment.
"Every one can see how much rather mother would have Molly than me. She
looks quite plaintive when the door opens, and it is only I."
Nesta came the next day, and had a long interview with Mrs. Stuart.
Betty was summoned to her mother's room before she went away.
"Come here, Betty. Mrs. St. Clair has been telling me that she would
like to take you to Holly Grange with her. Do you wish to go?"
Betty looked at her mother, then at Nesta. She felt tongue-tied. Her
uncle's words rang in her ears.
"Can you spare me, mother?" she asked.
"Your mother is willing to spare you," said Nesta, a little hastily;
"but I have told her that I would not have asked you, had I known—had I
known she was such an invalid!"
"Am I of any use to you, mother?" Betty asked appealingly. She longed
for some assurance that her mother would miss her.
Mrs. Stuart did not reply for a moment. She shaded her eyes with her
hand; then she said quietly,—
"If you are away, Molly will be tied a great deal to the house. Of
course, she never complains, but—"
"I will not go, mother. I will stay with you."
Her decision made, she left the room; but there was a little bitter
feeling in her heart.
"Mother only thinks of Molly. It is only to ease her that she wants me.
Oh, it is a disappointment!"
She crept to her room, then took herself to task for such feelings.
"And it is quite right I should not go to Holly Grange. It would be
much better not. It would only bring up a lot of things that I ought
not to think about. I should be too near. Oh, but I did want just to
see if he was looking happy! I would not wish to meet him or speak to
him, but if I could have seen him going by without being seen, I think
it would have made me happy for a twelvemonth!"
Nesta did not stay very long in town. The time flew by too swiftly for
Betty. When she went to Paddington Station to see her off, she had much
difficulty in keeping the tears out of her eyes.
"I have only just met you to lose you," she said mournfully. "Do write
to me often. I wish mother would take the vicarage again next spring."
"We are nearer each other now," Nesta said brightly. "We have no ocean
between us, remember. And, Betty dear, I think you will be happy in
London this winter. Be good to your mother. She wants all the love of
her daughters just now."
"Sometimes," said Betty, looking at Mrs. St. Clair strangely, "you
speak as if mother is very ill. I suppose we have got accustomed to her
being an invalid. But you know it is nothing serious. The doctor told
us ages ago she only needed care and nursing."
Nesta did not answer for a minute; then she said,—
"You must give it to her, Betty—care, nursing—and love."
Betty sighed. She looked after the departing train with earnest
longing, then brought down her little foot with a resolute stamp on
the platform, and arrived home with a bright and smiling face. Molly
wondered at her, but wisely said nothing.
A few days after, when Betty came to summon her sister to their mother,
Molly looked up from her manuscript with a flushed and eager face.
"Oh, Betty, I have been weaving his history into my story, and I have
quite changed my plans for him. You know that Uncle Harry said the
other day that Mrs. St. Clair was very well off?"
"What of that?" asked Betty shortly.
She had not much patience with many of Molly's dreams and fancies.
"Why, of course, she will meet Mr. Arundel down there, and she will
be sorry for him and be kind to him, and ask him to her house. She
is so sweet, and sad and lonely, that he will try to comfort her,
and she will try to comfort him. And then General Dormer's bank will
fail, or his dividends, or whatever his money is in, and then Mrs. St.
Clair will buy the Red Manor from him, and they will marry, and live
happy ever after. I am sure they are just suited to each other, and
it will be trouble that will bring them together and bind them in the
unbreakable bond."
Betty turned upon her sister, with hot cheeks and angry eyes.
"I do wish you wouldn't talk such utter nonsense, Molly! Make up what
you like about your imaginary men and women, but not about real people
in real life. Mrs. St. Clair has only just lost her husband, whom she
idolised. She will never think of marrying again, and it is wicked of
you to think she will. I am sick of all your talk about people marrying
each other. Things like that don't happen in real life, and the world
would go on just as well without any love-making or marriages!"
With which very startling and sweeping assertion Betty sent her sister
off to the sick-room, and took her place by the fire.
The winter passed very quietly, and then one day came into Betty's life
that stood out sharply and darkly, as a black cloud against a sunset
sky. Major Stuart's battalion was now stationed in London, so that he
was in and out a good deal. He had come in to visit his sister-in-law
one morning, and now, with a very grave, set face, entered the girls'
sitting-room and called them to him.
"Your mother has asked me to tell you something," he said. "She does
not feel strong enough to tell you herself, and she would rather you
made no allusion to it when you see her next. I suppose you have both
seen that she is not gaining strength?"
Molly looked up with frightened eyes. "It is the winter, Uncle Harry,"
she gasped. "Mother will be better when the spring comes."
"She was much better in the country," said Betty breathlessly; "it was
coming back to London made her worse. But we will take her away in the
spring."
"Some One Else is going to take her away first," Major Stuart said very
quietly, staring hard out of the window as he spoke.
There was dead silence. The girls looked into each other's eyes for
hope that they did not find there. Then Betty stepped forward and
seized her uncle's arm.
"Uncle Harry, don't hint! Tell us straight out what you mean. Mother is
not dangerously ill? She is not—oh, you don't mean that she is going to
die?"
"Your mother is very, very ill, Betty—I wonder you have not seen it—and
the end is very near."
Molly burst into a passion of tears. Betty surprised him by her
calmness.
"Who says so? The doctors? They are often mistaken."
"Not in this case. Your mother has known all the winter that she would
never see another spring."
Then, after a pause, he said,—
"You and Molly will have to exercise all your fortitude and
cheerfulness now. A scene would be most dangerous to your mother. Be
her careful and cheerful little nurses, as you have been. But your
labours will be shared by another. That is why I have spoken to you
to-day. The doctor is sending a trained nurse into the house to-night."
Neither of the girls spoke. Molly sobbed as if her heart would break;
Betty looked into the fire with a white, stunned face.
Their uncle left them. He felt powerless to comfort, and was relieved
that his sad business of opening their eyes was over.
Molly looked up at last.
"Oh, Betty, what shall we do? How cruel it seems to be!"
Betty did not answer. In her heart she was saying,—
"O God! Come close to us now, for no one can help us but Thee!"
CHAPTER XIII
Motherless
Thou art beyond the shadow;
Why should we weep for thee,
That thou from care and pain and death
Art set for ever free?
Well may we cease to sorrow;
Or if we weep at all,
Not for thy fate, but for our own,
Our bitter tears shall fall.
G. WILSON.
"MOLLY, one of us must go to mother."
"You must. How can I?"
And Molly raised her red and swollen eyes, with another deep sob.
Betty stood irresolutely in the middle of the room.
"I am sure mother will expect to see you first."
"I can't go, Betty. I can't! I don't believe you feel it like I do. Oh,
mother! Mother!"
Down went her head into her arms. She was crying as if her heart would
break. Betty walked out of the room and upstairs, wondering if she were
in a dream. Surely such an awful trouble as this would be averted even
yet!
She stole into her mother's room, hardly daring to look at her as she
lay on her couch. The room was darkened. Mrs. Stuart was lying with
closed eyes, and did not open them.
"Is that Molly?"
"No, mother, it is I. Can I do anything for you?"
Betty's voice sounded strange to herself. It was almost stony in its
quietness.
"Is Molly in?"
"Yes; she—she will come up soon."
Mrs. Stuart was silent. Betty nervously began to move a tray with a cup
of beef-tea upon it from the side of the couch. Then her mother said
quietly,—
"I suppose your uncle told you that Dr. Forsyth wishes me to have a
night nurse? She will come at five o'clock, and will want some tea. She
had better have the dressing-room on the other side of the passage. You
must see about it being got ready for her."
A great lump rose in Betty's throat; her mother's care and thought for
the nurse who was going to see her die seemed infinitely pathetic. She
wished her uncle had not told them that no allusion must be made to
their mother's danger in her presence, for she felt tongue-tied now;
afraid to offer the slightest remark, for fear of breaking down. She
walked to the window, and, in her desperation, began humming a little
air to herself. Then, in surprisingly cheerful tones, she said,—
"I will see that she has everything she wants, mother. It is such a
lovely day. Would you like me to draw up the blind a little? Fancy! I
heard from Lottie Ward this morning, and she is going to be married to
Martin Yates!"
She was talking at random. The lump in her throat seemed almost to
choke her. What could she say to her mother? What could she do at a
crisis like this?
Mrs. Stuart, as usual, misunderstood her. Though it had been her own
wish that her girls should not recognise the truth of her state to
herself, she was taken aback by Betty's apparent indifference.
"I need not have feared she would make a scene," she thought, a
little bitterly, to herself. "It is only from compulsion that she is
staying at home this winter. She will be free to do and go where she
likes soon. I dare say she will be glad. My poor little Molly has
quite broken down, evidently. Well, it is all for the best! One of my
daughters will be able to attend on me, without any violation of her
feelings. There will be no fear of Betty's breaking down. I wonder if
she has any love for me at all?"
"You can read the articles in the 'Times' to me as usual," Mrs. Stuart
said presently. "Sit by the window and draw up part of the blind."
Betty got the paper, and read it in a monotonous level tone. How could
her mother care for the newspapers? she wondered. What was the good
of anything, when her life was gradually ebbing away? Now and again a
little choke came into her voice, but she conquered it.
The hour that she was with her mother seemed almost twenty-four hours
in length. She was released at last, for her mother's maid came in.
Just for a minute before she went, Betty stood looking down at the
invalid.
"Is there nothing I can do for you, mother?"
There was wistful longing in her tone, but Mrs. Stuart's matter-of-fact
reply sent her from the room with mingled feelings of despair and
astonishment.
"Nothing, thank you. Send Molly to me soon. The reports of the S.P.S.H.
have just arrived, and I want them sent off as soon as possible."
Betty went down to Molly, with eyes full of consternation and dismay.
She found her, poker in hand, kneeling by the fire, and a strong smell
of burning filled the room.
"Molly, how soon can you go to mother? She wants you."
Molly stood up and faced her sister. She was red-eyed still, but her
face was white and set, and there was a look of determined resolve on
it that Betty had never seen before.
"What have you been doing?" faltered Betty.
"I have been burning my manuscripts," said Molly. Her voice was almost
stern in tone. "I can't play with life any longer, Betty. I shall never
forgive myself, that I have been so absorbed in fictitious tragedies,
that a tragedy taking place under our own roof has been unnoticed by
us. Oh, Betty! Why have they kept us in ignorance of it? All this year
mother has been slowly dying. Think of it! And she has known it, and
borne the burden of it all alone!"
"It is awful!" cried Betty. "Why doesn't everything stop, Molly? What
is the good of eating, and drinking, and reading the newspapers, when
death is coming nearer every day?"
She shuddered as she spoke; then added quickly,—
"Mother gives me such a shock. She is just the same as she was
yesterday. I have been reading the newspaper to her, and she talks so
calmly of everything. Do you think Uncle Harry may have been mistaken?
I can't believe it."
"The nurse!" Molly said. "How could you read, Betty? How can you keep
so calm? You are generally so much more excited than I am. Yes, the
nurse must mean that there is danger."
She began to cry again. Betty kissed her with quivering lips.
"Oh, Molly, you mustn't! Mother is wanting you so! Do get calm, and go
into her room, as if nothing had happened. Don't cry any more. Mother
is wanting you to send off some reports!"
Betty finished by a little hysterical laugh. Molly dried her eyes, and
looked at her in wonder.
"Reports? What do they matter? I shall burn them all. Oh, Betty,
Douglas ought to know, and Bobby and Billy! How can we get them here?"
"I will write at once. Go upstairs and brush your hair. Oh, don't begin
to cry again, for pity's sake! Do go to mother. It is you that she
wants!"
In the days that followed it was Betty that took the lead. Molly was
beside herself with terror and anxiety. It was some time before Mrs.
Stuart mentioned her state to her daughters. She had always been a
reserved woman in matters that belonged to herself, and though she grew
rapidly weaker, she insisted upon continuing her large correspondence.
The day came, however, when she said to Molly,—
"There, dear, that is my last letter. You must attend to everything now
without reference to me."
Once Betty entered the room, and found her mother with an open Bible by
her side. She longed to say something, but felt paralysed. Mrs. Stuart
had never talked with her children upon religious subjects. She rarely
allowed religious discussions; but now, seeing Betty's earnest eyes,
she spoke,—
"I have had Mr. Fosberry here; he has been reading to me."
Mr. Fosberry was their clergyman.
"I am so glad, mother." Then with an effort she added, "It is the only
Book that comforts, because it is true."
Mrs. Stuart smiled, and her smiles were so rare that Betty's heart was
warmed and quickened.
Very shyly she laid her hand on her mother's thin, wasted one.
"You will be happy," she said. "It is we who shall be miserable."
"A sick bed is not a happy place, Betty," Mrs. Stuart said sorrowfully,
and with strange gentleness. "You see your past, with all its failures,
and mistakes, with such distinctness."
"But your past, mother, has been a life lived for others, and not for
yourself. You can have nothing to regret."
And Betty thought of the avalanche of sympathetic letters that came
pouring in day by day by post, letters from all quarters of the globe,
in which the writers, one and all, agreed in lamenting that such a
valuable and useful life was about to be taken away.
"Betty," said Mrs. Stuart slowly, "listen to me, and profit by my
experience. You are longing to take up work, and when I am gone, of
course, you will be a free agent. I would warn you not to fill your
life with work to the exclusion of the One who should come first. I may
have lived for others; I have failed to live for Him. Take up the Bible
and read me that verse which is marked in it."
Betty obeyed, but her voice trembled as she read,—
"'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'"
"That will do. Now leave me. I want to be alone."
And this was the only talk that Betty had with her mother concerning
her state.
Not one of their brothers could come home. Major Stuart did all he
could, and his nieces felt that without him they could not have lived
through that trying time. When the first lilac buds were bursting forth
in the London parks, Mrs. Stuart died, reserved and silent until the
last. She had no farewell with her daughters. She gave them no parting
wishes. Major Stuart was the only one with whom she consulted, and so,
as the faint spring sunshine streamed into the rooms that were open
once more to its rays, it fell on the white, anxious faces of the two
motherless girls, as together they turned to their uncle,—
"And now, Uncle Harry, what are we to do?"
Major Stuart looked at them and sighed. He wished they were a little
older, a little less pretty; and then he wished he were a married man,
with a home to offer them. He dared not utter his next thought, "They
must get married."
"Your Aunt Dora has offered one of you a home," he said slowly.
"Only one of us?" gasped Molly. "Well we shall have money enough to be
independent, shall we not? We need not separate. We shall keep a home
together for the boys. Neither of us will need to go to Aunt Dora."
Mrs. Eagleton was not a favourite with her nieces. She and her husband
lived in Yorkshire. They had no children, and were rather fidgety and
particular in their ways. Their house was a dull one, and hardly an
attractive place for a young girl.
"You two girls cannot live alone. It is out of the question. Betty,
would Mrs. St. Clair still like to have you?"
Betty flushed. She felt ashamed of the throb of pleasure that her
uncle's words gave her.
"Yes, I believe she would. She wrote again yesterday about it, but I
couldn't leave Molly."
"And I cannot go to Aunt Dora's," said Molly, sitting down on a chair
and beginning to cry. "I really cannot, Uncle Harry. I shall go mad
if I do! She will grind me down, and refuse to let me move my little
finger without her permission. She will starve me in soul and body. She
and Uncle Tom are on vegetarian diet at present. I would rather take
poison at once than be slowly killed by her. I couldn't live with her!
Oh, do have pity, and don't suggest such a thing!"
"Did mother say nothing about us to you?" asked Betty.
"Yes," replied her uncle, hesitating; "she did. She thought you, Betty,
might like to go to Holly Grange for a time, and then, if you liked to
take up work of any kind, you could do so—that is, provided Mrs. St.
Clair and I approved. I am your guardian, remember."
"And me?" Molly asked breathlessly.
"Well—er—we did not arrive at any conclusion about you. I think it
would be well to go to Mrs. Eagleton for a time, and then you might
pay a few visits from her. You have plenty of friends. What about the
Dormers?"
"Oh," said Molly, with a rising blush, "I shall never go and see them
again—never!"
Her uncle looked curiously at her.
"I thought Ella was such a friend of yours —and Frank?"
"Uncle Harry," said Betty, trying to cover her sister's confusion, "why
cannot Molly and I stay on in this house? You say it is ours to do what
we like with."
Major Stuart shrugged his shoulders.
"Because of Mrs. Grundy. I might look out for some matron or elderly
spinster to come and look after you, but I fancy the best plan would be
to shut it up at present. Perhaps Mrs. St. Clair will take you both for
a time. We will see."
[Illustration: "DID MOTHER SAY NOTHING ABOUT US TO YOU?" ASKED BETTY.]
And this was what was finally arranged; Molly and Betty both went down
to Holly Grange. Nesta wrote them a warm entreaty to make her house at
present their home. They arrived at Tiverstoke Station on a cold, windy
afternoon in March.
"It was only a year ago we came down with mother," said Molly sadly.
"It seems as if we are fated to be in this part."
"Don't you like it?" asked Betty. "We have friends here. I shall much
prefer it to London. But I never thought, when we left it last year,
that we should come back again."
"There will be nothing to do," said Molly, with a weary sigh. "And the
Dormers are abroad. I—I am glad of that."
She did not look glad. Nesta thought, when she met them, that Molly
had the saddest face of the two. There had been a great deal to do
after their mother's death, and as long as Molly was employed she was
content, but with leisure on her hands she was wretched. She seemed for
the time to have lost all her sweet placidity. And Betty found that
nothing she did or said could please her.
Nesta did not meet them at the station, though she sent her carriage.
As they stepped into the hall she came forward with her little son to
welcome them, and with a sudden rush of memories Betty seemed to see
herself again a little white-frocked child, being led out of the sun
into the cool, shady hall. Everything looked just the same. The same
old-fashioned pot-pourri pots stood about the hall and stairs, the
glass garden doors at the end of the hall showed glimpses of bright
hyacinths and tulips, where Betty as a child had seen lilies and roses,
and when stately Mrs. Fairfax moved slowly across the drawing-room to
greet them, Betty almost fancied time had slipped back to fifteen years
ago. There was one small person who soon disturbed this fancy.
"You're Godmother Betty! Granny, have you ever seen her before, and
don't you think she—is a very pretty godmother? At least—" here Jossy
paused and eyed her doubtfully—"you're not very pretty in that black
dress. You had a red dress in London, and your eyes were more laughing.
Everybody wears black dresses in England. It's so ugly. We don't wear
black in India."
He was holding his grandmother's hand as he spoke, and dancing up and
down with excitement.
Mrs. Fairfax had changed little with time. Her hair was white now where
it had been grey, her face a little more lined, but her figure was as
erect as ever, and her voice exactly the same.
She held Betty's hand in hers for a minute and looked at her keenly.
"I should have known you anywhere," she said. "But I have not seen you
since Nesta's wedding."
"No," said Betty, flushing a little under her inspection. "I am glad I
have not changed much. I feel just the same—only older, and—sadder."
"You wanted to hurry trouble into your young life when I first made
your acquaintance," said Mrs. Fairfax. "I suppose you have found it has
come quickly enough."
"This last year it has," answered Betty slowly.
There was a look in her face that told Mrs. Fairfax there had been more
to trouble her than her recent bereavement. No more was said, for Nesta
came forward to show her to her room.
The girls had a bedroom each side by side. Betty sat down by her window
and looked out. A feeling of peace and rest stole into her heart.
"I can enjoy this now," she said to herself. "I am thankful I was
prevented from coming before. I should never have forgiven myself had
I done so. Oh, mother! I wonder where you are, and what you are doing!
Molly and I are lost without you!"
CHAPTER XIV
A Meeting
It gives me wonder, great as my content,
To see you here before me.
_Othello._
IT was a very quiet life at Holly Grange. Nesta naturally, in these
first days of her widowhood, saw very few people, and did not go out.
Mrs. Fairfax kept much to her own rooms, and Molly and Betty were
content to wander round the garden and grounds talking over, and making
many plans for, their future.
Poor Molly was most to be pitied. All her resources were gone. She
would not touch a pen and paper.
"I haven't the heart, Betty," she said piteously. "I can't forgive
myself for being so engrossed in it, when mother was dying. It was all
rubbish. I wasted hours over it, and I will never attempt to take it up
again."
Much as she missed her writing, she missed her occupation of attending
on her mother more. Nesta, seeing how languidly she moved about, how
uninterested she was in work or books, suggested to her that she should
take up some of her mother's work, and carry it on. But Molly shook her
head.
"I am not fit for it. I have no head. I can carry out people's wishes
and write at their dictation, but I never could be responsible for
anything more."
"I am interested in these girls," Mrs. Fairfax said to Nesta one day.
"Molly, I fear, will develop into an aimless, hopeless woman unless she
marries. She wants to be roused, and to be made to work. It would be
better for her if she had to earn her own living, while Betty is just
the other way. She has a thousand unpractical schemes in her little
head. She has too much enthusiasm. No amount of trouble will crush it."
"We don't want it crushed," said Nests quickly. "We only want to divert
it into right channels."
One afternoon Mr. Russell called. Nesta immediately began to consult
him about a new organ she wished to have placed in the little village
church close to them.
"There is only a harmonium at present. I have promised the vicar to
give it—"
Her voice faltered, and Betty finished her sentence.
"It is to be in memory of Colonel St. Clair," she said softly.
Mr. Russell gave all the advice he could about it, and then they walked
down to the little church. They met the vicar on the way, and while he
was talking to Nesta, Betty dropped behind with Mr. Russell. It was the
first time she had seen him alone.
"Well, Betty," he said kindly, "you have had a sad winter, poor child;
but I don't think you will have regretted giving in to your dear
mother's decision to stay at home."
"No," said Betty earnestly. "I can only be thankful I was not allowed
to have my own way, Mr. Russell."
"And what are your plans now?"
"Molly and I make a great many. If were quite by myself it would be
very easy; there is so much I want to do, but Molly says she does not
want to be separated from me, and it makes it difficult."
"How?"
"I want to spend my money in making people happy, Mr. Russell. I feel
now I am a steward with something given to me to use rightly. I don't
want to waste or hoard it, and it is a care. I lie awake at night and
think about it."
"You want to spend it on the unhappy people in the world?"
"Yes; you understand me, don't you? But it is a puzzle. I think of so
many different ways I could use it."
She gave a little laugh as she continued,—
"I think of something different every day. I believe I really should
like to build a home of some sort, where I could live myself, and take
in cripple children or orphans or workhouse people, or old soldiers
and old servants, and anybody who has tried to earn their living and
failed, like schoolmistresses and artists, and poor old maids who have
lost their money."
"Go on," said Mr. Russell, smiling; "your list is not nearly long
enough. You would be like the old woman who lived in a shoe. I have
a vision of your happy mixture. Gentle, timid spinsters and 'old
soldiers,' tramps and lazy ruffians from the workhouse, with orphan
babies, and you in their midst, controlling and managing them all. Your
heart is big enough, my child, but I don't think that your home would
be, and certainly not your purse!"
"You're laughing at me, of course. I only tell you my thoughts. Then
there is another way; I can divide up my income and send subscriptions
to every home that has been started, or I can send it to some
missionary society, or, better still, I could go myself and take my
money with me."
"Go where?"
"To India, or New Zealand," said Betty vaguely. "Anywhere, as long as I
could do some good to some one."
"Is that your aim in life?"
Betty was silent for a minute. She seemed to be considering, and then
she looked up.
"Well, no, Mr. Russell. I don't believe it is. My aim is to serve God,
to do His will."
"That is right. Many people put work for God before His 'will.' I
think you were carrying out God's will this winter, when you gave up
your time and attention to your mother, and practised 'patience, and
long-suffering, with joyfulness.' Don't go ahead; just take your steps
slowly. His will can be done every day in the very circumstances in
which you are placed. His work will be shown you, if you are doing His
will."
There was no opportunity for further talk, for they had joined the
others; but, in spite of her keen interest about the proposed organ,
Betty was strangely silent and absorbed.
"I am so glad you will be here, Betty," said Nesta to her on the way
home. "Mr. Adams has been telling me his difficulty about an organist.
He says he has not one parishioner who is sufficiently musical to learn
it. I wonder if you will like to help him, and take the services."
"Oh, Mrs. St. Clair, I shall be proud, delighted!" exclaimed Betty.
"But how can you ask me? Surely you will love to do it yourself?"
Nesta shook her head.
"Not yet, Betty, and not 'this' organ. I am not brave enough; not sure
enough of my self-control. I hope by-and-bye I may conquer my weakness.
I shall steal into church when no one is there, and get real comfort
and refreshment from it, but I could not play in public—not for a long
while to come, I am afraid."
Betty was silent. Nesta touched so little on her own sorrow that it was
difficult to allude to it, but Nesta now quietly drew her arm into hers.
"You remember, Betty, how an organ must be for ever associated in my
mind with him. You and that brought us together. And he was always so
fond of it. It was a dream of ours to come back from India to this dear
old house; and he always said that the first thing he would do, would
be to put an organ in our little church here, so that he could come and
hear me play."
"Oh," said Betty, with trembling lips, "why does God make life so sad?
It must be right, but the older I get the more trouble there seems to
be."
"But it is only for such a little time," said Nesta, raising her pale
face to the spring sky above. "There is no harshness in a Father
wishing to have His children with Him. It is a trouble that has more
sweetness than bitterness in it, Betty. Do you remember those lines—
"'Love craves the presence and the sight of all its well-beloved,
And therefore weep we in the homes whence they are far removed;
Love craves the presence and the sight of each beloved one,
And therefore Jesus spake the word which caught them to His throne.'"
"Yes," said Betty slowly, "that comforts one."
"And now," said Nesta brightly, "I want to talk about another matter.
You know that Major Stuart has been choosing a pony for Jossy, and
another one that I can either ride or drive. He writes to me this
morning to say that they are coming down in charge of his groom. He
says the mare has been ridden by a lady who is going abroad, and is
perfectly safe and quiet, with no vice. I know you like riding. Will
you use her while you are here, and take your little godson out with
you?"
Betty's face flushed and sparkled with pleasure.
"Oh, how delightful! I shall love to. As you know, when mother was
taken ill we gave up our riding. It was expensive, too, in town, as we
always had to hire. I have longed sometimes to be on horseback, and was
only saying the other day to Molly that we might attempt it again. Will
you really trust me with Jossy? Does he like riding?"
Nesta caught her breath.
"Ah, doesn't he? He rode with his father every morning from the time
he was four years old, and then after the—the accident I felt I could
never let him ride again. I thanked God with all my heart that Jossy
wasn't with him that morning. But I talked to your uncle about it, and
I have come to the conclusion that it would be wrong to give way to
unreasonable fears. So Jossy must have his pony, and in time perhaps
I may be able to accompany him. Till then, I shall be so glad if you
will. Molly does not seem to care for it at present."
"Molly cares for nothing. Am I heartless, Mrs. St. Clair, because so
soon after—our trouble—I am beginning to care for everything so very
much again? It is the spring, I think, and the country; and now this
organ and the riding—why, it is all delicious!"
Betty looked radiant as she spoke. Nesta found her bright voice and
face the sunshine of the house, yet she sometimes puzzled over Betty
still, and she would say to herself,—
"There has been something in her life that she has not told me. Her
bright winsomeness is not that of an untaught, undisciplined child; it
is that which has been acquired and held fast to through real trouble.
It is a steady fount of joy, not a fitful ebb and flow."
A few days after, Betty and Jossy took their first ride together. The
groom accompanied them the first day, but they soon dispensed with his
services, and it was difficult to say who enjoyed it most, godson or
godmother.
As they cantered through the lanes, now bursting with their young fresh
green, Betty's mirth and chatter were fascinating to the small boy.
"You know how to pretend so beautifully," Jossy said one day. "Some
people won't pretend; they won't make themselves into different people.
Now, Aunt Betty," (he had substituted "aunt" for "godmother"), "you
must be a great lady, and your husband is fighting far-away. I'm his
page, and he has sent me to bring you to him."
"All right," responded Betty gaily. "And now, Alphonso, how is my lord?
My heart is awearying for him. Am I indeed to be taken to his presence,
in the midst of armed men encamped around him?"
"Yes, my mistress," piped Jossy, in all solemnity. "We are now going
through the enemy's ground, but I have my pistols, and I'll shoot the
first man dead who stops us! Let me ride first. If we meet a woman, I
will ask if we're on the right road, but if we meet a man, he must be
either friend or foe, and that must be settled at once."
It was characteristic of Jossy that he could throw himself into any one
of his fictitious personalities without the slightest difficulty, but
it took a long time to bring him back to real life again. Betty and he
would ride along personating many characters, for Jossy's imagination
was wide and keenly vivid, and Betty entered into his spirit with a
zest that enchanted him. Sometimes he was Robin Hood and she Maid
Marian, sometimes they were Beauty and the Beast, sometimes he was a
bandit chief and she his captive. He drank in stories, "like water"
Betty would declare, and she delighted in telling him as many as he
could listen to.
Now, as they rode along, his quick eyes were roving to and fro.
"It is a dangerous road, mistress," he said presently. "I spy a
horseman in the distance. Is he friend or foe?"
Betty's heart gave a sudden leap, then almost stopped beating. She
recognised the distant figure, and it was the one she had feared she
must meet sooner or later, but now felt it would be more than she
could bear. He was almost upon them before she had the presence of
mind to speak, and Jossy was bristling all over with excitement and
aggressiveness.
"He shall not pass us. He means foul play!"
"Hush, hush, Jossy! He is a gentleman that I know," Betty said hastily.
The boy was carried away entirely by his game.
"He's a friend, then!" he shouted.
Then, as Gerald Arundel came up, he added excitedly, with a wave of his
hand from Betty to Gerald, "Behold your dear husband! And you, sir,
this is your faithful wife who has come to meet you!"
Gerald's eyes met Betty's in undisguised astonishment at this
introduction. Her face had whitened in her consternation and dismay,
and terror peeped out of her eyes. Then she pulled herself together,
and turned upon Jossy, who, with flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, was
the only one who thoroughly enjoyed the situation.
"Now," he exclaimed, reining in his pony and barring Gerald's path,
"dismount, my lord, and kiss your lady's hand!"
"Jossy!" Betty gasped. "Mr. Arundel does not understand; do be quiet!"
Then her sense of humour came to her aid, and she laughed at the
absurdity of it. To her inexpressible relief; Gerald joined her.
"Oh, what will you think of us, Mr. Arundel?" said Betty, turning to
him, with smiles and blushes. "Jossy and I have been playing a game,
and he forgets that every one isn't in it."
"But I should like to be in it," said Gerald hastily; then he checked
himself, as Betty's mare swerved and shied: her mistress's quivering
little hands were tugging at her unmercifully.
"May I be introduced to your young squire?" he asked, in a different
tone.
"This is Jossy St. Clair. I am staying with his mother." Betty was
steadying her voice and her heart. "Wake up, Jossy, and speak to this
gentleman properly."
The boy pulled off his cap.
"It is a pity," he said, with a heavy sigh. "We were getting on so
splendidly. You ought to have carried it on properly."
This was added with such a reproachful look at Gerald, that he laughed
outright. "Perhaps another day I shall be prepared; and then you will
find me all that you can wish."
Betty was moving on.
"I heard from Mr. Russell that you were in these parts again," said
Gerald, turning to her gravely. "Are you going to make a long stay?"
"I do not know."
Betty's voice faltered a little, then she braced herself and looked up
at Gerald with her old straightforward glance.
"I love the country, as you know; so I hope to be here some time."
He was silent, then said quietly,—
"May I offer my sympathy for your loss?"
"Thank you. It makes this time so sad, when I remember last year."
She passed him. He raised his hat and moved on, then drew up his horse
and looked at her retreating figure. Jossy turned round and waved his
hat with a shout.
"Next time I shall shoot you. If you won't be a friend, you are a foe!"
Gerald smiled, and there was no bitterness in his smile.
"A friend I shall always be, if nothing more. And the meeting I have so
dreaded has come and gone. It was short enough, but I could not trust
myself, and she did not wish to prolong it. I wonder if she knows she
is passing by my fields, and if she does, will she care?"
His horse fidgeted. He turned his back on Betty resolutely.
"I will not think of her," was his mental resolve; "but oh, how sweet
she has grown! It is a cross between joy and torture to set my eyes on
her again."
He rode to the town for which he was bound, did his business
satisfactorily, and then retraced his steps homewards. Arrived there,
he sank into his chair by the fire. Floy crept up, laid his head on his
master's knee, and looked the affection and sympathy that he could not
utter. Gerald laid his hand on his silky head:
"Still 'too high for me,' Floy. But I am to have the privilege of
watching her from afar."
CHAPTER XV
Molly's Invitation
True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.
BEN JONSON.
Jossy had found Betty very dull for the rest of their ride. She would
"pretend" no longer with him.
"You carry it too far, Jossy. You don't know when you ought to stop."
"That man didn't mind. I liked him. Does mother know him? I'd like her
to!"
"No, she doesn't, and I don't know him well; and we oughtn't to have
stopped him at all. You made a regular muddle of it, Jossy."
"You and him made a muddle of our game!" retorted Jossy ungrammatically.
When they arrived home he went in search of his mother. He found her at
her davenport writing a letter.
"Mummy, I've come back."
"I see you have, my boy. Have you had a nice time?"
Nesta laid her pen down, and drew her boy into her arms.
"No, I haven't, not very much. You see, we began well, but we met a
stupid man who spoiled it all. And he made Aunt Betty stupid, too, for
she wouldn't play properly after."
"Mr. Russell, I suppose?"
"Oh no, quite a strange man. He had a black nose beard." (Jossy's name
for moustache.) "He would have done nicely for the husband away at the
war, only he wouldn't play at it."
"Oh, Jossy," said Nesta, smiling, "every one doesn't understand your
games. Now run upstairs, for the luncheon bell is going to ring."
Nesta had got the clue at last.
At the luncheon table Jossy alluded again to the "strange man."
"It was Mr. Arundel," Betty said, turning to Molly; "he met us."
"Did he?" enquired Molly, with interest. "How did he look, Betty? Was
he shabby and sad? And were you very kind to him?"
"Who is this Mr. Arundel?" asked Nesta, noting Molly's eagerness, and
Betty's quiet silence.
"Oh," said Molly, "I wish you would ask him to dinner, Mrs. St. Clair.
People have been so horrid; they have given him the cold shoulder, and
only because he is poor. He used to live in the Red Manor—such a lovely
place! Do you know it?"
"I have never been there, but I have heard about it. We only knew old
Mr. Arundel very slightly. What has happened, then?"
Molly related the story of Gerald's misfortune, winding up with,—
"His changed prospects ought not to make any difference to his friends,
and I had a long talk with the Dormers about it. Mrs. Dormer does not
like him staying in the neighbourhood. I admire him for doing it."
"He was looking quite well and happy, Molly. I do not think he needs
our pity. Jossy, after lunch I will mend your whip. We must not forget
it."
Jossy eagerly began to state several other of his belongings that he
would like mended, and Gerald's name dropped out of the conversation.
Later that afternoon Nesta found Betty by herself pacing up and down
the green grassy walk outside the garden wall that led through the wood.
She joined her quietly, and slipped her arm through hers.
"I am not interrupting your meditations, am I? Jossy monopolises you so
much that I am getting quite jealous. Is it not delicious here?"
Betty looked up at her gravely and sweetly. "I don't wonder that Isaac
went out into the fields at eventide to meditate. It is so soothing. I
remember when I was here as a little child there always seemed a kind
of holy hush about this walk."
Then she added impulsively, with a glow in her grey eyes that made
Nesta think them lovely,—
"Oh, Mrs. St. Clair, why do we forget heaven so? Why are we always
thinking of our happiness, and what will make it on earth? Why, if I
were a homeless, friendless, starving beggar, the hope of heaven would
be abundantly satisfying. I do get so disgusted with myself sometimes!"
Nesta had a faint inkling of what Betty's meditations had been about.
"Don't be too hard upon yourself, dear. I am not one of those people
who think that God does not wish His children to enjoy their life on
earth. I believe He does. He gives us all things richly to enjoy. Our
joys and pleasures ought to bring heaven nearer."
There was silence. Betty looked up through the arched green trees above
them, then she smiled.
"I always felt solitary as a child, but somehow lately I have felt it
is good to recognise that perhaps God may mean me to stand alone all my
life, so that I may lean harder on Him. Don't you think so?"
"Do not be anxious about the future, Betty; a little bit of your way
may seem lonely. By-and-bye, perhaps, it will not be so. We never know
what God will send us, but be sure of this—it will be the very best."
Betty shook off her grave thoughts.
"I have so much to be thankful for. It is so delicious to be here, and
I am now longing for the organ to arrive. When do you think it will be
ready to use?"
"In another ten days. Have you seen Mr. Russell lately?"
"No; he was to be up in London this week."
"I fancy I heard him mention this Mr. Arundel's name. Is he a friend of
his?"
"Yes, a great friend."
There was a little tremor in the hand on Nesta's arm. She felt it, and
took note accordingly.
"I suppose you met him a good deal when you were here last year?"
"Not very often. We lunched with him once at the Red Manor."
"It is very sad for him," said Nesta musingly. "I should think he
must be bearing his trouble well and bravely, to stay on in this
neighbourhood, and work for his living. Most men would not have the
pluck to do it."
"He is different from most men."
Betty tried to make her tone indifferent, but she failed entirely.
"I should like to meet him," Nesta said. "I think I must ask Mr.
Russell to bring him here."
Betty was absolutely silent, and Nesta, seeing that she was not to be
taken into her confidence, began to talk of other things.
It was the day after this that the Dormers returned from abroad,
and came down to the Red Manor. Ella was not long before she had
appropriated Molly, as of yore, and very quietly Molly dropped into
her old ways of driving and riding out with her. When Frank made his
appearance on the scene there was no awkwardness; he relapsed into his
chaffing, brotherly ways, and Molly no longer shunned his society.
Betty occasionally made one of the party, but not often. It was more
pain than pleasure to her to go to the Red Manor, and she was happiest
at Holly Grange. She amused Jossy for hours together; she read to old
Mrs. Fairfax, and waited on her like a daughter; she was always ready
to help Nesta in her housekeeping duties, for her long sojourn in India
had unfitted her for English servants and their ways. And when the
organ was placed in the little church much of her time was taken up in
practising for the services, and training the small village choir. The
vicar was a busy man, and his wife a great invalid, so that they were
only too pleased to have help in many parish matters.
Nesta already had made friends with most of the villagers, and Betty
was only too willing to take a little pudding down to an invalid, to
read to a bedridden woman, or chat with an old blind man. Her days
were filled with such interests, and it was only at times that her
brightness failed, and a wistful look stole across her face. Nesta
watched her lovingly and carefully, but at such times she kept her well
employed, and soon the shadow would pass, and her clear bright laugh
would ring out, as if she had not a thought or care.
The first Sunday that she played the organ was rather a trying one to
her. She was nervous, and her nervousness had given her a headache.
Jossy insisted upon sitting close beside her, and before she had
finished her voluntary, he announced to her in a loud whisper,—
"There's that man we met out riding the other day. He's sitting just
inside the door, and he won't come higher up."
This announcement did not steady her nerves. She strove to exclude him
from her thoughts, and to a great extent she was able to do so, but the
consciousness of his presence in church never left her. She purposely
prolonged her voluntary when the service was over, and yet when she
came out of church and found he had disappeared, felt distinctly
disappointed. When the evening service was over she retired to bed, and
Nesta went up to her with great concern.
"It is too much for you, Betty dear. I was wrong to let you undertake
it. But you have done it so beautifully that I can hardly realise the
effort it must have been to you."
Betty raised a white face and throbbing head from the pillow.
"I shall love doing it," she said. "It is only beginning. It has made
me anxious."
Nesta smoothed her hair softly off her forehead; and then Betty pushed
her hand down, and laying her cheek against it burst into tears.
"Don't mind me. The organ always gives me such longings, and somehow
to-day wrong longings got mixed up with it, and I do so want to be
contented."
Nesta kissed her lovingly.
"You are contented, dear, I am sure. You are only tired to-night."
"Yes, I am tired," sobbed Betty; "and I feel I have got such a long
life to live, and—and it will be so difficult to live it!"
Nesta tried to speak lightly.
"Why, Betty dear, you will soon be finding that the years slip too
quickly away, for all you want to do in them."
She kissed her again, and with a few more loving words left her; but
she said to herself, as she went downstairs,—
"It is another tangled skein, and I will do my best to unravel it. She
unravelled my skein for me years ago. I should like to do the same for
her."
"Betty, come into my room; I want you." It was Molly who spoke, one
morning after breakfast, and her hands were full of letters.
"Our correspondence is growing," Betty remarked, following her sister
into her pretty bedroom, and sitting down in the chintz-covered
easy-chair by the window. "Why does every one take it into their heads
to write and pester us with their assurances of friendship?"
"I suppose they think our time of seclusion is over, but they all take
care to say that they are very quiet. Oh, Betty, don't you feel a
forlorn, homeless creature sometimes? I do."
Betty nodded soberly.
"Who has written to you this morning?"
"Mrs. Railley. She is going to the Italian lakes for Easter, and
proposes that we should go with her, as the quiet will do us good, and
we must be very dull, she presumes."
"Horrid woman! I suppose Reggie is going with them?"
"Yes. Then I have heard from Lady Cecil. She says she knows we cannot
go out at present, but we may be making plans, and she offers to
chaperon us for the next season."
"I'm never going to stay in town again, if I can help it," said Betty
hotly. "But all the same, it is very kind of her."
"And Miss Turnbull has invited us to go over to her Irish castle with
her for an indefinite time."
Betty laughed.
"Poor Miss Turnbull! Frank Dormer says her castle is four roofless
ivied walls, and at one corner is a kind of Irish cabin, in which
she lives. You must write very nicely, Molly, so as not to hurt her
feelings."
"They are all very kind," said Molly thoughtfully. "I was telling the
Dormers yesterday how many invitations we were getting, and Ella made
me cross. She said if it wasn't known that we were both so well off, we
shouldn't have so many friends."
"That's a horrid thing to think," Betty said, leaning out of the open
window and picking an early rose. "Well, Molly, these letters are easy
to answer. What is your difficulty?"
Molly sat down on the edge of her sofa, and looked dreamily into space.
"Mrs. Dormer wants me to go to the Lakes with them next week. I—I told
her I would talk to you about it. They will be quite by themselves."
"Who are they?" demanded Betty, looking at her sister curiously.
"Mrs. Dormer and Ella. General Dormer will not leave home."
"And Frank?"
"Frank—er—Frank may be there the first part of the time."
Betty did not speak. Molly continued,—
"I think I shall like to go. I have never seen the Lakes, and early
summer is delicious there, they say."
"How long will you be away?"
"I don't know."
Then Molly sprang up, and impulsively threw her arms round Betty.
"Oh, Betty, I'm so miserable here! I try not to be, but I do miss
mother so, and I want a home so badly. You are so easily made happy,
and every one likes you here—Mrs. Fairfax and Mrs. St. Clair and Jossy
and all the poor people! I feel I am in the way. I have nothing to do,
and it is a home I want."
Betty kissed her sister affectionately. "Molly dear, I'm so sorry for
you! I should like to say something, only I don't know how to say it.
Take care you don't do something to get a home that you will be sorry
for afterwards. I know how you feel, and how you miss mother. But I
would rather be homeless all my life, than have a home with some one I
didn't care for."
Molly's cheeks felt hot as they pressed against Betty's.
"I shan't do anything I shall be sorry for," she said unsteadily. "I
don't expect I shall do anything at all, only I should like to go with
the Dormers."
"Then you shall," said Betty heartily; "and I hope you will enjoy
yourself."
Molly went away, and about three weeks afterwards Betty was not at all
surprised when she received the following letter from her,—
"DEAREST BETTY,—
"Don't you often find yourself altering your mind about things? I do.
I suppose it is a sign we are growing older—and wiser, I hope! But I
think I am wiser since I left off writing romances. Real life is much
more interesting. I don't know that it doesn't make one selfish. I mean
that where I used to be quite wrapped up in my heroes and heroines, I
am now wrapped up in myself—and in one other. I am sure you will guess,
so I will beat about the bush no longer. I am engaged to Frank, and
everything seems delicious again. Ella told me a dreadful story about
a girl who married a mysterious foreign prince, and it rather shook my
faith in my ideal hero. Don't you know you said to me that Frank would
make a good husband? I am quite sure he will, and he is sure he will
too. I am very happy, Betty, and Mrs. Dormer is so pleased. Frank is
going back to town to work hard, and then we think we may find a little
house in the autumn near town, and perhaps next winter, Betty,—think of
it!—I shall have a home of my own. Frank sends you his love and says
you're to write a 'very' nice sisterly letter to him. He is waiting for
me to go out with him now, so good-bye.
"Your loving
"MOLLY."
Betty read this with mingled feelings. She was sincerely glad that
Molly was going to marry Frank. But she was disappointed with the tone
of her letter.
"She is not in love with him—not what I should call love—and after all
her romantic talk it does not seem right. I feel afraid lest it is a
home that she wants, and the husband is the means to the end."
Then she made known the news to Nesta and her mother, and in their
congratulations she was a little comforted.
CHAPTER XVI
His Home
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
SHAKESPEARE.
"Jossy, I think we have ridden far enough. I don't know this part of
the country."
"But that's the fun of it. Oh, do come on. Let us have a tiny little
gallop, and then we'll turn back."
Betty and Jossy were riding out together, and had come to the edge of
a wild bit of common or moorland that seemed to stretch away almost to
the horizon without a break. The turf under their horses' feet was soft
and springy. Jossy's pony threw his head up and snorted with delight at
the prospect in front of him, but Betty demurred.
"It seems rather boggy, Jossy. Look at the rushes over there."
"We won't go near the rushes. Oh, Aunt Betty, come on; we'll have a
glorious charge against fifty thousand rebel Roundheads, and we'll be
two princely Royalists! One, two, three, away! Charge!"
He galloped off, his fair curls flying in the breeze, and Betty,
casting prudence to the wind, followed him recklessly. It was a short,
wild gallop, for suddenly, without any warning, Jossy's pony plunged,
and sank up to his saddle girth in deep black bog. The boy screamed,—
"Turn back, Aunt Betty! Don't come near me!"
But Betty's one idea was to reach him. The pony was making frantic
struggles to extricate himself, but seemed to be sinking deeper in
consequence. Betty fortunately found a bit of firm ground.
"Leave your pony and jump over here, Jossy!"
"I can't leave him. He'll drown; it's all water here!"
Another terrific struggle; the pony succeeded in freeing himself, and
landed on Betty's bit of dry turf. But his poor little master was
unhorsed in the effort, and fell head foremost into the bog. Betty
sprang off her horse in a second, and pulled him out, though she sank
up to her waist in doing so. Gasping and spluttering for breath, Jossy
leant against her, when she had regained her footing, and began to sob
with fright and misery.
"Oh, I'm so wet, so cold, so dirty! What shall I do?"
Betty began to laugh, now their danger was past.
"Did you ever see such guys as we are? Why, Jossy, you're a little
brown! You must get on your horse—or stop, you had better lead him.
That's what people do in bogs, and it is safer. I will go first. Follow
me. I'll go back the way I came. Come on. Don't stop to clean yourself,
or your pony may slip again. Be careful now."
Very warily they made their way past the treacherous bog; but when they
were on safe ground again, Betty's heart misgave her.
Jossy was shivering with fright and cold. He was a delicate child,
and she knew what an anxiety his health was to his mother. She tried
to wipe his clothes, but it seemed a hopeless task. He was encased in
thick black slime, and his courage and pluck had quite deserted him.
With difficulty she persuaded him to mount his pony. She was in a sorry
plight herself, but tried to make light of it.
"Now, Jossy, let us ride for our lives, and get home as fast as
possible. Five hundred rebel Roundheads are chasing us, but we shall
escape them yet!"
But even this failed to inspirit Jossy. His Anglo-Indian constitution
could not shake off his fright and wetting, and his fastidious taste
was outraged.
"It's perfectly disgusting," he sobbed; "the mud is trickling down my
neck, and I'm so greasy and slippery that I don't know how to keep to
my saddle. I 'must' be washed, Aunt Betty. I can't go home like this."
"We will stop at the first cottage we come to," said Betty cheerfully.
"Come on! The quicker we ride, the quicker we shall get there."
She urged him on. They left the common behind them, and were soon
cantering along the high road. Betty scanned the fields on either side
of the hedges in vain for a farmhouse or cottage. The country seemed
deserted, but presently they overtook a stout, respectable-looking
country woman with a basket on her arm. She stared at them in
astonishment, and Betty pulled up by her side.
"We have fallen into a bog," she explained; "and I am so anxious for
this little boy to get into dry clothes. Can you tell me if there is
any cottage near at hand?"
"Sakes! Ye do look in a sorry plight, miss! I'm not so far from our
place. Ye had best come home with me. The measter be out, and I'll dry
your clothes for you. 'Tis the next field; turn in at the white gate
and ride close up by the hedge, then through another gate, and ye'll
find yourself there. I'll hurry all I can!"
"Thank you so very much," Betty said gratefully; and Jossy brightened
up at once.
They turned into the field as she told them, then passed through
another, and came out before a quaint, old-fashioned farmhouse, with
thatched roof and casement windows, and a wealth of old-fashioned
climbing roses and creepers up its walls. The sun was shining full upon
it. It seemed strangely quiet. A row of beehives stood along the green
lawn in front, and a sweet scent of lavender from some flower beds
close to the house was borne upon the air towards them. As they came to
a standstill before the door, Betty exclaimed,—
"Oh, Jossy, isn't this a sweet little farm? I do love farmhouses. They
always have such peace about them, without being deadly dull. Can you
slip off your pony? That is right! Now let us try the door. It is
locked. Ah, here comes the farmer's wife!"
The good woman appeared, very warm and breathless.
"Come straight into the kitchen, miss, and take your skirt off. I'll
see to the young gentleman."
In an incredibly short time Jossy was sitting before the kitchen fire
wrapped up in a blanket. Betty had borrowed a blue serge skirt from
Mrs. Winstone, as she was called, and both were enjoying a cup of hot
tea. The kitchen with its oak beams and dresser, the shining crockery
on its shelves, and its well-scoured floor and tables, was fascinating
in Betty's eyes.
She sat in a wooden rocking-chair in perfect content, whilst Mrs.
Winstone was bustling about, trying to dry Jossy's suit of clothes
before the blazing fire, with many comments and ejaculations.
"I mind a man last Christmas twelvemonth got dropped into the bog out
there, by his horse. They said he were a little unsteady from an extra
glass or two at the Three Anchors, but he were found nex' mornin' by
one boot stickin' up. An' his poor wife went off her head when his
corpse were broughted in."
"Oh, please, Mrs. Winstone, don't tell us any more! Jossy will dream of
it. What pretty flowers you have in the window!"
"Yes, miss, I be powerful fond o' flowers. But the measter—he only seem
to care for roses, and they be the white ones that be climbin' over
the house. He allays has a jar on 'em in t'other room, but I haves my
favourites in here."
"May I peep into the other room? If I were your husband, I should
always sit in the kitchen. I should like it much the best."
Mrs. Winstone opened a door, and Betty walked through into a room
that made her look round her with a dazed bewildered glance. Who had
described this room to her? The broad wooden staircase going up out
of the middle of it; the old-fashioned fireplace with the armchair
in front, and a pipe and a book close by. A table with papers, and a
bunch of white roses in the middle; a cap and gloves on one chair,
an overcoat on another. A gun slung up on the wall, a whip lying on
the floor; many other indications of a man's constant presence. Betty
stood with white face and quickened breath, then she turned upon Mrs.
Winstone like a flash of lightning,—
"Who is your master? This is not your husband's room?"
"Eh, dear no, miss! My good husband be in the churchyard this ten year
or more. 'Tis Mr. Arundel—Squire Arundel that used so to be!"
"Then why didn't you say so? We must go this very minute! I wouldn't
have dreamed of coming in, if I had known this was a gentleman's house.
Jossy, put on your clothes, quick! We have stayed too long already!"
Betty swept back into the kitchen with hot cheeks and flashing eyes.
Mrs. Winstone followed her in wonder at her impetuosity.
"Indeed, miss, the measter would wish to befriend any fellow-creature
in need, and the young gent's clothes be not dry yet, though they be
coming on nicely. The measter will not be in till late, I fancy. Will
you not sit down for a half-hour more? One o' the lads be rubbin' down
the horses, but they'll not be ready for a bit."
Betty calmed down after her first fright; but she was anxious and ill
at ease, starting at every footfall, and longing to be away. What would
Gerald think or say, if he came back and found them in possession of
his rooms? She paced up and down the kitchen restlessly, then could
not resist going back to that room, which for months past had been
photographed upon her mind.
She stood in the middle of it, and Jossy, with a boy's curiosity, put
his head in at the door to see what she was doing. He saw her move
across to the chair by the fireplace, rest her hand on the back of
it, then stoop and put her lips to it. After which she took up the
book which was lying face downwards, and then for some minutes stood
reading a well-worn passage in Tennyson's Love and Duty. Deeply scored
in pencil were the lines, and more deeply were they to be scored on
Betty's soul.
So let me think 'tis well for thee and me,
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine,
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it I For how hard it seemed to me,
When eyes, love-languid through half tears would dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
My own full-tuned—hold passion in a leash,
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom (deep desired relief!)
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weighed
Upon my brain, my senses and my soul!
For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love—
O this world's curse—beloved but hated—came
Like death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"
She pushed me from thee.
If the sense is hard
To alien ears, I did not speak to these—
No, not to thee, but to thyself in me:
Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.
Could Love part thus? Was it not well to speak,
To have spoken once? It could not but be well.
With parted lips and heaving breast, Betty drank in these pathetic
lines, and then she noticed one little word written in the margin
against—
It could not but be well.
The word was "No."
She read and re-read the lines in a dream, and tears slowly filled her
eyes.
Then she dropped the book with a violent start, for horses' hoofs were
heard outside; and she had only time to get back to the kitchen before
the master of the house had flung open the door. Jossy was buttoning up
his jacket with a wry face.
"Aren't you ready, Jossy? Come along. Oh, never mind your collar; let
us get away!"
She hastened his steps. Mrs. Winstone had not heard Gerald's approach,
and wondered at their haste, but she accompanied them out to the yard,
where their horses were in readiness for them, and in a few minutes
they were riding across the fields again, before Gerald was aware that
he had had visitors in his domain.
He was very tired, and, sitting down in his chair, took his pipe out
and lighted it. What was it that made his thoughts turn to a little
figure flitting in and out of these quaint old rooms? He shut his eyes,
and seemed to see her tripping up and down the old wooden stairs—a dark
curly head, a pure white clinging dress, and a bunch of white roses in
her belt.
"Oh," he groaned, "I believe even here I could make her happy!"
Then he picked up his book that was lying on the floor, but he picked
up something else as well, and his face was full of bewilderment as he
held in his hand a lady's riding glove.
For some minutes, he fingered it thoughtfully, then he strode to the
kitchen door.
"Mrs. Winstone, has any one been here this afternoon?"
His tone was so abrupt and fierce that Mrs. Winstone dropped an
apologetic curtsey at once.
"If you please, sir, I hope as no harm has been done or said, but I
did make free to offer to dry their wet things, for 'twas a reg'lar
tumble into the bog they had, and the young gent so small and frail
like, and they were that anxious to be gone when they found out 'twas a
gen'leman's house that I thought as how you wouldn't have minded them
havin' a cup o' tea. And 'tis only five minutes gone that they rode
away; and please, sir, I wasn't aware that you be home."
"Who were they?"
"They didn't give no names, sir, and I didn't think it manners to ask.
The young lady be a bonny young creature as straight as a dart, and
like a bit o' quicksilver, with a proud turn o' the head, and a sweet,
merry smile."
"Was she in here?"
"Well, sir, b'lieve me, not above a minute or two. Her were terrible
anxious to get away."
Gerald returned to his room, slamming the door violently behind him. He
stood at the table, with the glove in his hand. Floy crept up to him
and sniffed at it suspiciously, but his master did not heed him.
"She was here in this very room a few minutes ago! And I was just too
late. Well—" A deep sigh followed. "It is better so. The less we meet
the better."
He looked down at the glove, then he put it into his breast-pocket with
a smile.
"I must return her her property, but till I do it will stay there!"
Betty, meanwhile, was riding home as fast as she could, and when they
arrived there, Jossy was the object of so much care and attention from
his anxious mother, that her own hot cheeks and perturbed spirits were
unnoticed.
When she went to bed that night she sat long in thought at her window,
with a copy of Tennyson's poems on her lap.
Was it not well to speak,
To have spoken once?
rang through her heart and brain like a chiming bell, and then like a
knell rang the one little word written on the page, "No."
At last she rose and put the book away, then, kneeling at her window,
she spoke, and her eyes were gazing at the starry heavens outside,—
"O, God, I am happy. Thou hast made me happy. Help me not to dwell on
thoughts that bring discontent and longing. Comfort and bless him,
comfort and bless me. I don't want to ask Thee for anything that Thou
dost not want me to have."
And then she went to bed, and slept peacefully.
CHAPTER XVII
Mr. Russell's Picture
. . . Why ever met,
If they must be strangers yet?
LORD HOUGHTON.
IT was two months later. Mr. Russell was dispensing afternoon tea to a
few of his friends on his shady lawn. Nesta and her boy, Betty, Molly,
and Frank Dormer were all there. It was the first time Nesta had been
persuaded to attend any little festivity, and this was a farewell to
Mr. Russell, who was going to Switzerland the next day for his health.
He was telling Nesta about it, as he leant against one of the old elms,
and she was looking at him with that wonderful interest and sympathy
that she showed in every one else's concerns.
"They say I am overworked," he said, with a short laugh. "I suppose
as one gets older, one cannot play tricks with one's constitution. I
forget I am no longer a young man, and I have had one of my painting
fits on lately. I must tell you, Mrs. St. Clair, that for some years
I have had no desire to work. I have done a little bit of sculpture
occasionally, but my property has taken up my time and thoughts. I
am beginning to think that riches and prosperity are foes to genius.
However, about three months ago I was seized with an inspiration for a
picture, and I have been hard at it ever since. Perhaps I have let my
meals slip. One longs at such times for no troublesome interruptions.
And my doctor tells me I have not been wise."
"I am sure the change of air will do you good. Are you going alone?"
"I am going to carry off Gerald Arundel with me. You know him, do you
not? The nicest fellow that ever lived, but the last year has been a
trying one to him. He may be here this afternoon."
"I have never spoken to him," said Nesta, her eyes wandering towards
Betty, in spite of herself. "He walks over to our church sometimes on
Sunday, generally in the evening. I have had him pointed out to me,
but he always seems in a hurry to get away. How is he getting on as a
farmer? I have heard his story."
"He is a first-rate farmer. He has the pluck and grit and perseverance
that makes a good one."
"But farming is a poor prospect for a gentleman nowadays," said Nesta
meditatively.
"Not necessarily, if his tastes are simple, and he does not take upon
himself the role of a sporting squire."
"Yes; and as long as he is not a married man."
"Tuts!" exclaimed Mr. Russell impatiently. "Let him look about for a
wife with simple tastes like himself; and I would back him amongst a
hundred millionaires to make her truly happy!"
Nesta smiled.
"Two of our young people here will have to have simple tastes if they
set up housekeeping as soon as they meditate doing."
"Oh!" said Mr. Russell, looking across at Frank and Molly, who were
deep in some serious discussion on the same garden seat.
"And when are they going to take the cares of married life upon their
shoulders?"
"Next November, I believe. The house has already been chosen close to
town."
"He has brains, and will succeed in his profession," said Mr. Russell.
"But I should think they will have a very comfortable income between
them."
"Not too much for the claims that society will make upon them."
"I dare say not. Is our little friend going to stay on with you?"
"I want her to, but she is very anxious to take up some distinct work.
A friend of her mother has written to ask her to give her some help
this winter in managing a small home for the blind. Betty wants to go,
for she feels her music may cheer them. And I do not want to keep her
back."
"She is a cheering little personality anywhere," said Mr. Russell.
"Indeed she is. We shall miss her terribly. She has helped me to get
through a sad time, and I cannot be grateful enough."
Betty walked up to them at this minute. "Mr. Russell, will you let me
pour out tea? I always like doing the honours of your house for you.
Here it comes. May I? Thank you ever so much. Jossy is showing the
gardener's boy how to stand on his head. They are practising against a
hay-rick in the field, and as I couldn't join them I came away. I can
do most things that Jossy does, but I can't do that!"
She laughed merrily, then took her seat by the tea-table with an
important air, but a sudden quick change of face and manner made Nesta
glance up. Gerald Arundel was crossing the lawn. He looked slightly
embarrassed as he came amongst them all.
"You did not tell me you were having company," he said, after he had
been introduced to Nesta, and had held Betty's little hand for one
instant in his own.
"No," Mr. Russell said, looking at him with a twinkle in his eyes; "I
knew you were such a recluse that your fellow-creatures' society would
repel rather than attract you. But I had a fancy to gather my friends
round me before I went abroad, and I hope you will humour me by staying
with us."
Gerald smiled one of his rare smiles, which always lightened both his
face and the faces of those near him.
"Miss Betty, you must let me help you with those teacups," he said.
Betty's fingers were rather tremulous for a minute, as she wielded the
massive silver teapot, but she soon recovered herself, and she talked
as sweetly and gaily to him as if she had been in the habit of meeting
him daily.
"When you have all finished your tea," announced Mr. Russell presently,
"I am going to take you to see my picture."
"What is it about?" asked Molly, with interest.
"I shall leave it to explain itself."
A few minutes later, and they were standing in his studio. As he drew
aside a curtain, a little murmur of surprise and delight made itself
heard.
Two boats, side by side on a river. Arched green trees met overhead,
but the rays of golden sunshine streamed through on one of the rowers.
It was a girl's figure. She poised her oars lightly and well, though
there was a little droop in her shoulders, a wistful sadness and
weariness on her beautiful face that betrayed itself through her
speaking eyes. She was all in white, and was the centre-piece of
sunshine in the picture. Only an arm's length from her rowed a man, but
his boat was in shadow, and it needed a careful inspection to denote
the eager fervent light that seemed to be flashing forth from his keen
dark eyes. His whole attitude denoted strength of purpose and will; yet
there was hopelessness in his glance, a despairing expression across
his earnest face. His eyes were fixed on her, but she was looking away
from him, as if her maidenly modesty forbade her to meet his eye.
"It is a beautiful picture," said Nesta softly.
"What shall be its name?" asked Mr. Russell lightly. "I am open to all
suggestions."
"'Cross Currents,'" said Frank quickly.
"They haven't quarrelled," said Molly, looking at them with knitted
brows. "What is it that they want? For they are not happy, one can see
that. I expect—" and she gave a little laugh—"they want to be made into
a couple, as Betty used to say. I think I should call it 'So near, and
yet so far!'"
"What does Mrs. St. Clair say?"
Nesta smiled rather sadly.
"'Drifting,'" she said.
"Well, Gerald, what do you say?"
Gerald gazed at the picture as if in a dream, then he said slowly,—
"'For Love himself took part against himself,
To warn us off.'"
"And Betty?"
But Betty could not speak for a minute. Gerald's quotation, and the
earnestness that vibrated through his tone as he gave it, had brought
the tears with a rush to her eyes. She was standing a little behind the
others, and now lightly laid her hand on Mr. Russell's arm.
"I do not know," she said, with wonderful self-control. "It is a sad
picture, Mr. Russell, but it is a lovely one. Will you not give us your
own name for it?"
"I will not have you call it sad. I see a time ahead when those two
will be rowing in one boat, and there will be no shadows upon their
faces. Now shall we come out into the garden again?"
He kept Betty's hand on his arm, and marched her off to see a new
orchid of his, and talked her back into her light, gay humour. Nesta
paced the garden paths with Gerald. He found himself involuntarily
confiding in her about his life and prospects, in a way that astonished
himself. She listened, and gave him not only womanly sympathy, but
advice.
"Do not shun your neighbours," she said; "and when your old friends
still show themselves friendly, do not repulse them. Friends are easily
lost, and not easily made."
"I am not in a position to entertain," said Gerald. "I cannot continue
to accept their hospitality, when I am unable to return it."
"But I think that is where you may make a mistake," said Nesta gently.
"Surely the highest friendship does not exist on such give-and-take
principles. If they do not wish to lose your society for your own sake,
why should you hurt their feelings by concluding that they only want
your hospitality? There is a lot of pretentious pride about us, and it
does us all good to have the highest and best motives ascribed to us.
Think the best of your friends, and they will not disappoint you."
"The truth is, I prefer to live my life alone," admitted Gerald.
"Yes, but you will lose many opportunities of helping others if you
do so, will you not? And then look on to the future. The time may
come when you will bring a wife to your home. She will need the
companionship of your friends, and will be the better and the brighter
for her intercourse with them. You will be sorry then, for her sake, if
you have allowed yourself to drift away from those who really care for
you."
"That is a very remote contingency," said Gerald quietly. "Do you
honestly think, Mrs. St. Clair, I have anything worth offering a woman?"
"Do you rank money amongst the highest of earth's—no, I will say, God's
own gifts?"
"Money brings comfort and ease and absence from care."
"Not always. Some women, I allow, esteem it essential to their
happiness. Others would consider honest faithful tender love a far
higher gift to offer them. Do not think I am advocating heedless,
improvident marriages. Personally, you have enough to keep the wolf
from the door, and, provided your wife was content to live a quiet
country life, you would be able to shield her from worrying care and
anxiety as to all temporal needs, would you not?"
The blood rushed through Gerald's veins at such a possibility.
"Yes," he replied. "She would not be in need of the necessaries of
life, but she might be in need of luxuries."
"Which she could very well dispense with," said Nesta; "and she would
count herself happy in doing so. I must tell you, Mr. Arundel, I had a
shadowed girlhood myself; many years of waiting before I could receive
the love that had been rightly mine long, long before. And though I
know it was all for the best, I sometimes long that young people should
not suffer unnecessarily, that their wedded life should be longer than
my own has been."
Gerald did not answer, but his right hand clenched and unclenched
itself to hide his emotion, and Nesta's quick eyes noted it. She felt
her whole heart go out to this lonely, sorrowful man.
And then she said softly,—
"Men suffer, and are silent: they think they are sparing the one
they love, and little realise that her suffering is keener and more
intense than their own, for her helplessness is greater. The man has
the woman's fate in his hands, if there is mutual love between them.
But never let him think that in torturing himself by his restraint and
silence he is sparing her."
Then Gerald turned upon her almost fiercely,—
"Would you have a man who has nothing in the world but bare sustenance
to offer a woman, drag her down from her comfortable life to his? Would
it be true love to link her fate to one who is spoken of, even now,
with pitying contempt as a failure?"
"I would give the woman a chance of choosing or refusing such a fate,"
said Nesta firmly.
"You are a good woman," he said huskily; and abruptly he left her.
Betty was having some last words with her old friend.
"Are you happy, child?" he asked. "Are you still finding it difficult
to learn those three lessons—that trio that ought to be interwoven into
our lives, and never separated one from the other?"
"You mean 'patience, endurance, and joyfulness'?" said Betty, with
shining eyes. "You have helped me so much, Mr. Russell. I think I
am learning slowly, that there is a certain joyfulness we get given
us, that comes quite apart from our circumstances. It is just as my
favourite hymn says—
"'I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.
"And it is realising this that makes one feel cheerful, even when
everything is going wrong."
"And about work? How far on have you got in that school, I wonder?"
Betty looked up at him sweetly.
"You mean, I expect, that you want me to learn that the will of God is
His work. But, Mr. Russell, I have been trying to fill up the empty
corners at Holly Grange, and I do believe it was God's will that I
should do so. Now one by one has been taken from me, and I think it is
God's will to give me another corner away from here. Has Mrs. St. Clair
told you about it?"
"She has mentioned it. Who has filled your corners at Holly Grange?"
"Let me tell you about them," said Betty brightly. "First, there was
Molly. She clung to me, and she has been so lonely that I have tried
to be with her as much as possible, and cheer her up. Now she has
Frank, and wants me no longer. Then Jossy. I have kept him out of
mischief, and have shared his games and pleasures. But he is going to
school almost immediately. Then there is the organ—and oh I how I have
loved it—but Mrs. St. Clair is going to take the services soon, and it
will do her as much good as it has done me. I don't feel she needs me
so much as she did. Mrs. Fairfax is with her, and they are so happy
together. I don't think I shall be missed."
"In fact, you will soon be feeling that you are a little 'odd one'
again, without a corner."
"Oh, but there is one waiting for me, and such a nice one! I have
always liked blind people since I knew Mat Lubbock a year ago.
By-the-bye, I must tell you. On the way here to-day I met him. Holly
Grange is so far off that I hardly ever see him. I stopped and spoke to
him, and do you know, Mr. Russell, his face was perfectly radiant? He
said to me,—
"'The good Lord is "restoring comforts" to me, missy. The best little
woman in our village has promised to be my wife. I shan't be solitary
no more, and "His goodness faileth never."'
"It was rather a shock to hear that he was going to marry again, but I
am sure it will be a splendid thing for him."
"The best thing in the world," said Mr. Russell heartily.
"And so," continued Betty, in her pretty eager way, "I am going to help
a Miss Miller amuse and look after a lot of old blind people. She wants
some one who can play and sing to them, and they have a little evening
service every day, and they love singing hymns. There is a small organ,
and I shall be able to use it. And she is wanting help so badly. Don't
you think this bit of work for God is indeed His will?"
Mr. Russell laid his hand on her shoulder. "God bless you, my child."
Then, after a minute's silence, he said, with apparent irrelevance,
"I am sure I was right in my picture. The girl's face must be in the
sunshine."
A little time afterwards Betty was helping Jossy to cut a whistle. They
were standing under one of the old elms, and Betty in her broad-brimmed
hat and white gown looked the picture of dainty sweetness.
Gerald Arundel striding up to them, with a purpose in his face, drew
his breath hard, as he gazed upon them.
"Jossy," he said quietly, "your mother wants to speak to you."
The boy looked up.
"Does she? I'm coming. That's first-rate, Betty!"
He sped away, ear-splitting shrieks issuing from his new toy.
Betty looked after him and smiled.
"Why do boys love any noise so much?" she asked.
"The love of power," said Gerald, drawing a wicker chair forward. "Will
you sit down, Miss Betty? I have hardly seen you this afternoon."
Betty's heart began to beat, but she laughed gaily.
"I have been wandering about with Mr. Russell, and then Jossy carried
me off. You will take care of my old friend, will you not, Mr. Arundel?
He is not looking well. I hope he will enjoy himself. He seems to leave
home so seldom now, and it is always such a lonely life for him here."
"I will take the best care of him that I can, I promise you," said
Gerald, leaning against the elm, and looking down upon her with wistful
longing in his eyes. "Do you think he is lonely, Miss Betty? Not more
lonely than I am."
Betty looked up. Her little sympathetic soul overcame the strange wave
of shyness that was stealing over her.
"I am so sorry. I am sure you must be lonely too. It will be good for
you to get away with him for a little while."
Her eyes met the look in his; she dropped them at once.
"What did you think of the picture?" Gerald asked.
He was putting strong restraint upon himself.
"It was beautiful," said Betty softly.
"Did you like my title for it?"
"No," she said, with an effort. "It was too sad. I like people to be
happy."
"But life is not always happy," said Gerald.
Then he added, trying to speak lightly,—
"Let us make a story about that young couple in the picture, Miss
Betty. The man is poor, he has nothing to offer her. He dare not
tell her what is in his heart. She has been accustomed to luxury; he
knows she will find it lacking if she links her life to his. She has
many friends; he has none. She may meet some one who can offer her
everything that the world can give. Is he to spoil this possibility,
and expect her to listen to him? Is it likely that she will prefer his
boat to her own? Is it not his duty to be silent, and let her glide on
down life's stream, passing him as he rows by her side in the shade?"
"It might be his duty," said Betty tremulously, as she interlaced her
fingers tightly in her lap, "but it wouldn't be love."
"'Could Love part thus? Was it not well to speak,
To have spoken once? It could not but be well.'"
She almost breathed these words.
Gerald's eyes glowed. He leant forward.
"Would the speaking bring pain to her?" he said. "Would it be but the
prelude of bidding 'adieu for ever'?"
Betty's nerves were highly strung. She was frightened at the audacity
of her last words, and following an impulse for which she could not
account, she said, with a little laugh,—
"You must ask Mr. Russell. It is his story, not mine."
And then she rose from her seat.
Gerald drew his breath in sharply, but he said not a word, only
followed her in silence to the little group on the lawn.
Betty seemed in the highest spirits; she laughed and she chattered so
much that Nesta, with her quick intuition, saw that something had gone
wrong.
Gerald looked on silently. In his heart he was murmuring,—
"'In vain I strove to reach it
Through the tangled mass of green;
It only smiled and nodded
Behind its thorny screen.'"
And Betty, poor Betty, was nearer tears than laughter; for she had a
dull miserable ache in her heart, and was keenly conscious that with
her light indifferent words she had put away a great happiness from
herself, and wounded to the quick the one she would have given her life
to comfort. She was glad when Nesta's carriage came round.
Gerald did not speak to her till he held out his hand to say good-bye,
and then Betty's forced cheerfulness forsook her. He looked down upon
her so kindly, and with such a tender reverence in his eyes, that her
sensitive little soul was filled with remorse, and tears trembled on
her eyelashes as she looked up at him.
"Good-bye, Mr. Arundel. I—I hope you will have a nice time."
"I hope we shall," he said; "and I promise you to look after Mr.
Russell."
That gentleman came up and laid his hand affectionately on Betty's
shoulder.
"Good-bye, little woman. You must be here to welcome me back. We shall
only be gone six weeks. God bless you."
Why did a sudden cold fear sweep down upon Betty's heart as she looked
into the face of her friend? He stood there in the sunshine, smiling at
her, and then, seeing a distressed look in her eyes, he did what he had
never done before—stooped down and kissed her.
"That is in memory of my little short-frocked Betty many years ago," he
said.
"Just tell me that I'm the same," said Betty, clasping her hands round
his arm; "tell me I'm every bit the same to you."
"Every bit the same," he repeated, smiling at her; "the 'little odd
one' still!"
They drove away; the evening shadows were already falling, the sun
slowly faded; and darker shadows hovered over Betty's soul, and for the
time reduced her to pensive, brooding silence.
CHAPTER XVIII
Terrible News
Ah! when the infinite burden of life descendeth upon us,
Crushes to earth our hope, and under the earth, in the
graveyard—
Then it is good to pray unto God; for His sorrowing
children,
Turns He ne'er from His door, but He heals and helps and
consoles them.
LONGFELLOW.
THE days glided by. Betty, always occupied and busy, did not find time
heavy on her hands. She corresponded with Mr. Russell, and his letters
were her great delight. She followed them in imagination through all
their wanderings; especially over the ground that was familiar to
her. Mr. Russell told her that he was growing stronger daily, and was
enjoying the exhilarating air of the Swiss mountains with increasing
pleasure.
"And it is pleasant to have intercourse with such a well-stored mind as
Gerald Arundel's," he wrote. "I tell him he ought not to miss the Red
Manor library, for though the books are no longer his, their contents
are stored in his brain. He and I find our walks and talks give us
mutual benefit and satisfaction."
They had been staying at Lucerne when he last wrote, and were making
their way up the Rhone Valley to Zermatt, where they hoped to do a
little mountaineering.
One morning after breakfast Nesta was looking at the daily paper, when
she gave an exclamation of dismay.
Betty was filling a china bowl with roses. "What is the matter?" she
asked carelessly. "No horrible catastrophe, is there?"
Nesta did not answer, and when Betty came over to her, she closed the
paper hastily.
"There is no need for us to be anxious," she said.
"What about? Is there prospect of another war? Don't be so mysterious,
please!"
Then Nesta recovered her self-possession.
"It is about our travellers."
Betty's face blanched at once.
"Give me the paper. Oh, let me see!"
Nesta pointed to a small paragraph, headed "Zermatt."
"A party of Englishmen yesterday started to scale the Matterhorn.
A very heavy storm of snow, however, made them retrace their steps.
During the descent the party divided. Two Englishmen and two guides
arrived in safety early this morning at the hotel, after experiencing
great difficulty in finding their way home. No tidings have as yet
been received of the others, and it is feared that some accident has
befallen them. A rescue party has been out all day, but up to the
present has been unsuccessful in the search. The names of the missing
Englishmen are Mr. Russell and Mr. Arundel. They had one guide with
them."
Betty read it, and seemed unable to speak.
"We must hope that they are safe," said Mrs. St. Clair, putting an arm
round her. "Perhaps they have been found by this time. We will not
think the worst."
"But how can we know?" Betty said at last, in a strangely quiet tone.
"Who can tell us?"
"We will telegraph to the hotel," said Nesta promptly. "Let us drive to
the station and do it at once."
Betty drew a breath.
"Oh yes," she said feverishly; "don't let us waste a minute. Do let us
go!"
It took a certain time for the carriage to be brought round, and to
Betty, who was pacing the hall in agony of mind, it seemed as if it
were years. She tried to control herself, but her face of hopeless
misery as she sat opposite to Nesta made her friend's heart ache.
They telegraphed and paid for the reply; then came home to wait for
news.
Betty went about the house trying to do her usual little duties, but
her eyes were far-away, and she did not seem to hear when spoken to.
Nesta left her alone; she felt it was the kindest thing to do. Once she
said to her,—
"Pray, Betty dear; don't forget to pray."
Betty nodded. She started and shivered at every bell-ring, but the day
wore slowly away and the evening was well on before the message came.
Betty stepped into the hall herself; and took the yellow envelope from
the boy. She did not open it. She carried it with a trembling hand into
the drawing-room to Nesta, and she stood with her hands lightly clasped
behind her back, whilst Nesta read it in a faltering voice,—
"Bodies just found and brought in. Will friends come and identify?"
There was a dead silence. Neither Mrs. Fairfax nor Molly were in the
room.
Betty's face whitened to her very lips.
"It can't be true!" she gasped. "Oh, say it isn't! It is too sudden,
too unreal!"
Nesta took her straight into her arms.
"My poor darling, God will comfort you! Look straight up to Him!"
Betty clasped her hands over her eyes, and shuddered from head to foot.
No tears would come. Her head was throbbing and well-nigh bursting with
sudden pain. For a minute she leant it against Nesta's shoulder. Then
she raised it.
"May I go to bed?" she asked wearily. "There is nothing to wait for
now."
Nothing to wait for! As Betty crept upstairs and sought the solitude
and darkness of her own room she felt that an end had come to her own
life as well as theirs.
She could not at first think of any details.
Mr. Russell was with his little girl at last, the child whom he had
never forgotten or ceased to mourn. Surely it was well with him! His
life had been a sad and lonely one. It was bright now with infinite
possibilities of increasing joy. Was it not selfish to wish him back?
And as she thought thus, she could not but own that it was well with
him.
But with Gerald Arundel? She felt stunned and voiceless. She knew
as she had never known before how her own life had secretly been
twining round his. Not exactly unbidden. She had realised long ago
that Gerald's heart was given to her, that it was only his prospects
had made him tongue-tied; and she could not forget how flippantly she
had stopped him, when he was trying to tell her of his diffidence in
approaching her.
Oh, to unsay those words! How many times through life the powerlessness
to remedy some thoughtless speech has made us realise the awful
responsibility of our tongues!
She sat by her window, gazing out in speechless misery upon the still
darkness without.
Nesta at last came to rouse her.
"Do not think me unsympathising, darling!" she said, coming over to
her and putting her hand softly on her curly head. "But I have had a
great deal to do. Frank has been here, and is such a help. He has found
out the address of Mr. Russell's cousin, his nearest relative, and has
wired to him, and Frank has offered to go over to Zermatt himself. Mr.
Russell is such an old friend of ours. Frank is going up to town by the
late mail train, and leaves Dover to-morrow morning."
"And has Mr. Arundel no friends to think of him?" demanded Betty,
looking at Nesta with wide-open, tearless eyes. "Has no one given him a
thought?"
"He seems to have no relatives in England," said Nesta sadly, as she
pressed Betty's head lovingly against her shoulder; "but, of course,
Frank is going on his account as well."
Betty shook off Nesta's hand, and began to pace the room restlessly,
two spots of colour burning in her cheeks.
"If Frank can go, I can go. Why should I not? I must go. I must see
them again. Oh, Mrs. St. Clair, you will take me; will you not? I know
how they bury people abroad! I must see them once again; it will be too
late if I do not go at once. I never said good-bye to him; I thought he
was coming back again. I thought I should be able to tell him how sorry
I was for what I said. I was afraid I had been too forward, so I was
cruel to him. I saw it in his eyes, as if I had struck him. I can see
him now, and he never said one word. Not one word, though I had killed
all the hope in his heart; and when he shook hands, though I had been
so unkind, he looked at me as kindly as ever. Oh, I can never, never,
never forgive myself! If I could only tell him just a little of what I
have always thought of him! I feel I could bring him back to life, if I
could only—only touch him, cry to him, beseech him for forgiveness!"
Betty poured this forth excitedly and incoherently. Nesta, with aching
heart, could only listen.
But when she besought her again to take her out to Switzerland, Nesta
spoke quietly and firmly.
"No, Betty dear; it is not to be thought of. Frank will do all that is
necessary, and will tell us all we wish to know."
"Let me see the telegram once more," urged Betty. "Do you think they
may be still alive? It doesn't say they are dead."
Nesta placed the telegram in her hand. Betty read it and shuddered. Her
talkativeness died away. She relapsed into hopeless silence, and at
last was persuaded to go to bed. She did not sleep; hour by hour went
by, and she lay with open eyes in the darkness. She could not pray. She
seemed to lose the realisation of the Presence that always comforted
her. It was a dark hour in her life, and when the next morning dawned
fair and sunny, and a blackbird perched under her window on a bush and
burst into song, and the village chimes began to ring out, reminding
all that it was Sunday morning, it seemed to her perfect mockery.
She rose from her bed unrefreshed, and with an aching head. Half-way
through her dressing she opened her window and leant out. Then she
looked from the dew-laden garden below to the serene blue above.
"O God," she murmured, "I am wicked and rebellious. I gave myself
long ago to Thee for Thy service, and I ought to want nothing more! I
thought I was going to be quite happy in doing work for Thee, and I was
content. Now it is worse than ever! I am miserable—and I always shall
be miserable. Nothing will ever be the same to me again! And why, oh
why, need such a dreadful thing have happened? Just when everything
seemed going right!"
It was more a meditation than a prayer, perhaps; the clouds did not
seem to lift, and Betty came down to breakfast with white face and
tired eyes.
She persisted in going to church, though Nesta suggested her staying at
home. Molly was full of horror and concern at it all; but her incessant
surmises and conjectures as to what had really taken place rasped
and irritated Betty's nerves. She maintained a stolid, imperturbable
silence; only Nesta saw how she was suffering.
Nesta took the organ herself. Betty mechanically joined in the
responses and singing. She never heard a word of the sermon. Her
thoughts were entirely upon crevasses, precipices, and avalanches; step
by step she was pursuing in imagination that ill-fated little party
trying to ascend the Matterhorn. She walked home in silence, ate her
luncheon as in a dream, and announced her intention of going to the
afternoon service again.
"Why are you going, dear?" Nesta asked her gently. "You did not enjoy
the service this morning."
"Enjoy it?" Betty looked at her friend in a dazed kind of way. "I think
it would be a miracle if I did. I never meant a word of what I said
or sung. I can't believe in the love of it, Mrs. St. Clair. It is too
sudden and too awful!"
"It has been a great shock," said Nesta, looking at her with tears of
sympathy; "but, Betty darling, it was a gloriously quick entrance into
the kingdom above. Think of their joy!"
"Oh, why can't we all be taken?" exclaimed Betty. "I wish—oh, I wish
some accident would happen to me!"
Nesta did not reproach her, as another might have done. She knew that
it was too soon for her to see things as she would by-and-bye. She let
her go to church with her, and offered no further remonstrance. When
the service was over Betty waited in her seat whilst Nesta played the
voluntary. The rector was in haste to leave, as he had to go over to a
neighbouring parish and take the evening service, so the two of them
were left in the church alone. The sexton lingered at the door. Nesta
told him to go, as she would bring him the keys, and then she asked
Betty to wait whilst she played on.
There was nothing that Betty loved better as a rule. Now she sat up in
her seat, white and tearless.
Nesta played softly one sacred refrain after another—"O rest in the
Lord," "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people," and then she sang David's
pathetic refrain in "Resignation."
Betty listened, but none of them touched her; she felt herself that
grief and misery were turning her to stone.
Nesta paused, then suddenly she began to play and sing the beautiful
anthem that had so touched Betty as a little child. She had not sung
it for years, but she threw her whole soul into it, and her beautiful
voice rose and fell in the silent church, till the arched roof seemed
to send back sweet mysterious echoes of the words,—
"'These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"
Betty shivered at first, then a light came into her eyes. She lifted
her head, with a long-drawn sigh. The horror of death had left her;
she saw her old friend, after his long, sad life, entering that
blood-bought, happy throng; his little child, with outstretched arms,
coming to meet him. How could she—how could she wish him back? The old
associations and fascination of the verse took possession of her. The
gate of heaven seemed thrown open to her, and standing by that golden
portal she was conscious of the exquisite bliss of those within.
"'These are they—these are they which came out of great tribulation.'"
Nesta's voice rang out triumphantly, assuredly. Doubts and fears of
the unknown world vanished; Betty's soul escaped from the snare of the
fowler, and when the last notes died away, Nesta looked round and saw
that tears had come to her relief. Betty was sobbing in her seat.
She stole up to her and put her arms round her. "My dear little Betty,"
she whispered, "God is love."
"All love," Betty sobbed; "all love, and I have pained Him by my
wicked, selfish, unbelieving thoughts!"
Nesta let her cry on; she knew that her tears would relieve the tension
of her nerves and brain.
And then, shortly after, when Betty had sufficiently recovered herself,
they walked home together.
Nesta was not afraid when Betty shut herself up in her bedroom again.
Deep though her grief would be still, it would be untainted with
bitterness and despair.
When Mrs. Fairfax asked anxiously after her, Nesta was able to say,—
"She is better, mother dear. She will be her dear little self
to-morrow."
CHAPTER XIX
For Little Betty's Sake
Love sacrifices all things
To bless the thing it loves.
BULWER LYTTON.
Two days passed without a word from Frank. Then came a letter for
Nesta. She took it to her own room, and read it before she told Betty
she had received it.
"DEAR MRS. ST. CLAIR,—
"I have been waiting to write till I knew what to write. Poor Russell
was buried to-day, and the guide as well. But Arundel is living, though
it is touch and go whether he will last another day. It appears they
lost their way, and the guide went on ahead. He never came back, having
fallen over the edge of a crevasse, and they, roped together, followed
in his steps. When I got here, I must tell you, Arundel was conscious,
and able to give me details. He seemed anxious to do so, though he
spoke with difficulty.
"Russell went first, and suddenly vanished into space. The jerk to the
rope nearly pulled Arundel over, but he steadied himself and tried with
all his might and main to pull Russell up. Russell, as you know, was the
heavier man of the two, and Arundel, inch by inch, was being dragged over.
Russell was clinging to the rope in mid-air; he looked up and grasped the
situation instantly. In a second he had out his clasp-knife, and cut the
rope as he might have cut a piece of string. He dropped, and Arundel—how
he did it, no one can imagine—scrambled down over forty feet after him.
He reached his body, but found him dead; and then he collapsed himself.
He was insensible when he was found, and they thought him dead, so sent
the telegram. He was lying out all night, and has some broken ribs, for
he had more than one nasty fall descending after Russell. Now fever has
set in, and the doctor thinks badly of him. I won't leave him till it's
one thing or the other. Russell's cousin here. No time for more.
"Yours very sincerely,
"FRANK DORMER."
Nesta sat with this letter in her lap fully ten minutes before she
could decide what to do. Her mother coming in advised her.
"You had better let Betty read it. Is this Mr. Arundel much to her? I
cannot think that Mr. Russell is her chief and only cause for grief."
"Yes, I think he is a great deal to her, and that is why it will
torture her afresh to hear he is alive, when the second letter may be
to say that he has gone. It will be such suspense again. Still, I think
she ought to see it."
Betty was called in.
She took the tidings with wonderful composure.
"I am glad Frank is with him," she said quietly; "but oh, Mrs. St.
Clair, dear, dear Mr. Russell! Was it not just like him? I shall never
have such a friend again—never!"
She hardly seemed to take in that Gerald was alive, for later on she
said to Nesta,—
"They will be buried together, and then, Mrs. St. Clair, do you think I
could go and see their graves?"
Nesta felt she dared not instil any feelings of hope in her breast, so
wisely said little, but she noticed Betty's breathless anxiety when the
post came in, and her look of patient disappointment when it brought
nothing from Zermatt.
Then, by the late post one evening, Frank wrote again, and this time
Molly was the recipient of his letter.
She came in delightedly to Betty, as she sat in the drawing-room,
winding wool for Mrs. Fairfax.
"Oh, Betty, he has turned the corner and is doing well, and he has got
a splendid nurse, and Frank is coming home. The doctors say he will get
on all right now."
Betty dropped her wool and fled from the room. Out into the garden she
went; her heart and pulses all throbbing with excitement and joy. She
was ashamed that any one should see her face, but she was not ashamed
to lift it up to the One who had so mercifully dealt with her. And her
prayer of thanksgiving and of praise burst forth from her, in a flood
of happy tears, when she found herself on her favourite grass walk in
the wood.
"I won't even wish to see him again; he is alive—he is going to live—he
will come back to his farm. I don't care what becomes of me, but I
shall be living in the same world with him still. It is enough."
Such were some of her thoughts.
She confided in Nesta later.
"And, Mrs. St. Clair, may I go up to London now to Miss Miller? I want
to work. I want to do something to show I am grateful. And, please—"
here she buried her hot cheeks on Nesta's shoulder—"don't let people
know how very happy I am."
Nesta came to the conclusion that work would be the best thing for
her. So in a very short time Betty was in London trying to live in the
present, and bring sunshine to the hearts of those whose lives were
cast in the shade, not sorrowing too much over the past, and leaving
the future in God's hands.
Miss Miller was a practical, matter-of-fact woman; her never-failing
brightness was good for Betty, who still was apt to have her moods. But
she soon won the hearts of the old blind people, and they loved the
sound of her fresh young voice. Betty sang to them, and read to them,
and amused them for hours; but there were quiet times when she would
talk to them one by one, and her topic was always the same—
The old, old story
Of Jesus and His love.
"Ay, dearie," said an old woman, wiping the tears from her sightless
eyes, "ye do seem to put it so life-like that I can't stand up against
it. Why, bless my soul, as I sits and listens to ye, I fancy in the
hush that comes to ye, that the Lord be just a-comin' in at the door,
and He be standin' by my side a-ready and a-waitin' to see if I be
meanin' to open my hard old heart and let Him in. I've had a power o'
trouble in my life that has kep' me from bein' religious. 'Tis t'other
way with some folks, but it never were with me. But ye seems to know a
little about trouble yourself, and it makes your tones shake a bit, for
all that ye are so blithe. And yer faith in religion is so real that it
do shame me. Now sing us that there favourite hymn of yours, and we'll
be greatly obliged."
So Betty sang,—
"'The King of love my Shepherd is,
His goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.'"
And the old people smiled, and repeated the lines to themselves, with
a quickened realisation of the Shepherd's care for His flock, and a
longing to be numbered amongst the sheep of His fold.
One morning Betty was writing letters for Miss Miller in that lady's
private sitting-room, when she was told a gentleman wished to see her.
She told the maid to show him up, thinking it would be her uncle. Major
Stuart often came to see her, and would insist upon taking her out. He
did not half approve of this work for her, though he was always coaxed
and persuaded by his niece in the end that it was just the corner that
fitted her.
As the door opened, she said, without turning round, "One minute, Uncle
Harry. I must finish this letter, and then I shall be free."
The dead silence that followed this speech made her drop her pen and
look up.
With a little cry, she sprang up, for it was Gerald Arundel who
confronted her.
Very thin and worn he looked, and his hair that had been so dark was
now plentifully streaked with grey. That had been done in the few
minutes in which he and Mr. Russell had swayed together over the abyss.
Betty's colour ebbed away. She could not find voice to speak. She had
not heard of his return home, and the shock was almost too much for her.
"You must forgive me coming to you," he said apologetically; "but Mrs.
St. Clair gave me your address. She thought—I hoped—you might like to
see me."
"And so I do," said Betty, holding out her hand, and trying to speak
bravely. "Only you came in so unexpectedly. And you look so ill. You
have been given back from the grave to us. I can't greet you like any
ordinary person."
She was biting her lips to keep her tears back.
He looked at her, then said sadly,—
"I want to tell you how it is I come back alone; how it is that I have
failed to keep my promise to you."
"I have heard," said Betty. "God wanted him, and He is the best One to
take care of him."
"He was a noble man," said Gerald. "I shall never to my dying day
forget his face as he looked up at me. I had given myself up for lost.
I knew I could not save him, and his face suddenly seemed illumined
from heaven above. He smiled at me. Just think of his position!
And—would you like to hear his words?"
Betty nodded breathlessly.
"They were, 'For little Betty's sake!' And then he cut the rope!"
Betty covered her face with her hands. Tears came fast. She could not
speak for some minutes. Then she looked up. Gerald Was standing by her
side.
"Sit down," she said. "You look so ill. Do tell me more, not—" here she
shuddered—"not of that dreadful day, but of before it happened. Tell me
all he said and did. At least, will it tire you?"
Her tone of anxious concern was very sweet to Gerald. He complied with
her wishes, and gave her an account of their start.
"I am thankful the responsibility of that ill-fated expedition does not
rest on me. I felt it would be too much for Russell, and did all in
my power to dissuade him from going. But others overruled me. Russell
asked me as we were starting, why I looked so gloomy. I told him I
did not like the idea of it for him, and he said, with his cheerful
laugh, 'My dear fellow, I am as fit as a fiddle. I am going to prove my
new-gained strength before I return home!'"
"Oh, it all seems so dreadful, so unnecessary," said Betty. "Tell me
more about him."
"When the snowstorm came on, and we separated from the others, he put
his hand into his breast-pocket and took out this little packet for you.
"'I am not so young as you, and my heart is not so strong; if I should
succumb to this cold, will you take this home to Betty, and give it to
her from me, with my dear love?'
"And he would not be content till I took it from him, and promised him
to deliver it to you with my own hands."
Gerald placed the packet in Betty's hand. She looked at it with loving
reverence; then listened eagerly to more details from Gerald of his
last conversation with his friend. When he had finished, Betty said
sorrowfully,—"I have lost my best friend."
"And so have I—my only one."
There was a little silence between them. Then she said rather timidly,—
"Are you going back to your farm?"
"Yes. I must tell you that Russell has bequeathed it to me in his will,
as well as a legacy which will take away the sting of poverty, and make
me comfortable for the rest of my days."
Betty smiled rather sadly.
"But you can't enjoy it when he is gone, can you? I feel as if I can
never go back to Tiverstoke. I should miss him so intensely. Does his
cousin succeed to his estate?"
"Yes; he is a nice fellow—a married man With eight children, he tells
me. Are you here for the winter, Miss Betty?"
"Yes; and for longer, perhaps. I shall leave for Molly's wedding, which
will be taking place the beginning of next month; but I hope to return
after it."
"And you are happy here? Forgive me, but you are looking white and
tired."
"I am happy, as happy as I can be at present. Sorrow makes you tired. I
did love him so."
"Love him still. He is not dead, but living a fuller life than ever he
lived before."
"Yes;" and Betty looked up with sparkling eyes. "Oh, don't you wish,
Mr. Arundel, that this world would come to an end? It seems such a long
time to wait."
Gerald smiled. He loved to hear her old childish impetuosity break out.
Then he rose and held out his hand.
"May I come and see you when I am in town again?"
"Yes, do. I shall be so pleased. Are you going back to Tiverstoke
to-day?"
"This afternoon."
They shook hands, and he left her. Then tremulously Betty broke the
seal of her letter, and read,—
"DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,—
"Sometimes I think I shall not see your bright young face again; I feel
my intercourse with you has come to a close. I do not know why I should
think so, for I am no longer an invalid, and feel as strong and well
as I did ten years ago. But the impression remains with me, and so I
am writing this, which will only reach you after my death. My little
Betty! I wonder if you have any idea what a pleasure it has been to me
to see you the same trustful, earnest little soul that you were fifteen
years ago! You wound yourself round my heart in those days, and when
you went away, and gradually drifted away from me, I thought I had lost
you for ever. Then you came back, and I found your soul unchanged. I
have wondered sometimes, if my little daughter had lived, whether she
could be much dearer to me than you are. I have watched you keenly, and
I have seen you in trouble, my child, trouble in which I was powerless
to help or comfort you, but which trouble One above, who loves you
better than I, has sanctified and blessed to your soul.
"And as an old man sees, I fancy this trouble will not be a lasting
one. I can already see the time when earthly joy will be your portion.
I believe God in His tenderness will lead you very soon into green
pastures, and if my leaving you will hasten this time, I shall be
doubly glad to go. I am bequeathing you my picture, Betty,—an old man's
last attempt to bring the two together that he loves best. And now,
farewell. May God guard and guide you, and keep the spring of living
water in your soul always fresh and bountiful! May He use you for His
glory, and give you an abundant entrance into His kingdom, when your
work is done!
"Your affectionate old friend,
"FRANK RUSSELL."
Betty read and re-read this precious letter, regarding it as a voice
from the dead. She went about her daily duties with a serene and
peaceful face. She could look up and thank God for His goodness in
giving her such a friend, and counted herself better in every way for
his friendship. He had helped her in her times of perplexity and doubt.
Now he had left her, but his memory would help her still. And so she
was comforted.
CHAPTER XX
Changing Corners
Were my whole life to come one heap of troubles,
The pleasure of this moment would suffice,
And sweeten all my griefs with its remembrance.
LEE.
MOLLY'S wedding was the next event. It was a very quiet one, and she
was married from Holly Grange. Betty went down for it. Nesta thought
her looking thin and pale, and wanted her to stay on with her for a
little, but this Betty said she could not do.
"Miss Miller is tired, and is going away for a holiday. I have promised
to take charge during her absence."
"But it will be too great a responsibility for you."
Betty laughed.
"It won't be a feather's weight. They have such a good matron. She
really does all the work."
The sisters had a long talk together before Molly's wedding-day. Molly
was waking up to a sense of her responsibility in life.
"I want to be a good wife, Betty. I shall not dream any more; and Frank
and I are going to try and help each other to be good. I know I am not
clever, but mother taught me to be useful, and I shall try to help some
of those that she tried to help."
"That will be lovely, Molly."
Then Betty threw her arms round her neck.
"Oh, Molly, I shall miss you. I shall be left quite alone. We shall
never be quite the same to each other again."
"But you will come and stay with me, and you will help me about the
poor and those who need relief. I can never be so clever as mother, but
I want to be just like her, to have a full and a busy life."
Betty was silent for a minute, then she said softly,—
"I should like to tell you, Molly, what mother said to me in almost the
last conversation I had with her. She was alluding to my taking up some
work, and she said,—
"'I would warn you not to fill your life with work, to the exclusion of
the One who should come first.'
"And then she made me read that verse to her,—
"'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'
"I have never forgotten it. It has helped me so much."
Molly looked very thoughtful.
"I am not as good as you are, Betty. I believe you love God, and love
the Bible. I have a respect and reverence for—for religion, but it
doesn't come first to me, and it doesn't make me happy. I believe if
you were stripped of everything, you would be happy. You always have a
fund of happiness stowed away somewhere. It shows itself in your face
and voice sometimes when one least expects it, and I believe you get it
from—" Molly lowered her voice—"from God Himself."
"Oh, Molly dear, why shouldn't He give you happiness too?"
"I think I am happy, as a rule," said Molly. "I haven't so many ups and
downs as you have, or as you used to have, but I am earnestly going to
try to do right now."
"If you set your heart, Molly, to seek Christ, He will come into your
heart and put you straight and keep you straight. Don't think I am
preaching, but you know what the hymn says,—
"'O, Jesus, Thou art standing
Outside the fast-closed door,
In lowly patience waiting
To pass the threshold o'er.'"
There was silence. Molly looked out of her window wistfully. This last
day of her girlhood had been a heart-searching time with her. She
realised that a chapter in her young life was closing, and another
beginning.
Then she bent down her fair head to Betty's dark one, and whispered,—
"I have kept Him out, Betty,—all my life long I have,—but if He will
forgive me, I will open my heart to Him now."
And Betty left her, and stole softly away to pray for her.
Major Stuart came down for the wedding, for he was going to give Molly
away.
He said to Betty, when the ceremony was over, and the sisters had taken
a farewell of each other before Molly was driven off to the station
with her bridegroom,—
"And now one niece is off my hands! When are you going to follow her
example?"
"You won't get rid of me yet, Uncle Harry," said Betty, laughing; "but
I am sure I am very harmless. I cannot be a worry to you where I am in
town."
"You are an infinite worry. A young lady with fads is a tremendous
responsibility. You never know what mine she may spring upon you
suddenly. It is a friend of the blind to-day, it may be a nurse to the
lepers to-morrow, or a partisan of woman's rights. I don't know which
contingency would be the worst! I'm sure the old-fashioned plan was
best. Keep young women tight and fast in their homes till they marry.
They will never be any anxiety then."
[Illustration: "YOU'RE GOING TO MARRY ME," OBSERVED JOSSY,
WITH DETERMINATION.]
"But," said Betty, with something between fun and sadness lurking in
her eyes, "I am homeless, and I never could be kept 'tight and fast'
anywhere. I should suffocate and die. And I don't think I shall ever
marry, so I shall be an anxiety to you for many a long day yet."
"You're going to marry me," observed Jossy, with determination. He was
standing by, very proud of his big buttonhole and light kid gloves. "I
made up my mind fresh in church to-day, that I would marry you directly
I grew to be bigger than you. And I'm growing awfully fast, mother says
so!"
Betty laughed at him, but her heart was a little sad. Molly had gone,
and she was alone. She wondered as she threw a look back over the past
year, whether every year would bring so many changes as this one had
done to her. And then again the music danced in her heart—
"I nothing lack if I can His,
And He is mine, for ever."
She went back to London very soon. She saw nothing of Gerald, but heard
he was up in town on business, and when she returned found he had
called to see her the very day before she arrived.
"He said, miss, he was sorry to miss you, for he was going out of town
immediately," the maid told her.
Betty smiled and sighed; then settled down with great content to her
old blind people.
A few weeks later, Nesta received a letter from Miss Miller, to say
that she had just returned from her holiday, and found Betty struggling
against an attack of influenza.
"She is very much pulled down by it, and does not seem able to throw it
off. The doctor advises thorough rest and change of scene. I thought I
had better let you know at once."
So it came to pass that Betty was once more at Holly Grange, looking
white and frail, with a nasty cough, but in fairly good spirits.
"I am just ill enough to like nursing and petting, and to enjoy the
luxury of idleness," she said to Nesta one afternoon, when she was
settling her in a sunny corner in the drawing-room, with a book and a
plate of grapes by her side.
"You will not mind being alone, dear, will you? Mother wants me to
drive out with her."
Nesta was making up a cheerful fire, and arranging Betty's cushion in
the big easy-chair as she spoke.
She stooped and kissed her, for Betty looked very small and white and
forlorn, as she sat there, and Nesta's heart went out to her.
"I shall be perfectly happy. I feel I can sleep and sleep and sleep
here! It is so quiet and restful. I longed for silence in town so;
everything seemed to get on my nerves, the horses and carriages in the
street, and everybody's footstep. Please don't think of me at all,
except that I am enjoying it all so here. And stay out as long as you
can. It is such a sunny afternoon."
She was left, and for a time she dozed. Then the door quietly opened,
and a maid appeared.
"If you please, miss, Mr. Arundel called to ask how you were. He asked
if you were well enough to see him."
"Yes, show him in here," Betty said, and a pink flush rose in her
cheeks as Gerald came in.
He came up to her and took her hand.
Betty could not meet his eyes; and then he sat down.
"I heard that you had been ill, and I met Mrs. St. Clair this
afternoon. She thought perhaps a visit from me would not hurt you."
"Indeed it will not," said Betty quietly. "Tell me about your farm; it
always sounds so nice."
"I am thankful to say it is doing well. It keeps me very busy, except
in the evenings. A farmer cannot do much after dark. If the time does
drag at all with me, it is then."
"But you have your books?"
"Yes—and my thoughts."
There was a little silence, then he turned to her.
"You are working yourself to death, Miss Betty. I am sure London is not
the right corner for you."
"But I think it is," said Betty, with some spirit. "Influenza has had
me in its grip. The idlest people get that. It isn't the work."
"It is not the right corner for you," Gerald persisted. "You were run
down before the influenza attacked you."
"You mustn't abuse my corner," said Betty, smiling.
"Do you remember asking me long ago to let you know if I found an empty
corner that wanted filling?"
"Yes," Betty replied, looking up at him. "But I can't fill two corners
at once."
"And you would rather not hear of another one?"
Betty's gaze was a wistful and a dubious one.
"Is it anything to do with your almshouses?" she asked.
He gave a short laugh, then bent forward earnestly.
"It is a corner that is very empty and desolate; that wants some
sunshine in it. I think I may say truly that it is quite as comfortable
a one as the one you are now filling, but whether it would be good
enough for you is what I doubt. It is a corner that I thought would
have to remain empty for good and all, but I wondered lately if I might
venture to tell you of it."
There was something in the gentle diffidence of this strong,
self-restrained man, that almost brought the tears to Betty's eyes.
She knew now what was coming, and caught her breath. Then, obeying an
impulse that seized her, she put out her little hand, and laid it on
his very softly.
"Tell me," she said.
And then he told her. He took her hand in his, and drew her very gently
to him. "Oh, Betty, my little Betty, I have so little to offer you.
Will you cheer the life of a very lonely man by your sweet, sunshiny
presence? Will it be asking you to give up too much?"
Betty could not answer; she only gave a little sob of happiness. All
the past, with its aches and pains, its struggles and disappointments,
was swallowed up by the present sweet moment, and presently she found
courage to raise her eyes to the ones regarding her so tenderly.
"It will be taking all," she said, "and giving up nothing."
Later on, Nesta found them together, and Gerald stood up to greet her
with a light upon his face that she had never seen on it before.
"I am sure you will give us your blessing," he said, "for your advice
did much to instil into me the courage I needed."
Nesta bent down and kissed Betty, with smiles and tears.
"I am so glad, darling," she said; "for I know you will be happy. It
has been my greatest wish to see you two come together, and it was
somebody else's wish too."
"You mean Mr. Russell," said Betty softly; and then she shyly laid her
hand on Gerald's arm. "It almost seemed to be his last thought."
"It was," Gerald said.
Jossy's entrance chased away the momentary sadness that filled Betty's
eyes.
"Come here, young man," Gerald said. "Do you remember our first
meeting? You introduced me to this lady as her 'dear husband'? I am
going to be so. Do you approve?"
Jossy's quick eyes wandered from Gerald's humorous glance to Betty's
confusion and blushes.
"Are you playing that game?" he asked. "Is it make-believe or really
true?"
"Really and soberly true."
"And you are going to be her lord, and take her away to your castle?"
said the boy, with kindling eyes. Then his face fell. "You haven't got
a castle," he added; "it's only a common farmhouse."
If Gerald winced in his heart, he showed no outward discomposure.
"Only a common farmhouse," he repeated quietly. "Do you think my lady
can be happy in it?"
Jossy looked at Betty rather doubtfully.
"She seemed to think it a very nice place when we were drying our
clothes, but when she was in your room she nearly cried over your book
she was reading, and she kissed the back of your chair. Why did you do
that, Betty?"
"Oh, Jossy, you awful boy! Do stop!"
His mother took him promptly out of the room. Gerald put his hand into
his breast-pocket and laid something very softly on Betty's lap.
She looked up startled.
"I kept it," he said, kneeling down by her chair again and taking both
her hands in his. "I determined not to give it back to its owner till I
could claim the hand as my own."
Betty looked at the little brown glove with pretty confusion.
Gerald went on earnestly.
"I am glad you have seen what a poor home I can offer you. But with our
dear friend's legacy I am going to enlarge it. I would not bring you to
it in its present condition."
"But," said Betty, with sudden warmth and impetuosity, "I love it as it
is. You must not alter it. It is a sweet home, and I shall only come to
it under condition that it remains unaltered. I have always thought,
ever since I was a child, that a farmhouse is an ideal place to be in."
"In theory, not in practice," said Gerald, smiling.
But Betty stoutly insisted that it was both. "And what about your
London corner?" he asked her before they separated that day. "Will you
feel giving up that? Can any one else be found to take your place?"
"Yes," said Betty, smiling up at him. "I have tried to brighten and
cheer their lives, but there are others who will do that as well and
better than I can. And now I am going to turn my attention to a 'very'
neglected spot. After all, it will be only changing corners."
CHAPTER XXI
Odd made Even
Yes, it was love, if thoughts of tenderness,
Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,
Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet—oh, more than all!—untired by time.
BYRON.
MOLLY wrote Betty delighted congratulations when she heard the news.
"To think that you should be the one to comfort my hero! I can't forget
how I tried with all my might to get up a match between him and Ella.
Perhaps it is best as it is, for Ella is going to marry a naval cousin
of hers whom she has always liked. Does it not seem strange, Betty,
that you and I are both perhaps to settle eventually in the same
neighbourhood? Do tell Mr. Arundel I am so delighted to welcome him as
a brother. I used to think I was more interested in him than you were,
for you were always so silent about him. I suppose you thought the
more!"
Major Stuart came down in person to offer his congratulations. He drove
up one afternoon unexpectedly, and found Betty in the garden picking
some early primroses.
"Now, what do you mean by this?" he demanded, after the first greetings
were over. "It is like springing a mine under my feet! When I advised
you to follow Molly's example a short time ago, you told me you were
never going to marry. I suppose you were laughing in your sleeve at me!"
"No, indeed I wasn't," said Betty earnestly; "I really thought it then."
"I'm sorry to hear it," and Major Stuart assumed a very grave air; "for
it shows this is too sudden an affair to be a really genuine one."
"Oh, Uncle Harry, don't tease so!"
"I assure you I am in dead earnest. Why have I not been told of this
gentleman? Why has he kept behind the scenes so? I do not remember to
have heard his name."
"I am sure we must have told you about him," said Betty, with
distressed eyes. "Oh, Uncle Harry, you make it so difficult for me to
tell you. I cared too much for him to talk about him, and though we
both knew each other, he felt he ought not to speak. You see, he lost
all his money and property. The Red Manor belonged to him, and he had
to sell it, and he has been farming since, and now he is succeeding
with it; and then Mr. Russell left him a lot of money, so he thought he
might speak. It was his foolish idea that I ought to have every luxury.
I should have been content with a labourer's cottage. Do be nice, and
say you are pleased, for I am so happy!"
Betty had wound her arms round his and lifted a very coaxing face up at
him. Major Stuart looked at her, then stroked his long moustache grimly.
"This is a blow to me! You have forsaken your rôle of the 'odd one.' I
suppose it is a case of odd being made even, and, like the rest, you
must be made into a couple. I must see him first, before I pronounce
any opinion. A farmer is not a fit match for one of my nieces, and a
fellow who has come down in the world rarely makes it pay. He must be
something very special, if—"
Then Betty flashed out at him,—
"You are a horrid, mercenary man, and I won't stay with you to hear
Gerald abused! He is special, 'very' special; there isn't another man as
good as he is in the whole world, and I am not fit to be his wife. If
he were a butcher or a coal-heaver, if he swept a crossing in London, I
would be proud to belong to him, and if you have come down here to be
rude to him, you had better go back to London by the next train!"
Major Stuart looked at his niece's changing colour, quick-heaving
breast, and sparkling eyes, with great amusement.
"Well done, Betty!" he said. "Whatever he is, he has managed to steal
your heart. I am quite relieved to see you have a little of your old
impetuous temper left. We will patch up a truce, and I will think your
lover all that you describe him, until I set eyes on him myself and can
form my own judgment. You see," he added, giving her a little friendly
pat on her shoulder, "my anxiety about my nieces is due to perhaps my
over-estimation of their charms. I don't like to think of your being
wasted on a heavy country man, however worthy he may be!"
Then Betty laughed. She could not be angry for long with her uncle.
"You will see the heavy country man this evening. He is coming over to
dine. And now here comes Mrs. St. Clair, and you must scold her for
allowing us to meet!"
She ran away, and did not see her uncle again till just before dinner,
when she came towards him with Gerald, looking very winsome and
mischievous in her white lace dress, with a bunch of real neapolitans
in her waistbelt.
"Uncle Harry, let me introduce Mr. Arundel to you. I have told him you
have come down to inspect him."
The men shook hands, and measured glances courteously, then Major
Stuart asked if he might have a private talk with Gerald after dinner.
"I can congratulate you very heartily on having won my niece's
affection," he said; "for she is a very particular little lady, and, I
fancied, had taken up the rôle of independence."
Betty had moved off, so did not hear this speech. Gerald responded
quietly,—
"I am quite ready with my explanation. I am sure you are astonished at
my presumption. But Betty's happiness will be dearer to you than her
position in society."
Which remark gave food for thought to Major Stuart throughout dinner,
but which made him mutter as he took Nesta into the dining-room,—
"He takes matters with too high a hand."
However, the result of their private conversation was satisfactory.
Major Stuart came into the drawing-room with a placid countenance, and
Betty flew to meet him.
"Now, Uncle Harry, congratulate me. I insist upon it, or I shall never
speak to you again!"
"He is a good-looking fellow," he said, looking at her with a twinkle
in his eye.
"Go on," said Betty sternly.
"He seems to have honourable principles."
"Go on."
"And I really think I must congratulate you upon having found some one
who will keep you in better order than I can!"
Betty laughed, and was content. She knew now that Gerald and her uncle
would be the best of friends.
When her health was quite restored, she went back to London; for she
would not forsake her work until it was absolutely necessary for her to
do so. Gerald had persuaded her to let him make a few alterations to
his farm, and the wedding-day was fixed for June 18.
"That was the day I first saw you," he said to her. "I never shall
forget it. Do you remember your little songs about the roses? I have
had one of them in my heart ever since."
"I know," said Betty, nodding at him mischievously. She carolled out
gaily,—
"'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?'
'That can I not tell thee, my child,
Not one on the bosom of earth ever grows,
But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.'"
"That is not the one."
"Isn't it? Then it was the other, 'The little wild white rose.' Yes; I
remember that evening well, but it was not my first sight of you. I had
seen you before."
"Where?"
Betty coloured and hesitated; then looked up with a pretty shyness.
"I will tell you when—when we are married, not before."
She was greeted by her blind friends, when she returned to them, with
great delight, and loud were their lamentations when they heard she was
going to leave them.
"I feel quite guilty," she said to Miss Miller one day; "as if I have
put my hand to the plough, and am drawing it back."
"No, dear," her friend replied; "you are changing your sphere of work,
that is all. You will find opportunities of helping others wherever you
go. Of course, we shall miss you, but we must be thankful that we have
had you for so long."
"If—if Gerald had not gone through such deep trouble," said Betty, in
a low, meditative voice; "if he hadn't been so lonely and homeless and
friendless, I think I should not have thought it right to marry."
Miss Miller smiled.
"But pity is not the right foundation for a married life."
"No," said Betty hastily; "of course not. And I never really pitied
him, except deep down in the bottom of my heart, for he was above pity.
He was always so brave and cheerful, keeping his own feelings in the
background. Oh, Miss Miller, you must come down to stay with us when
you want a rest! I long for you to know him. I am not good enough for
him. God has been so very good to me."
Occasionally she had visits from Gerald, but they were necessarily very
short ones. She saw a good deal of Molly in town, and by-and-bye they
began to busy themselves with her trousseau.
Nesta came up for a fortnight to help them. Molly was full of life and
interest, but Betty used to have fits of dreaminess, and she seemed
strangely indifferent to her shopping.
"It is such a fuss," she said. "Why should I spend so much on myself?
I am going to be a farmer's wife. I shall dress in cotton frocks and
sun-bonnets, and these fine things will lie by in drawers and boxes. I
shall never wear them."
But Molly did not agree with her.
"You must dress for your husband now. He will like your clothes, if you
don't. I've discovered that men pretend to be supremely indifferent to
such matters, when in reality there are no more discerning and severe
judges than they are. And you are not going to be a farmer's wife,
Betty. You will have lots of nice neighbours calling upon you. Frank's
people do not mean you to rusticate."
"Oh, Molly," said Betty wistfully. "Do you selfishly wish sometimes to
be in a kind of garden of Eden—to be the only people in existence, just
two?"
Molly laughed, and shook her head.
"I am shocked at you, who are so anxious to comfort and relieve your
fellow-creatures! I don't think I have ever had such a desire."
"It is selfish," admitted Betty. "I think in London we crowd over each
other so, that it makes me long to be alone."
"I like people," said Molly; "and I know I shall never be so happy at
the Red Manor as I am now in our tiny town house."
The time slipped by, and then in the beginning of June Betty said
good-bye to her friends in London, and went down to Holly Grange.
Upon the afternoon before her wedding-day, she slipped out of the house
unperceived, and walked over to the little village of Tiverstoke. She
made her way to the church, and saw herself, as a little hot, dusty
child, push open the door for the first time and enter in. She passed
up the same aisle that her little feet had trodden so long before, and
once more she paused by Violet Russell's tomb, and let her gaze wander
upwards to the stained window that had been the object of her childish
admiration and awe.
And then she started, for by the side of the window was a brass
inscription, and she read it with tearful eyes,—
TO THE MEMORY OF
FRANK RUSSELL,
SQUIRE OF THIS PARISH.
DIED AT ZERMATT,
SEPTEMBER 20, 18—,
Aged 58.
"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb."
Such a flood of memories swept over her soul as she read this verse! It
took her back to her earnest search in childhood, to all the mystery
and joy and grief connected with it; to all her serious discussions
with the old friend now gone; and she covered her face with her hands
and sobbed aloud. She was not surprised when a step that she knew well
approached, and a hand was gently laid on her shoulder. She turned to
him at once.
"Oh, Gerald, who put this here? Did you?"
"Yes."
"Did you know it was the verse I loved above all others as a child?"
"It was the verse he loved to his dying day."
They stood there in silence together. Then Gerald said in a low voice,—
"Betty, we shall stand here to-morrow in different circumstances. Shall
we ask God's blessing on that coming ceremony now?"
Betty bowed her head. Then, hand in hand, they knelt under the stained
window, and Gerald breathed out a few heart-felt words.
"Our Father, wilt Thou grant to us Thy blessing? We give ourselves to
Thy service together for evermore. Teach us to follow in the steps of
one who died to bring us together, and may we take our place one day in
that blood-washed throng. For Christ our Saviour's sake. Amen."
Was it a strange coincidence that the sun should stream through that
stained window, and crown those bowed heads with its golden rays?
In the hush that followed, Betty almost felt conscious that the spirits
of the departed were hovering near them, rejoicing in their joy, and
when she rose from her knees, her face was as if she had beheld a
vision.
Walking home, as the evening shadows were beginning to fall, Gerald
spoke of their friend again.
"He asked me to have that put on his tombstone, should anything happen
to him. I think I told you he seemed to have a presentiment of his
sudden death. And, Betty darling, he told me how you came to him as
a little child, when his heart was cold and hard and bitter, and his
troubles were alienating him from the only Comforter; how by your
persistent allusion to that verse, your childish faith and earnestness,
and your confidence in the love of God, you brought him, step by step,
into the light and peace of God's forgiveness and comfort. He told me
he owed to you more than he could ever repay."
"Oh," said Betty, awed and startled, "I never knew. I never guessed.
He always seemed to me a sad and sorrowful man; but I have only
remembrances of his goodness and kindness to me as a child. I remember
him comforting me when no one else could, in my first real childish
trouble. He was such a comfort and help to me all last year; and,
Gerald—" her voice sank to a whisper—"his very last thought and act was
to give you to me. What a friend he has been to us both!"
CHAPTER XXII
"The Little White Wild Rose"
Across the threshold led,
And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light;
Shining within when all without is night,
A guardian-angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasure, and his cares dividing!
ROGERS.
IT was five o'clock in the afternoon. Sycamore Farm lay bathed in
golden sunshine, save where the old trees from which it got its name
cast soft shadows across the green lawn. The front of the house
preserved that peculiar stillness that was always its characteristic on
summer afternoons. The very bees seemed sleeping in their hives; a few
butterflies drowsily flitted to and fro. The old-fashioned roses filled
the air with their fragrance, and the house itself, covered with its
wealth of creepers, seemed to be in an attitude of quiet waiting.
Inside, the atmosphere was one of expectancy. Mrs. Winstone, in her
Sunday best, was wandering from room to room. A bright rosy-faced maid,
in black dress and white cap and apron, was following in her steps,
duster in hand, giving a touch here, and a rub there, to articles of
furniture that were already shining from the care and attention that
had been bestowed upon them. Every few minutes Mrs. Winstone would
glance out of the windows anxiously; and at last the sound of wheels,
for which she had been waiting, sent her flying to the door, her
face wreathed in smiles; and the little maid followed behind, in a
fluttering state of curiosity and awe.
The bridegroom was bringing home his bride. As Betty stepped in, she
held out both hands to Mrs. Winstone, and greeted her with pretty
frankness.
"We are home, Mrs. Winstone, and it looks as I have always pictured it
in my dreams."
Then Gerald put her arm in his, and led her from room to room. The
hall, with its old hearth and staircase, was much as she remembered
it, but the dining-room had been enlarged and a study had been built
out. In the dining-room tea was spread on a snowy cloth, and a bowl of
pink roses and jessamine reposed on the centre of the table. The study
led out of the dining-room, and Betty exclaimed, as she gazed at the
well-filled bookshelves,—
"Why, Gerald, it looks just like the Red Manor library? Oh, how
comfortable you will be here!"
"Our dear old friend's thought again," said Gerald. "He bought
all these at the sale, and left them to me in his will. He seemed
determined that I should suffer as little as possible from the loss of
what I valued most."
"And this is where I shall spend most of my time," said Betty, looking
up into his face archly. "You must not monopolise this room entirely. I
love books as well as you. I have a Chaucer of yours that I almost know
by heart; I have read every page of it, and some of them two or three
times over."
He smiled.
"But my little wife has a room of her own; a room that I shall come to
when I want to be comforted and rested. Shall we come back to it?"
He led her into the hall again, and opened the door that Molly had once
described to her as the one that was kept locked, and was that of the
best parlour.
Now, as he opened it, Betty caught her breath and gave an exclamation
of delight. It was a room which had been enlarged, and contained, in
one deep recess, the beautiful little organ that Betty had seen in the
music-room at the Red Manor. A deep bay window looked out on a green
lawn with old-fashioned flower beds bordering a winding path, and in
the window recess, at one corner was a Chippendale writing-cabinet,
and in the other, an old-fashioned inlaid work-table. The room was
papered with a soft dull green, bordered by a dado of white roses on
a green background; the carpet was a green of a darker tone, with a
border of white roses, and the chintzes, again, were white rosebuds on
a soft green ground. China bowls and vases of white roses were in every
direction, and on one side of the room hung, in its gold frame, Mr.
Russell's last picture. The sun was just touching it as Betty looked,
and it seemed to throw out the wistful longing in the young girl's
face. She looked round the room again, but her gaze came back to the
picture.
"Why did he paint it?" she whispered. "How did he think it would bring
us together?"
Gerald gazed at it with a smile.
"He wanted me to hasten matters. He used to tell me I was too diffident
and cautious; and then he set to work and painted this as typical of
our two lives. He called me in to see it, and asked me if I liked his
name for it."
"What was it?" asked Betty. "I remember so well when he took us in and
showed it to us; I thought he wanted us to choose the name."
"He had written under it, 'Divided by Diffidence,' but I made him paint
it out the morning before you came over. He said he would not do it,
unless I promised him to speak to you that day. And you know how I
tried, and how you snubbed me."
"I was so frightened," said Betty, pressing closer against the strong
arm that was round her. "I hated your name for it—'Love and Duty.' I
hated Tennyson for writing it, I remember, and I think I almost hated
you for disagreeing with the only lines that would have brought me
comfort. I found the book open, when I came over here that day, and I
almost rubbed your 'No' out on the margin of it, and wrote 'Yes.' What
would you have thought of me if I had done so? But when you spoke to me
in the garden, I tried to encourage you. You can't say I didn't!"
"Yes, you did in one breath, but you brought despair into my heart in
the next."
"I knew I had, by the look in your face, and I was so miserable.
Gerald, tell me, why did you wait so long?"
Gerald did not answer at first. He looked round the room, and then he
stooped down and drew his wife closer to him, and kissed her tenderly.
"My little white rose," he said. "You 'hung too high for me.' I did
not wish to soil your petals or bend your head by bringing you into my
humble life."
Betty looked up at him wonderingly, then she smiled.
"Oh, Gerald, Gerald, do you think your love would not reach far enough?
Why did you place me on such a pedestal? If I was like a little wild
rose at all, I was in the ditch below your feet, waiting for you to
pick me up. I understand this room. You are full of romance and poetry;
and you have carried it into your furnishing. It is too beautiful for
me, but I just love it."
Laughter and tears were struggling for predominance in her voice.
"Mrs. St. Clair helped me with it. I told her what I wanted."
"And your mother's organ," said Betty, looking towards it reverently.
"Shall I ever dare to touch it?"
"I brought it into this house with thoughts of you. And if you had
never come to me, no other hand should ever have touched it. I have
wandered into this room before it was properly furnished, when the
organ was the only thing in it, and I have tried to imagine myself
coming in here, tired and weary, and listening to you playing. I want
you to play on it to-night."
"I will," said Betty softly. "I shall love to."
They went back to the dining-room then, and Betty poured out tea with
a pretty importance. Afterwards, they went over the upper part of the
house, and then inspected the farmyard and outside premises. It was
getting dusk when they came back to Betty's drawing-room, and they
stood together at the open window looking out into the still, silent
garden. A sweet smell of newly cut hay, and the scent of mignonette
under the window, made Betty open her lips and draw in a long breath.
Then Gerald spoke.
"Betty darling, I want to know when you first saw me. You said you
would tell me. I think the time has come for you to do it."
Betty was silent for a minute, then she said very quietly,—
"I saw you, Gerald, lying face downwards in a field, and when you
looked up trouble seemed to be breaking your heart. I went home; but
your face haunted me and—I can tell you now—I prayed that night, and
every night after, that God Himself would comfort you."
Gerald was profoundly touched.
"I have a dim remembrance of shaking off somebody's touch and dashing
away, for I was beside myself with grief. I had heard that afternoon
from my lawyer of my uncle's existence and intention, and it seemed
more than I could bear. Was it really you who touched me? How little I
thought you would be the comfort that God would send me! Life seemed so
hopelessly dark to me then."
"But you did not succumb," said Betty. "That was what made me wonder at
you so. You were so bright and brave when I met you; so full of thought
about others. Do you remember giving me a verse for Mat? And asking me
to visit your almshouses? Oh, Gerald, I knew then what Christianity
was worth, when it could hold you up, and make you face the world so
brightly at such a time as that which followed!"
"Yes," assented her husband. "It needs God's own presence and grip
through the deep waters. Then we have the promise, 'they shall not
overflow thee.'"
"I remember," said Betty musingly, "how I used to long for tribulation
as a little child. I used to fancy that it was a sign that we were
being made fit for heaven. I suppose I was right, but when it comes
to us in older life it seems so mysterious and inexplicable. Yet if I
have learnt any lesson in the past two years which have brought me the
greatest sorrow and the greatest joy in my life, it is, that we can
have joy and peace outside our circumstances.
"And, Gerald, I was looking through the last chapters of St. John the
other day—the chapters that Christ speaks to His disciples when their
hearts must have been heavy with doubt and dread, and I was astonished
to see how often He mentioned 'joy' to them. Don't you think that
Mr. Russell was right when he said to me that 'joy' was an important
Christian virtue, for it recommended our religion to the world at
large?"
"'And your joy no man taketh from you!'"
Betty's expressive little face looked radiant.
"It is true," she said, with a little nod; "for I have learned to find
it so."
A few minutes later she was seated at the organ, and her husband,
leaning back in an easy-chair, listened with a rested soul.
"'What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence come
they? These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"
Again and again the sweet notes sounded out—
"'They came out of great tribulation.'"
The triumphant strain at the close sent a little thrill through the
hearts of singer and listener. They seemed to be brought into close
touch with the one who had left them; and as the last notes died away
silence fell in the room.
Then, very softly, again Betty laid her hands on the keys, and her
voice vibrated with happy assurance as she sang—
"'The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine, for ever.
"'Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.
"'Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
"'In death's dark vale I fear no ill,
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.
"'And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house for ever!'"
FINIS.
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