The morning of the day dawned on which the invalids were to travel to
Erley Chase, and Rhoda lay awake upon her bed, listening to the echo of
the girls' voices as they sang the morning hymn in the hall below. Her
heart was softened with a feeling at once of thankfulness and dread--
thankfulness that Evie's life had been spared, and her friendship
renewed, and dread because, she dimly realised, this was the last of the
dear school days as they had been. Even if she returned after the
holidays, which seemed doubtful, it would be a changed house indeed,
with the older girls scattered all over the country, and Evie no longer
at hand to soothe and lighten every trouble. Her thoughts went back to
her first coming to Hurst Manor eighteen months before, and dwelt sadly
on her own ambitious hopes. It had all seemed so easy, so certain; she
had planned her career with such happy assurance, with never a thought
but that success and distinction lay waiting for her grasp; and it had
all ended in this--that she was returning home, enfeebled in health,
foiled in ambition, with the bitter weight on her conscience that her
self-will had inflicted a life-long injury on the kindest of friends.
"I have failed!" sighed Rhoda humbly to herself. "But why? I never
meant to do wrong. I intended only to work hard and get on. Surely,
surely, there was nothing wicked in that? It can't be possible to be
too industrious, and yet Evie evidently thought something was wrong, and
the Vicar... What can it have been? I wish, I wish I knew! I'm tired
of going my own way, for it leads to nothing but misery and
disappointment. I should like to find out the secret of being happy and
contented like other people." Her eyes filled with tears, those blue
eyes which had been so full of confidence, and she clasped her fingers
upon the counterpane. The roll of the organ sounded through the house,
and the girls' clear voices singing a familiar tune. She listened
unthinkingly, until suddenly one verse struck sharply on her ear, and
startled her into vivid attention:--
"The trivial round, the common task, Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road To bring us daily nearer God."
She had heard those words a hundred times before, had repeated them at
her mother's knee, had sung them in church, not once, but many times,
yet it seemed that until that moment no conception of their meaning had
penetrated to her brain. What was it, which was all we ought to ask?
"_Room to deny ourselves_!"--to put ourselves last--to be careless of
our own position? And this path of self-denial was the road that led to
God Himself? Was this what Evie had meant when she spoke of the secret
which each one must find out for herself? Was this the explanation of
the contentment which the Vicar had found in his ill-paying parish?
"_Room to deny oneself_!" Oh, but this had been far, far from her own
ambitions. She had asked for room to distinguish herself, to shine
among her fellows, to be first and foremost, praised and applauded. Her
own advancement had been the one absorbing aim in life, and to gratify
it she had been willing to see others fail, and to congratulate herself
in the face of their distress. Never once in all the miseries of
disappointment which she had undergone had it occurred to her that the
explanation of her difficulties lay in the _motive_ underlying her
efforts--the point of view from which she had started. Other girls had
worked as hard as herself, but with some definite and worthy aim, such
as to help their parents, or to fit themselves for work in life. Rhoda
was honest, even when honesty was to her own hurt, and she acknowledged
it had been far otherwise in her case when she had failed in her
examination, it had not been deficiency in knowledge which she had
deplored, but the certificate, the star to her name, the outward and
visible signs of success. When she realised the hopelessness of seeing
her name on the Record Wall, loss of honour and glory had been her
regret, not sorrow for the thought that she had passed through school
and failed to leave behind a tradition of well-doing whereby future
scholars might be strengthened and encouraged!
Rhoda hid her face in the pillow and lay still, communing with her own
heart. How bitter they are, these moments of self-revelation! How
mysterious is the way in which the veil seems suddenly to lift and show
us the true figure, instead of the mythical vision which we have
cherished in our thoughts! They come suddenly at the most unexpected
moments, roused by apparently the most trivial of causes, so that the
friend by our side has no idea of the crisis through which we are
passing.
Rhoda Chester never forgot that last morning at school; she could never
hear that hymn sung without a thrill of painful remembrance. When the
years had passed and she had daughters of her own, the sound of the
familiar words would still bring a flush to her cheeks, but no human
friend ever knew all that it meant to her. Rhoda learnt her lesson none
the less surely for keeping silence concerning it.
A few hours later the travellers were ready to depart, and Evie was
carried down the staircase into the hall.
Mrs Chester had promised that everything that wealth could secure
should be done for the comfort of her guest, and royally did she keep
her promise. If she had been a Princess of the Blood, Evie declared she
could not have had a more luxuriously comfortable journey. An ambulance
drove up to the door to convey the little party to the station, and
inside sat a surgical nurse, ready to give her skilled attention to any
need that might arise. The girls flocked in hall and doorway to wave
farewells, edging to the front to cry "Come back soon!" in confident
treble, and then retiring to the background to gulp back the tears which
rose at the sight of the thin little face, which told such a pathetic
story of suffering. Not a single tear did Evie see, however, nor any
face that was not wreathed in smiles, and when the strains of "For she's
a jolly good fellow" followed the ambulance down the drive, she laughed
merrily, and waved her handkerchief out of the window, never suspecting
with what swelling throats many of the singers joined in the strain.
Rhoda laughed too, but she did not wave her handkerchief. Curiously
enough, it never occurred to her to think that she herself was included
in that farewell demonstration, or to resent the apparent indifference
with which she had been allowed to depart. Her own special friends had
embraced her warmly enough, but even they had given the lion's share of
attention to Evie, while the majority of the girls had no eyes nor
attention for anyone else. The Rhoda of six months or a year ago would
have bitterly resented such a slight, but to-day she found no reason to
blame others for following her own example.
Evie was the supreme consideration, and the girl was so entirely
absorbed in looking after her comfort that she had forgotten all about
her own poor little importance. Love is the gentlest as well as the
cleverest of schoolmasters, and teaches his lessons so subtly that we
are unconscious of our progress, until, lo! the hill difficulty is
overcome, and we find ourselves erect on the wide, breezy plain.
At the station a saloon carriage was waiting labelled "Engaged," inside
which were all manner of provisions for the comfort of the journey.
Hot-water bottles, cushions, rugs, piles of papers and magazines, and a
hamper of dainty eatables from the Chase Evie was wrapped in Mrs
Chester's sable cloak and banked up with cushions by the window, so that
she might look out and be amused by the sight of the Christmas traffic
at the various stations. She stared about her with the enjoyment of a
convalescent who has had more than enough of her own society, and the
lingerers on the platform stared back at the pretty, fragile-looking
invalid who was travelling in such pomp and circumstance.
"They think I am a princess!" cried Evie. "I _hope_ they think I am a
princess!" and she laid her little head against the cushions, and
sniffed at a big silver-mounted bottle of smelling salts with an air of
languid complacency which vastly amused her companions. Presently nurse
lighted an Etna and warmed some cups of soup, while one good thing after
another came out of the hamper to add to the feast; then followed a
stoppage, with the arrival of obsequious porters with fresh foot-
warmers; then, dusk closing in over the wintry landscape, the lighting
of electric lamps, and the refreshing cup of tea. It was Evie's first
experience of luxurious travelling, and she told herself with a sigh
that it was very, very comfortable. Much more comfortable than
shivering in a draughty third class carriage, and changing three times
over to wait in still more draughty stations!
With the arrival at Erley Chase came more pleasant surprises, for she
was not carried upstairs, but into a room on the ground floor, which was
ordinarily used as Mrs Chester's boudoir, and had been transformed into
the most cheerful and delightful of bedrooms. There was really little
to distinguish it from a sitting-room, except the bed with its silken
cover, and even this was hidden behind a screen in the daytime. A couch
was drawn up before the fire, and over it lay the daintiest pink silk
dressing-gown that was ever seen, with the warmest of linings inside,
and trimmed without with a profusion of those airy frills and laces dear
to the feminine heart.
"For me?" gasped Evie, staring at its splendour with big, astonished
eyes. A glow of colour came into her cheeks as she turned it over and
over to inspect its intricacies. "I should think I _would_ come in to
dinner just, with such a gown to wear!" she cried laughingly. "I am
longing to put it on and see what it feels like to be a fashionable
lady."
She would not acknowledge that she was tired, but even after an hour's
sleep she still looked so fragile that the two members of the household
who had not seen her before were deeply impressed with the change which
had taken place since their last meeting. Very charming did she look
when the sofa was wheeled into the dining-room, and she lay in her
pretty pink fineries the centre of attraction and attention; but the
flush of excitement soon faded, and the dark eyes looked pathetic in
spite of their smiles. Rhoda watched the faces of father and mother,
and her heart sank as she saw the elder man knit his brow, and the
younger look away quickly and bite his lip under his moustache as if the
sight were too painful to be endured. Beyond a few loving words at
greeting, neither had manifested any concern about herself, and once
again she had not noticed the omission.
"I've had such a happy day. I feel like a princess--such a spoiled
princess!" said Evie, when she went to bed that night; but there were
sad days in store for the poor little princess from which all the care
and love of her friends could not save her.
When the decree went forth that she should make her first attempt to
walk, Rhoda clapped her hands with joy, and could not understand the
reason of the quick, grave glance which the nurse cast upon her. She
and her mother had decided that the attempt must be made in the drawing-
room after tea, and nurse made no objection, hoping, perhaps, that the
presence of onlookers would give her patient extra strength for the
ordeal. She knew what it meant if the others did not; but, alas! they
all learned soon enough, as, at the first slight movement, Evie's white
face turned grey, and she groaned in mingled anguish and dismay.
"I can't!" she cried; "Oh, I can't! It is like knives going through me!
I can't move!"
"Ah, but you must, my dear. It has to be done; and the braver you are,
the sooner it will be over. You are bound to suffer the first few
times, but it would be ten times worse to allow the joint to stiffen.
Now be brave, and try to take just two steps with me! I will support
you on one side, and--" Nurse looked round questioningly--"Mr Harold
will take the other. You can lean all your weight on us. We won't let
you fall."
Harold stepped forward without a word and put his strong arm under hers,
and, as he did so, Evie raised her eyes to his with a look which those
who saw it never forgot--a look such as might have been given by an
animal caught in a snare from which it was powerless to escape. Rhoda
told herself savagely that Harold was a brute to persist in the face of
that dumb appeal, but he did not quail even when the sob rose to a cry,
and a trembling plea for mercy. The two steps were taken, and
henceforth, for weeks to come, the nightmare of repeated effort weighed
upon the spirits of the household. At eleven o'clock, after tea, after
dinner--three times a day--was the inexorable programme repeated, in
spite of prayers and protestations. Mrs Chester's theory was that it
was brutal to torture the child, and that if she were to be lame, for
pity's sake let her be lame in peace. Rhoda suffered agonies of remorse
and passionate revolts against the mystery of pain, but the nurse and
her assistant never showed a sign of wavering. As a rule, Evie made a
gallant attempt to control her sufferings, but there were occasions when
even her fortitude gave was, as, on one afternoon, when, after taking a
certain number of steps, she was informed that still more must be
attempted. She was powerless in the hands that held her, but when she
collapsed into helpless sobbings on the sofa, Rhoda turned on her
brother with furious indignation:
"You are a _brute_, Harold! You have no heart! How dare you do it--how
_dare_ you make her suffer so!"
He did not answer, but turned his head aside, and stared steadily out of
the window. Rhoda glared at him with smarting eyes, and suddenly saw
something which put a check on her excitement. Harold's profile was
turned toward her, and the light showed great drops of moisture standing
upon the brow, and rolling slowly down the cheek. She realised, with a
pang, that once again she had been too quick in her judgment. In spite
of his firmness, Harold had suffered more than she, more than her
mother--ay, perhaps, more than Evie herself!