Only one Fly at the Station.
The railway station at Basham seemed to be never free from bustle.
Besides pertaining to Basham proper, it was the junction for other
places. Various lines crossed each other; empty carriages and trolleys
of coal stood near; porters and others were always running about.
Four o'clock on the Tuesday afternoon, and the train momentarily
expected in from London. A few people had collected on the platform:
waiting for friends who were coming by it, or else intending to go on
by it themselves. Amidst them was a young and lovely lady, who
attracted some attention. Strangers wondered who she was: one or two
knew her for the lady of Foxwood Court, wife of Sir Karl Andinnian.
There had been a flower-show at Basham that day: and Lady Andinnian,
as may be remembered, had promised to attend it with the family of
General Lloyd, taking luncheon with them first. But when the morning
came, she heartily wished she had not made the engagement. Sir Karl
had not returned to accompany her. Miss Blake declared that she could
not spare the time for it: for it happened to be a Saint's Day, and
services prevailed at St. Jerome's. Another check arose: news was
brought in from the coachman that one of the horses had been slightly
hurt in shoeing, and the carriage could not be used that day.
Upon that, Lady Andinnian said she must go by train: for it would
never have occurred to her to break her promise.
"I think, Theresa, you might manage to go with me," she said.
Miss Blake, calculating her hours, found she had two or three to spare
in the middle of the day, and agreed to do so: provided she might be
allowed to leave Mrs. Lloyd's when luncheon was over and not be
expected to go to the town-hall. "You will only be alone in returning,
for just the few minutes that you are in the train, Lucy," she said.
"The Lloyds will see you into it, and your servants can have a fly
waiting for you at Foxwood Station." This programme had been carried
out: and here was Lucy waiting for the four o'clock train at Basham,
surrounded by General Lloyd and part of his family.
It came steaming slowly in. Adieux were interchanged, and Lucy was put
into what is called the ladies' carriage. Only one lady was in it
besides herself; some one travelling from London. They looked at each
other with some curiosity, sitting face to face. It was but natural;
both were young, both were beautiful.
"What lovely hair! and what charming blue eyes! and what a bright
delicate complexion!" thought Lucy. "I wonder who she is."
"I have never in all my life seen so sweet a face!" thought the other
traveller. "Her eyes are beautiful: and there's, such a loving sadness
in them! And what a handsome dress!--what style altogether!"
Lucy's dress was a rich silk, pearl grey in colour; her bonnet white;
her small parasol was grey, covered with lace, its handle of carved
ivory. She looked not unlike a bride. The other lady wore black silk,
a straw bonnet, and black lace veil thickly studded with spots; which
veil she had put back as if for air, just after quitting Basham; and
she had with her several small parcels. Why or wherefore neither of
them knew, but each felt instinctively attracted by the appearance of
the other.
They were nearing Foxwood Station--it was but about eight minutes'
distance from Basham--when Lucy, in changing her position, happened to
throw down a reticule bag which had lain beside her. Both of them
stooped to pick it up.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I ought to have moved it when you got in,"
said the stranger, placing it on her own side amidst her parcels. And
Lucy, on her part, apologised for having thrown it down.
It served to break the ice of reserve: and for the next remaining
minute or two they talked together. By the stranger beginning to
gather together her parcels, Lucy saw she was preparing to get out at
Foxwood.
"Are you about to make a stay in this neighbourhood?" she asked.
"For the present."
"It is a very charming spot. We hear the nightingales every evening."
"You are staying in it too, then?"
"Yes. It is my home."
The train came to a stand-still, and they got out. Foxwood station,
after the manner of some other small rural stations, had its few
buildings on one side only: the other was open to the high road, and
to the fields beyond. In this road, drawn up close to the station, was
a waiting fly, its door already open. The stranger, carrying some of
her parcels, went straight up to it, supposing it was there for hire,
and was about to get in.
"Beg pardon, ma'am," said the driver, "this here fly's engaged."
She, seemed vexed, disappointed: and looked up at him. "Are you sure?"
she asked. Lucy was standing close by and heard.
"It's brought here, ma'am, for the Lady Andinnian."
"For whom?" she cried, her voice turning to sharpness with its haste;
her face, through her veil, changing to a ghastly white.
The driver stared at her: he thought it was all temper. Lucy looked,
too, unable to understand, and slightly coloured.
"For whom did you say the fly was brought?" the lady repeated.
"For Lady Andinnian of Foxwood Court," explained the man in full. "I
shouldn't go to tell a untruth about it."
"Oh I--I misunderstood," she said, her voice dropping, her look
becoming suddenly timid as a hare's: and in turning away with a sudden
movement, she found herself face to face with Lucy. At that same
moment, a tall footman with a powdered head--who had strayed away in
search of amusement, and strayed a little too far--came bustling up to
his mistress.
"This is your fly, my lady."
By which the stranger knew that the elegant girl she had travelled
with and whose sweet face was then close to her own, was the young
Lady Andinnian. Her own white face flushed again.
"I--I beg your pardon," she said. "I did not know you were Sir Karl
Andinnian's wife. The fly, I thought, was only there for hire."
Before Lucy could make any answer, she had disappeared from the spot,
and was giving some of her parcels to a porter. Lucy followed.
"Can I offer to set you down anywhere? The fly is certainly waiting
for me, but--there is plenty of room."
"Oh thank you, no. You are very kind: but--_no!_ I can walk quite
well. I am obliged to you all the same."
The refusal was spoken very emphatically; especially the last No.
Without turning again, she rapidly walked from the station, the porter
carrying her parcels.
"I wonder who she is?" murmured Lucy aloud, looking back as she was
about to enter the fly, her powdered servant standing to bow her in.
For she saw that there was no luggage, save those small parcels, and
was feeling somewhat puzzled.
"It is Mrs. Grey, my lady; she who lives at the Maze."
Had the footman, Giles, said it was an inhabitant of the world of
spirits, Lucy would not have felt more painfully and disagreeably
startled. _She!_ And she, Lucy, had sat with her in the same carriage
and talked to her on pleasant terms of equality! She, Mrs. Grey! Well,
Theresa was right: the face would do for an angel's.
"Why, my dear Lady Andinnian, how pale you look! It's the heat, I
suppose."
Lucy, half bewildered, her senses seeming to have gone she knew not
whither, found herself shaking hands with the speaker, Miss Patchett:
an elderly and eccentric lady who lived midway between the station and
the village of Foxwood. Lucy mechanically asked her if she had come in
the train.
"Yes," answered Miss Patchett. "I've been to London to engage a
housemaid. And I am tired to death, my dear, and the London streets
were like fire. I wish I was at home without having to walk there."
"Let the fly take you."
"It's hardly worth while, my dear: it's not far. And it would be
taking you out of the way."
"Not many yards out of it. Step in, Miss Patchett."
The old lady stepped in, Lucy following her; Giles taking his place by
the driver. Miss Patchett was set down at her house, and then the
horse's head was turned round in the direction of Foxwood Court. The
old lady had talked incessantly; Lucy had comprehended nothing. St.
Jerome's absurd little bell was being swayed and tinkled by Tom Pepp,
but Lucy had not given it a second glance, although it was the first
time she had had the gratification of seeing and hearing it.
"I could almost have died, rather than it should have happened," she
thought, her face burning now at the recollection of the encounter
with Mrs. Grey, so mortifying to every good feeling within her. "How
white she turned--how sharply she spoke--when they told her the fly
was there for Lady Andinnian! And to think that I should have offered
to set her down! To think it! Perhaps those parcels contained things
that Karl bought for her in London!"
The fly, bowling on, was nearing the Maze gate. Lucy's fascinated gaze
was, in spite of herself, drawn to it. A middle-aged woman servant had
opened it and was receiving the parcels from the porter. Mrs. Grey had
her purse out, paying him. As she put the coin into his hand, she
paused to look at Lady Andinnian. It was not a rude look, but one that
seemed full of eager interest. Lucy turned her eyes the other way, and
caught a full view of Mr. Smith, the agent. He was stretched out at
one of his sitting-room windows, surveying the scene with undisguised
curiosity. Lucy sank into the darkest corner of the fly, and flung her
hands over her burning face.
"Was any position in the world ever so painful as mine?" she cried
with a rising sob. "How shall I live on, and bear it?"
The fly clattered in by the lodge gate and drew up at the house.
Hewitt appeared at the door, and Giles stood for his mistress to
alight.
"Has Sir Karl returned, Hewitt?" questioned Lucy.
"Not yet, my lady."
She stood for a moment in thought, then gave orders for the fly to
wait, and went indoors. An idea had arisen that if she could get no
comfort whispered to her, she should almost go out of her mind. Her
aching heart was yearning for it.
"Hewitt, I shall go and see poor Miss Sumnor. I should like to take
her a little basket of strawberries and a few of Maclean's best
flowers. Will you see to it for me, and put them in the fly?"
She tan up stairs. She put off her robes alone, and came down in one
of her cool muslins and a straw bonnet as plain as Mrs. Grey's. Hewitt
had placed the basket of strawberries--some of the large pine-apple
beauties that the Court was famous for--in the fly, a sheet of tissue
paper upon them, and some lovely hothouse flowers on the paper. Lucy
got in; told the footman she should not require his attendance; and
was driven away to the vicarage.
"Am I to wait for you, my lady?" asked the driver, as he set her down
with her basket of fruit and flowers.
"No, thank you; I shall walk home."
Margaret was lying alone as usual, her face this afternoon a sad one.
Lucy presented her little offering; and when the poor lonely invalid
saw the tempting, luscious fruit, smelt the sweet perfume of the
gorgeous flowers, the tears came into her eyes.
"You have brought all this to brighten me, Lucy. How good you are! I
have had something to try me to-day, and was in one of my saddest
moods."
The tears and the admission tried Lucy sorely. Just a moment she
struggled with herself for composure, and then gave way. Bursting into
a flood of grief, the knelt down and hid her face on Margaret's bosom.
"Oh Margaret, Margaret, you cannot have as much to try you as I have!"
she cried out in her pain. "My life is one long path of sorrow; my
heart is breaking. Can't you say a word to comfort me?"
Margaret Sumnor, forgetting as by magic all sense of her own trouble,
tried to comfort her. She touched her with her gently caressing hand;
she whispered soothing words, as one whispers to a child in sorrow:
and Lucy's sobs exhausted themselves.
"My dear Lucy, before I attempt to say anything, I must ask you a
question. Can you tell me the nature of your sorrow?"
But Lucy made no reply.
"I see. It is what you cannot speak of."
"It is what I can never speak of to you or to any one, Margaret. But
oh, it is hard to bear."
"It seems so to you, I am sure, whatever it may be. But in the very
darkest trial and sorrow there is comfort to be found."
"Not for me," impetuously answered Lucy. "I think God has forgotten
me."
"Lucy, hush! You know better. The darkest cloud ever o'ershadowing the
earth, covers a bright sky. _We_ see only the cloud, but the
brightness is behind it; in time it will surely show itself and the
cloud will have rolled away. God is above all. Only put your trust in
Him."
Lucy was silent. There are times when the heart is so depressed that
it admits not of comfort; when even sympathy cannot touch it. She bent
her face in her hands and _thought_. Look out where she would, there
seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Her duty and the ills of
life laid upon her seemed to be clashing with each other. Margaret had
preached to her of patiently bearing, of resignation to Heaven's will,
of striving to live on, silently hoping, and returning good for evil.
But there were moments when the opposite course looked very sweet, and
this moment was one. But one thought always held her back when this
retaliation, this revenge appeared most tempting--should she not
repent of it in the future?
"Lucy, my dear," broke in the invalid's voice, always so plaintive, "I
do not pretend to fathom this trouble of yours. It is beyond me.
I can only think it must be some difference between you and your
husband----"
"And if it were?" interrupted Lucy, recklessly.
"If it were! Why then, I should say to you, above all things, _bear_.
You do not know, you cannot possess 'any idea of the bitter life Of a
woman at real issue with her husband. I know a lady--but she does not
live in these parts, and you have never heard of her--who separated
from her husband. She and my own mother were at school together, and
she married young and, it was thought, happily. After a time she grew
jealous of her husband; _she had cause for it_: he was altogether a
gay, careless man, fond of show and pleasure. For some years she bore
a great deal in silence, the world knowing nothing of things being
wrong between them. Papa could tell you more about this time than I: I
was but a little child. How he and my mother, the only friends who
were in her confidence, urged her to go on bearing with what patience
she might, and trusting to God to set wrong things right. For a long
while she listened to them; but there came a time when she allowed
exasperation to get the better of her; and the world was astonished by
hearing that she and her husband had agreed to separate. Ah Lucy! it
was then that her life of real anguish set in. Just at first, for a
few weeks or so, perhaps months, she was borne up by the excitement of
the thing, by the noise it made in the world, by the gratification of
taking revenge on her husband--by I know not what. But as the long
months and the years went on, and all excitement, I may almost say all
interest in life, had faded, she then saw what she had done. She was a
solitary woman condemned to an unloved and solitary existence, and she
repented her act with the whole force of her bitter and lonely heart.
Better, Lucy, that she had exercised patience, and trusted in God;
better for her own happiness."
"And what of her now?" cried Lucy, eagerly.
"Nothing. Nothing but what I tell you. She lives away her solitary
years, not a day of them passing but she wishes to heaven that that
one fatal act of hers could be recalled--the severing herself from her
husband."
"And he, Margaret?"
"He? For aught I know to the contrary, he has been as happy since as
he was before; perhaps, in his complete freedom, more so. She thought,
poor woman, to work out her revenge upon him; instead of that, it was
on herself she worked it out. Men and women are different. A separated
man--say a divorced man if you like--can go abroad; here, there, and
everywhere; and enjoy life without hindrance, and take his pleasure at
will: but a woman, if she be a right-minded woman, must stay in her
home-shell, and eat her heart away."
Lucy Andinnian sighed. It was no doubt all too true.
"I have related this for your benefit, Lucy. My dear little friend, at
all costs, _stay with your husband_."
"I should never think of leaving him for good as that other poor woman
did," sobbed Lucy. "I should be dead of grief in a year."
"True. Whatever your cross may be, my dear--and I cannot doubt that it
is a very sharp and heavy one--take it up as bravely as you can, and
bear it. No cross, no crown."
Some of the school children came in for a lesson in fine
work--stitching and gathering--and Lady Andinnian took her departure.
She had not gained much comfort; she was just as miserable as it was
possible to be.
The church bell was going for the five o'clock evening service. Since
the advent of St. Jerome's, Mr. Sumnor had opened his church again for
daily service, morning and evening. This, however, was a Saint's day.
A feeling came over poor Lucy that she should like to sob out her
heart in prayer to God; and she slipped in. Not going down the aisle
to their own conspicuous pew, but into an old-fashioned, square,
obscure thing near the door, that was filled on Sundays with the poor,
and hidden behind a pillar. There, unseen, unsuspected, she knelt on
the floor, she lifted up her heart on high, sobbing silent sobs of
agony, bitter tears raining from her eyes; asking God to hear and help
her; to help her to bear.
She sat out the service and grew composed enough to join in it. The
pillar hid her from the clergyman's view; nobody noticed that she was
there. So far as she could see, there were not above half-a-dozen
people in the church. In going out, Mr. Sumnor and Mr. Moore's sister,
Aunt Diana, came up to join her.
"I did not know you were in church, Lady Andinnian," said the
clergyman.
"The bell was going when I left your house: I had been to see
Margaret: so I stepped in," she replied. "But what a very small
congregation!"
"People don't care to attend on week-days, and that's the truth," put
in Miss Moore--a middle-aged, stout lady, with her brown hair cut
short and a huge flapping hat on. "And the young folks are all off to
that blessed St. Jerome's. My nieces are there; I know it; and so are
your two daughters, Mr. Sumnor. More shame for them!"
"Ay," sighed Mr. Sumnor, whose hair and face were alike grey, and his
look as sad as his tone. "Their running to St. Jerome's, as they do,
is nothing less, in my eyes, than a scandal. I don't know what is to
be the end of it all."
"End of it all," echoed Aunt Diana, in her strong-minded voice. "Why,
the end will be nothing but a continuation of the folly; or perhaps
worse--Rome, or a convent, or something of that kind. I truly believe,
Mr. Sumnor, that heaven above was never so mocked before, since the
world began, as it is now by this semblance of zeal in boys and girls
for religious services and worship. The true worship of a Christian,
awakened to his state of sin and to the need he has of God's
forgiveness and care, of Christ's love, is to be revered--but that is
totally different from this business at Jerome's. _This_ is hollow at
the core; born of young men's and young girls' vanity. Does all the
flocking thither come of religion, think you? Not it."
"Indeed no," said Mr. Sumnor.
"And therefore I say it is a mockery of true religion, and must be a
sin in the sight of heaven. They run after Mr. Cattacomb himself:
nothing else. I went to St. Jerome's myself this morning; not to say
my prayers; just to watch my nieces and see what was going on. They
had all sorts of ceremonies and foolish folly: three of the girls had
been there beforehand, confessing to the Reverend Guy: and there was
he, performing the service and turning up the tails of his eyes."
"O Miss Diana," involuntarily exclaimed Lucy, hardly knowing whether
to laugh or reprove.
"It is true, Lady Andinnian. Mr. Sumnor here knows it is. Why does
Cattacomb go through his service with all that affectation? Of course
the girls like it: but they are little fools, all of them; they'd
think anything right that was done by him. I fancy the young man has
some good in him; I acknowledge it; but he is eaten up with vanity,
and lives in the incense offered by these girls. Ah well, it's to be
hoped they will all, priest and children, come to their senses
sometime."
She turned into her home as she spoke, after wishing them good-bye.
Lucy stayed to shake hands with the clergyman.
"Miss Diana is given to expressing herself strongly, but she is right
in the main," said Mr. Sumnor. "St. Jerome's is giving me a great deal
of trouble and sorrow just now, in more ways than one. But we have all
something to bear," he added, after a pause. "All. Sometimes I think
that the more painful it is, the more God is caring for us. Fare you
well, my dear young lady. Give my kind regards to Sir Karl."
Lucy walked homewards, a feeling of peace insensibly diffusing itself
over her afflicted soul. The clergyman's words had touched her.
Verses of Holy Writ and thoughts connected with them kept rising in
her mind like messages of consolation. In her misery, she felt how
very weak and weary she was; that there was nothing for her but to
resign herself to Heaven's protecting hand, as a helpless child. The
cry for it broke out involuntarily from her lips.
"Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake for me!"