"Do you think Mr Wesley was wrong?" I said. "`The common people heard
Him gladly.' And I suppose you would not say that our Lord was not a
gentleman."
"Dear Miss Courtenay, forgive me, but what very odd things you say!
And--excuse me--don't you know it is not thought at all good taste to
quote the Bible in polite society?"
"Is the Bible worse off for that?" said I. "Or is it the polite
society? The best society, I suppose, ought to be in Heaven: and I
fancy they do not shut out the Bible there. What think you?"
"Are you very innocent?" she answered, laughing; "or are you only making
believe? You must know, surely, that religion is not talked about
except from the pulpit, and on Sundays."
"But can we all be sure of dying on a Sunday?" I answered. "We shall
want religion then, shall we not?"
"Hush! we don't talk of dying either--it is too shocking!"
"But don't we do it sometimes?" I said.
Miss Newton looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry--
certainly very much disturbed.
"Let us talk of something more agreeable, I beg," said she. "See, Miss
Bracewell is going to sing."
"Oh, she will sing nothing worth listening to," said I.
"I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to," responded
Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.
I don't like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not
make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me
angry.
"Well," said I, "listen how much this is worth."
Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she
thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song:
it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me
of those tunes which go just where you don't expect them to go, and end
nowhere. I hate them. And I don't like the songs much better. Of
course there was a lady wringing her hands--why do people in ballads
wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life--and a
cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of
the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?--and "she sat and
wailed," and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what;
and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the
grammar) "was at rest," and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia
stopped singing.
"How sweet and sad!" said Miss Newton.
"Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish."
She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me.
I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme
surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.
"Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!" cried I. "I should like to hear
hers."
"A Scottish ballad, no doubt," replied Miss Newton.
There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like
that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush
instinctively. Each word was clear.
This was Annas's song.
"She said,--`We parted for a while,
But we shall meet again ere long;
I work in lowly, lonely room,
And he amid the foreign throng:
But here I willingly abide,--
Here, where I see the other side.
"`Look to those hills which reach away
Beyond the sea that rolls between;
Here from my casement, day by day,
Their happy summits can be seen:
Happy, although they us divide,--
I know he sees the other side.
"`The days go on to make the year--
A year we must be parted yet--
I sing amid my crosses light,
For on those hills mine eyes are set:
You say, those hills our eyes divide?
Ay, but he sees the other side!
"`So these dividing hills become
Our point of meeting, every eve;
Up to the hills we look and pray
And love--our work so soon we leave;
And then no more shall aught divide--
We dwell upon the other side.'"
"Pretty!" said Miss Newton, in the tone which people use when they do
not think a thing pretty, but fancy that you expect them to say so: "but
not so charming as Miss Bracewell's song."
"Wait," said I; "she has not finished yet."
The harp was speaking now--in a sad low voice, rising gradually to a
note of triumph. Then it sank low again, and Annas's voice continued
the song.
"She said,--`We parted for a while,
But we shall meet again ere long;
I dwell in lonely, lowly room,
And he hath joined the heavenly throng:
Yet here I willingly abide,
For yet I see the Other Side.
"`I look unto the hills of God
Beyond the life that rolls between;
Here from my work by faith each day
Their blessed summits can be seen;
Blessed, although they us divide,--
I know he sees the Other Side.
"`The days go on, the days go on,--
Through earthly life we meet not yet;
I sing amid my crosses light,
For on those hills mine eyes are set:
'Tis true, those hills our eyes divide--
Ay, but he sees the Other Side!
"`So the eternal hills become
Our point of meeting, every eve;
Up to the hills I look and pray
And love--soon all my work I leave:
And then no more shall aught divide--
We dwell upon the Other Side.'"
I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp.
The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.
"Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough's drawing-room!" she
cried. "She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid
Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess."
"But Grandmamma would never--" I said, hesitatingly. "Annas Keith's
connections are--"
"I advise you not to be too sure what she could never," answered Miss
Newton, with a little capable nod. "Mrs Desborough would scarce be
civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her
drawing-room on a reception evening."
"But it was charming!" I said.
Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. "The same things do not charm
everybody," said she. "It seemed to me no better than that Methodist
doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better."
When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my
shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.
"Cary, we must say `good-bye,' I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs
Desborough's face, when my song was ended, had `good-bye' in it."
"O Annas!" said I. "Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere
song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of
connections."
"If my song had only had a few wicked words in it," replied Annas, with
that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, "I dare
say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had
been poor people,--or better, Whigs,--or better still, disreputable
rakes--she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly
connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters.
No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman
forgive that one crime of crimes--Calvinism. Anything else! Don't you
see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she
is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may
be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside.
She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am
guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That
I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have
happened just now; but I suppose it was to be."
"Are you going to tell her so?" I asked, wondering what Annas meant.
"I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over," said Annas, with a
peculiar smile.
"But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty."
"I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the
least," replied Annas. "She asked me to sing."
When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something
was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt
Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between
the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which
he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in
silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.
"Miss Keith!"
"Madam!"
"Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of
the year?"
"So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our
journey thither."
Grandmamma took another pinch.
"I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him
how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your
performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your
choice of a song is unexceptionable."
"I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make
to Sir James."
There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over.
When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and
Flora was too much.
"O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?" I cried.
She laughed. "It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his
head down!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander
about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but
Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which
date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my
Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have
looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do.
I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter
for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I
can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the
Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have
not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs
Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom
seem to turn out pleasant people.
Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt
Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening,
for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a
creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I
knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or
three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they
will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings,
with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.
I wish I were making jumballs in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could
have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared
much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would
give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in
this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?
In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon
in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I
came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber.
Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the
side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles--who for a wonder was at home--
and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The
Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a
middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a
few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady
Parmenter came in just after I got there.
What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl.
Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter
almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or
unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each
other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the
thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have
a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept
away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else
is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit.
Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made
up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I
think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while
before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in.
I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at
once a voice called me back to something else.
"Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you."
Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming
when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that
whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something
sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk
away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel.
If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to
speak to me as if nothing had happened!--how could the woman be so
brazen as that?
I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted
with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny
eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people
were not wicked.
"For what purpose, Madam?" I replied.
"Dear child, you are angry with me," she said, and the soft, warm,
gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. "It is so
natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very
sorry, for I loved you so much."
O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.
"Did you?" I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears.
"I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the
same thing."
The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out
again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.
"And you won't forgive me?" she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can
govern that voice, to be sure!
"Forgive you? Yes," I answered. "But trust you? No. I think never
again, my Lady Parmenter."
"You will be sorry some day that you did not."
Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might
have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where
she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.
"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay."
"You shall have my past thoughts, if you please," said I, trying to
speak lightly. "I would rather not sell my present ones at the price."
He smiled, and drew out a new penny. "Then let me make the less
valuable purchase."
Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.
"Then tell me, Mr Raymond," said I, "do things ever happen exactly as
one wishes them to do?"
"Once in a thousand times, perhaps," said he. "I should imagine,
though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter
pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our
rest."
"Why?" I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.
"Why not?" answered he, pithily. "Is the servant so much greater than
his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast
your mind's eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many
occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to
His liking? Can you name one?"
I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or
when He spent a night in prayer to God.
"I give you those nights of prayer," said Mr Raymond. "But I think you
must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him
pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often
mixed in it!--`Looking up to Heaven, He sighed' ere He did one; He wept,
just before performing another; He cried, `How long shall I be with you,
and suffer you!' ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the
miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed,
I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that
they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He `took our
infirmities, and bare our sicknesses'; He knew when `virtue had gone out
of Him.' That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of
it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His
wonderful works were wrought at personal expense--that His human body
suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural
consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out
the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not
decide, it is well for men to be cautious."
"Mr Raymond," I exclaimed, "how can you be a Whig?"
"Pardon me, but what is the connection?" asked he, looking both
astonished and diverted.
"Don't you see it? You are much too good for one."
Mr Raymond laughed. "Thank you; I fear I did not detect the
compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be
a Tory?"
"Why, I was born so," said I.
"And so was I a Whig," replied he.
"Excuse me!" came laughingly from my other hand, in Miss Newton's voice.
"The waters are not quite so smooth as they were, and I thought I had
better be at hand to pour a little oil if necessary. Mr Raymond, I am
afraid you are getting worldly. Is that not the proper word?"
"It is the proper word for an improper thing," said Mr Raymond. "On
what evidence do you rest your accusation, Miss Theresa?"
"On the fact that you have twice in one week made your appearance in
Mrs Desborough's rooms, which are the very pink of worldliness."
"Have I come without reason?"
"You have not given it me," said the young lady, laughing. "You cannot
always come to tell one of the guests that his (or her) relations have
been taken prisoner."
I looked up so suddenly that Mr Raymond answered my eyes before he
replied to Miss Newton's words.
"No, Miss Courtenay, I did not come with ill news. I suppose a man may
have two reasons at different times for the same action?"
"Where is our handsome friend of the dreadful name?" asked Miss Newton.
"Mr Hebblethwaite? He told me he could not be here this evening."
"That man will have to change his name before anybody will marry him,"
said Miss Newton.
"Then, if he takes my advice, he will continue in single blessedness,"
was Mr Raymond's answer.
"Now, why?"
"Do you not think it would be preferable to marrying a woman whose
regard for you was limited by the alphabet?"
"Mr Raymond, you and Miss Courtenay do say such odd things! Is that
because you are religious people?"
Oh, what a strange feeling came over me when Miss Newton said that!
What made her count me a "religious person"? Am I one? I should not
have dared to say it. I should like to be so; I am afraid to go
further. To reckon myself one would be to sign my name as a queen, and
I am not sufficiently sure of my royal blood to do it.
But what had I ever said to Miss Newton that she should entertain such
an idea? Mr Raymond glanced at me with a brotherly sort of smile,
which I wished from my heart that I deserved, (for all he is a Whig!)
and was afraid I did not. Then he said,--
"Religious people, I believe, are often very odd things in the eyes of
irreligious people. Do you count yourself among the latter class, Miss
Theresa?"
"Oh, I don't make any profession," said she. "I have but one life, and
I want to enjoy it."
"That is exactly my position," said Mr Raymond, smiling.
"Now, what do you mean?" demanded she. "Don't the Methodists label
everything `wicked' that one wants to do?"
"`One' sometimes means another," replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look
in his eyes. "They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I
cannot answer for other people."
"I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should," said
Miss Newton.
"Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?--or for you?"
"Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is
much better to be free."
The look in Mr Raymond's eyes seemed to me very like Divine compassion.
"Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose
that `making no profession' will excuse you to the Lord? Does your
Bible read, `He that maketh no profession shall be saved'? And also--
Are you free?"
"Am I free? Why, of course I am!" she cried. "I can do what I like,
without asking leave of priest or minister."
"God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can
do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth
shall come between Him and me."
"That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a
young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against
everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?--no, not
for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her
exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won't dance, because Mr
Gardiner disapproves of it; she can't sing a song, of the most innocent
sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won't do this, and
she can't go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what
do you call that?"
"Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have
the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to
human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan's two grand
masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto
himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: `Ye shall be as
gods'--`Yea, hath God said?'--and lastly, `There is no God.' To the
weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery,
offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life
with authority--offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its
worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every
trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for
you. Now just notice how far God's religion is from both. It does not
say, `Ye shall be as gods;' but, `This Man receiveth sinners': not,
`Hath God said?' but, `Thus saith the Lord.' Turn to the other side,
and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the
God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath
suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not
resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is
not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is
interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had
by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him."
"We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!" said Miss Newton, shrugging
her shoulders. "If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be
sending Caesar to show you the clock."
"I have not exceeded it yet, I think," said Mr Raymond.
"Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says
she has been--is `converted' the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms.
And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit
sin. I wish you would talk to her."
"I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner."
"Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly
understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things
which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,--well, they
don't count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and
therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that
your creed, Mr Raymond?"
"Do you know the true name of that creed, Miss Theresa?"
"Dear, no! I understand nothing about it."
Mr Raymond's voice was very solemn: "`So hast thou also them that hold
the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, _which thing I hate_.' `Turning the
grace of our God into lasciviousness.' Antinomianism is the name of it.
It has existed in the Church of God from a date, you see, earlier than
the close of the inspired canon. Essentially the same thing survives in
the Popish Church, under the name of mortal and venial sins; and it
creeps sooner or later into every denomination, in its robes of an angel
of light. But it belongs to the darkness. Sin! Do we know the meaning
of that awful word? I believe none but God knows rightly what sin is.
But he who does not know something of what sin is can have very poor
ideas of the Christ who saves from sin. He does not save men in sin,
but from sin: not only from penalty,--from sin. Christ is not dead, but
alive. And sin is not a painted plaything, but a deadly poison. God
forgive them who speak lightly of it!"
I do not know what Miss Newton said to this, for at that minute I caught
sight of Hatty in a corner, alone, and seized my opportunity at once.
Threading my way with some difficulty among bewigged and belaced
gentlemen, and ladies with long trains and fluttering fans, I reached my
sister, and sat down by her.
"Hatty," said I, "I hardly ever get a word with you. How long do you
stay with the Crosslands?"
"I do not know, Cary," she answered, looking down, and playing with her
fan.
"Do you know that you look very far from well?"
"There are mirrors in Charles Street," she replied, with a slight curl
of her lip.
"Hatty, are those people kind to you?" I said, thinking I had better,
like Annas, take the bull by the horns.
"I suppose so. They mean to be. Let it alone, Cary; you are not old
enough to interfere--hardly to understand."
"I am only eighteen months younger than you," said I. "I do not wish to
interfere, Hatty; but I do want to understand. Surely your own sister
may be concerned if she see you looking ill and unhappy."
"Do I look so, Cary?"