CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED
No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their
relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most
families, however poor and even _bourgeois_, had some memories to
dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance.
At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read
the biographies of writers or artists without finding references,
however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance.
To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have
been something, some frail link with gentility.
Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship,
Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral
living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country
granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull,
but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in
the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old
admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At
all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an
existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at
least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married
as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial
theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of
a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to
find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once
more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a
Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate!
Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their
younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of
enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for
Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his
fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to
them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when
Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young
people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much
money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a
writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail,
when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had
not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as
his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a
thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a
thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that.
Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home
as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as
much light from a larger world into their lives as might be.
On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the
reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here
they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to
tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the
appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet
to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant,
and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and
Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In
books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a
more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and
Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or
understanding for such tremendous nourishment.
One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as
they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and
Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with
"macramé" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in
the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this
evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of
housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging
flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of
these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised
grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and
manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the
decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her
friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that
she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was
equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk
curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the
mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and
swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she
to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared
to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress;
and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty
or fashionable, it was due to Esther.
Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her
share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat;
when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little
aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for
him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too,
the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world
evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away
from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of
estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary
sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's
departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as,
looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,--
"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable
book you are reading, Esther."
"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know."
"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas.
She can join you again soon."
So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her
father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting
in the lamplight.
"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and
I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining
the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for
yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some
profession of your faith as a Christian before the world."
The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English
Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the
curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed
for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made
the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the
condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached
is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which
religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of
ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the
Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by
an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an
internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an
idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or
herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and
the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the
grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the
manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the
Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of
few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly
after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The
"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows
the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not,
therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to
authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete
immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the
dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in
Christ Jesus.
So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and
the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of
belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night
for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal
appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther
had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always
dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them,
though without naming them, that he said,--
"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist
minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to
pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as
belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous,
though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like
that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join
the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for,
you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come
forward as a Christian."
"No, father," said Dot, at last.
"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter."
"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and
sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I
haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you
don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out."
"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a
solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot
do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any
difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to
help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run
away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear
that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear."
And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the
interrupted "Jane Austen."
"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she
entered the room.
"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!"