ACROSS THE CHANNEL.
For the first time in her life Gladys tasted the novelty of foreign
travel. It was quite a lady's party, consisting of Mrs. Fordyce and her
daughters, though Mr. Fordyce had promised to join them somewhere
abroad, especially if they remained too long away; also, there were
vague promises on the part of the Pollokshields cousins to meet them in
Paris, after the main object of their visit to Belgium was accomplished.
They stayed a week in London--not the London Gladys remembered as in a
shadowy dream. The luxurious life of a first-rate hotel had nothing in
it to remind her of the poor, shabby lodging on the Surrey side of the
river, which was her early and only recollection of the great city. At
the end of a week they crossed from Dover to Ostend, and in the warm,
golden light of a lovely autumn evening arrived in quaint, old-world,
sleepy Bruges. Madame Bonnemain herself met them at the station, a
bright-eyed, red-cheeked, happy-faced little woman, on whom the care and
the worry of life appeared to have sat but lightly during all these hard
years. She was visibly affected at meeting with her old school-friend.
'Why, Henrietta, you are not one bit changed; you actually look younger
than ever,' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, when the first agitation, of the
meeting was over. 'Positively, you look as young as you did in Brussels
eight-and-twenty years ago. Just look at me. Yes, these are my
daughters; and this is Gladys Graham, whom I am so anxious to see under
your care.'
The bright, sharp eyes of Madame Bonnemain took in the three girls at
one comprehensive glance, then she shook her head with a half-arch,
half-regretful smile.
'A year ago such a prospect would have seemed to lift me to paradise.
Times have been hard with me, Isabel--never harder than last year; but
it is always the darkest hour before the dawn, as we used to say in
Brussels, when the days seemed interminably awful just before vacation.
Two carriages we must have for so many women. Ah, I am so glad my house
is quite, quite empty.'
Beckoning to the drivers of two rather rickety old carriages, somewhat
resembling in form the old English chaise, she put all the girls in one,
and seated herself beside Mrs. Fordyce in the other.
'Now we can talk. The children will be happier without us. How good, how
very good, it is to see you again, Isabel, and how my heart warms to you
even yet.'
'It was your own fault, Henrietta, that we did not meet oftener. You
have always refused my invitations--sometimes without much ceremony,'
said Mrs. Fordyce rather reproachfully.
'Pride, my dear--Scotch pride; that is what kept me vegetating in this
awful place when my heart was in the Highlands. Tell me about Gairloch
and Helensburgh, and dear old Glasgow. I have never forgotten it,
though I was too proud to parade my poverty in its streets.'
'I will tell you nothing, Henrietta, till I hear what all this means.
Have you really been worse off lately?'
'My dear, for twelve months I have not had a creature in my house,' said
Madame Bonnemain, and her face grew graver and older in its
outline,--'positively not a creature. Bruges has gone down as a place
for English residents, and I don't wonder at it.'
'It is very beautiful, Henrietta,' said Mrs. Fordyce quickly,--'so
quaint; everything about it a picture.'
'People can't live on quaintness, my love, and the narrowness and
tyranny of it is intolerable. I hate it. When I go away from Bruges I
never want to set eyes on it again as long as I live.'
Her eyes shone, her cheeks grew red, her little mouth set itself in
quite a determined curve. Mrs. Fordyce perceived that she had some
serious umbrage against the old Flemish town--a grudge which would never
be wiped away. And yet it _was_ very picturesque, with its grey old
houses, its quaint spires, its flat fields spreading away from the
canal, its rows of stately poplar trees.
'There is nothing really more terrible, Isabel, than the English life in
a foreign town. It is so narrow, so petty--I had almost said so
degraded. I should not have taken your pretty ward into my house here
suppose you had prayed me to do it. Nothing could possibly be worse for
a young girl; she could not escape its influence. No, I should never
have taken her here.'
'Why have you stayed so long, then, Henrietta, among such undesirable
surroundings?'
'Because it is cheap. There is no other reason in this world would keep
anybody in Bruges,' replied Madame promptly.
'But you have not yet told me why you cannot take the position offered
you.'
Then Madame turned her bright eyes, over-running with laughter, to her
friend, and there was a blush, faint and rosy as a girl's, on her cheek.
'Because, my dear, I have accepted another situation--a permanent one. I
am going to marry again.'
'Oh, Henrietta, impossible!'
'Quite true, my dear.'
'Another foreign gentleman, of course?'
'Why of course? No, I am going to rise in the world. I am going to marry
an English colonel, Isabel, and return to my own land. I believe I told
him that was my chief reason for accepting him at first.'
'But not at last?' hazarded Mrs. Fordyce, with a teasing smile.
'Well, no; romance is not dead yet, Isabel. But I shall tell you my
story by and by. Here we are.'
The carriages rattled across the market-place, and drew up before one of
the quaint, grey, green-shuttered houses. The _concierge_ rose lazily
from his chair within the shadow of the court, and showed himself at the
door. The ladies alighted, and were ushered into the small plain abode
where Madame Bonnemain had so long struggled for existence. All were
charmed with it and with her. She made them feel at home at once. Often
Gladys looked at her, and felt her heart drawn towards her. Yes, with
that bright, sympathetic little woman, she could be happy at Bourhill.
But somewhat late that night Mrs. Fordyce came into her room and sat
down by her bed.
'My dear, are you asleep? We have come on a fruitless errand; Madame
Bonnemain cannot come to you. She is going to be married almost
immediately, so what are we to do now?'
'It is a great disappointment,' said Gladys. 'I like her so much. Yes,
what are we to do now?'
'You must just come to us for another winter, Gladys; there is nothing
else for it.'
Gladys lay still a moment, revolving something in her mind.
'Would it be proper for me to have an unmarried lady to live with me,
Mrs. Fordyce?' she asked suddenly.
'Quite, if she were old enough.'
'How old?'
'Middle-aged, at least.'
'Then I know somebody who will do; it is a beautiful arrangement,' cried
Gladys joyfully. 'In the little fen village where we lived, my father
and I, there is a lady, Miss Peck--we lived in her house. She was very
kind to us, and yet so poor; yes, I think she would come.'
'Is she a lady, Gladys?'
'If to be a lady is to have a heart of gold, which never thinks one
unselfish thought, she is one, Mrs. Fordyce,' said Gladys warmly.
'These are the attributes of a lady, of course, Gladys, but there are
other things, my dear, which _must_ be considered. If this Miss Peck is
to sit at your table, help you to guide your household, and be your
constant companion, she must be a very superior person.'
'She was well brought up. I think her father was a surgeon in Boston,'
said Gladys; and these words at once relieved the lawyer's wife.
'If that is so, she may be the very person for whom we are seeking. You
are sure she is still there?'
'Yes,' replied Gladys reluctantly. 'I wrote to her in the summer. Mr.
Fordyce allowed me to send her some money,--not in charity, it was the
payment of a just debt,--and when she replied I knew by her letter that
she was still very poor. I have always meant to have her come to me at
Bourhill, but it will be delightful if she can come altogether.'
'You have a good heart, Gladys; you will not forget those who have
befriended you.'
'I hope not, I pray not; only sometimes I am afraid it is harder for
some reasons to be rich than poor.'
These words slightly surprised Mrs. Fordyce, though she did not ask an
explanation of them.
'Try to sleep, my child, and don't worry your dear brain with plans,'
she said, and, with a motherly kiss, returned to the little _salon_ to
enjoy the rare luxury of recalling old memories she had shared with the
friend of her youth. They sat far on into the night, and before they
parted Mrs. Fordyce was in full possession of the whole story of these
weary and sordid years through which Henrietta Bonnemain had
uncomplainingly borne her burden of poverty and care.
'Then the Colonel turned up,' she concluded, with a curious little
tender smile; 'just when my affairs were at the lowest ebb he came here
to visit an old regimental friend who lives over the way. So we met, and
both being unattached, we drew to each other, and next month we are to
be married.'
'Tell me about him, Henrietta, tell me all about him. I declare I am as
silly and curious as a school-girl--far more curious about this new
lover of yours than I ever was about the old.'
'There is no comparison between the two, Isabel--none at all. Captain
Bonnemain was a good man, and he loved me dearly, but it is nearly
always a mistake to marry a foreigner. It seems a cruel thing to say,
but I never felt to poor Louis as I felt to the noble Englishman who has
done me so great an honour.'
Her eyes were full of tears. Mrs. Fordyce saw that she was deeply moved.
'I do not know what he sees in me. He is so handsome, so noble, and so
rich, he might marry whom he willed. He has no relatives to be angry
over it; and he says, if it pleases me, we can buy a place in Scotland,
on the very shores of the Gairloch. Think of that, Isabel; think of your
exiled Henrietta returning to _that_. God is too good, and I am too
happy.'
She bent her head and wept, and these tears betrayed what her exile had
been to the Scotchwoman's heart. Mrs. Fordyce was scarcely less moved.
It was a pathetic and beautiful romance.
The Scotch travellers spent a happy week in the old Flemish town; and
Gladys, who had the artist's quick eye for beauty of colour and
picturesqueness of detail, carried away with her many little 'bits,' to
be finished and perfected at home.
Madame Bonnemain journeyed with them to Brussels many times, but
declined their invitation to accompany them to Paris. They would all
meet, she said, after a certain happy event was over, in the dear land
over the sea.
George Fordyce alone joined them in Paris, and, somewhat to his aunt's
distress, constituted himself at once as cavalier to Gladys. Often, very
often, the good lady was on the point of speaking plainly to him, but,
remembering her husband's warning, decided to let matters take their
course. She watched Gladys narrowly, however, but could discover nothing
in her demeanour but a frank kindliness, almost such as she might have
displayed towards a brother. George Fordyce, who had really learned to
care for the girl, felt that the close companionship of these days in
Paris had not advanced his cause. He did not know that her mind was so
engrossed by great plans and high ideals for the life of the coming
winter that she had no time to bestow on nearer interests. He was a
prudent youth, and decided to bide his time.
After a month's pleasant loitering abroad, they returned to London.
George took his cousins home, and Mrs. Fordyce went with Gladys into
Lincolnshire.
And they found the fen village as of yore, in no wise changed, except
that a few new graves had been added to the little churchyard. The
little spinster still abode in her dainty cottage, not much changed,
except to look a trifle more aged and careworn. The fastidious eye of
the lawyer's accomplished wife could detect no flaw in the demeanour of
Miss Peck, and she added her entreaties to those of Gladys. In truth,
the poor little careworn woman was not hard to persuade. She had no ties
save those of memory to bind her to the fen country, so she gave her
promise freely, accepting her new home as a gift from God.
'I shall come one more time here only,' Gladys said, 'to take papa away.
Mr. Fordyce promised to arrange it for me. He must sleep with his own
people; and when he is in the old churchyard I shall feel at home in
Bourhill.'
All these things were done before the year was out; and Christmas saw
Gladys Graham settled in her new home, ready and eager to take up the
charge she believed God had entrusted to her--the stewardship of wealth,
to be used for His glory.
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