MRS. BATESON'S TEA-PARTY
The best of piggie when he dies
Is not "interred with his bones,"
But, in the form of porcine pies,
Blesses a world that heard his cries,
Yet heeded not those dying groans.
"Cousin Maria, please may I go to tea at Mrs. Bateson's with
Christopher?" said Elisabeth one day, opening the library door a little,
and endeavouring to squeeze her small person through as narrow an
aperture as possible, as is the custom with children. She never called
her playmate "Chris" in speaking to Miss Farringdon; for this latter
regarded it as actually sinful to address people by any abbreviation of
their baptismal names, just as she considered it positively immoral to
partake of any nourishment between meals. "Mrs. Bateson has killed her
pig, and there will be pork-pies for tea."
Miss Farringdon looked over her spectacles at the restless little
figure. "Yes, my child; I see no reason why you should not. Kezia
Bateson is a God-fearing woman, and her husband has worked at the
Osierfield for forty years. I have the greatest respect for Caleb
Bateson; he is a worthy man and a good Methodist, as his father was
before him."
"He is a very ignorant man: he says Penny-lope."
"Says what, Elisabeth?"
"Penny-lope. I was showing him a book the other day about Penelope--the
woman with the web, you know--and he called her Penny-lope. I didn't
like to correct him, but I said Penelope afterward as often and as loud
as I could."
"That was very ill-bred of you. Come here, Elisabeth."
The child came and stood by the old lady's chair, and began playing with
a bunch of seals that were suspended by a gold chain from Miss
Farringdon's waist. It was one of Elisabeth's little tricks that her
fingers were never idle when she was talking.
"What have I taught you are the two chief ends at which every woman
should aim, my child?"
"To be first a Christian and then a gentlewoman," quoted Elisabeth
glibly.
"And how does a true gentlewoman show her good breeding?"
"By never doing or saying anything that could make any one else feel
uncomfortable," Elisabeth quoted again.
"Then do you think that to display your own knowledge by showing up
another person's ignorance would make that person feel comfortable,
Elisabeth?"
"No, Cousin Maria."
"Knowledge is not good breeding, remember; it is a far less important
matter. A true gentlewoman may be ignorant; but a true gentlewoman will
never be inconsiderate."
Elisabeth hung her head. "I see."
"If you keep your thoughts fixed upon the people to whom you are
talking, and never upon yourself, you will always have good manners, my
child. Endeavour to interest and not to impress them."
"You mean I must talk about their things and not about mine?"
"More than that. Make the most of any common ground between yourself and
them; make the least of any difference between yourself and them; and,
above all, keep strenuously out of sight any real or fancied superiority
you may possess over them. I always think that Saint Paul's saying, 'To
the weak became I as weak,' was the perfection of good manners."
"I don't think I quite understand."
Miss Farringdon spoke in parables. "Then listen to this story. There was
once a common soldier who raised himself from the ranks and earned a
commission. He was naturally very nervous the first night he dined at
the officers' mess, as he had never dined with gentlemen before, and he
was afraid of making some mistake. It happened that the wine was served
while the soup was yet on the table, and with the wine the ice. The poor
man did not know what the ice was for, so took a lump and put it in his
soup."
Elisabeth laughed.
"The younger officers began to giggle, as you are doing," Miss
Farringdon continued; "but the colonel, to whom the ice was handed next,
took a lump and put it in his soup also; and then the young officers did
not want to laugh any more. The colonel was a perfect gentleman."
"It seems to me," said Elisabeth thoughtfully, "that you've got to be
good before you can be polite."
"Politeness appears to be what goodness really is," replied Miss
Farringdon, "and is an attitude rather than an action. Fine breeding is
not the mere learning of any code of manners, any more than gracefulness
is the mere learning of any kind of physical exercise. The gentleman
apparently, as the Christian really, looks not on his own things, but on
the things of others; and the selfish person is always both unchristian
and ill-bred."
Elisabeth gazed wistfully up into Miss Farringdon's face. "I should like
to be a real gentlewoman, Cousin Maria; do you think I ever shall be?"
"I think it quite possible, if you bear all these maxims in mind, and if
you carry yourself properly and never stoop. I can not approve of the
careless manners of the young people of to-day, who loll upon
easy-chairs in the presence of their elders, and who slouch into a room
with constrained familiarity and awkward ease," replied Miss Farringdon,
who had never sat in an easy-chair in her life, and whose back was still
as straight as an arrow.
So in the afternoon of that day Christopher and Elisabeth attended Mrs.
Bateson's tea-party.
The Batesons lived in a clean little cottage on the west side of High
Street, and enjoyed a large garden to the rearward. It was a singular
fact that whereas all their windows looked upon nothing more interesting
than the smokier side of the bleak and narrow street, their pigsties
commanded a view such as can rarely be surpassed for beauty and extent
in England. But Mrs. Bateson called her front view "lively" and her back
view "dull," and congratulated herself daily upon the aspect and the
prospect of her dwelling-place. The good lady's ideas as to what
constitutes beauty in furniture were by no means behind her opinions as
to what is effective in scenery. Her kitchen was paved with bright red
tiles, which made one feel as if one were walking across a coral reef,
and was flanked on one side with a black oak dresser of unnumbered
years, covered with a brave array of blue-and-white pottery. An artist
would have revelled in this kitchen, with its delicious effects in red
and blue; but Mrs. Bateson accounted it as nothing. Her pride was
centred in her parlour and its mural decorations, which consisted
principally of a large and varied assortment of funeral-cards, neatly
framed and glazed. In addition to these there was a collection of family
portraits in daguerreotype, including an interesting representation of
Mrs. Bateson's parents sitting side by side in two straight-backed
chairs, with their whole family twining round them--a sort of Swiss
Family Laocoon; and a picture of Mr. Bateson--in the attitude of Juliet
and the attire of a local preacher--leaning over a balcony, which was
overgrown with a semi-tropical luxuriance of artificial ivy, and which
was obviously too frail to support him. But the masterpiece in Mrs.
Bateson's art-gallery was a soul-stirring illustration of the death of
the revered John Wesley. This picture was divided into two compartments:
the first represented the room at Wesley's house in City Road, with the
assembled survivors of the great man's family weeping round his bed; and
the second depicted the departing saint flying across Bunhill Fields
burying-ground in his wig and gown and bands, supported on either side
by a stalwart angel.
As Elisabeth had surmised, the entertainment on this occasion was
pork-pie; and Mrs. Hankey, a near neighbour, had also been bidden to
share the feast. So the tea-party was a party of four, the respective
husbands of the two ladies not yet having returned from their duties at
the Osierfield.
"I hope that you'll all make yourselves welcome," said the hostess,
after they had sat down at the festive board. "Master Christopher, my
dear, will you kindly ask a blessing?"
Christopher asked a blessing as kindly as he could, and Mrs. Bateson
continued:
"Well, to be sure, it is a pleasure to see you looking so tall and
strong, Master Christopher, after all your schooling. I'm not in favour
of much schooling myself, as I think it hinders young folks from
growing, and puts them off their vittles; but you give the contradiction
to that notion--doesn't he, Mrs. Hankey?"
Mrs. Hankey shook her head. It was her rule in life never to look on the
bright side of things; she considered that to do so was what she called
"tempting Providence." Her theory appeared to be that as long as
Providence saw you were miserable, that Power was comfortable about you
and let you alone; but if Providence discovered you could bear more
sorrow than you were then bearing, you were at once supplied with that
little more. Naturally, therefore, her object was to convince Providence
that her cup of misery was full. But Mrs. Hankey had her innocent
enjoyments, in spite of the sternness of her creed. If she took light
things seriously, she took serious things lightly; so she was not
without her compensations. For instance, a Sunday evening's discourse on
future punishment and the like, with illustrations, was an unfailing
source of pure and healthful pleasure to her; while a funeral
sermon--when the chapel was hung with black, and the bereaved family
sat in state in their new mourning, and the choir sang Vital Spark as an
anthem--filled her soul with joy. So when Mrs. Bateson commented with
such unseemly cheerfulness upon Christopher's encouraging appearance, it
was but consistent of Mrs. Hankey to shake her head.
"You can never tell," she replied--"never; often them that looks the
best feels the worst; and many's the time I've seen folks look the very
picture of health just before they was took with a mortal illness."
"Ay, that's so," agreed the hostess; "but I think Master Christopher's
looks are the right sort; such a nice colour as he's got, too!"
"That comes from him being so fair complexioned--it's no sign of
health," persisted Mrs. Hankey; "in fact, I mistrust those fair
complexions, especially in lads of his age. Why, he ought to be as brown
as a berry, instead of pink and white like a girl."
"It would look hideous to have a brown face with such yellow hair as
mine," said Christopher, who naturally resented being compared to a
girl.
"Master Christopher, don't call anything that the Lord has made hideous.
We must all be as He has formed us, however that may be," replied Mrs.
Hankey reprovingly; "and it is not our place to pass remarks upon what
He has done for the best."
"But the Lord didn't make him with a brown face and yellow hair; that's
just the point," interrupted Elisabeth, who regarded the bullying of
Christopher as her own prerogative, and allowed no one else to indulge
in that sport unpunished.
"No, my love; that's true enough," Mrs. Bateson said soothingly: "a
truer word than that never was spoken. But I wish you could borrow some
of Master Christopher's roses--I do, indeed. For my part, I like to see
little girls with a bit of colour in their cheeks; it looks more
cheerful-like, as you might say; and looks go a long way with some
folks, though a meek and quiet spirit is better, taking it all round."
"Now Miss Elisabeth does look delicate, and no mistake," assented Mrs.
Hankey; "she grows too fast for her strength, I'll be bound; and her
poor mother died young, you know, so it is in the family."
Christopher looked at Elisabeth with the quick sympathy of a sensitive
nature. He thought it would frighten her to hear Mrs. Hankey talk in
that way, and he felt that he hated Mrs. Hankey for frightening
Elisabeth.
But Elisabeth was made after a different pattern, and was not in the
least upset by Mrs. Hankey's gloomy forebodings. She was essentially
dramatic; and, unconsciously, her first object was to attract notice.
She would have preferred to do this by means of unsurpassed beauty or
unequalled talent; but, failing these aids to distinction, an early
death-bed was an advertisement not to be despised. In her mind's eye she
saw a touching account of her short life in Early Days, winding up with
a heart-rending description of its premature close; and her mind's eye
gloated over the sight.
The hostess gazed at her critically. "She is pale, Mrs. Hankey, there's
no doubt of that; but pale folks are often the healthiest, though they
mayn't be the handsomest. And she is wiry, is Miss Elisabeth, though she
may be thin. But is your tea to your taste, or will you take a little
more cream in it?"
"It is quite right, thank you, Mrs. Bateson; and the pork-pie is just
beautiful. What a light hand for pastry you always have! I'm sure I've
said over and over again that I don't know your equal either for making
pastry or for engaging in prayer."
Mrs. Bateson, as was natural, looked pleased. "I doubt if I ever made a
better batch of pies than this. When they were all ready for baking,
Bateson says to me, 'Kezia,' he says, 'them pies is a regular
picture--all so smooth and even-like, you can't tell which from
t'other.' 'Bateson,' said I, 'I've done my best with them; and if only
the Lord will be with them in the oven, they'll be the best batch of
pies this side Jordan.'"
"And so they are," said Elisabeth; "they are perfectly lovely."
"I'm glad you fancy them, my love; take some more, deary, it'll do you
good."
"No, thanks; I'd rather have a wig now." And Elisabeth helped herself to
one of the three-cornered cakes, called "wigs," which are peculiar to
Mershire.
"You always are fortunate in your pigs," Mrs. Hankey remarked; "such
fine hams and such beautiful roaded bacon I never see anywhere equal to
yours. It'll be a sad day for you, Mrs. Bateson, when swine fever comes
into the district. I know no one as'll feel it more."
"Now you must tell us all about your niece's wedding, Mrs. Hankey," Mrs.
Bateson said--"her that was married last week. My word alive, but your
sister is wonderful fortunate in settling her daughters! That's what I
call a well-brought-up family, and no mistake. Five daughters, and each
one found peace and a pious husband before she was five-and-twenty."
"The one before last married a Churchman," said Mrs. Hankey
apologetically, as if the union thus referred to were somewhat
morganatic in its character, and therefore no subject for pride or
congratulation.
"Well, to be sure! Still, he may make her a good husband."
"He may or he may not; you never can tell. It seems to me that husbands
are like new boots--you can't tell where they're going to pinch you till
it's too late to change 'em. And as for creaking, why, the boots that
are quietest in the shop are just the ones that fairly disgrace you when
you come into chapel late on a Sunday morning, and think to slip in
quietly during the first prayer; and it is pretty much the same with
husbands--those that are the meekest in the wooing are the most
masterful to live with."
"What was the name of the Churchman your niece married?" asked Mrs.
Bateson. "I forget."
"Wilkins--Tom Wilkins. He isn't a bad fellow in some respects--he is
steady and sober, and never keeps back a farthing of his wages for
himself; but his views are something dreadful. I can not stand them at
any price, and so I'm forever telling his wife."
"Dear me! That's sad news, Mrs. Hankey."
"Would you believe it, he don't hold with the good old Methodist habit
of telling out loud what the Lord has done for your soul? He says
religion should be acted up to and not talked about; but, for my part, I
can't abide such closeness."
"Nor I," agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly; "I don't approve of treating the
Lord like a poor relation, as some folks seem to do. They'll go to His
house and they'll give Him their money; but they're fairly ashamed of
mentioning His Name in decent company."
"Just so; and that's Tom Wilkins to the life. He's a good husband and a
regular church-goer; but as for the word that edifieth, you might as
well look for it from a naked savage as from him. Many a time have I
said to his wife, 'Tom may be a kind husband in the time of prosperity,
as I make no doubt he is--there's plenty of that sort in the world; but
you wait till the days of adversity come, and I doubt that then you'll
be wishing you'd not been in such a hurry to get married, but had waited
till you had got a good Methodist!' And so she will, I'll be bound; and
the sooner she knows it the better."
Mrs. Bateson sighed at the gloomy prospect opening out before young Mrs.
Wilkins; then she asked:
"How did the last daughter's wedding go off? She married a Methodist,
surely?"
"She did, Mrs. Bateson; and a better match no mother could wish for her
daughter, not even a duchess born; he's a chapel-steward and a
master-painter, and has six men under him. There he is, driving to work
and carrying his own ladders in his own cart, like a lord, as you may
say, by day; and there he is on a Thursday evening, letting and
reletting the pews and sittings after service, like a real gentleman. As
I said to my sister, I only hope he may be spared to make Susan a good
husband; but when a man is a chapel-steward at thirty-four, and drives
his own cart, you begin to think that he is too good for this world, and
that he is almost ripe for a better one."
"You do indeed; there's no denying that."
"But the wedding was beautiful: I never saw its equal--never; and as for
the prayer that the minister offered up at the end of the service, I
only wish you'd been there to hear it, Mrs. Bateson, it was so
interesting and instructive. Such a lot of information in it about love
and marriage and the like as I'd never heard before; and when he
referred to the bridegroom's first wife, and drew a picture of how she'd
be waiting to welcome them both, when the time came, on the further
shore--upon my word, there wasn't a dry eye in the chapel!" And Mrs.
Hankey wiped hers at the mere remembrance of the scene.
"But what did Susan say?" asked Elisabeth, with great interest. "I
expect she didn't want another wife to welcome them on the further
shore."
"Oh! Miss Elisabeth, what a naughty, selfish little girl you are!"
exclaimed Susan's aunt, much shocked. "What would Miss Farringdon think
if she heard you? Why, you don't suppose, surely, that when folks get to
heaven they'll be so greedy and grasping that they'll want to keep
everything to themselves, do you? My niece is a good girl and a member
of society, and she was as pleased as anybody at the minister's
beautiful prayer."
Elisabeth was silent, but unconvinced.
"How is your sister herself?" inquired Mrs. Bateson. "I expect she's a
bit upset now that the fuss is all over, and she hasn't a daughter left
to bless herself with."
Mrs. Hankey sighed cheerfully. "Well, she did seem rather low-spirited
when all the mess was cleared up, and Susan had gone off to her own
home; but I says to her, 'Never mind, Sarah, and don't you worry
yourself; now that the weddings are over, the funerals will soon begin.'
You see, you must cheer folks up a bit, Mrs. Bateson, when they're
feeling out of sorts."
"You must indeed," agreed the lady of the house, feeling that her guest
had hit upon a happy vein of consolation; "it is dull without daughters
when you've once got accustomed to 'em, daughters being a sight more
comfortable and convenient than sons, to my mind."
"Well, you see, daughters you can teach to know theirselves, and sons;
you can't. Though even daughters can never rest till they've got
married, more's the pity. If they knowed as much about men as I do,
they'd be thanking the Lord that He'd created them single, instead of
forever fidgeting to change the state to which they were born."
"Well, I holds with folks getting married," argued Mrs. Bateson; "it
gives 'em something to think about between Sunday's sermon and
Thursday's baking; and if folks have nothing to think about, they think
about mischief."
"That's true, especially if they happen to be men."
"Why do men think about mischief more than women do?" asked Elisabeth,
who always felt hankerings after the why and wherefore of things.
"Because, my dear, the Lord made 'em so, and it is not for us to
complain," replied Mrs. Hankey, in a tone which implied that, had the
rôle of Creator been allotted to her, the idiosyncrasies of the male sex
would have been much less marked than they are at present. "They've no
sense, men haven't; that's what is the matter with them."
"You never spoke a truer word, Mrs. Hankey," agreed her hostess; "the
very best of them don't properly know the difference between their souls
and their stomachs; and they fancy that they are a-wrestling with their
doubts, when really it is their dinners that are a-wrestling with them.
Now take Bateson hisself, and a kinder husband or a better Methodist
never drew breath; yet so sure as he touches a bit of pork, he begins to
worn hisself about the doctrine of Election till there's no living with
him."
"That's a man all over, to the very life," said Mrs. Hankey
sympathetically; "and he never has the sense to see what's wrong with
him, I'll be bound."
"Not he--he wouldn't be a man if he had. And then he'll sit in the front
parlour and engage in prayer for hours at a time, till I says to him,
'Bateson,' says I, 'I'd be ashamed to go troubling the Lord with a
prayer when a pinch o' carbonate o' soda would set things straight
again.'"
"And quite right, Mrs. Bateson; it's often a wonder to me that the Lord
has patience with men, seeing that their own wives haven't."
"And to me, too. Now Bateson has been going on like this for thirty
years or more; yet if there's roast pork on the table, and I say a word
to put him off it, he's that hurt as never was. Why, I'm only too glad
to see him enjoying his food if no harm comes of it; but it's dreary
work seeing your husband in the Slough of Despond, especially when it's
your business to drag him out again, and most especially when you
particularly warned him against going in."
Mrs. Hankey groaned. "The Bible says true when it tells us that men are
born to give trouble as the sparks fly upward; and it is a funny
Providence, to my mind, as ordains for women to be so bothered with 'em.
At my niece's wedding, as we were just speaking about, 'Susan,' I says,
'I wish you happiness; and I only hope you won't live to regret your
marriage as I have done mine.' For my part, I can't see what girls want
with husbands at all; they are far better without them."
"Not they, Mrs. Hankey," replied Mrs. Bateson warmly; "any sort of a
husband is better than none, to my mind. Life is made up of naughts and
crosses; and the folks that get the crosses are better off than those
that get the naughts, though that husbands are crosses I can't pretend
to deny; but I haven't patience with single women, I haven't--they have
nothing to occupy their minds, and so they get to talking about their
health and such-like fal-lals."
"Saint Paul didn't hold with you," said Mrs. Hankey, with reproach in
her tone; "he thought that the unmarried women minded the things of the
Lord better than the married ones."
"Saint Paul didn't know much about the subject, and how could he be
expected to, being only a bachelor himself, poor soul? But if he'd had a
wife, she'd soon have told him what the unmarried women were thinking
about; and it wouldn't have been about the Lord, I'll be bound. Now take
Jemima Stubbs; does she mind the things of the Lord more than you and I
do, Mrs. Hankey, I should like to know?"
"I can't say; it is not for us to judge."
"Not she! Why, she's always worrying about that poor little brother of
hers, what's lame. I often wish that the Lord would think on him and
take him, for he's a sore burden on Jemima, he is. If you're a woman you
are bound to work for some man or another, and to see to his food and to
bear with his tantrums; and, for my part, I'd rather do it for a husband
than for a father or a brother. There's more credit in it, as you might
say."
"There's something in that, maybe."
"And after all, in spite of the botheration he gives, there's something
very cheerful in having a man about the house. They keep you alive, do
men. The last time I saw Jemima Stubbs she was as low as low could be.
'Jemima,' I says, 'you are out of spirits.' 'Mrs. Bateson,' says she,
'I am that. I wish I was either in love or in the cemetery, and I don't
much mind which.'"
"Did she cry?" asked Elisabeth, who was always absorbingly interested in
any one who was in trouble. With her, to pity was to love; and it was
difficult for her ever to love where she did not pity. Christopher did
not understand this, and was careful not to appeal to Elisabeth's
sympathy for fear of depressing her. Herein, both as boy and man, he
made a great mistake. It was not as easy to depress Elisabeth as it was
to depress him; and, moreover, it was sometimes good for her to be
depressed. But he did unto her as he would she should do unto him; and,
when all is said and done, it is difficult to find a more satisfactory
rule of conduct than this.
"Cry, lovey?" said Mrs. Bateson; "I should just think she did--fit to
break her heart."
Thereupon Jemima Stubbs became a heroine of romance in Elisabeth's eyes,
and a new interest in her life. "I shall go and see her to-morrow," she
said, "and take her something nice for her little brother. What do you
think he would like, Mrs. Bateson?"
"Bless the child, she is one of the Good Shepherd's own lambs!"
exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, with tears in her eyes.
Mrs. Hankey sighed. "It is the sweetest flowers that are the readiest
for transplanting to the Better Land," she said; and once again
Christopher hated her.
But Elisabeth was engrossed in the matter in hand. "What would he like?"
she persisted--"a new toy, or a book, or jam and cake?"
"I should think a book, lovey; he's fair set on books, is Johnnie
Stubbs; and if you'd read a bit to him yourself, it would be a fine
treat for the lad."
Elisabeth's eyes danced with joy. "I'll go the first thing to-morrow
morning, and read him my favourite chapter out of The Fairchild Family;
and then I'll teach him some nice games to play all by himself."
"That's a dear young lady!" exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, in an ecstasy of
admiration.
"Do you think Jemima will cry when I go?"
"No, lovey; she wouldn't so far forget herself as to bother the gentry
with her troubles, surely."
"But I shouldn't be bothered; I should be too sorry for her. I always am
frightfully interested in people who are unhappy--much more interested
than in people who are happy; and I always love everybody when I've seen
them cry. It is so easy to be happy, and so dull. But why doesn't Jemima
fall in love if she wants to?"
"There now!" cried Mrs. Bateson, in a sort of stage aside to an
imaginary audience. "What a clever child she is! I'm sure I don't know,
dearie."
"It is a pity that she hasn't got a Cousin Anne," said Elisabeth, her
voice trembling with sympathy. "When you've got a Cousin Anne, it makes
everything so lovely."
"And so it does, dearie--so it does," agreed Mrs. Bateson, who did not
in the least understand what Elisabeth meant.
On the way home, after the tea-party was over, Christopher remarked:
"Old Mother Bateson isn't a bad sort; but I can't stand Mother Hankey."
"Why not?"
"She says such horrid things." He had not yet forgiven Mrs. Hankey for
her gloomy prophecies respecting Elisabeth.
"Not horrid, Chris. She is rather stupid sometimes, and doesn't know
when things are funny; but she never means to be really horrid, I am
sure."
"Well, I think she is an old cat," persisted Christopher.
"The only thing I don't like about her is her gloves," added Elisabeth
thoughtfully; "they are so old they smell of biscuit. Isn't it funny
that old gloves always smell of biscuit. I wonder why?"
"I think they do," agreed Christopher; "but nobody except you would ever
have thought of saying it. You have a knack of saying what everybody
else is thinking; and that is what makes you so amusing."
"I'm glad you think I'm amusing; but I can't see much funniness in just
saying what is true."
"Well, I can't explain why it is funny; but you really are simply
killing sometimes," said Christopher graciously.
The next day, and on many succeeding ones, Elisabeth duly visited Jemima
Stubbs and the invalid boy, although Christopher entreated her not to
worry herself about them, and offered to go in her place. But he failed
to understand that Elisabeth was goaded by no depressing sense of duty,
as he would have been in similar circumstances; she went because pity
was a passion with her, and therefore she was always absorbingly
interested in any one whom she pitied. Strength and success and
such-like attributes never appealed to Elisabeth, possibly because she
herself was strong, and possessed all the qualities of the successful
person; but weakness and failure were all-powerful in enlisting her
sympathy and interest and, through these, her love. As Christopher grew
older he dreamed dreams of how in the future he should raise himself
from being only the nephew of Miss Farringdon's manager to a position of
wealth and importance; and how he should finally bring all his glories
and honours and lay them at Elisabeth's feet. His eyes were not opened
to see that Elisabeth would probably turn with careless laughter from
all such honours thus manufactured into her pavement; but if he came to
her bent and bruised and brokenhearted, crushed with failure instead of
crowned with success, her heart would never send him empty away, but
would go out to him with a passionate longing to make up to him for all
that he had missed in life.
A few days after Mrs. Bateson's tea-party he said to Elisabeth, for
about the twentieth time:
"I say, I wish you wouldn't tire yourself with going to read to that
Stubbs brat."
"Tire myself? What rubbish! nothing can tire me. I never felt tired in
my life; but I shouldn't mind it just once, to see what it feels like."
"It feels distinctly unpleasant, I can tell you. But I really do wish
you'd take more care of yourself, or else you'll get ill, or have
headaches or something--you will indeed."
"No, I shan't; I never had a headache. That's another of the things that
I don't know what they feel like; and yet I want to know what everything
feels like--even disagreeable things."
"You'll know fast enough, I'm afraid," replied Christopher; "but even if
it doesn't tire you, you would enjoy playing in the garden more than
reading to Johnnie Stubbs--you know you would; and I can go and read to
the little chap, if you are set on his being read to."
"But you would much rather play in the garden than read to him; and
especially as it is your holidays, and your own reading-time will soon
begin."
"Oh! _I_ don't matter. Never bother your head about _me_; remember I'm
all right as long as you are; and that as long as you're jolly, I'm
bound to have a good time. But it riles me to see you worrying and
overdoing yourself."
"You don't understand, Chris; you really are awfully stupid about
understanding things. I don't go to see Jemima and Johnnie because I
hate going, and yet think I ought; I go because I am so sorry for them
both that my sorriness makes me like to go."
But Christopher did not understand, and Elisabeth could not make him do
so. The iron of duty had entered into his childish soul; and,
unconsciously, he was always trying to come between it and Elisabeth,
and to save her from the burden of obligation which lay so heavily upon
his spirit. He was a religious boy, but his religion was of too stern a
cast to bring much joy to him; and he was passionately anxious that
Elisabeth should not be distressed in like manner. His desire was that
she should have sufficient religion to insure heaven, but not enough to
spoil earth--a not uncommon desire on behalf of their dear ones among
poor, ignorant human beings, whose love for their neighbour will surely
atone in some measure for their injustice toward God.
"You see," Elisabeth continued, "there is nothing that makes you so fond
of people as being sorry for them. The people that are strong and happy
don't want your fondness, so it is no use giving it to them. It is the
weak, unhappy people that want you to love them, and so it is the weak,
unhappy people that you love."
"But I don't," replied Christopher, who was always inclined to argue a
point; "when I like people, I should like them just the same as if they
went about yelling Te Deums at the top of their voices; and when I don't
like them, it wouldn't make me like them to see them dressed from head
to foot in sackcloth and ashes."
"Oh! that's a stupid way of liking, I think."
"It may be stupid, but it's my way."
"Don't you like me better when I cry than when I laugh?" asked
Elisabeth, who never could resist a personal application.
"Good gracious, no! I always like you the same; but I'd much rather you
laughed than cried--it is so much jollier for you; in fact, it makes me
positively wretched to see you cry."
"It always vexes me," Elisabeth said thoughtfully, "to read about
tournaments, because I think it was so horrid of the Queen of Beauty to
give the prize to the knight who won."
Christopher laughed with masculine scorn. "What nonsense! Who else could
she have given it to?"
"Why, to the knight who lost, of course. I often make up a tale to
myself that I am the Queen of Beauty at a tournament; and when the
victorious knight rides up to me with his visor raised, I just laugh at
him, and say, 'You can have the fame and the glory and the cheers of the
crowd; that's quite enough for you!' And then I go down from my daïs,
right into the arena where the unhorsed knight is lying wounded, and
take off his helmet, and lay his head on my lap, and say, 'You shall
have the prize, because you have got nothing else!' So then that knight
becomes my knight, and always wears my colours; and that makes up to him
for having been beaten at the tournament, don't you see?"
"It would have been a rotten sort of tournament that was carried on in
that fashion; and your prize would have been no better than a
booby-prize," persisted Christopher.
"How silly you are! I'm glad I'm not a boy; I wouldn't have been as
stupid as a boy for anything!"
"Don't be so cross! You must see that the knight who wins is the best
knight; chaps that are beaten are not up to much."
"Well, they are the sort I like best; and if you had any sense you'd
like them best, too." Whereupon Elisabeth removed the light of her
offended countenance from Christopher, and dashed off in a royal rage.
As for him, he sighed over the unreasonableness of the weaker sex, but
accepted it philosophically as one of the rules of the game; and Chris
played games far too well to have anything but contempt for any one who
rebelled against the rules of any game whatsoever. It was a man's
business, he held, not to argue about the rules, but to play the game
according to them, and to win; or, if that was out of his power, to lose
pluckily and never complain.