WE ENJOY A DECEITFUL CALM.
The harmonious relations between uncle Bryan and Jessie which my
birthday seemed to have inaugurated continued for more than a
fortnight, a result entirely due to Jessie's untiring efforts to
conciliate him, and to 'keep him good,' as she expressed it. On the
day following that on which I came of age, he showed symptoms of
irritability at the tenderness into which he had been betrayed--for
that undoubtedly was the light in which he viewed it; he had a
suspicion that he had been played upon, and he was annoyed with
himself for his weakness. Having, I doubt not, thought the matter well
over during the night, and having quite made up his mind to vindicate
himself, he came down in the morning more than usually morose and
reserved, and received Jessie's affectionate advances in his coldest
and most repellent manner. But Jessie would not permit him to relapse
into his old cross humour; she charmed it out of him by a display of
wonderful submission and tenderness, and by answering his snappish
words with gentleness. In this way she disarmed him, and he, after
some resistance, and with a singular mixture of pleasure and
ungraciousness in his manner, allowed himself to be beguiled by her.
The truth of the proverb that 'a soft answer turneth away wrath' was
never better exemplified. If, when she had wooed him into a kinder
mood, she had shown any signs of triumph, her influence over him would
have come to an end immediately; he watched furtively for some such
sign, and detecting none, resigned himself to this new and pleasant
beguilement. Whether Jessie's conduct sprang from impulse or reason,
she could not have behaved more wisely.
My mother was greatly rejoiced, and told me from day to day all that
passed between these opposite natures. That the links of home love
which bound us together were being strengthened was a source of
exceeding delight to her.
'And it is all Jessie's doings, mother.'
'It is, my dear. I scarcely believed her capable of so much gentleness
and submission.' (Here I thought to myself, 'I believe no one but I
knows of what Jessie is capable.') 'When your uncle is most
trying----'
'As he often is,' I interrupted, 'and without cause.'
'Well, my dear, if you will have it so. When he is most trying, she is
most gentle, and she wins him to her side almost despite himself. And,
Chris, I really think he likes it.'
'Who would not,' I exclaimed, 'when wooed by Jessie?'
'It is in her power,' said my mother, with a sweet smile of
acquiescence, 'to make a great change in him. There is an undercurrent
of deep tenderness in your uncle's nature, and Jessie is reaching it
by the most delicate means. If she will only have patience! for it
will take time, my dear.'
But these fair appearances were treacherous. Neither my mother nor I
saw the clouds that were gathering, and when the storm burst I was
impressed by the unhappy conviction that I, and I alone, was the
cause. How little do we know of the power of light words lightly
spoken! But for certain inconsiderate words which I had used, there
would certainly have been sunshine in our house for a much longer
time. As it was, this better aspect of things was destined soon to
come to an end, and to come to an end in a way which introduced not
only a more bitter discord between Jessie and uncle Bryan, but imbued
us insidiously with a want of faith in one another. The storm broke
suddenly, and without forewarning to uncle Bryan and my mother. But in
the mean time the harmony was almost perfect. Jessie, when she went to
bed, no longer parted from uncle Bryan with a careless 'Good-night,'
but kissed him regularly every morning and every night, and he
submitted to the caress without, however, inviting it by look or word.
But even that wonder took place on a certain evening when Jessie, with
a touch of her old ways upon her, wished us all good-night in a
careless tone, and without kissing uncle Bryan. She opened and closed
the door, but did not leave the room, and placed her fingers on her
lips with a bright eager look in our direction, warning us not to
betray her. Uncle Bryan's back was towards us, and he made no motion
at first. Jessie stole quietly behind his chair, and stood there in
silence. Presently, uncle Bryan turned his head slowly to the door,
with something of a yearning look of regret in his face, and at the
same instant Jessie's arms were round his neck, and her lips were
pressed to his.
'Don't be angry with me,' she said.
'Angry, Jessie! I thought you had forgotten me. But you are as full of
tricks as Puck was.'
'I can't help it, uncle Bryan. Good-night!'
'Good-night, my dear.'
And Jessie went to bed with a very light heart, and left light hearts
behind her. It was apparent that these enchanting ways were pleasant
to uncle Bryan, and I told Jessie so.
'It softens him, Jessie.'
'It takes a long time to soften a rock,' she observed, with a
thoughtful smile.
'If anybody can do it, you can, Jessie.'
'You think nothing but good of me, Chris.'
'I only say what I feel. And you really want uncle Bryan to love you?'
'Yes--more than I can say--and I can scarcely tell why.'
'Except,' I said, with a foolish hesitation, 'that you like to be
loved by everybody.'
'Perhaps it is because of that, Chris. I _do_ like everybody to love
me. It is much nicer so.'
If I wanted any consolation I supplied it by observing: 'To be sure,
there are different kinds of love.'
'Indeed!' exclaimed Jessie tantalisingly. 'Is it like uncle Bryan's
sugar, of different shades and different degrees of sweetness? Some of
it tastes very sandy, Chris.'
'Ah, now you are joking, Jessie!'
'I am not in a joking humour. I want to speak seriously. Chris, I have
sometimes wondered that you have never asked me questions about
myself.'
'In what way, Jessie?'
'About myself, before I came here. When one likes any one very much,
one is naturally curious to know all about one.'
'I had my reasons, Jessie. When you first came, mother wished me not
to ask you any questions. She said it would be like an attempt to
steal into uncle Bryan's confidence. He might have secrets, she said,
which he would not wish us to know.'
'Secrets!' she mused. 'What can I have to do with them? And yet, it is
strange, now I think about it.'
'I should like you to tell me all about yourself,' I said; 'it doesn't
matter now that you have spoken of it first yourself.'
'I was thinking of a secret that I have, Chris.'
I composed myself to receive her confidence.
'But I don't know what it is myself, yet. It is in a letter;
perhaps----'
'Well, Jessie?'
'Perhaps nothing. It is only a letter that I am not to open until I am
eighteen years of age. That will not be long, Chris. We will wait
until then, and then I will tell you all I know. Let us blow it away
till that time comes.' She blew a light breath. 'I wanted to make you
a present on your birthday, but I did not have money enough then.
Shall I give it to you now?' I held out my hand eagerly, and Jessie
took from her pocket a small card-box. 'It is in this. What do you
think it is?' I made a great many guesses, but she shook her head
merrily at all of them. 'I went to look at it every day in the
shop-window, afraid that some one might buy it before I had saved up
money enough.'
I opened the box, and took from it a small silver locket,
heart-shaped, with the words engraven on it, 'To Chris, with Jessie's
love.' Unspeakable happiness dwelt in my heart as I gazed upon the
emblem. As I held it in my hand tenderly, it seemed to me a living
link between Jessie and me--an undying assurance of her love. Nothing
so precious had ever been mine. My looks satisfied Jessie, and she
clapped her hands in delight.
'So you like it, Chris?'
'I will never, never part with it, Jessie. But I want a piece of
ribbon; may I have that piece round your neck?
'Take it off yourself, Chris.'
What a bungler I was, and how long it took me to remove the piece of
simple ribbon, need not here be described. I know that while my
trembling fingers were about her neck, Jessie, in reply to a look,
said, 'Yes, you may, Chris;' and that I kissed her.
'And now, Chris,' she said, 'I want to speak to you about something
that is troubling me very much. When you said the other night that
uncle Bryan was an atheist, were you in earnest?'
'I said what I believed,' I answered with an uneasy feeling.
'And he _is_ an atheist?'
'I am afraid he is, Jessie.'
'Has he ever told you so?'
'Oh, no; there are some things that one scarcely dares to speak of.'
'That is if one is weak and a coward. I am not that, and I don't think
you are, Chris. Then I suppose you have never spoken to uncle Bryan
about religion?'
'Not a word has ever passed between us upon religious matters.'
'An atheist is a person who does not believe in God, is he not,
Chris?'
I was sensible that the discussion of so solemn a subject might lead
to grave results, and I wished to discontinue it; but Jessie said:
'Don't be weak, Chris; I think I ought to know these things, and if we
can't speak together in confidence, no two persons in the world can.
Of course I can easily find out what I want to know; Gus West will
tell me everything; but I came to you because we are nearer to each
other.'
'Nearer and dearer, Jessie.'
'Yes, Chris; and now tell me what you know.'
I told her all that I knew concerning atheism, and all that I knew
concerning uncle Bryan in connection with it. 'When I was a boy,
Jessie, scarcely a week after we came to live with uncle Bryan, I
heard him say that life was tasteless to him, and that he believed in
nothing. I thought of it often afterwards.'
'Life was tasteless to him _because_ he did not believe in anything;
that is the proper view to take of it. If a person does not believe in
anything, he cannot love anything. Can you imagine anything more
dreary than the life of a person who does not love anybody, and who
has nobody to love him? I can't. A person might as well be a stick or
a stone--better to be that, for then he couldn't feel. But the words
that uncle Bryan used may not have meant what you suppose, Chris.'
'They came in this way, Jessie. On the first Sunday we were here,
mother asked uncle Bryan if he was going to church. He said that he
never went to church. Mother was very sorry, I saw, but she did not
say anything more. On that same night, uncle Bryan was reading a book,
and he read aloud some passages from it. Mother asked him what was the
name of the book, and he answered, _The Age of Reason_. When he laid
the book aside, mother took it up, and looked at it; and then she sent
me upstairs for the Bible. That was all; but I didn't quite know what
was the real meaning of it until a long time afterwards, when I found
out what kind of a book _The Age of Reason_ is.'
'Tell me what it is.'
'It is a book written by an atheist for atheists; it might almost be
called the Atheist's Bible, Jessie.'
'And did you never speak to your mother about uncle Bryan's religion?
'I have tried to, but mother is like me; there are some things she
does not like to speak of.'
'And this is one of them,' said Jessie, following out her train of
thought; 'and out of your love for her, when she said, "Let us talk of
something else, my dear," you have talked of something else.'
'That is so, Jessie. It is almost as if you overheard what we said.'
'It is easy to see into your mother's heart, Chris. She did not like
to speak about uncle Bryan's religion, because she loves him, and
because she wants you to love him. Now, if it had been anything that
would have made uncle Bryan stand out in a good light, she would have
encouraged you to speak about it.'
'That is true enough, Jessie.'
'Chris, your mother is all heart.'
'She is everything that is good, if you mean that?'
'I do mean that; she is the best, the sweetest, the dearest woman in
the world. Ah, if I were like her! But I am very, very different. What
I say and what I think comes more often out of my head than out of my
heart. Chris, it is impossible for an atheist to be a good man!'
I saw the pit we were walking into, but I had not the skill to lead
Jessie away from it.
'A man who does not believe in God,' she exclaimed, 'cannot believe in
anything good. No wonder that he is what he is. I am not satisfied--I
am not satisfied! It is shocking--shocking to think of!' She shook her
head at herself, and I listened to her words in no pleasant frame of
mind. She was showing me an entirely new phase in her character. It
was Jessie reasoning, and reasoning on the most solemn of subjects.
'Why,' she continued, 'God made everything that's good, and if uncle
Bryan is an atheist, he is a bad man. And yet your mother loves him.'
'That she does, Jessie, with all her heart.'
'She couldn't love anything that's bad. If you were an atheist, Chris,
I should hate you.'
'Thank God, I am not, Jessie; even if I were, you could make me
different. But I don't like to hear you speak like this,' I said,
reproaching myself bitterly for having been the cause of this
conversation; for when I had told Jessie that uncle Bryan was an
atheist I had spoken with a full measure of dislike towards him.
'Mother does not reason as you do. After all, I may be mistaken,
Jessie, and we maybe doing him a great injustice. I know so much that
is good of him--more than you possibly imagine.'
And then I told her what, from a false feeling of shame, I had
hitherto withheld from her--the story of my mother's hard battle with
the world when we came to London, and of uncle Bryan's noble behaviour
to us when we were sunk in the bitterest poverty.
'All the time I have known him, Jessie, I have never known him to be
guilty of an unjust action. He is as upright and honest a man as ever
lived. Can such a man be a bad man?'
'Upright, honest, and just!' she repeated my words in a musing tone.
'It is an enigma.'
'He would die,' I continued warmly, 'rather than be guilty of a mean
action. Now that we are speaking of him in this way, I am ashamed of
myself for ever thinking ill of him. Mother was right, from the very
first--she was right about him, as she always is about everything. If
he were not so hard----But you don't know what trials he has gone
through in his life.'
'Do you?'
'I know some of them, but I am pledged not to speak of them to any
one--not even to you. One thing happened to him--never hint, for my
sake, Jessie, that you even suspect it--one thing happened to him so
terrible and so dreadful that it is no wonder he is hard and cold and
morose. Many and many a time mother has entreated me to be kind and
charitable in my thoughts towards him, and instead of doing so I have
repaid all his kindness by the basest of ingratitude.'
'How have you done that, Chris?'
'By saying anything to you to cause you to dislike him. Ah, you may
shake your head, but it is so, Jessie. If he were in my place, and I
in his, he would come to me and ask me to forgive him; but I haven't
the courage and fearless heart that he has, and I shouldn't know how
to do it without giving him pain.'
I was really very remorseful, and sincerely so; but Jessie said
nothing to comfort me.
'Have I had no reason of my own, until the last few days, to dislike
him? Has he behaved quite kindly to me? Chris, is it possible that I
am wrong in nearly everything that I have done? How many times have I
tried to conciliate him, and how many times has he answered me with
unkind words! There is some reason for it--there is some reason for
it.'
'And yet remember, Jessie,' I said, without thinking, 'that he
has given you a home, as he gave one to us, never asking for a
return--never expecting one.'
Her face turned scarlet.
'Would _he_ have said that?' she asked, and left me without another
word.