CONCERNING GUARDIAN ANGELS AND ITHURIEL'S SPEAR.
"Though many a year has o'er us roll'd
Since life's bright morningtide,
I'm dreaming still the dream of old
We once dreamt side by side."
HELEN MARION BURNSIDE.
It had been a long, trying day to Waveney, and it was a great relief
when she found herself again in the Pansy Room. It was still early in
the evening; but as soon as the door had closed upon the girl Althea
rose from her chair.
"I have had a tiring afternoon, Dorrie," she said, in rather a weary
voice. "A well-dressed crush always flattens me--so many smart bonnets,
and so few brains! Somehow society always reminds me of a trifle, all
sweetness and froth."
"Aren't you a little mixed, Althea?" returned her sister,
good-humouredly. "There is froth certainly, but in my experience there
is plenty of richness and sweetness underneath, if you only dig deep
enough."
"Oh, I daresay;" and then a droll idea came to Althea, and she laughed
softly. "Don't you remember the gingerbread queens that we used to buy
when we were children at the Medhurst Fair, and how angry I was when
some one stripped the gilt off. I thought it was real gold--like
Nebuchadnezzar's image. Well, some of those fine ladies reminded me of
the gingerbread queens."
Doreen looked amused. "You are in a pessimistic mood, dear." Then she
put her hands on her sister's shoulders and scrutinised her face a
little anxiously.
"You are very tired. Are your eyes paining you, Althea?"
"No, dear, but I think I shall go to bed."
But when she had left the room Doreen did not at once resume her book.
"I wonder what is troubling her," she said to herself. "I know her
expression so well, and with all her little jokes, she is not at ease. I
hope that we have not made a grievous mistake in engaging Miss Ward--and
yet she seems a nice little thing! But there is a look in Althea's eyes
to-night as though she had seen a ghost. When one is no longer young the
ghosts will come;" and then Doreen sighed and took up her book.
Althea was very tired, but it was mental, not bodily fatigue, that had
brought the dark shadows under her eyes. But it was not her habit to
spare herself, or to shunt her duties.
So, instead of going straight to her room, she turned down the passage
that led to the two little chambers where their humbler guests slept,
and sat for a few minutes beside Laura Cairns' bed. The girl slept
badly, and Althea's sympathetic nature guessed intuitively how a few
cheering words would sweeten the long night; and she never missed her
evening visit.
"It is better to lie awake in the country than in Tottenham Court
Roads," she said, presently. Then Laura smiled.
"Oh, yes, Miss Harford; it is so heavenly, the peace and silence. But at
first it almost startled me. In London the cabs and carts are always
passing, and there seems no quiet at all; but here, one can lie and
think of the birds in their nests. And how good it is to be free from
pain! Oh, I am so much better, and it is all owing to your kindness, and
this dear old place!" And here the girl's lips rested for a moment on
the kind hand that held hers. "But you will not leave me without my
message, Miss Harford?"--for it was one of Althea's habits to give what
she called "night thoughts" to the sick girls who came to the Red House.
Althea paused a moment. For once she had forgotten it. Then some words
of Thomas à Kempis came to her, "Seek not much rest, but much patience,"
and she repeated them softly. "Will that do, Laura?"
"Oh, yes--and thank you so much, Miss Harford. 'Not much rest, but much
patience.' I must remember that."
"I must remember it, too," thought Althea; and then she went to the
Cubby-house to bid her old nurse good-night, and to have a little chat
with her.
Nurse Marks was loud in her praises of Waveney.
"I like her, Miss Althea, my dear," she said, eagerly. "She has pretty
manners, and a good heart; dear, dear, just to think of it being
Jonadab's young lady. He thinks a deal of her, does Jonadab. She will be
a comfort to you, my dearie. But there, you are looking weary, my lamb,
and Peachey will be waiting to brush your hair." And Althea was thankful
to be dismissed.
She sent Peachey away as soon as possible, and then sat down in an easy
chair by the window; her eyes were aching, but the darkness rested them.
She was a good sleeper generally, but to-night she knew that no wooing
of the drowsy god would avail her. Doreen was right, and the ghost of
the past had suddenly started up in her path.
Althea's youth had been a very happy one, until the day when she and
Everard Ward had gathered peaches together in the walled garden at
Kitlands, and then it had seemed to her as though they were the very
apples of Sodom--mere dust and ashes.
Everard had judged his own case far too leniently; he had been eager to
clear himself from blame. "A young fellow has his fancies before he
settles down finally," he would say, in his careless way. "Oh, yes, you
are right, Egerton. I was sweet on Althea Harford--there was something
fascinating about her; she was rather fetching and picturesque--you
know what I mean. But Dorothy--well, it was love at first sight, the
real thing and no mistake. I wanted to ask her to marry me that very
first evening, only I could not do it, you know."
"I suppose not," returned his friend, dryly. "You are a cool hand,
Everard, upon my word. I wonder what Miss Harford thought about it all.
Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, but in my day we did not think it good
form to pay court to one girl and marry another." But this plain
speaking only offended Everard, probably because in his inner
consciousness he knew the older man had spoken the truth.
Through the sweet spring days and the glorious months of summer Everard
Ward had wooed the young heiress with the eager persistence that was
natural to him. Althea's fascinating personality, her gentleness and
bright intelligence, all dominated the young man, and for a time at
least he honestly believed himself in love with her. He was not fickle
by nature, and if Dorothy Sinclair had not crossed his path, and played
Rosalind to his Orlando, in the green glades of Kitlands Park, he would
to a certainty have married Althea Harford.
Hearts do not break, they say; but when Althea walked down the terrace
steps that day, with her basket of peaches on her arm, she knew that the
gladness and sweetness of her young life had faded, and that, if her
heart were not actually broken, it was only because her unselfishness
and sense of right forbade such wreckage.
"I shall live through it, Dorrie," she had said to her sister, in those
early days of misery, "and, God helping me, it shall not make me bitter;
but it has robbed me of my youth. One cannot suffer in this way, and
keep young;" and she was right.
"If you could only hate him!" ejaculated Doreen. "In your circumstances
I know I should loathe and despise him." But Althea only shook her head.
"How could I hate him, when I have grown to love him with my whole
heart, when I have regarded myself as his." But here she stopped and hid
her face in her hands, with a choking sob. "Oh, Dorrie, that is the
worst of all, that I should have believed it, and that he never meant
it; that he never really loved me."
"I think he was very fond of you, Althea," returned Doreen, eagerly.
"Mother was saying so only last night."
"Yes, he was fond of me. We were friends; but I was not his closest and
dearest. Dorrie, we must never talk of this again, you and I; a wound
like this, so sore and deep, should be covered up and hidden. I must
hide it even from myself. There is only one thing that I want to say,
and then we will bury our dead. I cannot hate Everard--hatred is not in
my nature--and neither can I ever cease to love him. Oh, there is no
need for you to look so shocked"--as Doreen's face expressed strong
disapproval of this. "There will be no impropriety in the love I shall
bear him. If I could I would be his guardian angel, and keep all
troubles from him." Then she sighed and put her hand gently on her
sister's shoulder. "'Seek not much rest, but much patience;' that shall
be my New Year's motto. We will bury our dead." Those had been her
words, and for twenty years the grass had grown over that grave; and
yet, on this September night, the ghost of her old love had haunted her,
and the ache of the old pain had made itself felt.
Is there any grave deep enough to bury a woman's love? Althea Harford
was nearly forty-one, and yet the memory of Everard Ward, with his
perfect face, and boyish, winning ways, his gay _insouciance_, and
light-hearted mirth, made her heart throb with quickened beats of pain.
All these years--these weary years--she had never met any one like
him--never any one whom she could compare with him. People had often
told her that he was not specially clever, that his talents were by no
means of a first-class order; but she had never believed them. To her
fond fancy he was the embodiment of every manly gift and beauty; even
Dorothy, with all her love for her husband, would have marvelled at
Althea's infatuation.
And now Everard's daughter was under her roof, and the knowledge that
this was so had driven the sleep from her eyes, and filled her with a
strange restlessness. Waveney's smile, and the turn of her head, and
something in her voice, recalled Everard. More than once that evening
she had winced, as some familiar tone brought him too vividly before
her.
Waveney's artless confidence had given her food for thought. She had
long known the hard fight that Everard Ward was waging, in his attempts
to keep the wolf from the door. On more than one occasion her secret
beneficence had lightened his weight of care. If Everard had guessed who
was the real purchaser of some of his pictures, he would not have
pocketed the money quite so happily; but Althea kept her own counsel.
"If I could only be his guardian angel!" she had said, in her girlish
misery; and no purer wish had ever been expressed by woman's lips; in
some ways she had been Everard Ward's good angel all these years.
Still she had never realised the extent of his poverty until Waveney had
told her about the purchase of "King Canute."
A friend of Mr. Ingram's wanted a historical picture, and it was so
fortunate that he took a fancy to "King Canute!"--he had actually paid
five-and-twenty guineas, and they had paid off the disagreeable butcher;
and now father would have the new great-coat that he wanted so badly.
Waveney had said all this with girlish frankness, as she and her new
friend had paced up and down the garden path in the September darkness;
but Althea had made no answer. She only shivered a little, as though she
were cold; and a few minutes later she proposed to return to the house.
"It is a beautiful evening, but we must not forget that it is
September," she had observed. But her voice was a little strained.
No, she had never really realised until that moment how badly things had
gone with him; that mention of the great-coat had effectually opened her
eyes. And then, as though to mock her, a little scene rose before her--a
certain golden afternoon spent in an old studio at Chelsea, where
Everard Ward and a friend had established themselves.
How well she remembered it! and the balcony full of flowers overlooking
the river, with a gay awning overhead.
It was summer time, and she had put on a white gown in honour of the
occasion, and Everard had brought her a cluster of dark, velvety roses.
"They will give you the colour you need," he had said, looking at her
admiringly; what an ideal artist he had seemed to her in his brown
velveteen coat! The yellow sunshine seemed to make a halo round his fair
hair.
"You look like a glorified angel, Ward," his friend had said,
laughingly. "What do you say, Miss Harford--would he not do for Ithuriel
in my picture of Adam and Eve sleeping in Paradise, with the Evil One
whispering in Eve's ear. Do you remember the passage:
'Him thus intent
Ithuriel with his spear touched lightly.'
Look here, old man, you must sit for me to-morrow." But Everard had only
grumbled and looked bored.
In those days great-coats had certainly not been lacking. And as this
thought occurred to her, Althea had shivered and become silent.
About four-and-twenty hours later Mollie received the following letter,
which she carried off to her bedroom and read over and over again. She
had already had the note in which Waveney had described the Cubby-house
and her Pansy Room, and Mollie had certainly not expected another so
soon.
"MY OWN SWEETHEART.--Here I am actually writing to you again. But I know
what a long, weary day this has been, and how my sweet Moll has been
missing me; and I said to myself, 'A letter by the last post will send
her to sleep happily, and make her think that we are not so far apart,
after all!' Well, and how do you think I have been spending my first day
of servitude? Why, all by myself on the common; and if you had been
there it would have been simply perfect; the common is such a beautiful
place, and it stretches away for miles. But you will be saying to
yourself, 'Is this the way Miss Harford's reader performs her duties?'
My dear child, I have not seen my Miss Harford to-day. At breakfast
time, Miss Doreen told me that her sister had had a bad night, and that
she was suffering great pain in her eyes. 'It is so severe an attack,'
she explained, 'that she cannot bear a vestige of light, and reading
would drive her distracted. Her maid Peachey is looking after her, and
most likely by evening the pain will have worn itself out.' And then she
advised me to take a book out of the library and sit on the common, as
she would be absent the greater part of the day. It was rather a
business choosing a book, but I took 'Ayala's Angel' at last, as it
looked amusing, and angels always remind me of my Mollie. There, is that
not a pretty speech?
"The two little Yorkshire terriers accompanied me--Fuss and Fury--they
are such dear little fellows, and it was just lovely! There was a little
green nook, with a comfortable bench, a little way back from the road,
and there I spent the morning. Miss Doreen was still at the House, so I
had luncheon alone, and afterwards I went out in the garden. The two
shop-girls were there; they had hammock chairs under a tree. The tall,
pale girl was working, and the other was reading to her. I stopped to
speak to them, and then I found a delightful seat in the kitchen garden.
It was so warm and sunny that you would have thought it was August.
Mitchell came to tell me when tea was ready, and now I am up in my Pansy
Room, writing to you. There is a pillar box quite near, and when I have
finished it I shall slip out and post it." And then a few loving
messages to her father and Noel closed the letter.