MISS CLARE.
Of course my husband and I talked a good deal more about what I ought to
have done; and I saw clearly enough that I ought to have run any risk there
might be in accepting her invitation. I had been foolishly taking more care
of myself than was necessary. I told him I would write to Roger, and ask
him when he could take me there again.
"I will tell you a better plan," he said. "I will go with you myself. And
that will get rid of half the awkwardness there would be if you went with
Roger, after having with him refused to go in."
"But would that be fair to Roger? She would think I didn't like going with
him, and I would go with Roger anywhere. It was I who did not want to go.
He did."
"My plan, however, will pave the way for a full explanation--or confession
rather, I suppose it will turn out to be. I know you are burning to make
it, with your mania for confessing your faults."
I knew he did not like me the worse for that _mania_, though.
"The next time," he added, "you can go with Roger, always supposing you
should feel inclined to continue the acquaintance, and then you will be
able to set him right in her eyes."
The plan seemed unobjectionable. But just then Percivale was very busy; and
I being almost as much occupied with my baby as he was with his, day after
day and week after week passed, during which our duty to Miss Clare was, I
will not say either forgotten or neglected, but unfulfilled.
One afternoon I was surprised by a visit from my father. He not
unfrequently surprised us.
"Why didn't you let us know, papa?" I said. "A surprise is very nice; but
an expectation is much nicer, and lasts so much longer."
"I might have disappointed you."
"Even if you had, I should have already enjoyed the expectation. That would
be safe."
"There's a good deal to be said in excuse of surprises," he rejoined; "but
in the present case, I have a special one to offer. I was taken with a
sudden desire to see you. It was very foolish no doubt, and you are quite
right in wishing I weren't here, only going to come to-morrow."
"Don't be so cruel, papa. Scarcely a day passes in which _I_ do not long to
see _you_. My baby makes me think more about my home than ever."
"Then she's a very healthy baby, if one may judge by her influences. But
you know, if I had had to give you warning, I could not have been here
before to-morrow; and surely you will acknowledge, that, however nice
expectation may be, presence is better."
"Yes, papa. We will make a compromise, if you please. Every time you think
of coming to me, you must either come at once, or let me know you are
coming. Do you agree to that?"
"I agree," he said.
So I have the pleasure of a constant expectation. Any day he may walk in
unheralded; or by any post I may receive a letter with the news that he is
coming at such a time.
As we sat at dinner that evening, he asked if we had lately seen Miss
Clare.
"I've seen her only once, and Percivale not at all, since you were here
last, papa," I answered.
"How's that?" he asked again, a little surprised. "Haven't you got her
address yet? I want very much to know more of her."
"So do we. I haven't got her address, but I know where she lives."
"What do you mean, Wynnie? Has she taken to dark sayings of late,
Percivale?"
I told him the whole story of my adventure with Roger, and the reports
Judy had prejudiced my judgment withal. He heard me through in silence,
for it was a rule with him never to interrupt a narrator. He used to say,
"You will generally get at more, and in a better fashion, if you let
any narrative take its own devious course, without the interruption of
requested explanations. By the time it is over, you will find the questions
you wanted to ask mostly vanished."
"Describe the place to me, Wynnie," he said, when I had ended. "I must go
and see her. I have a suspicion, amounting almost to a conviction, that she
is one whose acquaintance ought to be cultivated at any cost. There is some
grand explanation of all this contradictory strangeness."
"I don't think I could describe the place to you so that you would find
it. But if Percivale wouldn't mind my going with you instead of with him,
I should be only too happy to accompany you. May I, Percivale?"
"Certainly. It will do just as well to go with your father as with me. I
only stipulate, that, if you are both satisfied, you take Roger with you
next time."
"Of course I will."
"Then we'll go to-morrow morning," said my father.
"I don't think she is likely to be at home in the morning," I said. "She
goes out giving lessons, you know; and the probability is, that at that
time we should not find her."
"Then why not to-night?" he rejoined.
"Why not, if you wish it?"
"I do wish it, then."
"If you knew the place, though, I think you would prefer going a little
earlier than we can to-night."
"Ah, well! we will go to-morrow evening. We could dine early, couldn't we?"
So it was arranged. My father went about some business in the morning. We
dined early, and set out about six o'clock.
My father was getting an old man, and if any protection had been required,
he could not have been half so active as Roger; and yet I felt twice as
safe with him. I am satisfied that the deepest sense of safety, even in
respect of physical dangers, can spring only from moral causes; neither do
you half so much fear evil happening to you, as fear evil happening which
ought not to happen to you. I believe what made me so courageous was the
undeveloped fore-feeling, that, if any evil should overtake me in my
father's company, I should not care; it would be all right then, anyhow.
The repose was in my father himself, and neither in his strength nor his
wisdom. The former might fail, the latter might mistake; but so long as
I was with him in what I did, no harm worth counting harm could come to
me,--only such as I should neither lament nor feel. Scarcely a shadow of
danger, however, showed itself.
It was a cold evening in the middle of November. The light, which had
been scanty enough all day, had vanished in a thin penetrating fog. Round
every lamp in the street was a colored halo; the gay shops gleamed like
jewel-caverns of Aladdin hollowed out of the darkness; and the people that
hurried or sauntered along looked inscrutable. Where could they live? Had
they anybody to love them? Were their hearts quiet under their dingy cloaks
and shabby coats?
"Yes," returned my father, to whom I had said something to this effect,
"what would not one give for a peep into the mysteries of all these worlds
that go crowding past us. If we could but see through the opaque husk of
them, some would glitter and glow like diamond mines; others perhaps would
look mere earthy holes; some of them forsaken quarries, with a great pool
of stagnant water in the bottom; some like vast coal-pits of gloom, into
which you dared not carry a lighted lamp for fear of explosion. Some would
be mere lumber-rooms; others ill-arranged libraries, without a poets'
corner anywhere. But what a wealth of creation they show, and what infinite
room for hope it affords!"
"But don't you think, papa, there may be something of worth lying even
in the earth-pit, or at the bottom of the stagnant water in the forsaken
quarry?"
"Indeed I do; though I _have_ met more than one in my lifetime concerning
whom I felt compelled to say that it wanted keener eyes than mine to
discover the hidden jewel. But then there _are_ keener eyes than mine,
for there are more loving eyes. Myself I have been able to see good very
clearly where some could see none; and shall I doubt that God can see good
where my mole-eyes can see none? Be sure of this, that, as he is keen-eyed
for the evil in his creatures to destroy it, he would, if it were possible,
be yet keener-eyed for the good to nourish and cherish it. If men would
only side with the good that is in them,--will that the seed should grow
and bring forth fruit!"