WHAT TO DO?
EARLY in February Cress left us; and I had more comfort in my boy
before he sailed than in all his previous life. He seemed softened,
and less full of self; and he let me speak to him loving words of
advice and warning, such as generally he would not hear at all. He took
away my Bible with him—the one I had used for years—and he promised
faithfully to read it every day, which was a real joy to me.
Jack knew of this gift of mine to Cress. The very evening after Cress
was gone, he brought to me a beautiful new Bible, bound in dark
morocco, with gilt edges,—far handsomer outside than my dear old Bible,
which it cost me a wrench to part with.
At first I hardly seemed to know my way about in this new Bible. Every
page of the old one had its own memories, sweet or bitter, and hardly a
page was without at least one chosen text, lightly marked. Here all the
pages were fresh and new and unfamiliar. And yet they were familiar,
for they spoke the same words. It was the same Book, the same wonderful
Bible, the same message of my loving God to me. And the gift had come
as a fresh token of my eldest boy’s thoughtful care for his mother.
It really did seem to Robert and myself absurd to suppose ourselves any
longer in quarantine. So one day he went by train to “The Gables,” not
giving any warning.
But he was not admitted. The servant—a new one—looked doubtfully at
him, and said that Mr. Hazel was out, and her mistress was busy. Robert
pressed her to take in his name, saying he was sure Mrs. Briscoe would
see him if she knew him to be there. The girl replied rather pertly
that she was sure Mrs. Briscoe would not.
Robert felt convinced from her manner that his approach to the house
had been seen, and that the girl had been instructed what to say.
Still, he insisted on sending a message. The girl went away, and
presently returned to say that Mrs. Briscoe was sorry not to see him.
She was unwell, and afraid of measles.
“Rubbish!” Jack said, when Robert told us this.
“What did you do then, father?” asked Cherry.
“The only thing I could do, my dear; I came away.” Maimie’s eyes roved
from one to another, and I saw that she was deep in thought.
We wrote letters again, both to Aunt Briscoe and to Churton; but no
answers came.
Jack made the next attempt. He went to “The Gables” without telling any
one beforehand, and presented a sturdy front. First, he insisted on
seeing Churton,—“his uncle, Mr. Hazel,” and he was informed that “Mr.
Hazel was out.”
Jack did not believe the assertion, but he could not disprove it. Next,
he tried hard to see Aunt Briscoe. She sent word to him that she was
afraid of measles. Jack sent word to her that we had been free from
measles in our house “for months.” Aunt Briscoe returned answer that
she was poorly. Jack answered, through the girl, that he was very
sorry, but he would not tire her or keep her long. Aunt Briscoe replied
by a message that she was “engaged.” Jack sent her word that it didn’t
matter; he would wait any time; might he go to the study? So at last
there came a very plain message that Mrs. Briscoe refused to see her
nephew, and he might go. Whereupon Jack said “Good-morning” to the
servant, and walked away.
“No use staying any longer, you see,” he said, when relating to us
his adventures. “One can’t exactly force one’s way in. But it is very
unfortunate. The old lady has evidently taken offence at something or
other.”
I looked up and saw again that thoughtful expression in Maimie’s face.
She seemed lost in serious consideration.
Later in the day, when I was alone, she came to me, and said—
“Aunt Marion, what does it mean?”
“What, Maimie?” I asked; for at the moment I was thinking about Cress,
not about Aunt Briscoe.
“My father staying away, and Aunt Briscoe seeing nobody,” she said.
“I don’t know. I wish I did,” was my answer.
“Is she inclined to take offence?”
“I believe so; but we have never offended her before. Nor have we done
so now—knowingly.”
“You have done nothing that could rightly give offence. It is Aunt
Briscoe and my father who have kept aloof from you, not you who have
kept aloof from them.”
“Yes; but she is growing old, and old people often have fancies.”
“Would it matter to you if Aunt Briscoe really were seriously
offended,—or if she changed? Are you so very fond of her?”
“I believe my husband loves her for the sake of old days, and for the
sake of her dear old husband,” I said. “No; I am not so fond of her as
I ought to be, Maimie.”
“Then it would not really matter much?”
“Not in that way.”
“But in some other way?” Maimie asked with quickness.
“It is not a thing we talk about much,” I said, after a pause. “But
there is no harm in your knowing the fact. Mrs. Briscoe is very
comfortably off, and my husband has always been looked upon as her
probable heir.”
“I see,” Maimie said, a change passing over her face,—a look coming of
sudden comprehension and fear.
“Mr. Briscoe used to speak openly of his intention to leave everything
to your uncle. It would be only just. There is no nearer relative, and
my husband is older than your stepfather, so he has the first right.
It used to be an understood thing. But Mr. Briscoe died very suddenly,
leaving everything in his wife’s hands. If he had had longer warning, I
feel sure he would have arranged somehow so as to secure the money to
Robert! Since his death, Aunt Briscoe has taken care to make us feel
that she is at liberty to dispose of her property as she likes. And, of
course, she really is free,—except that she would naturally be bound
by her husband’s wishes. I have always felt that she would in the end
do the right and just thing, unless we should be so unfortunate as to
offend her. She has not a very happy temper.”
It seemed a relief to me to say all this, with Maimie’s earnest eyes
looking into mine.
“And now you think she is offended?”
“I don’t know how else to explain the way in which she is holding off
from us. But it is mysterious, for certainly there is no real cause.”
A flush rose in Maimie’s face, crimsoning the fair skin up to the roots
of her hair.
“It is not mysterious,” she said in a low voice. “Father is there.”
We were both silent for a minute. Maimie turned her face away, but I
could see how the flush died away, and returned with double force.
“Maimie dear, you must not trouble yourself about what can’t be
helped,” I said.
She came towards me then, and flung herself down with her face on my
knees.
“Oh, it seems as if I brought you nothing but harm, nothing but harm!”
she cried. “And it is all my own wilfulness. If I had not been ill you
would not have been away so long from ‘The Gables!’ And now I don’t
know what to do.”
“Only don’t grieve, Maimie,” I whispered. Somehow none of us could ever
bear to see Maimie unhappy.
“I have brought you nothing but trouble,” she moaned. “All the expense
and worry; and no return. And Cress having to go away because of me. O
yes, I know it has been that, though nobody says so. Cress would not
have gone, if I had not been here. I didn’t see it in time, or I would
have gone away myself. And Jack is unhappy too. And now there is this
about Aunt Briscoe. Nothing but trouble and loss,—all through me. I
don’t know how to bear it.”
I did not know how to comfort her at first. There was just so much
truth in the words as to make denial of them impossible. And yet we all
loved her far too well to wish that Churton had never sent her to our
house.
“Maimie, hush,—you must hush,” I said at length. “You make me feel that
I was wrong to speak freely to you as I did just now. These things
are not in our hands; and we must not wish to choose for ourselves.
It was God who gave you to us, and I always look upon you as one of
His dearest gifts to me in life,—only next to my own children. You are
ours, and you will be ours still, even if your father takes you away
for a time.”
“But Cress!”
“Cress had to go—because of his want of self-government. That was the
real reason, not his love to you. It does not seem to me that his love
for you is worth much. Just a passing fancy.”
“O I am so glad you think so,” she said, with a deep sigh.
“I know my boys’ weaknesses, and I don’t underrate their faults. Cress
has great faults,—still I am hopeful for his future. I do not believe
he will be any the worse for two years’ absence just now.”
“I am glad you think so,” she repeated. “But now—this about father.”
“You cannot do anything there. You have not the mastery of your
father’s conscience.”
“No. But you think there is something—he is making mischief, perhaps?”
“I know Churton,” I said gravely, “perhaps more truly than my husband
does. I have suspected for a long while that things were going wrong.”
She pressed her hands together, and murmured, “What can I do?”
“Nothing. The whole affair is in higher Hands, Maimie; and there we
must leave it.”
“But one may act—one may do,” she said eagerly. “We must pray first, of
course. But if one could do anything too, it would not be wrong. If we
can’t, we must only wait.”
And then she sprang to her feet with sparkling eyes.
“I know! I know! I shall write to father.”
“My dear, we have written again and again.”
“Yes; but this time I shall write. You will see!”
“What are you going to say, my dear?”
“That I must see him; and if he doesn’t come to me, I shall go to him.”
“And if he does not come—”
“I am going to write so that he will come. I shall tell him I have
something to say, and must see him.”
“But, Maimie, you cannot breathe a word to him of this fancy of
ours—this suspicion. I am not sure that we are right to speak of it,
even to one another.”
“I shall not say the very least word of that to him. How could I? I
should not dare! O no,—not to him, or to anybody. But I have something
that I must say. Yes, I know now what to do.” Then she paused, with
a saddened look and a sigh. “Yes, I must,” she repeated. “It is only
right. If I can stop this wrong, I will. But please don’t ask me any
more questions just now.”
And I did not.