A CHANCE FOR CECIL
AUTUMN passed. To Joan it seemed that her life was very full. Banty
demanded a great deal of her time, but she did not grudge it to her.
Talks with Lady Alicia came back to her in which she had been told
that she might be kept in her rather narrow sphere with the object of
helping one particular person; and Joan could not but feel that Banty's
sad misfortune had opened the way for a good many real talks on the
deep things in life. Banty repeatedly told her that she had been a
refuge to her in a raging storm, and, slowly and almost imperceptibly,
Banty was feeling her way towards the real Refuge. But, though learning
lessons of patience and endurance, and dimly seeing as 'through a glass
darkly' the glories of the new world opening to her soul, Banty did not
always exercise self-denial in her dealings with her friend.
Joan had come to her help in a dark hour; then it was Joan's purpose in
life at present to continue that help and come to her aid at any time.
When fits of depression seized her, she sent for Joan. When she had
been cross and unreasonable to those around her, and was in a contrite,
repentant mood, Joan must come and be her father confessor, and make
peace with those she had vexed and hurt. When the hunt was meeting
in the close vicinity of the Hall, and she was driven frantic by the
hooting of the horn and the baying of the hounds, Joan must come up
immediately, and sit with her, and amuse and entertain her till she was
able to regain her fortitude and composure. And Joan rarely failed her;
but it was at the cost of much effort and self-denial on her part to
respond so willingly, and Cecil was very wroth at her prompt compliance
with Banty's unreasonable demands.
Cecil herself, at home, was another unceasing trial to her sister.
She was angry with Banty for her selfishness, yet failed to see that
she, in her turn, was continually making demands upon Joan's time and
attention. She had her black moods of depression and contrariety, when
nothing would please or cheer her, and, as the weather became stormy
and cold, she would incessantly grumble at the English climate.
One rainy afternoon, as dusk was falling, Joan came in from a visit to
the Hall to find Cecil crouched by a dying fire in the drawing-room,
looking the picture of woe.
"My dear, what a miserable room!" Joan said brightly, shaking up some
untidy cushions on the couch with much energy and then stirring the
fire. "Why, you look blue with cold! And you have let the fire nearly
out. Have you been asleep?"
"Oh, I don't know. I have rung three times for coal. I never saw
such servants, and Sophia had the impertinence to put her head in at
the door and tell me I ought to have made the coal-scuttle last till
tea-time! She said she was in the middle of making a cake, and if I
wanted more coal, I could get some logs from the wood cupboard! I
really wonder you don't give her notice to leave. She's getting quite
unbearable."
"I would as soon think of asking Dad to leave!" said Joan, laughing.
"Sophia is always cross on her cake days, and Maggie has gone out. Her
mother is ill and wants her. I'll go and get some wood."
She was out of the room and back again in a minute. Cecil went on
grumbling.
"I've a great mind to apply for a post as companion to someone to get
away from home. I shall be ill if I stay on here longer. I must get
abroad. Why don't you help me, Joan? Tell Father I can't, and won't,
stay here all the winter. I never saw such a benighted place. We
haven't had a visitor inside the house for a fortnight, at least. My
bedroom wall is reeking with damp. Haven't you finished Mother's book
yet? If only you could get it done, Derrick says he will get it taken
by some publisher friend of his, and that will bring enough money in to
make it easy for me to go abroad."
"I have so little time to write it, Cecil dear; but I am very nearly
at the end of it. I should like to sit down and write it now, but I
promised Father to do some accounts with him after tea. I think I'll
go out and bring the tea in myself. We won't wait for Sophia. You will
feel quite another being after it."
Cecil listened to her singing under her breath as she went out to
the kitchen. It never entered her head to offer to help. She had a
headache; that was quite sufficient excuse to remain idle.
When Joan came back, Cecil looked up at her.
"Joan, you 'must' help me. You are so absorbed in Banty that you can
think of nobody else. I will and 'must' get away. You will have me
dying on your hands if I don't. I woke last night, and could hardly
breathe. I am getting back all my old breathlessness and my cough."
Joan looked at her a little anxiously, but she could not see any
appearance of delicacy about her.
"You fret yourself ill," she said. "I wish you would make up your mind
to get through a winter here. Be patient, and we will hope great things
from Mother's book."
She made a mental resolve that she would work in her room at night. It
was the only opportunity she had for quiet. She was as anxious as Cecil
was that the book should be finished, but her days seemed too full for
any time to write.
For the next few weeks Joan kept this resolve. She came down to
breakfast in the morning with tired eyes and brain, but with a
lightened heart. The book was progressing. And then came the day when
it was packed off to Derrick. He did not keep them waiting long to hear
its fate. It was accepted. A few alterations were deemed necessary, and
Joan had a good deal of correspondence with the publisher over it.
About the end of November she received the sum of fifty pounds for
advance royalties, and Cecil went joyfully to her father to demand
permission to go abroad. To her amazement, he refused.
Mr. Adair was not a very strong-minded man, and very obstinate on some
points. Joan could not persuade him to give way. He had suffered too
much in the past from having his wife and daughter away when he could
not afford to send them. Now that Cecil was fairly strong, and had not
her mother to back her up, he considered that it would be weakness on
his part to give way to her.
"I cannot afford it. You ought to be helping Joan at home. Everyone
tells me she is wearing herself out. Why should you expect this sum of
money to be spent on you? If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to Joan,
who has had all the labour of producing it. And there are still debts
of ours to be paid. Until I am actually free from debt, I will not
incur the fresh expense of sending you abroad."
"If the money got by Mother's book is not spent according to her
wishes, it is abominable injustice!" said Cecil passionately. "You know
how she wished me to spend every winter abroad. It is why she commenced
to write, to earn money for our comfort there. And, if the money
belongs to Joan, I know she will give it to me gladly. When I am dead
and in my grave, you will reproach yourself. You're killing me fast."
She flung herself out of the room, and went off to Joan. It was not
often she spoke so passionately to her father. He was much hurt and
indignant, and Joan had to receive the confidences of both, and try to
make peace between them. But she could not move her father from his
standpoint, nor alter his decision. Cecil raged and sulked by turns,
would not eat, and spent most of her days in bed. In despair, Joan
wrote to Lady Alicia. She saw that Cecil was making herself really ill,
and she hardly knew how to act for the best.
In a few days she had Lady Alicia's reply, and it was astounding in its
force and brevity:
"MY DEAREST JOAN,—Smooth the creases out of your brow. I have written
to your father and to Cecil by this same post. I leave for Nice this
day fortnight, and hope that Cecil will accompany me as my guest.—In
greatest haste, your loving godmother,—
"ALICIA."
Joan received this letter at the breakfast-table. Her father and she
were alone, and they looked up simultaneously at each other. He had
been reading his communication from Lady Alicia at the same time she
had been reading hers.
"Well, Joan, the difficulty is solved. I am glad, for I was beginning
to dread these winter months for that refractory girl."
"Isn't it noble of Lady Alicia? I am so delighted. I must go up and see
Cecil, and hear what she thinks of it."
She slipped upstairs. Cecil was in bed; her breakfast-tray lay beside
her, but she was still heavy with sleep, and had not looked at her
letters.
"Cecil, Cecil! Wake up! You can go abroad in a fortnight, if you like!"
Cecil opened her eyes. She was generally very cross the first thing in
the morning, and had a great dislike to anyone entering her room before
she was up. Joan's smiling, eager face roused her.
"What is the matter?"
Joan pounced upon a letter lying upon her tray addressed in Lady
Alicia's handwriting.
"Here! Read this, and you will have the news!"
Cecil sat up in bed and took the letter.
"I don't know why you are so excited. Can't you speak?"
But Joan stood silent, letting the letter tell its own tale.
Cecil did not show any excitement. She read the letter through very
calmly, and then handed it to Joan.
"I suppose she has written to you, too? I dare say Father will object,
and I am not sure that I should like to go abroad with Lady Alicia. She
is rather prudish and dull. She says she's ordered to go by her doctor,
and must have a companion. Why doesn't she ask you? Does she expect me
to be a kind of maid to her? I shouldn't fancy that."
"Well," said Joan, "if you don't jump at her kind offer, you mustn't
expect any more sympathy from me. I really think you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, Cecil!"
Cecil laughed. Her good humour came back.
"Of course I shall accept it," she said. "I would rather go with a
tinker than not at all. Does Father know?"
"Yes; he is quite willing."
Cecil attacked her breakfast with vigour.
"It's rather short notice," she said. "I must get some things down from
town."
"Now don't be running up bills! You always look nicely dressed, and
Lady Alicia is very simple and quiet herself."
"I am not going to be a duplicate of Lady Alicia! How pleased you will
be to get rid of me!"
Joan bent down and gave her a quick little kiss. "You know it is for
your sake. I am so glad."
Cecil looked up at her with laughter in her eyes. "You're a trump,
Joan! But we do not fit together very well. You are always such a saint
that you provoke me to be a devil!"
Joan looked at her gravely and a little tenderly. "Lady Alicia
considers you have the making of a fine woman in you."
With which diplomatic remark she left the room.
The fortnight that ensued was a very busy time for both sisters. Cecil
did at times feel ashamed of herself when she saw how Joan slaved for
her, and the night before she left home she said to her:
"I wonder you don't hate me, Joan! However much you may deny it, I know
that when I am gone, you and Father will settle down with the greatest
happiness and peace together. Sophia will thank Heaven she has seen
the last of me. There isn't a soul here who would care if they never
saw me again. I think it is this that makes me so bad tempered. Nobody
wants me or likes me. I feel I am a very big fly in the small pot of
ointment. The only one who really cared for me and wanted me is in her
grave!"
"Oh, Cecil, you mustn't talk so! You don't know how I care, but you
don't encourage me to show you any affection, do you?"
"No; I hate all that kind of thing. Some day, perhaps, I shall turn to
you for what I now seem to spurn. In my heart I know that your view of
life is the right one, and mine is wrong. But everything will have to
be taken from me before I shall be content with what you are. My health
and strength and powers of enjoyment will have to go before I can hope
to settle down into such a narrow groove."
Joan did not speak; she felt tongue-tied. Her face showed how Cecil's
words distressed her.
"Don't look so shocked. Perhaps Lady Alicia will work a wonderful
change in me. Who knows? I may come back to you a perfect miracle of
goodness and unselfishness. You can hope for it. Anyhow, you're a dear
old thing, and I'm very grateful for all you've been doing for me!"
She put up her face for a kiss, and Joan had misty eyes as she gave it.
In spite of all her waywardness, Cecil did occupy a big place in her
heart.
When she had gone, the house seemed strangely silent and empty. Mr.
Adair openly expressed his relief at his younger daughter's absence;
and, as the days slipped by, Joan found that Banty and the parish more
than occupied her time and thoughts.
Mrs. Adair's book was published in the new year, and it was a keen
pleasure to Mr. Adair as well as to Joan to read it through and
discuss every page of it. Banty received a copy. She was becoming a
great reader, and though, as a rule, her reading was of the lightest
description, she took the greatest interest in this special book.
"I have been telling Father," she said to Joan, "that he had better get
you to finish our ridiculous Chronicles. Would you be above completing
Motty's leavings?"
"I couldn't do it satisfactorily, I am afraid," said Joan. "Why don't
you try it yourself, Banty? It would be such an interest to you!"
"It wouldn't be the smallest interest to me, except—" here her eyes
brightened—"to ferret out all the Gascoignes who followed the hounds."
"Where is your cousin now?"
"He is still hanging on the skirts of those rich Americans. If he
doesn't get engaged quickly to the girl, they will find him out, and it
will be all 'UP' with him."
A few days afterwards, Banty told Joan that she had been looking over
the MSS. already written about their family.
"Of course, I'm not a writer, and never shall be. Motty has put
together all the papers and letters connected with us up to 1700; so
he really has done the worst of it. And I have told father I will
string together some of the letters and papers since. It is only to put
them according to date, isn't it? I'm actually getting interested in
my great-grandfather. He kept a pack of hounds and wrote the raciest
letters to his lady love. In one he says 'I toasted you last night, and
found the port a sorry substitute for your sweet lips!' It sounds as
if he meant to drink them. I dare say his metaphor was mixed, like his
brains, at the time, for they say he was a hard drinker."
Banty spoke with animation. Joan encouraged her all she could to
persevere in the task.
"Your father will be so pleased if you can do it, Banty."
"I shall want something to keep me going," said Banty. "I get a sick
longing to be on a horse again, Joan. It's all very well to talk of the
glories of the future world; but if I can't ride there, it won't be any
pleasure to me!"
On the whole Banty was meeting her misfortune with great pluck and
fortitude.
"I know you think the hunting-field a very poor place, Joan," she said
one day, "but I can tell you it gives you lessons in discipline and
self-control like nothing else. It teaches you to bear fatigue without
a whine, to take a few ugly bumps and tumbles as all in the day's work,
and to wait patiently half a day, if necessary, when the hounds can't
find. I've been well schooled in endurance all my life, and it helps me
not to pull a poor mouth now."
As the spring came on, she grew wonderfully stronger, and could soon
walk about with the help of a stick. She refused to use a crutch, and
her nimbleness in moving surprised even the doctor.
It was a very happy day for Joan when Banty asked her rather awkwardly
whether she would like her help in the Sunday school.
"I'd like to do something. I can tell them what you've told me. If I'd
been taught by you as a child, what a saint I might have been!"
Joan gladly gave her a class of boys, and Banty not only developed a
genius for managing them, but for interesting them; and she very soon
became quite enamoured of her work.
Lady Gascoigne said rather pathetically to Joan:
"That dreadful accident has given me a daughter of whom I am proud. I
was so afraid that she would be an unhappy, lifelong invalid. As it is,
she does more for me and her father now, with her one leg, than she
ever did with her two! And we never hear a complaint from her lips."
Which was great testimony for such a high spirited, wilful girl as
Banty had always been.