“I’ll put a girdle round the earth
In forty minutes.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
THE visitation had not been confined to the High School. The little
cheaply-built rows for workmen and fishermen had suffered much more
severely, owing chiefly to the parents’ callous indifference to
infection. “Kismet,” as they think it, said Jane Mohun, and still more
to their want of care. Chills were caught, fevers and diphtheria ensued,
and there was an actual mortality among the children at the works and at
Arnscombe. Mr. Flight begged for help from the Nursing Sisterhood at
Dearport, and, to her great joy, Sister Beata was sent down to him, with
another who was of the same standing as Angela, and delighted to have a
glimpse of her; though Angela thought it due to her delicate charge, and
the Merrifields, not to plunge into actual nursing while Lena needed her
hourly attention, and was not yet in a state for the training to do
without it to continue. Paulina, however, being regarded as infection
proof, was permitted to be an attendant and messenger of her dear Sister
Beata, to her own great joy. She was now nineteen, and her desire to
devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with
Sister Angela had only strengthened it.
“Oh, Maidie!” she said, “I do not think there can be any life so good or
so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick
and poor.”
“My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are not
_of_ the world, and if you keep yourself from the evil.”
“Yes; but why should I run into the world? It is not evil, I know, so
far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in
one’s self.”
“And so would a Sisterhood. That is a world, too.”
“I suppose it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a
great deal to help one to keep right. And, oh! to have one’s work in
real good to Christ’s poor, or in missions, instead of in all these
outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time.
If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister
Elfleda as a probationer!”
“You could not be any more yet,” said Magdalen; “but I will think about
it, and talk it over with Sister Angela. You know your friend Sister
Mena, as she called herself, does not mean to be a Sister, but a
governess.”
“Yes; she wrote to me. She has never seen or known anything outside the
Convent, and it is all new and turns her head,” said Paulina, wisely. “I
know she helped me to be all the more silly about Vera and poor Hubert
Delrio.”
Magdalen promised to talk the matter over with Sister Angela.
“I should call it a vocation,” said Angela. “I have watched her ever
since I have been here, and I am sure her soul is set on these best
things, in a steady, earnest way.”
“She has always been an exceedingly good girl ever since I have had to do
with her,” said Magdalen. “I have hardly had a fault to find with her,
except a little exaggeration in the direction of St. Kenelm’s.”
“A steady, not a fitful flame,” said Angela.
“But she is so young.”
“If you will believe me, Magdalen, such a home as that Dearport
Sisterhood is a precious thing—I have not been worthy of it. I have been
a wild colt, carried about by all manner of passing excitements. Oh,
dear! love of sheer fun and daring enterprise, and amusement, in shocking
every one, even my very dearest, whom I loved best. I have done things
too dreadful to think of, and been utterly unreasonable and unmanageable,
and proud of it; but always that Sisterhood has been like a cord drawing
me! I never quite got free of it, even when I sent back my medal, and
fancied it had been playing at superstition. I was there for a month as
almost a baby, and the atmosphere has brought peace ever since. That,
and my brother, and Sister Constance, and Bishop Fulmort, have been the
saving of me, if anything has. I mean, if they will have me, to spend a
little time at Dearport after all this perplexity is over, and I know how
it is with Lena, and I could see how it is with Paula if you liked.”
Magdalen accepted the suggestion, perhaps the more readily because of a
fleeting visit from Hubert Delrio, who had finished his frescoes at the
American Vale Leston, and came for a day or two to Mr. Flight’s. She had
sometimes doubted whether the supposed love of Vera had not been a good
deal diffused among the young ladies, and might not so far awaken in
Paulina as to render her vocation doubtful; but there were no such
symptoms. Paula was quiet and cheerful, with a friendly welcome, but no
excitement; but it was Thekla, now fifteen, who was all blushes whenever
Hubert looked or spoke to her, all her forwardness gone; and shyness, or
decidedly awkwardness, set in, resulting chiefly in giggle.
Hubert looked more manly and substantial, and he had just had an order
for an important London church, which pleased him much, and involved
another journey to Italy to study some of the designs in the Lombardic
churches.
Not that there was any chance of meeting Vera. Mr. and Mrs. White had
spent the last summer at Baden; and Vera, who had many pretty little
drawing-room talents, and was always obliging, had been very acceptable
there. This winter an attack of rheumatism had made them decide on
trying Algiers, with a view to the Atlas marbles, and then German baths
again might claim them for the summer.
In fact, the fear of infection had rendered Rock Quay a deserted place
during the Easter vacation. Fergus Merrifield might not come near
Primrose and Lily, and was charmed to accept an invitation from his
friend and admirer, Adrian Vanderkist, to Vale Leston, where he would be
able to explore the geology of Penbeacon, to say nothing of the coast;
while his sister Felicia, who had been one of the victims, remained to be
disinfected with Miss Mohun. Dolores was at Vale Leston Priory, and
Agatha Prescott with her, so as to have a clean bill of health for her
return to Oxford for her last term.
The Holy Week was calm and grave; and the two girls, with Anna Vanderkist
and her little sisters, were very happy over their primroses and anemones
on Easter Eve, with the beautiful Altar Cross that no one could manage
like Aunt Cherry, whose work was confined to that, and to the two crosses
on the graves.
Another notion soon occupied them. There was a vague idea that a sort of
convalescent or children’s hospital might be established for the training
of women intending to study medicine or nursing, chiefly at Miss
Arthuret’s expense, and Dolores was anxious to consider the possibility
of placing it in the sweet mountain air, tempered by the sea breezes of
Penbeacon.
It was an idea to make Mrs. Grinstead shudder; but neither she nor her
niece, Anna Vanderkist, could forget Gerald’s view that Penbeacon was not
only to be the playground of Vale Leston, and they always felt as if
Dolores had a certain widow’s right to influence any decision. So she
cheerfully acquiesced in what, in her secret heart, seemed only a feeble
echo of the past, though, to the young generations it was a very happy
hopeful present when all the youthful party, under the steerage of Mary
and Anna, and the escort of Sir Adrian and Fergus, started off with
ponies, donkeys, cycles and sturdy feet to picnic on Penbeacon, if
possible in the March winds—well out of the way of the clay works.
How Fergus divided his cares between the strata and Dolores’ kodak, how
even his photography could not spoil Aunt Alda; how charming a group of
sisters Dolores contrived to produce; how Adrian was the proud pioneer
into a coach adorned with stalactites and antediluvian bones; how Anna
collected milkwort and violets for Aunt Cherry; how a sly push sent
little Joan in a headlong career down a slope that might have resulted in
a terrible fall, but did only cause a tumble and great fright, and a
severe reprimand from the elder sisters; how Agatha was entranced by the
glorious view in the clearness of spring, how they ate their sandwiches
and tried to think it was not cold; how grey east wind mist came over the
distance and warned them it was time to trot down,—all this must belong
to the annals of later Vale Leston; and of those years of youth which in
each generation leave impressions as of sunbeams for life. And on their
return, Dolores found a letter which filled her with a fresh idea. It
was from her father in New Zealand, telling her that there was an opening
for her to come and give a course of lectures on electricity at
Canterbury, Auckland and the other towns, and proposing to her to come
out with her lady assistant, when she might very probably extend her tour
to Australia.
“Would you come, Naggie?” asked Dolores.
“Oh! I should like nothing half so well. If you could only wait till my
turn is over, and the exam!”
“Of course! Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till
after the examination! How capital it will be! My father will like your
bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older. Will your
sister consent?”
“Oh! Magdalen will be glad enough to have me off on a career. We will
write and prepare her mind. I believe I am not to go home, so as to
bring a clean bill of health to St. Robert’s.”
“I really think,” added Dolores, “that Magdalen would make an admirable
head matron, or whatever you call it!”
“Dear old thing! She is very fond of her Goyle.”
“True, but Sophy’s engineer husband tells us that a new line is projected
to Rock Quay, through the very heart of the Goyle, Act of Parliament,
compulsory sale and all.”
“Well! work might console her for being uprooted, and she is quite
youthful enough to take to it with spirit.”
“Besides that she would greatly console Clement and Cherry for the
profanation of their Penbeacon. I declare I will suggest it to
Arthurine!”
So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what
was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was
“winds have rent thy sheltering bowers.”