THERE was one relative of the late Mrs. Fereday with whom Dr. Crawford
had always kept up a friendly though rather desultory intercourse.
This was the Rev. Walter Steyne, younger brother of the gentleman who
inherited the entailed estates at the death of Mrs. Fereday's father.
He was rector of Hillstead Magna, a village about twenty miles from
Shelverton, and possessed in addition to his living some private means,
a delicate wife, and a large family, of whom his daughter Grace was the
eldest. This girl had not been specially called after Mrs. Fereday,
for the Christian name common to both had been borne by some feminine
Steyne in each generation for ages past.
She had often visited at Steynes-Cote when a child, and was a great
favourite with the Feredays, whom she was accustomed to call "aunt"
and "uncle," though Mrs. Fereday was really her father's first cousin.
There were no little Steynes at Hillstead when Andrew Crawford was
sent for to be the adopted son at Steynes-Cote, and it was chiefly
during his college course and absence in India that the two or three
eldest amongst the rectory children came to stay at Shelverton with the
Feredays.
Since Dr. Crawford's marriage, there had been no visiting between the
families, though he and Mr. Steyne met occasionally, and exchanged
friendly letters at rather long intervals. The chief reason for the
suspension of Grace's visits to Steynes-Cote was owing to the fact that
the girl's presence was almost indispensable at home. Within the last
five years, her mother's delicacy had increased to such a degree that
she was wholly confined to the house during the winter, and, at best,
able to take only a small share in the management of her family.
Hillstead people were continually saying what a truly providential
arrangement it was that the rector's eldest child was a girl. "If it
were not for Miss Grace, what would become of all those little ones?"
was a common question, and it was one which often recurred to the minds
of both father and mother.
It is surely the exception to find unanimity in village female society,
but there were no two opinions in Hillstead parish as to the merits of
the rector's daughter. Yet, many a motherly heart, felt deeply for the
girl and the parents, while thanking God for so precious a gift, sighed
at the thought that Grace was growing old far too soon.
That Grace Steyne did wonders in her character of deputy-mother,
there could be no doubt, also that her being the eldest was a great
blessing in a family containing a disproportionate number of boys. But
whether the girl felt this arrangement quite satisfactory for herself
is somewhat questionable. To be the eldest of nine when one is just
fifteen, and to act as the mother's deputy in every department of
household management from that age to one's twentieth birthday, is not
always a matter for self-gratulation.
Such a position may be invaluable, as tending to encourage domesticity
of character, and is certain to give an amount of experience in the
management of children which nothing else but actual motherhood can
furnish. Indeed, as was Mrs. Crawford's case, it is possible to be a
real mother without fulfilling many of a mother's duties.
Still, it is possible to have too much experience even of a good thing,
or it may be too wide, when compared with the time spent in acquiring
it. Young shoulders may be over-weighted and young hearts feel very
heavy, whilst the heads and hands belonging to them are taking the work
of old ones. The fact that they have won the unlimited confidence of
all around them does not always compensate the young folks for the loss
of a large share of girlish enjoyments.
If such thoughts passed through Grace Steyne's mind, she did not put
them into words, but showed a brave front and a cheery face to all
lookers-on. She knew that one of her mother's greatest troubles came
from the thought that her darling child had far too much work and too
little relaxation. She noticed how the invalid's eyes would follow her
wistfully, as if in dread that the girl's strength and courage might
alike give way.
But Grace did not complain. She returned the anxious look with a smile
which gave renewed confidence and comfort to her mother's heart. She
made time from household calls and on the busiest days to tell Mrs.
Steyne all that was going on outside, and when, by her humorous way of
putting things, she beguiled the invalid into a laugh, she went away
feeling abundantly rewarded.
Children are always harder to manage when the presence of an invalid
renders quiet essential in a house; and to secure this Grace Steyne's
ingenuity was often strained to the utmost. Happily, she was a famous
tale-teller, and many a time she succeeded in coaxing the smaller fry
to give up an hour and go to bed so much sooner, on condition that she
would sit in the large night nursery and tell tales for their benefit.
Then, when the last young head rested peacefully, Grace would steal to
the little chamber she called her own, and, kneeling there, cry to her
Father in heaven to give her strength according to her day, and enable
her to persevere in the path of duty, to put self aside and care for
others.
Only the pale moon and the silent stars which peeped through the
uncurtained window knew of these brief moments of solemn heart-crying
to God. Only these and the walls of the little room, if they could have
had ears to hear and tongues to repeat, would have been able to report
concerning the girl's struggles against the natural longings of youth
for the simple pleasures from which she was almost wholly debarred.
The girl needed a brave heart and a brave face, for her daily life was
one battle-field. With her bright temperament, vigorous health, strong
sense of humour, and love of the beautiful, it did seem hard to be
chained down, as it were, to this unvarying round of household duties.
To see other girls going off to the tennis parties to which she had
also been invited, and to have to shake her head when they dropped in
at the rectory to say, "Do come for once, Gracie," required no little
courage. To do it without a look of discontent, and even to jest over
her disappointment, required more still.
"Cannot be done," Grace said, on one such occasion which must be
chronicled. "Watty has torn his everyday jacket almost to ribbons, and
must remain in 'durance vile' until I have mended it."
"Let him put on another; I am sure he has more than one jacket," cried
the girls in chorus.
"He has two. The boys all have the same allowance—one for Sundays, one
for week-days, and I am glad they have no more, or I might sometimes be
tempted to put off the mending; then think what the accumulation would
be!"
"Gracie, do come. Let Watty pay the penalty this time. It will teach
him a lesson. He is always tearing his clothes, and it is really too
bad to keep you stitch, stitching, to mend them on such a perfect day
as this, and when everybody wants you to come out."
"Unfortunately everybody here wants me to stay in, and there is not
only Watty's jacket, but a perfect pile of things on the nursery table
with holes shouting to be mended, for washing and ironing days are just
over."
"I will stay and help you," said one of the callers, resolutely putting
down her racquet.
"Thank you a thousand times, Nelly, but you shall do no such thing.
Even with your help, if I could allow a crack tennis player to make
such a sacrifice, we could not finish the mending to-night. You would
be missed; I shall not, for I am such a shocking player that every one
fights shy of me as a partner."
"That is because you get no practice. You would play well directly if
you had a fair chance."
"Perhaps I might, perhaps not. At any rate I cannot play fit to be seen
now, and it is now that you are anxiously looked for at Hazelcourt.
So good-bye, girls; you are only hindering my work, and keeping Watty
without his jacket."
Thus Grace dismissed her visitors, and turned resolutely indoors,
without even waiting to respond to the backward glances, honestly
regretful ones, which were cast on her retreating figure, as she walked
quickly towards the house. To her credit be it spoken, she did not
keep Watty a prisoner any longer than was absolutely necessary for the
repair of his damaged garment.
Grace knew that the child was longing to be set free. Nature out of
doors was calling to him with a hundred voices, and human nature was
specially represented by a group of small boy companions who kept
casting furtive glances along the path, whilst they awaited with more
or less impatience, the deliverance of their captive chum, the knight
of the tatters.
The lads were going on a blackberrying expedition, and as Grace
handed Watty his garment, it was with small hope that it would come
back without additional rents after such an excursion. And yet the
girl could sympathize with the child's impatience, for Nature was
appealing to her as well as to Watty just then—nature within her own
breast—youthful nature, that all a woman's sober work could not stifle
or uproot.
As the swift-flying needle brought together the frayed edges, Grace's
thoughts followed the friends who had reluctantly left her at the
rectory gate. In fancy, she saw them welcomed on their arrival at
Hazelcourt, and heard inquiries and regrets on account of her own
absence. She wondered whether a certain masculine brow would be clouded
for just a little while, because she was not there. Or would its owner
be angry instead of sorry, and put down her absence to determined
avoidance of himself?
He was only a guest at Hazelcourt, and she knew that his visit was
drawing to a close. Probably this tennis party would be her last
opportunity of seeing him, and, in spite of her being the worst lady
player in Hillstead Magna, she had meant to go. Everybody could not
play at once, and the girls who were willing to look on were not always
the least acceptable guests at parties of the kind.
Grace had found looking on very pleasant indeed the last time she was
at Hazelcourt, for the visitor aforesaid, though as good a player as
she was a bad one, had been seized with a desire to watch the game in
her company, instead of taking part in it. And he had walked home with
her through the dewy lanes in the early evening, talking pleasantly by
the way, and making it longer than was really needful by unreasonable
dawdling.
Then, when Grace asked if he would come into the rectory and see her
father, because he kept lingering at the gate as if he expected such
an invitation, he promptly accepted it, and spent a full hour with her
parents, who enjoyed his bright companionship almost as much as she had
done on the homeward way.
Grace said to herself that this acquaintance with a neighbour's guest
would be only a passing affair. The young man would go away, and
no doubt forget the people whom he had met during an idle month at
Hazelcourt. But whilst he remained, he was a great acquisition to
Hillstead society. He was well-born, well-educated, had been, for his
age, a great traveller, and could talk about so many places and things
which Grace had often vainly longed to see.
He was rich, too, though from his simple, unaffected tastes and ways
no one would have thought so; or at least village minds would not, for
simple folk who have spent their lives within a narrow circle generally
imagine that the possession of wealth must be associated with much
external display.
Yet, though the acquaintance with this young stranger would prove of
a transitory character, Grace Steyne did feel that she should like to
have as much pleasure out of it as possible. She did wish to be at the
tennis party, and thought she might be spared to go. She had even risen
an hour earlier than usual to forecast her work, and make sure of going
with a clear conscience and a sense that nothing would be left undone
in the meanwhile.
Then everything had gone against her. That tiresome Miss Barber had
come to speak to the rector about the clothing club, and he being from
home, Grace, to save her mother from the infliction, had endured two
hours of wearisome talk, the substance of which might have been given
in ten minutes. Other unexpected calls had taken her from work that
must be done, so that when the time came, Grace had to send away her
friends without her, and submit to the disappointment as best she might.
We have seen how she acted, and that she dismissed her girl friends
with a smile and a jest, mended Watty's jacket without scolding him or
boxing his ears for having torn it, and next set to work with a will to
lessen the big pile of articles that needed, some a few stitches or an
odd button, others a good hour's work, before they could be laid away
ready for use.
A very prosaic occupation was this of darning and patching. But taking
all the circumstances into consideration, it had its poetic side. The
girl had fought a pretty tough battle with herself. Every feeling of
her young nature, with its capacity for enjoyment, its longing for
fellowship with other young life, and that special little secret hidden
far down in the very depths of her innocent heart, had pleaded against
the stern call of present duty on that bright afternoon. And yet one
brief prayer had gone up from her heart to God, "Help me to do right at
any cost!"
Who, looking at the calm face, or receiving a pleasant answer from the
girl's lips, could have guessed what a real trial it had been to her to
give up the visit to Hazelcourt? But Grace Steyne was just the one not
only to bear pain, but so to hide what she endured that others might
not guess its existence, and thus be grieved for her sake.
Nobody living, not even Mrs. Prattely, could have called Grace "poor
thing!" or even "poor girl!" She might be over-worked and over-weighted
in that busy house, where every one referred to her as its presiding
genius, but no person could have used terms of pity which savoured of
contempt when alluding to the rector's brave daughter.
Tea was over, the younger fry, including Watty, were all in bed, and
Grace was still bending over her work by lamplight, when she heard
steps and voices on the gravel outside. Masculine voices, one of them
her father's, were coming nearer, and Grace's cheek flushed and paled
as the second fell on her ear. It seemed so like that to which she had
listened with more pleasure than she durst confess to herself, during
her last walk home from Hazelcourt.
"I must be mistaken," thought Grace, pausing in her work to listen more
attentively.
But her mother prevented this by saying, "Grace dear, your father is
bringing some one home with him. Is there anything in the house for
supper if the visitor should stay?"
No chance for the girl's thoughts to dwell on anything which savoured
of life's poetry. She must turn from the household clothing to
its commissariat department, and speculate as to the possibility
of bringing in the mere scrap of cold meat left from dinner in a
presentable form.
Grace's guess as to the personality of the coming visitor was set at
rest by his entrance with her father. At sight of him, she ceased to
hope that he would not stay to supper, despite the fact that there
was next to nothing in the larder, for he was the individual who had
occupied the largest share in her thoughts that afternoon—Mr. Carnelly.
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