FAITH AND CHARITY.
"That them may'st pray for them thy foes are given;
That thou may'st look to God I bring thee pain.
I bring thee cares that thou may'st look to heaven;
I bring thee fretful friends that thou may'st train
Thy soul to patience. What thou deemest gain
When closest wreathing chains around thy soul
I rend from thine own bleeding heart in twain,
That He who bought may have thy spirit whole,
Spurs that may give thee pain, but urge thee to the goal."
_Keble._
The evening festivities had been closed as usual by the family
concert, during which Garth had distinguished himself with more than
ordinary brilliancy.
Queenie had been a little thoughtful and absent, but she had no idea
that her pre-occupation had been observed until she bade Garth good
night, and he followed her into the little hall, and lighted her
candle.
"What is the use of worrying yourself over a lot of unnecessary
details?" he said, looking down at her with an elder-brotherly air.
"Things can't be settled in a minute. Leave everything to me; I will
see you through your difficulties. The best thing will be to put it
all out of your head for a little while, until I give you leave to
think of it."
"I will try; but it will not be very easy, when so much depends upon
it," she returned, submissively.
They were standing alone together in the little square hall; a lamp
burned dimly in a recess; the candle flared between them in the
summer draught; a grey moth brushed round them. Outside was the
shadow of the dark sycamores. A little runlet of water trickled
audibly in the silence. Garth's broad shoulders seemed to block up
the tiny hall; he towered above Queenie's slim, girlish figure,
looking down upon her with condescending dignity, but with the gleam
of real kindness in his eyes. As he held out his hand his firm, warm
pressure seemed reassuring.
"That is all the more reason to leave it to me. We business men are
used to deal with difficulties. Nothing hurts me; I am strong enough
to bear any amount of responsibility." And Queenie went up-stairs
comforted.
Garth's assurance was not unnecessary. For some days nothing further
passed between them on the subject of her project. Garth never
alluded to it; and but for those few words Queenie might have felt
uneasy. As it was she had some difficulty in keeping her
restlessness down. It cost her an effort at times to appear
unrestrained, and to join in the ordinary topics of conversation.
"I try to do as he tells me, and put it out of my mind; but it is so
hard when so much depends upon it," she would say to Cathy when they
retired for the night. "I hope it is not wrong; but I have set my
heart on carrying out this scheme. I get fonder of this place every
day, and so does Emmie. I never was so happy in my life!" finished
Queenie, with a little sob of excitement.
"You dear old Queen! as though we ever meant to part with you! Have
you really only been here a week? How I enjoy having you; and
Langley says the same. Never mind Garth's silence, his few words
mean more than a whole hour of talk from any other man. If he says
he will do a thing you may safely trust him."
"Yes; I know; but all the same, Mr. Logan may not think me suitable
for such a post," persisted Queenie, disconsolately, "and then I
shall be obliged to go back to Carlisle, and to part with Emmie. Oh,
Cathy! it does seem so hard, when we should be content with so
little;" and though Cathy helped her friend, and was very kind and
sympathizing, there was no denying that the cause for suspense was a
grave one.
Queenie had only stated the truth when she had owned she had never
been happier in her life. For the first time she had tasted the real
comfort of a happy, well-regulated home. Queenie's own youth had
never known freedom from the carking fret of a narrow income and
incessant burden of debt. The remembrance of the petty meanness, the
shiftlessness, the continuous fight with untoward circumstance, made
retrospect bitter to her. She had grown up strong and sturdy, like
some blooming Alpine plant which had taken root in a handful of earth
on the edge of a crevasse; the sunshine might be all about her, but
it had not gilded her one point of rock.
Here there was plenty without profusion, comfort without pretension;
a happy family circle, rich in individuality, characteristic, strong
in will, with a fount of pure native humor evidently engrained in the
blood; and yet there were fewer jars and less dissensions than
ordinarily occur in domestic life.
Ted was evidently the malcontent of the household; but even his
grumbling, incessant as it was, had no root of bitterness in it. He
was only a lazy, sweet-tempered fellow, who had not yet fitted
himself to his niche in life, and who was young enough to quarrel
with the monotony of his existence. "Look here! I can't stand this
much longer; I shall have to cut it, after all, and take to office
work in Carlisle," he would say, when he had secured the two girls as
listeners, and had extended himself after his usual fashion on the
long, narrow couch, with his arms under his head, and his light hair
standing on end. "Do you think a fellow of any spirit can endure
life in a hole like this?"
"Oh, Ted, do be quiet; we are so tired of this sort of talk,"
remonstrated his sister.
"I am not talking to you; I am talking to Miss Marriott. She is a
girl of sense, and knows what a fellow means when he says he is
hipped, and all that. Do you think a place like Hepshaw is meant for
anything but a refuge for old maids?"
"Oh, Teddie, you rude boy!"
"Don't interfere, Catherine; I am speaking to your betters."
"Your brother seems perfectly content with his surroundings; I should
advise you to follow his example," returned Queenie demurely, trying
hard not to laugh, and not unmindful of the boyish kicks that were
being administered to the end of the sofa.
"Garth! Oh, he is different; he is a confirmed old bachelor, a sort
of philosopher on a small scale. I don't believe Garth would trouble
himself if he never saw a fresh face from one year's end to another.
A man with a hobby is always to be envied," sighed the poor victim of
circumstance.
"Get a hobby, then," snapped Cathy.
"Oh, it is all very easy to talk."
"I know it is, or you would not lie railing there, like the
melancholy Jacques, against fate. 'I met a fool,' quoth he, 'a
motley fool.'"
"'Call me not fool till heaven has sent me fortune,'" growled Ted,
with the spirit of reviving fun in his eyes.
"There, he is better now; when he begins to quote we may safely leave
him, Queenie. I want you to come with me and call on the Cardinal
Virtues; it is such a wet afternoon that they will be in strong
force. Never mind Ted's grumbling, he cannot expect you to stay at
home and talk to him; besides, he has 'David Copperfield' to amuse
him."
"I'll pay you out for this," returned her brother, viciously. "Just
as Miss Marriott and I had found out we were kindred spirits, and all
that sort of thing.
'Oh, woman! in your hour of ease
A wretched bore, or else a tease;
When pain and sickness wring the brow
A downright duffer then art thou.'
Wasn't the old Caledonian one when he praised up the weaker portion
of the community in that ridiculous fashion?" but as Cathy did not
condescend to reply, the passage of arms stopped.
The sisterhood were all gathered in the pleasant parlor at the
Evergreens. A bright-eyed, faded little woman lay on the couch in
the bay window knitting some bright-coloured strips for an
antimacassar. She looked up and nodded pleasantly as the friends
entered.
"You always come to us on a wet afternoon, Catherine, when visitors
are most welcome. Faith was reading to us; I dare say she will be
glad of a rest by this time. We are in the fourth volume of
D'Aubigné's 'Reformation.' Put a marker in the place, Faith, and
then we shall lose no time when we open the book again. Do you know
D'Aubigné, Miss Marriott? it is most improving reading for young
people."
"Could this active-looking, talkative little woman be the hopeless
invalid of whom she had heard so much?" Queenie asked herself, with
some bewilderment, as she sat down in the comfortable chair that Miss
Faith brought to her. Though it was summer a little fire burned in
the grate; the window had been closed to exclude the dampness. Miss
Faith's cheeks looked unusually pale; her eyes were full of a soft
weariness.
"Charity is so fond of D'Aubigné; I think he tires me a little. It
is very good reading, of course; but in this summer weather, and with
the drip, drip of the rain on the leaves--"
"There were giants in those days," broke in Miss Hope, vigorously.
"Luther was a grand man, and so was Zwingle." Miss Hope spoke in a
loud but not unpleasing voice. She was a stout, fresh-colored woman,
not without a certain degree of comeliness. In her young days she
had been too high-coloured for beauty, but now the grey hair toned
and softened her down.
Miss Prudence was less pleasing: she was tall and angular, wore
spectacles, and had that slight appendage on the upper lip which is
not a strictly feminine adjunct. Her voice was thin in quality and
somewhat harsh. Queenie felt that Ted's _soubriquet_ of "the dragon"
was not badly bestowed. It was she who held the purse-strings of the
little household, and who guarded the proprieties. Miss Hope, in
spite of her strong leaning to the Plymouth Brothers, and her
somewhat injudicious tyrannies in the matter of temperance and total
abstinence, was far less rigid than her strong-minded sister.
No wonder Miss Faith drooped in such an atmosphere! and then Miss
Charity's voice! Queenie, who was sensitive on such matters, found
fault with the ceaseless flow of words that proceeded from the
bay-window. "She is egotistical, selfish; she works that poor sister
of hers to death, I know she does," thought the girl to herself, with
a certain youthful antagonism against oppression. "Miss Faith is a
saint; but I wonder how she can bear it."
Queenie was a little hard in her judgment, as young people often are
in their estimate of things and people. There was selfishness, and
possibly oppression, in the continual sisterly sacrifice demanded as
a right; in the unpitying claims made on the health and time so
ungrudgingly bestowed upon her.
In life, real life, we see these sort of sacrifices perpetually
exacted before our eyes somehow. Human flesh and blood revolts
against the sight. The strong, sometimes the young, compelled to put
away their own life, and spend some of their best years chained to
the couch of helplessness; condemned to share the burthen of an
invalid existence; exposed to petty tyrannies and tempers, and
bearing them out of pity for the suffering that provokes them.
Sometimes, indeed, it may be a labor of love, a life within a life,
of many-folded sweetnesses blossoming out of the pain, as in the case
of an afflicted parent or husband. Nay, one often see admirable
lives of sisterly or brotherly devotion. Yet are there sadder cases,
when duty and not love is the main-spring of action; when the
self-sacrifice is bitter though voluntary; when the watcher would
willingly change places with the watched, that the bounding pulse of
health might be subdued; that the keen suffering of repression and
yearning, and God only knows what bitter measure of woman's pain,
might be dulled and quieted by mere bodily weakness.
To be free, only to be free, and live their own lives--that is what
some women vainly crave; and then a stone is given them for bread.
Instead of work comes waiting--the hardest and most trying form of
work; instead of freedom a mesh of finely-woven duties, light as
gossamer threads, yet binding the conscience like cart-ropes.
Queenie sat and mused with inward rebellion while Charity talked
about her books, and showed her manuscript volumes of finely-copied
extracts. "I always write out passages that please me; it is such a
resource to read them afterwards. I want Faith to do the same, but
she likes mending and watering her flowers. I prefer thoughts to
flowers, Miss Marriott."
"Every one has a right to their taste. I think I share Miss
Faith's," returned the girl, a little ungraciously. She felt no pity
for the bright-eyed, faded little woman, who made so much of her
life, and hid away her sufferings bravely, much as the silk, patched
coverlet hid the useless shrunken limbs.
She would not even allow to Cathy that she could have ever been
pretty, as they walked home together through the summer rain.
"Her face does not attract me in the least, there is nothing in it;
and then her cheek-bones are so high, and her curls are so thin and
limp. Now, if she only braided them nicely under a little close
cap--and then her tongue; oh, Cathy! I think she would drive me
distracted in a week."
But Cathy stood up stoutly for Miss Charity.
"I must say that I think you a little prejudiced," she returned, with
honest indignation, and that natural love of opposition that incites
young people to do battle for the accused. She did not love Miss
Charity in the least; but, nevertheless, her sense of justice
prompted her to take up her defence. "She is nice-looking now, every
one says so; and when she was young she was more than pretty,
positively beautiful, before she met with her accident."
"Was it an accident that caused her illness?"
"Yes; she was a strong healthy girl, just like us, fresh-colored and
blooming; and her hair used to be so pretty,--it was just that paler
tinge of gold that one sees with fair complexions, and now the color
seems all worked out of it. She used to be called the pretty Miss
Palmer; and then she was the only one of the four sisters who were
ever engaged."
"Oh, Cathy, I thought you told me that there was no one for them to
marry!"
"I forgot Miss Charity's affair; she was engaged to a young farmer in
Wythiedale. I fancy he was a rough-and-ready sort of person; but I
believe she was fond of him, poor thing, and then her accident
happened."
"What sort of accident?"
"Oh, she fell down the granary steps when she was spending the day at
his father's. It was a dreadful affair; partial paralysis set in,
and there was a complication, and a great deal of suffering; and then
the doctor said it was hopeless, and she was obliged to give him up."
"Oh, poor Miss Charity!" ejaculated Queenie, with tears in her eyes.
She could have gone back and asked her pardon on the spot for all the
hard things she had thought. "I never dreamt of trouble like this; I
can hardly bear to hear of it. What became of the poor fellow?"
"That is the worst part of all," replied Cathy, rather reluctantly;
"his end was very miserable. He broke his neck when he was out
hunting. His horse fell, in trying to jump a five-barred gate, and
rolled over on him. Some people said he was not quite sober when it
happened. Whether he grew reckless from the loss of her, or whether,
as it is strongly suspected, he was addicted to intemperance from the
first, I cannot possibly tell; but I rather think that she must have
been deceived in him. Of course no one was cruel enough to hint at
such a thing to her; and so she treasures the memory of her poor
George, as she calls him."
"But, Cathy, what a terrible tragedy!"
"Yes; she was very ill for a time; and then Miss Faith gave up her
hospital, and came home to nurse her. Of course it sounds very bad,
and the poor thing has suffered a good deal one way and another; but
how do you know that it was not all for the best?" finished Cathy,
solemnly. "Think if that accident had never happened, and she had
married him, and then found that he was not worthy. To be tied for
life to a man, and then to see him sink lower and lower, to despise
one's own husband! Could you imagine any greater torment than that?
If it were I, I know I should get to hate him. Nothing should make
me live with such a man; I would beg my bread first," cried the girl,
with sparkling eyes, and setting her small white teeth together. "To
despise one's husband! oh, Queenie, think how dreadful!"
"I don't suppose such a thing could happen to either of us. Poor
Miss Charity! perhaps it was a blessing in disguise after all; but to
think of caring for D'Aubigné's 'Reformation', and copying out all
those rubbishing extracts, after living through such a tragedy as
that! it seems so incomprehensible."
"Do you think the sun and the moon ought to have stood still in her
little firmament? don't you know hearts are broken every day, and the
world goes on just as usual?" returned Cathy, sententiously. She and
Queenie seemed to have changed characters that afternoon; it was
Cathy who was calm and philosophical. At another time her
old-fashioned wisdom would have provoked a smile, but Queenie was too
much in earnest.
"I should have thought her story would have been more plainly written
in her face. If it had been Miss Faith now-- Cathy, you look queer;
has Miss Faith ever had a story too?"
"Well, not exactly. I don't know, no one does; but I always fancied
there was some attraction beside the sick children in that hospital.
Langley's suspicions were aroused when she went over to Carlisle
once; but she would not like me to repeat such nonsense."
"But why should I not know? Oh, Cath! there could never be any harm
in telling me."
"Well, as it was ten years ago, perhaps not. I don't know what made
Langley say such a thing, but she spoke to me once of a dark young
surgeon, who came up to them in the ward, and talked to them for a
long time. Langley said nothing crossed her mind until she saw him
look at Miss Faith, and then, somehow, the thought got into her mind."
"Nothing but a look?"
"My dear, there is a great deal to be read in looks," returned Cathy,
demurely. "It was just the beginning, I dare say, of a possible
romance. When Miss Charity's trouble happened, and poor Miss Faith
came home to nurse her, every one said it was grief at her sister's
state that made her so grave and unlike herself; but Langley always
believes that that dark young surgeon had something to do with it,
and so do I. I dare say this was one of the 'might-have-beens' that
have spoiled many women's lives."
"But Miss Faith is not so old,--only five-and-thirty,--and she is
still so sweet-looking."
"My dear, we are speaking of mere looks, and ten years ago; most
likely he has married and has half-a-dozen children by this time; and
remember, they have never even met since. Perhaps he has grown stout
and bald, those dark young men do get stout sometimes. I am a little
cynical, but I cannot believe in such faithfulness as that. Men are
such fickle creatures, my dear, 'out of sight is out of mind' with
most of them."
"Pray where did you learn those abominable sentiments?" asked her
brother curtly, as he came up behind the girls, starting them into a
muttered exclamation of dismay. How much had he overheard? how was
it that his footsteps had gained upon them unperceived? Quick
blushes burnt in the girls' faces. Garth shook off the raindrops and
laughed mischievously; he was master of the situation, his love of
teasing was paramount.
"Girls are all alike. Fancy men talking to each other about their
love affairs, and choosing a public thoroughfare for the tender
confidence."
"Garth, you are a monster, and I hate you," burst out Cathy, stamping
her little foot at him.
"Mr. Clayton is utterly mistaken," observed Queenie hotly; "we were
only discussing other people's affairs. We are not often in such a
gossiping mood, but Cathy was communicative, and I suppose I got
interested."
"Is it also your opinion that men are such fickle creatures? I
thought that was Cathy's observation. She has known so many men, and
has such a wide acquaintance with life. I should have thought Miss
Titheridge and the dragon-guarded portals of Granite Lodge would have
excluded the stronger and ruder sex, but perhaps I am mistaken."
"Garth, when you are in this mood I detest you."
"I cannot have you infecting Miss Marriott's mind with such heterodox
notions; fickleness is all on the other side, take my word for it. I
am sorry that I only overheard the last words, as Cathy's
communications would doubtless have proved both novel and
instructive; a schoolgirl's opinion on such points must be delicious.
Cathy, my dear, if you can spare Miss Marriott one moment I have a
word or two to say to her. Step into my den there, please, while I
hang up my wet coat. I will be with you in a moment."
Queenie obeyed him wonderingly. She had been in Garth's den before,
Cathy had taken her, but she looked round it with fresh interest.
There were the book-shelves he had made and stained himself, loaded
with his favorite authors--Dickens, Thackeray, and Macaulay, "fine
fellows all of them," he would say; and his writing-table with all
its old bachelor's appurtenances,--the pipe-rack and red earthen
tobacco-jar; and the worn easy-chair, the shabbiest and the most
comfortable in the house. Opposite was the picture of his mother, a
large faded oil-painting of a woman, not young, but with a sweet
gentle face and Garth's blue-grey eyes.
Queenie looked at it for some time, and then she went to the window.
A little bird was singing through the rain, the drops splashed
endlessly from the white-rose bush under the window; the steep lawn
planted sparsely with trees ran down to the lane. Langley's
jessamine and clove-pink steeped the wet air with fragrance; a
half-drowned bee clung to a spray of woodbine. "Most people would
call this dull; and how they would hate that little gate leading to
the churchyard, and the thought of that granite monument shining in
the moonlight, but to me it is the dearest place," thought Queenie,
leaning against the window-frame in sweet abstraction.
"Are you there, Miss Marriott? I am so sorry to have kept you
waiting," observed Garth apologetically, coming to her side in his
quick way. "Langley detained me with some questions of domestic
detail that could not be postponed."
"It does not matter, I was in no hurry. Look at that bee, Mr.
Clayton; I was just going out to rescue him; he is shipwrecked, and
wants to save his cargo of honey."
"You shall go to him by-and-bye. I only want to say a word to you.
I have talked to Mr. Logan, and everything is arranged. In a month
from this time you are to enter on your new duties as mistress of the
Hepshaw girls' school."
END OF VOL. I.
BUNGAY: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.