CONCERNING
ISABEL CARNABY
BY
ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER
AUTHOR OF
CUPID'S GARDEN, VERSES WISE AND OTHERWISE,
AND VERSES GRAVE AND GAY
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1898
_Authorized Edition._
Dedication
To Mine Own People: meaning those within
The magic ring of home--my kith and kin;
And those with whom my soul delights to dwell--
Who walk with me as friends, and wish me well;
And lastly those--a large, unnumbered band,
Unknown to me--who read and understand.
CONTENTS
Prologue
CHAPTER I.
Childish Things
CHAPTER II.
Alice
CHAPTER III.
Two Kings in Brentford
CHAPTER IV.
Friends In Need
CHAPTER V.
Water-lilies
CHAPTER VI.
Esdaile Court
CHAPTER VII.
Isabel Carnaby
CHAPTER VIII.
Elton Manor
CHAPTER IX.
Indecision
CHAPTER X.
Eden
CHAPTER XI.
His Own People
CHAPTER XII.
A Feast of Good Things
CHAPTER XIII.
The Country Of Conceit
CHAPTER XIV.
Expulsion from Eden
CHAPTER XV.
Angus Grey
CHAPTER XVI.
Success
CHAPTER XVII.
Vernacre
CHAPTER XVIII.
A State Concert
CHAPTER XIX.
Among the Wounded
CHAPTER XX.
Joanna
CHAPTER XXI.
As it was in the Beginning
CHAPTER XXII.
For Conscience' Sake
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Election
CHAPTER XXIV.
Life In London
PROLOGUE.
A woman's tongue is ever slow
To tell the thing she does not know.
There was a large dinner-party in Grosvenor Square at the house of
Lord Kesterton, one of the new peers.
"Are you thoroughly enjoying your glories and honours?" inquired Lady
Eleanor Gregory of her host, who had taken her down to dinner.
"Well, I must confess that I feel rather like the man who lost his
wife, and said it was 'verra dull but verra peaceful'; and I have
come to the conclusion that peace is an acquired taste."
"Then do you hanker after the fighting in your dear old House of
Commons?"
Lord Kesterton smiled. "I am afraid I still babble o' green benches
when I get the chance. The House of Commons is like certain women of
one's acquaintance: you quarrel with them, and they expect too much
from you, and you vow you will enjoy yourself and have nothing more
to do with them; but, all the same, they have spoilt your taste for
anything else, and they make all other women seem insufferably dull."
"And now I have got to scold you for dismissing my poor, dear Harry,"
said Lady Eleanor.
"Uncork the vials of your wrath," replied her host, "and I will
endeavour to suffer and be strong."
"I shall appeal to Mr. Madderley to second my vote of censure,"
continued the lady, turning to the Royal Academician who sat at her
right hand. "I suppose I ought to talk to you about art, but I am
going to talk to you about politics."
"Please do not talk to me about art, dear lady; I could not bear it
from you," replied the artist.
"Why not?"
"Because I should thereby discover that you knew nothing at all about
it; and the one rag of faith still wrapped round my jaded spirit is
my belief in your omniscience. If you take that away from me I shall
sink lower and lower, and shall probably end in doubting the wisdom
of Woman, or the supremacy of the British rate-payer."
Lady Eleanor laughed. "Don't you feel like this when I talk about
politics?"
"Far from it. I know absolutely nothing about them myself; and when
I hear you speaking familiarly--nay, even flippantly--of Whips and
Under Secretaries and similar ruling powers, I regard you with awe as
a mighty sibyl juggling with the mysterious forces of the Unknown."
"I see; it must sound rather impressive."
"Impressive is not the word--it sounds simply tremendous. Calling
Under Secretaries by their Christian names seems to me like patting a
thunderstorm or playing with an earthquake; yet I have often heard
you do it without an apparent qualm. It is marvellous!"
Lady Eleanor was very proud of what she considered her wire-pulling
powers; therefore she enjoyed the Academician's persiflage. It was
in cases like this that Madderley showed himself such a clever man;
he always said disagreeable things; but he generally took care that
they were the sort of disagreeable things that people wanted him to
say. Women liked Mr. Madderley because, they said, he did not
flatter them; they never found out that is was because he flattered
them that they liked him so much.
"When I talk about art, however, you regard me as 'an unlessoned
girl,' I suppose," suggested her ladyship.
"That certainly is my idea, but, had you given me time, I would have
decked its crudeness with some flowers of speech."
"I am so glad that I did not give you time, then. It would be
insufferable if you began to be pleasant! Your _raison d'être_ would
be gone if you left off telling disagreeable truths, and we should
all leave off liking you."
The artist smiled. "It is very kind of you to say that, Lady
Eleanor; but don't you think that the men who tell palatable fibs are
really the popular men?"
"No, I don't," Lady Eleanor hastened to assure him; "now you are
immensely popular--you must know that you are; and yet you always say
straight out whatever you think, and never mind how disagreeable it
is. It is this truthfulness that makes us all admire and trust you."
The artist smiled again.
"Do you remember," continued Lady Eleanor, "how you once told a whole
group of us our faults at a party at the Farleys'? You said that I
was ambitious, and that Lady Farley was cruel, and that Isabel was
shallow, and that Violet was cold. I have never forgotten it; I
thought it was so nice and plucky of you to tell us the truth
straight out like that."
Mr. Madderley remembered that he had once said these things; he also
remembered that he had never thought any of them, but this he did not
consider it necessary to confess.
"But where are the politics you said you were going to talk to me
about?"
"Oh! of course--I forgot. I want to ask your opinion as to the way
in which the Government has treated me. You know Harry Mortimer was
Lord Kesterton's understudy--no, I mean Under Secretary--at the War
Office; and it was a very comfortable arrangement for both of them."
"Well?"
"Then Lord Kesterton took his own peerage without a single twinge of
conscience. But now that poor, dear Harry has succeeded to his
uncle, and become Lord Gravesend, he has got to be sent away like an
inefficient footman, because they say they cannot both of them be in
the House of Lords. So please tell your host that you think he has
behaved abominably!"
"I do indeed. Such conduct seems to me unjustifiable. It is like
drinking oneself, and insisting on one's servants being teetotalers."
Lord Kesterton laughed. Madderley always amused him, and he loved to
be amused. "But you are keeping back part of the truth, Lady
Eleanor," he said; "we have endeavoured to break the blow to
Gravesend by giving him the Governorship of New North Wales."
Lady Eleanor sighed. "That is nothing. I wanted Harry to have a
career."
"You forget that he is going to marry you," replied her host; "surely
that is a career sufficient to satisfy even the most ambitious of
men, and to occupy the time of the most industrious."
"Of course it is. What I ought to have said was that I wanted Harry
to have a recreation."
"Recreation means variety of occupation," suggested Lord Kesterton,
"and he would hardly find that--after marriage--at the War Office."
"Do you think he will find it in New North Wales?"
"Most certainly; because there, in his official life, his duty will
be to rule."
"You are very rude," laughed Lady Eleanor; "I shall talk to Mr.
Madderley instead, and ask him if he doesn't think that Gravesend is
a very depressing title for a young man to come into."
"It suggests the quintessence of finality," replied the artist,
"there is no doubt of that."
Lord Gravesend's _fiancée_ nodded. "I mean to alter it, and to call
him 'the Lord Harry' instead. That would be prettier, don't you
think?"
"Far prettier; also more colloquial, and I love colloquialisms. They
are the next best thing to stories in dialect. A story in dialect
invariably does me good, because I do not understand it."
"Then do you think that it is the things we don't understand that do
us good?" queried the lady.
"Of course; that is why our prescriptions are always written in
Latin, and our menus in French."
"I see."
"When I read in the vulgar tongue," continued Mr. Madderley, "that a
man is brave and a woman is beautiful, I am not impressed. I have
met brave men in the flesh, and I have found that they generally talk
about nothing but slain beasts, and go to sleep after dinner. I have
also met beautiful women."
"Did you find them equally disappointing?" asked Lady Eleanor.
"A woman always seems to think that if she has a face she need not
possess a head as well. Personally I prefer both."
"You are shockingly cynical!"
"Here the power of dialect comes in," continued the artist, "for when
I read that a man is 'braw' and a woman is 'bonny,' I know no wells
of experience from which to draw cold water to throw on these
illusions; therefore my imagination runs riot, and clothes the
parties thus described in impossibly perfect attributes. I never met
a 'braw lad' or a 'bonny lassie' in my life, that I know of; so I
still picture such beings as ideal and glorious creations."
After a little more conversation about airy nothings, Lady Eleanor
turned to her host and asked in a low voice: "Who is going to take
Harry's place at the War Office?"
The Secretary of State raised his eyebrows. "I really cannot tell
you Cabinet secrets, my dear lady."
"Oh! yes, you can. I want dreadfully to know, and I will promise
faithfully not to tell anybody, if only you will take me into your
confidence. Please do, there's a dear man!"
Lord Kesterton hesitated. Lady Eleanor certainly was very
attractive, and it is always pleasant to please a pretty woman.
Seeing him hesitate, she increased her coaxing tenfold.
"Well, suppose that I tell you as a great secret," he said at last,
"will you give me your word not to repeat it to anybody?"
"Of course I will. I should never think of doing such a thing."
Lord Kesterton lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. "The new
Under Secretary for War is our honourable friend the member for
Chayford."
Lady Eleanor's eyes sparkled with delight; it was her _rôle_ to stand
behind the scenes of Governments and to give little jerks to the
ropes--at least, she thought it was; and now both her curiosity and
her love of power were gratified.
"I am so glad!" she exclaimed, "he is such a pleasant man--and very
clever too, don't you think?"
Like all women, Lady Eleanor Gregory considered the word clever was
complimentary; like all men, Lord Kesterton considered it quite the
reverse.
"Clever?" he replied, "my dear young lady, what a word to apply to a
brilliant politician I Why, he is already one of the ablest men in
the Liberal party, and he has only been in the House three years."
"I am so glad you told me. It will interest Harry most tremendously!"
Lord Kesterton started. "But you gave me your word that you would
not tell anybody."
"So I did; I quite forgot. But Harry doesn't count, you know. I
never keep anything from him--except, of course, the number of dances
that I give to other men; but that is different."
"I cannot see why Gravesend doesn't count; he always appears to me to
be a man of considerable weight."
"Oh! but you are not engaged to him; if you were you would know that
his considerable weight could be tampered with by the display of a
little tact and persuasion. But now tell me more about Harry's
successor. Of course I know all about who he is to-day; but who was
he yesterday? I want to read up the back numbers of his story."
The host shook his head. "Back numbers are always dull and generally
fictitious, I find."
"I don't; they amuse me immensely--especially with portraits from
early and hideous childhood up to 'present day'."
"Lady Eleanor," said the Secretary for War in a very low voice, "do
you know why you have been successful in extracting this confidential
communication from me?"
"No."
"Guess."
Lady Eleanor thought for a moment. "Because you knew you could trust
me not to repeat it?"
Lord Kesterton smiled. "That was not exactly my reason. Try again."
Lady Eleanor knitted her pretty forehead. "Because you thought that
Harry had the right to know who was to step into his shoes?"
Her host shook his head.
Lady Eleanor smiled. "Because I am a very charming young woman?"
"I do not deny that that had something to do with my breach of
confidence; but there was still another and a better reason."
"Then I cannot guess it."
"Will you give it up?"
Lady Eleanor nodded,
"I ventured to tell you this State secret," whispered Lord Kesterton
to his pretty guest, "because the fact is already announced in the
evening papers."
CHAPTER I.
Childish Things.
As fays and elves and witches old
To children of a gentler mould,
Angels and devils came their way
And were adapted to their play.
A quaint old town which had long ago ceased to be anything but
picturesque, but which never forgot that it had once been prosperous,
as some women never forget that they have once been pretty--a town in
which the square, red-brick houses pretended that they were frowning
on the streets in front, while they were really smiling on the
gardens at the back all the time--a town with an interesting past and
a most uneventful present--such was Chayford in the county of
Mershire.
A noticeable figure in the town of Chayford--a man of courtly
manners, cultivated mind and consistent piety--a scholar, moreover,
of no mean order, whose learning was profound and whose wisdom was
not of this world--such was Mark Seaton, a minister "of the people
called Methodists".
In the days of his youth the Reverend Mark Seaton had chosen as his
wife Ruth, the only daughter of David Crayshaw of Camchester--well
known among the Methodists of the past generation as a "leading
friend"; and Mrs. Seaton had inherited a fortune from her father, in
addition to many gifts of mind and person. As she had been a dutiful
daughter, so she was a devoted wife. To her children she was ever
sympathetic and tender, with intermittent attacks of discipline,
which she disliked as much as they did; and while her heart was ever
begging her to indulge, her conscience kept bidding her to punish
them. She had been known to whip her darlings, urged by a painful
sense of duty thereto; but on such sad occasions she wore a shawl for
the rest of the day, just as she did when the minister was not well,
or when any important member of the congregation died.
Mark and Ruth Seaton had only two children, Paul and Joanna by name.
Joanna was the elder by a year; but Paul was so much the bigger and
stronger and better-looking of the two, that he took the lead in
everything.
Paul and Joanna Seaton were brought up in the good old Methodist
style, and learned to take life seriously. To them every trivial
choice was a decision between good and evil--every fortunate accident
a special interposition of Providence on their behalf. They were
early taught by their father that the only two things of importance
in this life are salvation and education; likewise, that the verb To
Be is of infinite moment--the verb To Do of great weight--and the
verb To Have of no significance at all. Therefore, whatever faults
and failings they might suffer from in after life, there was no
possibility of the little Seatons becoming vulgar.
It was when the Seatons "travelled" in the Chayford circuit that Paul
and Joanna formed their friendship with Alice Martin. Alice was
three years younger than Joanna and two years younger than Paul. It
was true that she was not as clever as Joanna--but then she was much
prettier, which made it all right. And in childish days--as in later
ones--Alice Martin was always ready to play inferior parts in a
grateful spirit; a habit of mind which makes people to be beloved, if
downtrodden, by their fellow-creatures.
Alice's parents were wealthy and worldly persons. Of being the
former they were proud, and of being the latter they were ignorant;
in fact they imagined that they were a very godly couple, because
they attended chapel regularly, and had their library lined with
calf-bound copies of the _Methodist Magazine_, dating from its
Arminian days. Mr. and Mrs. Martin regarded religion very much as
they regarded an "English manufacture" or an "Irish industry"; that
is to say, they lost no opportunity of patronizing and advertizing
it; but felt that in so doing they were conferring a favour and
meriting a vote of thanks.
Mrs. Martin was an extremely amusing woman; but she herself had no
idea of this--she imagined she was only dignified and edifying. She
once said: "Although my husband is a rich man and a county
magistrate, he has the fear of the Lord before his eyes". And she
had no idea that there was anything humorous in this use of the
conjunction although.
Another great friend of the minister's children was Edgar Ford--an
earnest little boy who was always asking profound and unanswerable
questions. His father was an opulent merchant; and his mother an
elegant and well-bred woman, who hid great kindness of heart under a
somewhat cold and stately exterior.
But perhaps the most important figure in the children's world--while
they were yet children--was their old nurse Martha, a very superior
and excellent person who had lived with Mrs. Seaton before her
marriage. Martha had another servant under her; but she would share
with no one the delightful duty of looking after Paul and Joanna. It
was Martha who corrected their childish sins and comforted their
childish sorrows; and it was Martha who placed them upon an intimate,
yet withal comfortable, footing with the principalities and powers of
the spiritual world. To Martha they owed their ineradicable belief
that an inclination to idleness or disobedience or greediness was no
mere instinct, but a suggestion of the Evil One himself,
who--bat-winged and cloven-footed, as he appeared in the
illustrations to the _Pilgrim's Progress_--lurked in the dark places
of the china-pantry and the back-stairs, for the set purpose of
betraying to destruction the souls of the minister's children.
Likewise, they were taught that the subdual of this inclination was
no mere outcome of a line of plain-living, high-thinking ancestors,
but a triumph of the powers of light over the powers of darkness.
These beliefs Paul and Joanna never outgrew; which, perhaps,
accounted for the fact that, as man and woman, they did not
underestimate the difference between good and evil.
At Chayford Paul and Joanna spent three of the interminable years of
childhood; and Chayford Chapel was ever afterwards associated in
their minds with all that is sacred and holy. It was there that they
had first touched the fringe of the Unseen, and caught glimpses of
life's deeper meanings; it was there that they had sung the
old-fashioned hymns to the old-fashioned tunes, and had felt as if
they themselves were somehow one with the white-robed multitude,
which no man can number, singing the song that the angels cannot
learn. Then the hearts of the children were filled with joy and
their eyes with tears, and a strange thrill ran through the whole of
their being. They did not understand why they felt so gloriously
happy and yet wanted to cry; for they were then too young to know
that earth, and probably heaven, has nothing better to offer us than
that same thrill, which runs through us when we catch fleeting
glimpses of the Beautiful and the True, and rise superior for the
time being to all that is sordid and cowardly and mean. For the
moment, we are "pure in heart"; and therefore, either through the
interpretation of art or the revelation of nature, either in the
loyalty of a great people or in the love on a familiar face, we "see
God".
When Paul and Joanna were respectively eighteen and nineteen, their
father's health gave way and he was obliged to "sit down"--a synonym
among Methodist ministers for retiring upon half-pay--and he chose
Chayford as the spot where he would finally settle. The Seatons had
spent their three years at Chayford some time previously; and it had
suited them so well that they selected it as their permanent abode.
There is no doubt that the Methodist system of having a sort of
"general post" among the ministry every Conference keeps the Church
together in a most successful way; but there is also no doubt that a
triennial removal falls heavily on the women of the ministers'
households. No Wesleyan minister can stay longer than three years in
any circuit; and he need only stay one; so, like the Mohammedans and
their Hegira, all his race reckons time by "Conference".
There was a nomadic strain in Joanna's blood, inherited from three
generations of preaching ancestry; and she was incapable of feeling
happy under any roof-tree for a longer period than three years. But
her mother was of a less restless disposition; and had learnt that if
one is continually moving one's Lares and Penates, these idols are
apt to get very much the worse for wear, if not actually broken to
pieces. It is only when a Wesleyan minister "sits down," that his
family are able to thoroughly understand the meaning of the word
home. Therefore Mrs. Seaton rejoiced in secret over her house at
Chayford. Her husband's health was not such as to give her any real
anxiety, but he was growing too old for full work, and needed rest;
and the fortune that she had brought to him made him feel that he was
justified in taking, with a clear conscience, the repose for which he
craved.
Paul was doing very well at Kingswood School; and Joanna was doing
equally well in the school of domestic life; and their parents' cup
of joy was full when at last Paul won a scholarship at Oxford.
On the morning when Paul's triumph had been made known at home, Mrs.
Seaton went into the kitchen after breakfast to break the glad news
to Martha. But the latter met her with a most ominous expression of
countenance.
"There's a sad thing happened this morning, ma'am, and no mistake,"
she began, with a profound sigh.
"Indeed, Martha, and what is that?" inquired her mistress.
"The best hot-water jug has gone to its long home."
"Oh! Martha, not the Ruth and Naomi one?"
"The very same, ma'am, more's the pity!"
Now it happened that this hot-water jug was one of Mrs. Seaton's most
cherished household gods. It portrayed the first chapter of the Book
of Ruth. Ruth and Naomi clave to each other under the shadow of the
spout, while Orpah returned to her own people in the direction of the
handle. The handle itself was one gigantic ear of barley; and on the
opposite side of it to that where Orpah and her people evidently
dwelt, Boaz reaped with his young men, neatly dressed as English
farm-labourers.
"How ever did it happen?" asked Mrs. Seaton in a reproachful tone.
"I was just carrying it with the breakfast cups across the kitchen,
and suddenly it smashed itself to bits on the floor."
"But, Martha, I have so often told you not to try to carry so many
things at once. It was sure to end in an accident."
"So you have, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."
"It would not have happened if you had done as I told you," said Mrs.
Seaton quite sternly.
"That is true, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."
Nothing that her mistress said could convince Martha that she was in
any way to blame in the matter. She seemed to regard herself as
merely the instrument in a foreordained scheme of destruction; and
kept repeating in a tone of grim satisfaction, "it seemed as if it
was to be!"
Mrs. Seaton had learned many things in life; and one of them was that
feminine argument is always unattractive and generally useless. She
was a woman of infinite tact, and took great pains never to hurt
people, or even to make them uncomfortable. Her instinct told her
what places were sore to the touch; and her religion prevented her
from touching the same. She was too good a woman to rejoice secretly
at other people's misfortunes, and too clever a one openly to pity
them. But all this did not come by nature to Mrs. Seaton; it had
taken half a lifetime's experience--and also considerable
knowledge--to bring her tact to this state of perfection.
On the present occasion she changed the subject by saying: "We have
had good news about Master Paul this morning, Martha."
"Indeed, ma'am, that is a good hearing! What has come to the dear
lad?"
"He has won a scholarship at Oxford, and so is going to the
University."
"Well, ma'am, that is good news and no mistake! Oxford is a fine
place, I hear; and I am told that there's a chapel belonging to each
of the colleges, so that the dear young gentleman will not be cut off
from the means of grace."
Mrs. Seaton smiled. "The college chapels are not Methodist chapels,
however."
"Are they not, ma'am? Well, that's a pity! I thought they were.
Still any sort of a chapel is better than a church, to my thinking."
And Mrs. Seaton listened with much amusement while Martha further
expounded her views on the subject.
So Paul Seaton went to Oxford, and drank deep into the spirit of a
city whose very lawns have to be rolled for five hundred years before
they are considered soft enough to walk upon. And there Paul saw
visions and dreamed dreams; and because he had been vouchsafed two of
the best gifts wherewith Providence can equip a man--namely a
religious training and a sense of humour--his dreams were never
ignoble and his visions never absurd. He made up his mind to serve
God and his generation to the best of his ability, and to make for
himself a great name into the bargain; for he was as yet young enough
to concoct plans for the conflagration of the river Thames; not
knowing that if a man can kindle a fire on his own hearthstone to
keep him warm in his old age, he has done his share towards the
heating-apparatus of this world, and can count himself among the more
successful half of mankind.
Paul also grew lean and tall and vigorous; and was very pleasant to
look upon, with his dark hair, grey eyes and well-cut face. He was
not a handsome man, strictly speaking; but, as Martha said, "he would
pass in a crowd," and he was quite good-looking enough for everyday
use.
The years had not dealt quite as kindly with Joanna as with Paul.
She was short and thin and colourless; one of those
whitey-brown-threads of women who are constantly being overlooked by
their friends and neighbours, and whose natural abode is supposed to
be the outlying districts of other people's lives. And she took no
pains to make herself attractive, as a vainer girl would have done;
for she was as yet young enough to cherish that admirable and false
belief that folks love us according to our excellencies. We all
begin life well grounded in this groundless faith, and we rejoice in
it as long as we are youthful enough to fancy that our excellencies
will be many; but as we grow older and see how few of these there be,
and those not of the finest water, we thank heaven for showing us
that the aforesaid dogma was nothing but the rankest heresy.
Joanna was the raw material out of which nuns and sisters of mercy
are made. Had she belonged to a different faith and a different age,
she would have developed into a model lady-abbess. To her, love was
a matter of no interest; it formed no part of the programme of life.
Such romance as her nature possessed had been lavished upon Mrs.
Crozier, the wife of one of the ministers in her father's penultimate
circuit. No lover ever adored his mistress, and no devotee his
saint, more absorbingly than Joanna adored Mrs. Crozier.
There is always something pathetic in the adoration of a young girl
for an older woman; she gives so much, and can, of necessity, receive
so little; yet, with the exception of motherhood, it is perhaps the
most unselfish affection which a woman's life can hold. The girl
worships with her whole heart, and pours out all the early romance of
her nature on this particular shrine; and the woman either suffers
this devotion patiently, or snubs it cruelly--according as she
happens to be amiable or the reverse.
Mrs. Crozier was kind to Joanna on the whole; but she had not much
time to waste on girls, for she was a busy woman.
There are some people who go through life putting all their eggs into
one basket. There are others who avoid this mistake, but fall into
the equally unlucky one of putting their eggs into baskets which are
already full. These erring mortals pour out the treasures of their
love at the feet of those whose coffers are overflowing, and spend
their days in the thankless task of waiting upon such as are well
served. Joanna Seaton was one of these. It was her fate in life to
give love where she could only receive friendship, and friendship
where she could only receive toleration. Had she given otherwise and
otherwhere, her rewards might have been different. But what man or
woman can bestow their affection as their wisdom prompts?
Therefore there was a tragic element in Joanna's lot. But when
"gorgeous Tragedy" puts off her "sceptred pall" and dresses like a
dowdy little spinster, men are too blind to recognize and too hard to
pity her. So she bears her burden in silence.
"What do you mean to do when you leave Oxford?" asked Joanna of Paul
one day.
"I shall take a First and go to the Bar, and then into Parliament,"
replied her brother promptly. Paul always knew his own mind--a
branch of knowledge which is useful in this world.
"But suppose you fail?" suggested Joanna.
"I shall not fail."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I have made up my mind not to fail, but to work at a thing
till I succeed. When a man is a failure it is always his own fault."
"Except when it is God's; and then failure is better than success,"
said Joanna quietly, who knew more about failure--and therefore more
about success--than Paul did.
He had still to learn that the man who tries and succeeds is one
degree less of a hero than the man who fails and yet goes on trying.
Mr. Martin did not at all approve of Paul Seaton's going to Oxford:
nominally, because he upheld that learning was a dangerous thing for
a young man who had his own living to get; and actually, because he
could not bear any one else to enjoy such advantages of mind, body or
estate as had not been vouchsafed, in still fuller measure, to
himself. He therefore spoke a word of warning to the young man one
day when Paul happened to be calling at The Cedars.
(The Martins' house was called The Cedars because there happened to
be a yew-tree in the middle of the lawn.)
"My dear Paul," Mr. Martin began, "I trust that the purely
intellectual life in which you are now indulging will in no way unfit
you for earning your own living in a suitable and becoming way; nor,
on the other hand, lead you into infidelity."
Paul likewise hoped not, and said so.
"To my mind," interpolated Mrs. Martin, "there are few more delusive
snares than learning, falsely so called."
This excellent lady had no taste for art or literature, and
consequently she considered them wrong. It is so easy--and
pleasant--to discover sins lurking in the pursuits for which we are
not inclined. Many of us possess wonderful powers of perception in
this matter.
"My fear always is that classics and mathematics and rubbish of that
kind will disable a man for the more serious business of life,"
continued Mr. Martin, "and render him incapable of making and earning
money."
"But don't you think that they might rather enable a man to earn his
own living?" suggested Paul.
Mr. Martin shook his head. "Such things might enable him to earn his
own living, perhaps, but never to make a fortune."
"Is it absolutely necessary to human happiness to make a fortune, I
wonder?" queried Paul.
Now Mr. Martin was a very good-tempered man, and the causes of his
amiable attitude of mind were two-fold--he was very well-off and he
was always sure he was in the right; so he had no grounds for a
quarrel with anybody. But when people spoke slightingly of the good
things of this world, he was much shocked: he called it "tempting
Providence".
"Wealth is the hall-mark of success," he replied rather shortly, "and
poverty is the outward and visible sign of failure."
"I can hardly agree with you there, Mr. Martin. Who ever thinks
about how much money Shakespeare or Milton made?"
Mr. Martin regarded this remark as childish, so took no notice of it,
but calmly continued: "I once knew a man who began life as an
errand-boy; and yet when he died he left half a million of money
behind him. Now that is what I call success."
"And I once knew of a man who began life as a free-born citizen of no
mean city, and was executed as a prisoner at Rome; and who left no
fortune behind him save a few letters. Yet the world hardly calls
that man a failure."
"Don't you think it is a little irreverent to apply things out of the
Bible to every-day life?" suggested Mrs. Martin in a reproachful
tone. "It always grates upon my ear when I hear young people do it."
"It never struck me in that light."
"I fear," added the master of The Cedars, "that too much learning is
already leading you into infidelity, and causing you to speak
flippantly of sacred matters. As I said before, I cannot commend
useless study. In my opinion, if a man has any time to spare from
his business he should devote it to religion."
"As you have done, Caleb," remarked his appreciative spouse.
"I have always endeavoured to do so, my dear; and that, I take it, is
the reason why my investments are almost invariably successful."
Mr. Martin was one of the men who act up to their convictions. Early
in life he had undertaken the difficult task of combining the service
of God and Mammon. For some ten hours a day he worked hard at making
and amassing money; but his "off-time" he devoted conscientiously to
heaven; and he considered that, on the whole, heaven had nothing to
complain of in the arrangement.
It is but fair to add that Caleb Martin endeavoured, according to his
lights, to do his duty to both the powers under whom he served; but,
if the two interests did happen to clash, it was never Mammon that
came short. Otherwise, perhaps, he would not have been such a rich
man.
"My husband has never cared for pleasure," continued Mrs. Martin,
"and many a time when I considered that a little relaxation would be
good for him, he has said to me, 'My religion is my recreation,
Sarah'. And he has always made it so."
"I have indeed," replied Mr. Martin modestly; "though I do not think,
my dear, that you should thus proclaim my virtues upon the house-top.
It may seem just a little boastful to one not of our own household."
Both Mr. and Mrs. Martin considered that the latter's description of
her husband was unadulterated praise. It never occurred to either of
them that any one in heaven or on earth would not consider it as
such. It also never occurred to them that they were being at all
humorous.
"You have certainly succeeded even beyond your deserts, Mr. Martin,"
remarked Paul with much sincerity.
The excellent Caleb waved his hand in a deprecatory manner. "I have
received my penny a day," he replied; "neither more nor less."
As a matter of fact he was at that moment receiving about nineteen
pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven pence more than his penny a
day; but it never does to press a metaphor too far.
Then Mrs. Martin chimed in with the remark: "You will do well to
think upon Mr. Martin's words, my dear Paul. At Oxford you are
doubtless exposed to other pernicious influences in addition to that
of infidelity, as you are thrown much with young persons who have
been nurtured in the pride of high rank and of noble blood--a most
subtle and dangerous form of sin, to my thinking."
Paul much regretted that Joanna was not present. She always
appreciated Mrs. Martin so warmly, and she had frequently called
attention to the fact (now _en evidence_) that in the spiritual world
the special dangers which beset our neighbours seem so much more
terrible than those which beset ourselves. The latter are but
pardonable weaknesses, we think; but the former are mortal sins.
Thus we pray that we may be delivered from pitfalls which have no
attraction for us, and we hope that Providence will be so much
engaged in attending to the fulfilment of this prayer, that our slips
and stumbles into the little hollows which we affect will pass
unnoticed.
"Pride of birth is a dreadful besetment," continued Mrs. Martin, "and
one which I pray may never be laid to my charge." Which certainly
seemed an almost superfluous petition, considering the lineage of the
suppliant.
The Martins were very anxious to be delivered from the temptations
arising from such mundane blessings as had been denied them; but it
never seemed to occur to them to pray for exemption from the love of
money.
"I suppose all worldly gifts become besetments if we give them a
primary instead of a secondary place," suggested Paul, "and if we
confuse essentials with non-essentials."
"Quite so, quite so," agreed Mr. Martin; "and it is this thought
which gives us parents so much anxiety when we look forward into our
children's future--this fear that the young people may, in their
ignorance, fling away the substance for the sake of the shadow; as a
young friend of mine once did, who refused a partnership in an
excellent business in order to become a missionary."
"What happened to him eventually?" asked Paul.
Mr. Martin heaved a sigh of sincere regret. "He died--a
comparatively young man--somewhere in the South Seas. And if he had
taken my advice and stayed at home, he might have been the mayor of
his native town by this time. But young folks will not be
controlled."
"Still I can't help thinking that on the whole it is as fine a thing
to be a martyr as to be a mayor," Paul remarked.
But Mr. Martin considered this remark irreverent.
"Mr. Martin is right," sighed the mistress of The Cedars, "though for
my part, I desire for my one ewe lamb neither riches nor honour; I
only ask that she may be wise and happy."
And then the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Alice,
who blushed very becomingly on perceiving Paul; while Mrs.
Martin--having noted the blush--was straightway plunged into a very
maelstrom of maternal unrest, lest the one ewe lamb, for whom she
desired neither riches nor honour, should seek happiness with the
impecunious son of a minister of religion.