Part of the old gray palace at Morningquest had been a monastery. The
walls were thick, the windows gothic, the bedrooms small, the reception
rooms huge, as if built for the accommodation of a whole community at a
time; and with unexpected alcoves and angles and deep embrasures, all very
picturesque, and also extremely inconvenient; but Edith Beale, who had
been born in the palace and grown up there, under the protection of the
great cathedral, as it were, and the influence of its wonderful chime, was
never conscious of the inconvenience, and would not, at any rate, have
exchanged it for the comfort and luxury of the best appointed modern
house. The Bishop of Morningquest and Mrs. Beale had three sons, but Edith
was their only daughter, their white child, their pearl; and certainly she
was a lovely specimen of a well-bred English girl.
On the day following that upon which the Heavenly Twins had celebrated the
important occasion of their first spontaneous "Kow-tow," as they called
it, in the early morning Edith, being still asleep, turned toward the east
window of her room, the blind of which was up, and fell into a dream. The
sun, as he rose, smiled in upon her. She had flung her left hand up above
her head with the pink palm outward, and the fingers half bent; the right
lay on the sheet beside her, palm downward, spread out, and all relaxed.
Her whole attitude expressed the most complete abandonment of deep and
restful sleep.
The night had been warm, and the heavier draperies had slipped from her
bed on the farther side, leaving only the sheet.
Her warm bright hair, partly loosened from the one thick braid into which
it had been plaited, fell from off the pillow to the floor on her right,
and the sun, looking in, lit it up and made it sparkle. She left that
window with the blind undrawn so that he might arouse her every morning;
and now, as the first pale ray gleamed over her face, her eyelids
quivered, and half opened, but she was still busy with her dream and did
not wake. She lived in an atmosphere of dreams and of mystic old
associations. Events of the days gone by were often more distinctly
pictured in her mind than incidents of yesterday. Mrs. Orton Beg, her
mother, and all the gentle mannered, pure-minded women among whom she had
grown up, thought less of this world, even as they knew it, than of the
next as they imagined it to be; and they received and treasured with
perfect faith every legend, hint, and shadow of a communication which they
believed to have come to them from thence. They neglected the good they
might have done here in order to enjoy their bright and tranquil dreams of
the hereafter. Their spiritual food was faith and hope. They kept their
tempers even and unruffled by never allowing themselves to think or know,
so far as it is possible with average intelligence not to do either in
this world, anything that is evil of anybody. They prided themselves on
only believing all that is good of their fellow-creatures; this was their
idea of Christian charity. Thus they always believed the best about
everybody, not on evidence, but upon principle; and then they acted as if
their attitude had made their acquaintances all they desired them to be.
They seemed to think that by ignoring the existence of sin, by refusing to
obtain any knowledge of it, they somehow helped to check it; and they
could not have conceived that their attitude made it safe to sin, so that,
when they refused to know and to resist, they were actually countenancing
evil and encouraging it. The kind of Christian charity from which they
suffered was a vice in itself. To keep their own minds pure was the great
object of their lives, which really meant to save themselves from the
horror and pain of knowing.
Edith, by descent, by teaching, by association, and in virtue of the
complete ignorance in which she had been kept, was essentially one of that
set. It is impossible for any adult creature to be more spiritually minded
than she was. She lived in a state of exquisite feeling. The whole
training of her mind had been so directed as to make her existence one
long beatific vision, and she was unconsciously prepared to resent in her
gentle way, and to banish at once, if possible, any disturbing thought
that might break in upon it.
In her dream that morning she smiled at first, and then she fairly
laughed. She had met the Heavenly Twins, and they were telling her
something--what was it? The most amusing thing she had ever heard them say;
she knew it by the way it had made her laugh--why couldn't she repeat it?
She was trying to tell her mother, and while in the act, she became
suddenly aware of a strange place, and Diavolo kneeling at her feet,
clasping her left hand, and kissing it. She felt the touch of his lips
distinctly; they were soft and warm. He was beseeching her to marry him,
she understood, and she was going to laugh at him for being a ridiculous
boy, but it was the steadfast, dark blue eyes of Lord Dawne that met hers,
and she was looking up at him, and not down at the fair-haired Diavolo
kneeling before her. She caught the gloss on Lord Dawne's black hair, the
curve of his slight moustache, and the gleam of his white teeth. He was
grave, but his lips were parted, and he carried a little child in his
arms, and the expression of his face was like the dear Lord's in a picture
of the Good Shepherd which she had in her room. He held the little child
out to her. She took it from him, smiling, raised its little velvet cheek
to hers, and then drew back to look at it, but was horrified because it
was not beautiful at all as it had been the moment before, but deformed,
and its poor little body was covered with sores. The sight sickened her,
and she tried to cover it with her own clothes. She tore at the skirt of
her gown. She struggled to take off a cloak she wore. She stripped herself
in the endeavour and cried aloud in her shame, but she could not help
herself, and Dawne could not help her, and in the agony of the attempt she
awoke, and sprang up, clutching at the bedclothes, but was not able to
find them at first, because they had fallen on the floor; and she fancied
herself still in her horrible dream. Big drops of perspiration stood on
her forehead, her eyes were dazzled by the sun, and she was all confused.
She jumped out of bed and stood a moment, trying to collect herself; and
the first thing she saw distinctly was the picture of the Saviour on the
wall. A _Prie-dieu_ stood beneath it, and she went and knelt there,
her beautiful yellow hair streaming behind her, her eyes fixed on the
wonderful, sad, sweet face.
"Dear Lord," she prayed passionately, "keep me from all knowledge of
unholy things,"--by which she meant sights and circumstances that were
unlovely, and horrified.
She knelt for some minutes longer, with all articulate thought suspended;
but by degrees there came to her that glow in the chest, that expansion of
it which is the accompaniment of the exalted sentiment known to us as
adoration, or love; love purged of all earthly admixture of doubt and
fear, which is the most delicious sensation human nature is capable of
experiencing. And presently she arose, free from the painful impression
made by the revolting details of her dream, put her hands under her hair
at the back of her neck, and then raised them up above her head and her
hair with them, stretching herself and yawning slightly. Then she brought
her hair all around to the right in a mass, and let it hang down to her
knees, and looked at it dreamily; and then began to twist it slowly,
preparatory to coiling it round her head. She went to the dressing-table
for hairpins to fasten it, holding up her long nightdress above her white
feet with one hand that she might not trip, and, standing before the
mirror, blushed at the beauty of her own reflection. When she had put her
hair out of the way, she glanced at her bed somewhat longingly, then at
her watch. It was very early, and the morning was chilly, so she put on
her white flannel dressing gown, got a book, returned to her bed, and
propped herself up in a comfortable position for reading; and so she spent
the time happily until her maid came to call her. Her book that morning
was "The Life of Frances Ridley Havergal," and she found it absorbingly
interesting.