LADY LEYLAND had ordered breakfast at ten o’clock and at that hour her
guests were ready for it. Mistress Temple and Katherine showed no signs
of weariness, but Lord Ley-land looked bored and Mistress Annis was
silent concerning the squire and his manner of passing the night. Then
Leyland said:
“By George! Madam, you are very right to be anxious. The company of
ladies always makes me anxious. I will go to my club and read the
papers. I feel that delay is no longer possible.”
“Your breakfast, Fred,” cried Katherine, but Fred was as one that heard
not, and with a smile and a good-by which included all present, Leyland
disappeared, and as his wife smilingly endorsed his
“Love puts out all other cares.”
and anxious but soon voiced her trouble in a wish forget everything else
but now if I can be excused apologies, no one made the slightest attempt
to detain him. Certainly Mistress Annis looked curiously at her daughter
and, when the door was closed, said:
“I wonder at you, Jane--Leyland had not drank his first cup of coffee
and as to his breakfast it is still on his plate. It is not good for a
man to go to politics fasting.”
“O mother! you need not worry about Fred’s breakfast. He will order one
exactly to his mind as soon as he reaches his club and he will be ten
times happier with the newspapers than with us.”
Just at this point the squire and his son entered the room together and
instantly the social temperature of the place rose.
“I met Leyland running away from you women,” said the squire. “Whatever
hev you been doing to him?”
“He wanted to see the papers, father,” said Katherine.
“It was a bit of bad behavior,” said Madam Temple.
“Oh, dear, no,” Jane replied. “Fred is incapable of anything so vulgar.
Is he not, father?”
“To be sure he is. No doubt it was a bit of fine feeling for the women
present that sent him off. He knew you would want to discuss the affair
of last night and also the people mixed up in it and he felt he would
be in everybody’s way, and so he was good-natured enough to leave you
to the pleasure of describing one another. It was varry agreeable and
polite for Fred to do so. I hedn’t sense enough to do the same.”
“Nay, nay, Antony, that isn’t the way to put it. Dick, my dear lad, say
a word for me.”
“I could not say a word worthy of you, mother, and now I came to bid you
good-by. I am off as quick as possible for Annis. Father had a letter
from Mr. Foster this morning. It is best that either father or I go
there for a few days and, as father cannot leave London at this crisis,
I am going in his place.”
“What is the matter now, Dick?”
“Some trouble with the weavers, I believe.”
“Of course! and more money needed, I suppose.”
“To be sure,” answered the squire, with a shade of temper; “and if
needed, Dick will look after it, eh, Dick?”
“Of course Dick will look after it!” added Madam Temple, but her “of
course” intimated a very different meaning from her sister-in-law’s.
They were two words of hearty sympathy and she emphasized them by
pushing a heavy purse across the table. “Take my purse as well as thy
father’s, Dick; and if more is wanted, thou can hev it, and welcome.
I am Annis mysen and I was born and brought up with the men and women
suffering there.”
She spoke with such feeling that her words appeared to warm the room and
the squire answered: “Thy word and deed, Josepha, is just like thee, my
dear sister!” He clasped her hand as he spoke, and their hands met over
the purse lying on the table and both noticed the fact and smiled and
nodded their understanding of it. Then the squire with a happy face
handed the purse to Dick, telling him to “kiss his mother,” and be off
as soon as possible. “Dick,” he said in a voice full of tears--“Dick, my
lad, it is hard for hungry men to wait.”
“I will waste no time, father, not a minute,” and with these words he
clasped his father’s hand, leaned over and kissed his mother, and with a
general good-by he went swiftly on his errand of mercy.
Then Jane said: “Let us go to the parlor. We were an hour later than
usual this morning and must make it up if we can.”
“To be sure, Jane,” answered Mistress Temple. “We can talk as well in
one room as another. Houses must be kept regular or we shall get into
the same muddle as old Sarum--we shall be candidates for dinner and no
dinner for us.”
“Well, then, you will all excuse me an hour while I give some orders
about household affairs.” The excuse was readily admitted and the
squire, his wife, sister and daughter, took up the question which would
intrude into every other question whether they wished it or not.
The parlor to which they went looked precisely as if it was glad to see
them; it was so bright and cheerful, so warm and sunny, so everything
that the English mean by the good word “comfortable.” And as soon as
they were seated, Annie asked: “What about The Bill, Antony?”
“Well, dearie, The Bill passed its third reading at seven o’clock this
morning.”
“Thou saw it pass, eh, Antony?”
“That I did! _Why-a!_ I wouldn’t hev missed Lord Grey’s final speech
for anything. He began it at five o’clock and spoke for an hour and a
half--which considering his great age and the long night’s strain was an
astonishing thing to do. I was feeling a bit tired mysen.”
“But surely the people took its passing very coldly, Antony.”
“The people aren’t going to shout till they are sure they hev something
to shout for. Nobody knows what changes the lords may make in it. They
may even throw it out again altogether.”
“_They dare not! They dare not for their lives_ try any more such
foolishness,” said Josepha Temple with a passion she hardly restrained.
“Just let them try it! The people will not allow that step any more!
Let them try it! They will quickly see and feel what will come of such
folly.”
“Well, Josepha, what will come of it? What can the people do?”
“Iverything they want to do! Iverything they ought to do! One thing is
sure--they will send the foreigners back to where they belong. The very
kith and kin of the people now demanding their rights founded, not
many generations ago, a glorious Republic of their own, and they gave
themsens all the rights they wanted and allays put the man of their
choice at the head of it. Do you think our people don’t know what their
fathers hev done before them? They know it well. They see for themsens
that varry common men can outrank noble men when it comes to intellect
and courage. What was it that Scotch plowboy said:--
“A king can mak’ a belted knight,
A marquis, duke and a’ that,
But an honest man’s aboon his might--
and a God’s mercy it is, for if he tried it, he would waste and spoil
the best of materials in the making.”
“All such talk is sheer nonsense, Josepha.”
“It is nothing of the kind. Josepha has seen how such sheer nonsense
turns out. I should think thou could remember what happened fifty years
ago. People laughed then at the sheer nonsense of thirteen little
colonies in the wilds of America trying to make England give them
exactly what Englishmen are this very day ready to fight for--
representation in parliament. And you need not forget this fact also,
that the majority of Englishmen at that day, both in parliament and out
of it, backed with all the power they hed these thirteen little
colonies. Why, the poor button makers of Sheffield refused to make
buttons for the soldiers’ coats, lest these soldiers should be sent to
fight Englishmen. It was then all they could do but their children are
now two hundred thousand strong, and king and parliament _hev_ to
consider them. They _hev to do it_ or to take the consequences, Antony
Annis! Your father was hand and purse with that crowd and I knew you
would see things as they are sooner or later. For our stock came from a
poor, brave villager, who followed King Richard to the Crusades, and won
the Annis lands for his courage and fidelity. That is why there is
allays a Richard in an Annis household.”
“I believe all you say, Josepha, and our people, the rich and the poor,
both believe it. They hev given the government ivery blessed chance to
do fairly by them. Now, if it does so, well and good. If it does not do
so, the people are full ready to make them do it. I can tell you that.”
“I am so tired of it all,” said Annie wearily. “Why do poor, uneducated
men want to meddle with elections for parliament? I can understand and
feel with them in their fight about their looms--it means their daily
bread; but why should they care about the men who make our laws and that
sort of business?”
“I’ll tell thee why. They hev to do it or else go on being poor and
ignorant and of no account among men. Our laws are made to please the
men who have a vote or a say-so in any election. The laboring men of
England hev no vote at all. They can’t say a word about their rights in
the country for through the course of centuries the nobles and the rich
men hev got all the votes in their awn pockets.”
“Maybe there is something right in that arrangement, Antony. They are
better educated.”
“Suppose that argument stood, Annie; still a poor man might like one
rich man better than another, and he ought to be able to hev his chance
for electing his choice; but that, however, is only the tag-end of the
question.”
“Then what is the main end?”
“This:--In the course of centuries, places once of some account hev
disappeared, as really as Babylon or Nineveh, and little villages hev
grown to be big cities. There is no town of Sarum now, not a vestige,
but the Chatham family represent it in parliament to-day or they sell
the position or give it away. The member for the borough of Ludgershall
is himself the only voter in the borough and he is now in parliament
on his _awn_ nomination. Another place has two members and only seven
voters; and what do you think a foreigner visiting England would say
when told that a green mound without a house on it sent two members to
Parliament, or that a certain green park without an inhabitant also
sent two members to Parliament? Then suppose him taken to Manchester,
Bradford, Sheffield, and other great manufacturing cities, and told
they had _no_ representative in Parliament; what do you suppose he would
think and say?”
“He would advise them to get a few paper caps among their coronets,”
said Josepha.
“And so it goes all over England,” said the squire. “Really, my dears,
two-thirds of the House of Commons are composed of the nominees of the
nobles and the great landowners. What comes of the poor man’s rights
under such circumstances? He hes been robbed of them for centuries;
doesn’t tha think, Annie, it is about time he looked after them?”
“I should think it was full time,” Josepha said hotly.
“It is a difficult question,” replied Annie. “It must have many sides
that require examination.”
“Whatever is right needs no examination, Annie.”
“Listen, women, I have but told you one-half of the condition. There is
another side of it, for if some places hev been growing less and less
during the past centuries, other places, once hardly known, have become
great cities, like Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, and so
forth, and have no representation at all. What do you think of that? Not
a soul in parliament to speak for them. Now if men hev to pay taxes they
like to know a little bit about their whys and wherefores, eh, women?”
“Did they always want to know, father?” asked Katherine.
“I should say so. It would only be natural, Kitty, but at any rate since
the days of King John; and I don’t believe but what the ways of men and
the wants of men hev been about the same iver since God made men. They
hev allays wanted a king and they hev allays been varry particular about
hev-ing some ways and means of making a king do what they want him to
do.”
“Suppose the lords pass The Bill but alter it so much that it is _not
The Bill_, what then, father?”
“Well, Kitty, they could do that thing but as your aunt said, they had
better not. Nothing but the whole Bill will now satisfy. No! they dare
not alter it. Now you can talk over what I hev told you. I must go about
my awn business and the first thing I hev to do is to take my wife home.
Come, Annie, I am needing thee.”
Annie rose with a happy alacrity. She was glad to go. To be alone with
her husband after the past days of society’s patented pleasures was an
unspeakable rest and refreshment. They drove to the Clarendon in silent
contentment, holding each other’s hand and putting off speech until they
could talk without restraint of any kind. And if anyone learned in the
expression of the flesh had noticed their hands they would have seen
that Annie’s thumb in the clasp was generally the uppermost, a sure sign
that she had the strongest will and was made to govern. The corollary
of this fact is, that if the clasping thumb in both parties is the right
thumb, then complications are most likely to frequently occur.
Indeed Annie did not speak until she had thrown aside her bonnet and
cloak and was comfortably seated in the large soft chair she liked best;
then she said with an air of perfect satisfaction, “O Antony! It was so
kind and thoughtful of thee to come for me. I was afraid there might
be some unpleasant to-do before I got away. Josepha was ready for one,
longing for one, and Jane hed to make that excuse about getting dinner
ready, in order to avoid it. Jane, you know, supports the whole House
of Lords, and she goes on about ‘The Constitution of the British
Government’ as if it was an inspired document.”
“Well tha knows, Leyland is a Tory from his head to his feet. I doan’t
think his mind hes much to do with his opinions. He inherited them from
his father, just as he inherited his father’s face and size and money.
And a woman hes to think as her husband thinks--if she claims to be a
good wife.”
“That idea is an antiquated lie, Antony. A good wife, Antony, thinks not
only for herself, she thinks also for her husband.”
“I niver noticed thee making thysen contrary. As I think, thou thinks.
Allays that is so.”
“Nay, it is not. There is many a thing different in my mind to what is
in thy mind, and thou knows it, too; and there are subjects we neither
of us want to talk of because we cannot agree about them. I often thank
thee for thy kind self-denial in this matter.”
“I’m sure I doan’t know what thou art so precious civil about. I think
of varry little now but the Reform Bill and the poor weavers; and thou
thinks with me on both of them subjects. Eh, Joy?”
“To be sure I do--with some sub-differences.”
“I doan’t meddle with what thou calls thy ‘subdifferences.’ I’ll warrant
they are innocent as thysen and thy son Dick is a good son and he
thinks just as I think on ivery subject. That’s enough, Annie, on
sub-differences. Let us hev a bit of a comfortable lunch. Jane’s
breakfast was cold and made up of fancy dishes like oysters and chicken
minced with mushrooms, and muffins and such miscarriages of eatable
dishes. I want some sensible eating at one o’clock and I feel as if it
was varry near one now.”
“What shall I order for you?”
“Some kidney soup and cold roast beef and a good pudding, or some Christ
Church tartlets, the best vegetables they hev and a bottle of Bass’ best
ale or porter, but thou can-hev a cup of sloppy tea if tha fancies it.”
“I think no better of sloppy things than thou does, Antony. I’ll hev a
glass of good, pale sherry wine, and the same would be better for thee
than anything Bass brews. Bass makes a man stout, and thou art now just
the right weight; an ounce more flesh would spoil thy figure and take
the spring out of thy step and put more color in thy face and take
the music out of thy voice; but please thy dear self about thy eating;
perhaps I am a bit selfish about thy good looks, but when a woman gets
used to showing herself off with a handsome man she can’t bear to give
up that bit of pride.”
“Well, then, Annie dear, whativer pleases thee, pleases me. Send for
number five, and order what thou thinks best.”
“Nay, Antony, thou shalt have thy own wish. It is little enough to give
thee.”
“It is full and plenty, if thou puts thy wish with it.”
Then Annie happily ordered the kidney soup and cold roast and the
particular tarts he liked and the sherry instead of the beer, and the
fare pleased both, and they ate it with that smiling cheerfulness which
is of all thanksgiving the most acceptable to the Bountiful Giver of
all good things. And as they ate they talked of Katherine’s beauty and
loving heart and of Dick’s ready obedience and manly respect for his
father, and food so seasoned and so cheerfully eaten is the very best
banquet that mortals can ever hope to taste in this life.
In the meantime, Dick, urged both by his father’s desire and his own
wistful longing to see Faith Foster, lost no time in reaching his home
village. He was shocked by its loneliness and silence. He did not meet
or see a single man. The women were shut up in their cottages. Their
trouble had passed all desire for company and all hope of any immediate
assistance. Talking only enervated them and they all had the same
miserable tale to tell. It might have been a deserted village but for
the musical chime of the church clock and the sight of a few little
children sitting listlessly on the doorsteps of the cottages. Hunger had
killed in them the instinct of play. “It hurts us to play. It makes the
pain come,” said one little lad, as he looked with large suffering eyes
into Dick’s face; but never asked from him either pity or help. Yet his
very silence was eloquence. No words could have moved to sympathy so
strongly as the voiceless appeal of his sad suffering eyes, his thin
face, and the patient helplessness of his hopeless quiet. Dick could not
bear it. He gave the child some money, and it began to cry softly and to
whimper “Mammy! Mammy!” and Dick hurried homeward, rather ashamed of his
own emotion, yet full of the tenderest pity.
He found Britton pottering about the stable and his wife Sarah trying
with clumsy fingers to fashion a child’s frock. “Oh, Master Dick!” she
cried. “Why did tha come back to this unhappy place? I think there is
pining and famishing in ivery house and sickness hard following it.”
“I have come, Sarah, to see what can be done to help the trouble.”
“A God’s mercy, sir! We be hard set in Annis village this day.”
“Have you a room ready for me, Sarah? I may be here for a few days.”
“It would be a varry queer thing if I hedn’t a room ready for any of the
family, coming in a hurry like. Your awn room is spick and span, sir.
And I’ll hev a bit of fire there in ten minutes or thereby, but tha
surely will hev summat to eat first.”
“Nothing to eat just yet, Sarah. I shall want a little dinner about five
o’clock if you will have it ready.”
“All right, sir. We hev no beef or mutton in t’ house, sir, but I will
kill a chicken and make a rice pudding, if that will do.”
“That is all I want.”
Then Dick went to the stables and interviewed Britton, and spoke to
every horse in it, and asked Britton to turn them into the paddock for
a couple of hours. “They are needing fresh air and a little liberty,
Britton,” he said, and as Britton loosened their halters and opened the
door that led into the paddock they went out prancing and neighing their
gratitude for the favor.
“That little gray mare, sir,” said Britton, “she hes as much sense as
a human. She knew first of all of them what was coming, and she knew
it was your doing, sir, that’s the reason she nudged up against you and
fairly laid her face against yours.”
“Yes, she knew me, Britton. Lucy and I have had many a happy day
together.” Then he asked Britton about the cattle and the poultry, and
especially about the bulbs and the garden flowers, which had always had
more or less the care of Mistress Annis.
These things attended to, he went to his room and dressed himself with
what seemed to be some unnecessary care. Dick, however, did not think
so. He was going to see Mr. Foster and he might see Faith, and he could
not think of himself as wearing clothing travel-soiled in her presence.
In an hour, however, he was ready to go to the village, fittingly
dressed from head to feet, handsome as handsome Youth can be, and the
gleam and glow of a true love in his heart. “It may be--it may be!” he
told himself as he walked speedily down the nearest way to the village.
When about half-way there, he met the preacher. “I heard you were here,
Mr. Annis,” he said. “Betty Bews told me she saw you pass her cottage.”
“I came in answer to your letter, sir. The Bill is at a great crisis,
and my father’s vote on the right side is needed. And I was glad to
come, if I can do good in any way.”
“Oh, yes, sir, there are things to do, and words to say that I cannot do
or say--and the need is urgent.”
“Then let us go forward. I was shocked by the village as I passed
through it. I did not meet a single man. I saw only a few sickly looking
women, and some piteous children.”
“The men have gone somewhere four days ago. I suppose they were called
by their society. They did not tell me where they were going and I
thought it was better not to ask any questions. The women are all sick
and despairing, the children suffer all they can bear and live. That is
one phase of the trouble; but there is another coming that I thought you
would like to be made acquainted with.”
“Not the cholera, I hope? It has reached London, you know, and the
doctors are paralyzed by their ignorance of its nature and can find no
remedy for it.”
“Our people think it a judgment of God. I am told it broke out in
Bristol while the city was burning and outrages of all kinds rampant.”
“You know, sir, that Bristol is one of our largest seaports. It is
more likely to have been brought here by some traveler from a strange
country. I heard a medical man who has been in India with our troops say
that it was a common sickness in the West Indies.”
“It was never seen nor heard of in England before. Now it is going up
the east coast of Britain as far north as the Shetland Isles. These
coast people are nearly all fishermen, very good, pious men, and they
positively declare that they saw a gigantic figure of a woman, shadowy
and gray, with a face of malignant vengeance, passing through the land.”
“God has sent such messengers many times--ministers of His Vengeance.
His Word is full of such instances.”
“But a woman with a malignant face! Oh, no!”
“Whatever is evil, must look evil--but here we are at Jonathan
Hartley’s. Will you go in?”
“He is coming to us. I will give him my father’s letter. That will be
sufficient.”
But Jonathan had much to say and he seemed troubled beyond outside
affairs to move him, and the preacher asked--“What is personally out of
the right way with you, Jonathan?”
“Well, sir, my mother is down at the ford; she may cross any hour--she’s
only waiting for the guide--and my eldest girl had a son last night--the
little lad was born half-starved. We doan’t know yet whether either of
them can be saved--or not. So I’ll not say ‘Come in,’ but if you’ll sit
down with me on the garden bench, I’ll be glad of a few minutes fresh
air.” He opened the little wicket gate as he spoke and they sat down on
a bench under a cherry tree full dressed in perfumed white for Easter
tide.
As soon as they were seated the young squire delivered his father’s
letter and then they talked of the sudden disappearance of the men of
the village. “What does it mean, Jonathan?” asked Dick, and Jonathan
said--
“Well, sir, I hevn’t been much among the lads for a week now. My mother
hes been lying at the gate of the grave and I couldn’t leave her long at
a time. They were all loitering about the village when I saw them last.
Suddenly they all disappeared, and the old woman at the post office told
me ivery one of them hed received a letter four mornings ago, from the
same Working Man’s Society. I hed one mysen, for that matter, and that
afternoon they all left together for somewhere.”
“But,” asked Dick, “where did they get the money necessary for a
journey?”
“Philip Sugden got the money from Sugbury Bank. He hed an order for it,
that was cashed quick enough. What do you make of that, sir?”
“I think there may be fighting to do if parliament fails the people this
time.”
“And in the very crisis of this trouble,” said Dick, “I hear from Mr.
Foster that a man has been here wanting to build a mill. Who is he,
Jonathan? And what can be his motive?”
“His name is Jonas Boocock. He comes from Shipley. His motive is to mak’
money. He thinks this is the varry place to do it. He talked constantly
about its fine water power, and its cheap land, and thought Providence
hed fairly laid it out for factories and power-looms; for he said
there’s talk of a branch of railway from Bradley’s place, past Annis, to
join the main track going to Leeds. He considered it a varry grand idea.
Mebbe it is, sir.”
“My father would not like the plan at all. It must be prevented, if
possible. What do you think, Jonathan?”
“I think, sir, if it would be a grand thing for Jonas Boocock, it might
happen be a good thing for Squire Antony Annis. The world is moving
for-rard, sir, and we must step with it, or be dragged behind it. Old as
I am, I would rayther step for-rard with it. Gentlemen, I must now go to
my mother.”
“Is she worse, Jonathan?”
“She is quite worn out, worn out to the varry marrow. I would be
thankful, sir, if tha would call and bid her good-by.”
“I will. I will come about seven o’clock.”
“That will be right. I’ll hev all the household present, sir.”
Then they turned away from Jonathan’s house and went to look at the land
Boocock hankered for. The land itself was a spur descending from
the wold, and was heathery and not fit for cultivation; but it was
splendidly watered and lay along the river bank. “Boocock was right,”
said Mr. Foster. “It is a bit of land just about perfect for a factory
site. Does the squire own it, sir?”
“I cannot say. I was trying to fix its position as well as I could, and
I will write to my father tonight. I am sorry Jonathan did not know more
about the man Boocock and his plans.”
“Jonathan’s mother is a very old woman. While she lives, he will stay at
her side. You must remember her?”
“I do. She was exceedingly tall and walked quite erect and was so white
when I met her last that she looked like a ghost floating slowly along
the road.”
“She had always a sense of being injured by being here at all--wondered
why she had been sent to this world, and though a grand character was
never really happy. Jonathan did not learn to read until he was over
forty years of age; she was then eighty, and she helped him to remember
his letters, and took the greatest pride in his progress. There ought to
be schools for these people, there are splendid men and women mentally
among them. Here we are at home. Come in, sir, and have a cup of tea
with us before you climb the brow.”
Dick was very glad to accept the invitation and the preacher opened the
door and said: “Come in, sir, and welcome!” and they went into a small
parlor plainly furnished, but in perfect order, and Dick heard someone
singing softly not far away. Before the preacher had more than given his
guest a chair the door opened and Faith entered the room. If he had not
been already in love with her he would have fallen fathoms deep in the
divine tide that moment, for his soul knew her and loved her, and was
longing to claim its own. What personal charm she had he knew not,
he cared not, he had been drawn to her by some deep irresistible
attraction, and he succumbed absolutely to its influence. At this moment
he cast away all fears and doubts and gave himself without reservation
to the wonderful experience.
Faith had answered her father’s call so rapidly, that Dick was not
seated when she entered the room. She brought with her into the room an
atmosphere of light and peace, through which her loveliness shone with
a soft, steady glow. There was something unknown and unseen in her very
simplicity. All that was sweet and wise, shone in her heavenly eyes, and
their light lifted her higher than all his thoughts; they were so soft
and deep and compelling. Very singularly their influence seemed to be
intensified by the simple dress she wore. It was of merino and of the
exact shade of her eyes, and it appeared in some way to increase their
mystical power by the prolongation of the same color. There was nothing
of intention in this arrangement. It was one of those coincidences that
are perhaps suggested or induced by the angel that guards our life and
destiny. For there are angels round all of us. Earth is no strange land
to them. The dainty neatness of her clothing delighted Dick. After a
season of ruffles and flounces and extravagant trimming, its soft folds
falling plainly and unbrokenly to her feet, charmed him. Something
of white lace, very narrow and unpretentious, was around the neck and
sleeves which were gathered into a band above the elbows. Her hair,
parted in the center of the forehead, lay in soft curls which fell no
lower than the tip of the ears and at the back was coiled loosely on
the crown of the head, where it was fastened by a pretty shell comb.
The purity and peace of a fervent transparent soul was the first and the
last impression she made, and these qualities revealed themselves in a
certain homely sweetness, that drew everyone’s affection and trust like
a charm.
She had in her hands a clean tablecloth and some napkins, but when she
saw Dick, she laid them down, and went to meet him. He took her hand and
looked into her eyes, and a rush of color came into her face and gave
splendor to her smile and her beauty. She hastened to question him about
his mother and Katherine, but even as they talked of others, she knew
he was telling her that he loved her, and longed for her to love him in
return.
“Faith, my dear,” said Mr. Foster, “our friend, Mr. Annis, will have a
cup of tea with us before he goes up the brow,” and she looked at Dick
and smiled, and began to lay the round table that stood in the center
of the room. Dick watched her beautiful white arms and hands among the
white china and linen and a very handsome silver tea service, with a
pleasure that made him almost faint. Oh, if he should lose this lovely
girl! How could he bear it? He felt that he might as well lose life
itself.
For though Dick had loved her for some months, love not converted into
action, becomes indolent and unbelieving. So he had misgivings he could
not control and amid the distractions of London, his love, instead of
giving a new meaning to his life, had infected him rather with a sense
of dreamland. But in this hour, true honest love illumined life, he
saw things as they were, he really fell in love and that is a wonderful
experience, a deep, elemental thing, beyond all reasoning with. In this
experience he had found at last the Key to Life, and he understood in a
moment, as it were, that this Key is in the Heart, and not in the Brain.
He had been very wise and prudent about Faith and one smile from her
had shattered all his reasoning, and the love-light now in his eyes, and
shining in his face, was heart-work and not brain work. For love is
a state of the soul; anger, grief and other passions can change their
mental states; but love? No! Love absorbs the whole man, and if not
satisfied, causes a state of great suffering. So in that hour Love was
Destiny and fashioned his life beyond the power of any other passion to
change.
In the meantime Faith brought in tea and some fresh bread and butter,
and a dish of broiled trout. “Mr. Braithwaite was trout fishing among
the fells to-day,” she said, “and as he came home, he left half a dozen
for father. He is one of the Chapel Trustees and very fond of line
fishing. Sometimes father goes with him. You know,” she added with a
smile, “fishing is apostolical. Even a Methodist preacher may fish.”
For a short time they talked of the reel and line, and its caprices,
but conversation quickly drifted to the condition of the country and of
Annis particularly, and in this conversation an hour drifted speedily
away. Then Faith rose and brought in a bowl of hot water, washed the
china and silver and put them away in a little corner cupboard.
“That silver is very beautiful,” said Dick.
“Take it in your hand, Mr. Annis, and read what is engraved on the tea
pot.” So Dick took it in his hand and read that the whole service had
been given by the Wesleyans of Thirsk to Reverend Mr. Foster, as a proof
of their gratitude to him as their spiritual teacher and comforter. Then
Dick noticed the china and said his mother had a set exactly like it and
Mr. Foster answered--“I think, Mr. Annis, every family in England has
one, rich and poor. Whoever hit upon this plain white china, with its
broad gold band round all edges, hit on something that fitted the
English taste universally. It will be a wedding gift, and a standard tea
set, for many generations yet; unless it deteriorates in style and
quality--but I must not forget that I am due at Hartley’s at seven
o’clock, so I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Annis.”
“May I ask your permission to remain with Miss Foster until your return,
sir? I have a great deal to tell her about Katherine and many messages
from my sister to deliver.”
For a moment Mr. Foster hesitated, then he answered frankly, “I will be
glad if you stay with Faith until I return.” Then Faith helped him on
with his top coat and gave him his hat and gloves and walking stick and
both Dick and Faith stood at the open door, and watched him go down the
street a little way. But this was Dick’s opportunity and he would not
lose it.
“Come into the parlor, dear, dear Faith! I have something to tell you,
something I must tell you!” And all he said in the parlor was something
he had never dared to say before, except in dreams.
Faith knew what he wished to say. He had wooed her silently for months,
but she had not suffered him to pass beyond the horizon of her thoughts.
Yet she knew well, that though they were in many things dissimilar as
two notes of music, they were made for each other. She told herself that
he knew this fact as well as she did and that at the appointed hour he
would come to her. Until that hour she would not provoke Destiny by
her impatience. A change so great for her would doubtless involve other
changes and perhaps their incidentals were not yet ready. So she never
doubted but that Dick would tell her he loved her, as soon as he thought
the right hour had come.
And now the hour had come, and Dick did tell her how he loved her with a
passionate eloquence that astonished himself. She did not try to resist
its influence. It was to her heart all that cold water would be to
parching thirst; it was the coming together of two strong, but different
temperaments, and from the contact the flashing forth of love like
fire. His words went to her head like wine, her eyes grew soft, tender,
luminous, her form was half mystical, half sensuous. Dick was creating
a new world for them, all their own. Though her eyes lifted but an
instant, her soul sought his soul, gradually they leaned closer to each
other in visible sweetness and affection and then it was no effort, but
a supreme joy, to ask her to be his wife, to love and counsel and guide
him, as his mother had loved and guided his father; and in the sweet,
trembling patois of love, she gave him the promise that taught him what
real happiness means. And her warm, sweet kisses sealed it. He felt they
did so and was rapturously happy. Is there anything more to be said on
this subject? No, the words are not yet invented which could continue
it. Yet Faith wrote in her Diary that night--“To-day I was born into the
world of Love. That is the world God loves best.”