Some people concern themselves vey much with the mysteries of life,
others take what good things fall into their way without question or
wonder. These latter folk are not of a speculating or strongly
reasoning turn; if sorrow arrives they accept it as wise, painful,
inevitable--if joy visits them they rejoice, but with simplicity. They
are the people who are naturally endowed with faith--faith first of all
in a guiding providence, which as a rule is accompanied by a faith in
their fellow men. The world is kind to such individuals, for the world
is very fond of giving what is expected of it--to one hate and
distrust, to another open-handed benevolence and cordiality. People so
endowed are usually fortunate, and of them it may be said, that it was
good for them to be born.
All people are not so constituted--there is such a thing as a noble
discontent, and the souls that in the end often attain to the highest,
have nearly suffered shipwreck, have spent with St. Paul a day and a
night in the deep--being saved in the end with a great
deliverance--they have often on the road been all but lost. Such people
often sin very deeply--temptation assails them in the most subtle
forms, many of them go down really into the deep, and are never in this
life heard of again--they are spoken of as "lost," utterly lost, and
their names are held up to others as terrible warnings, as examples to
be shunned, as reprobates to be spoken of with bated breath.
It may be that some of these so-called lost souls will appear as
victors in another state; having gone into the lowest depths of all
they may also attain to the highest heights; this, however, is a
mystery which no one can fathom.
Gerald Wyndham was one of the men of whom no one could quite say it was
good for him to have been born. His nature was not very easily read,
and even his favorite sister Lilias did not quite know him. From his
earliest days he was so far unfortunate as never to be able to take
things easily; even in his childhood this characteristic marked him.
Sorrows with Gerald were never trivial; when he was six years old he
became seriously ill because a pet canary died. He would not talk of
his trouble, nor wail for his pet like an ordinary child, but sat
apart, and refused to eat, and only his mother at last could draw him
away from his grief, and show him it was unmanly to be rebellious.
His joys were as intense as his woes--he was an intense child in every
sense of the word; eager, enthusiastic, with many noble impulses. All
might have gone well with him but for a rather strange accompaniment to
his special character; he was as reserved as most such boys would be
open. It was only by the changing expression of his eyes that on many
occasions people knew whether a certain proposition would plunge him in
the depths of woe or raise him to the heights of joy. He was innately
very unselfish, and this characteristic must have been most strongly
marked in him, for his father and his mother and his seven sisters did
their utmost to make him the reverse. Lilias said afterwards that they
failed ignobly. Gerald would never see it, she would say. Talk of
easy-chairs--he would stand all the evening rather than take one until
every other soul in the room was comfortably provided. Talk of the best
in anything,--you might give it to Gerald, but in five minutes he would
have given it away to the person who wanted it least. It was
aggravating beyond words, Lilias Wyndham often exclaimed, but before
you could even attempt to make old Gerry decently comfortable you had
to attend to the wants of even the cats and dogs.
Wyndham carrying all his peculiarities with him went to school and then
to Cambridge. He was liked in both places, and was clever enough to win
distinction, but for the same characteristic which often caused him at
the last moment to fail, because he thought another man should win the
honor, or another schoolboy the prize.
His mother wished him to take holy orders, and although he had no very
strong leaning in that direction he expressed himself satisfied with
her choice, and decided for the first few years of his life as deacon
and priest to help his father at the dear old parish of
Jewsbury-on-the-Wold.
Then came his meeting with Valentine Paget, the complete upheaval of
every idea, the revolution which shook his nature to its depths. His
hour had come, and he took the malady of young love--first, earnest,
passionate love--as anyone who knew him thoroughly, and scarcely anyone
did know the real Wyndham, might have expected.
One pair of eyes, however, looked at this speaking face, and one keen
mental vision pierced down into the depths of an earnest and chivalrous
soul. Mortimer Paget had been long looking for a man like Wyndham. It
was not a very difficult matter to make such a lad his victim, hence
his story became one of the most sorrowful that could be written, as
far as this life is concerned. Had his mother, who was now in her grave
for over seven years, known what fate lay before this bright beautiful
boy of hers, she would have cursed the day of his birth. Fortunately
for mothers, and sisters too, the future lies in darkness, for
knowledge in such cases would make daily life unendurable.
Valentine and her husband extended their wedding tour considerably over
the original month. They often wrote home, and nothing could exceed
the cheerfulness of the letters which Mr. Paget read with anxiety and
absorbing interest--the rectory folks with all the interest minus the
anxiety. Valentine frankly declared that she had never been so happy in
her life, and it was at last, at her father's express request, almost
command, that the young couple consented to take up their abode in
Queen's Gate early in the November which followed their wedding. They
spent a fortnight first at the old rectory, where Valentine appeared in
an altogether new character, and commenced her career by swearing an
eternal friendship with Augusta. She was in almost wild spirits, and
they played pranks together, and went everywhere arm-in-arm,
accompanied by the entire bevy of little sisters.
Lilias and Marjory began by being rather scandalized, but ended by
thoroughly appreciating the arrangement, as it left them free to
monopolize Gerald, who on this occasion seemed to have quite recovered
his normal spirits. He was neither depressed nor particularly exultant,
he did not talk a great deal either about himself or his wife, but was
full of the most delighted interest in his father's and sisters'
concerns. The new curate, Mr. Carr, was now in full force, and Gerald
and he found a great deal to say to one another. The days were those
delicious ones of late autumn, when nature quiet and exhausted, as she
is after her time of flower and fruit, is in her most soothing mood.
The family at the rectory were never indoors until the shades of night
drove them into the long, low, picturesque, untidy drawing-room.
Then Gerald sang with his sisters--they had all sweet voices, and his
was a pure and very sympathetic tenor. Valentine's songs were not the
same as those culled from old volumes of ballads, and selected from the
musical mothers' and grandmothers' store, which the rectory folk
delighted in. Hers were drawing-room melodies of the present day,
fashionable, but short-lived.
The first night the young bride was silent, for even Augusta had left
her to join the singers round the piano. Gerald was playing an
accompaniment for his sisters, and the rector, standing in the back
ground, joined the swell of harmony with his rich bass notes. Valentine
and Carr, who was also in the room, were the silent and only listeners.
Valentine wore a soft white dress, her bright wavy locks of golden hair
were a little roughened, and her starry eyes were fixed on her husband.
Carr, who looked almost monastic in his clerical dress, was gazing at
her--her lips were partly open, she kept gentle time to the music with
her little hand. A very spirited glee was in full tide, when there came
a horrid discordant crash on the piano--everyone stopped singing, and
Gerald, very white, went up to Val, and took her arm.
"Come over here and join us," he said almost roughly.
"But I don't know any of that music, Gerald, and it is so delicious to
listen."
"Folly," responded her husband. "It looks absurd to see two people
gaping at one. I beg your pardon, Carr--I am positively sensitive,
abnormally so, on the subject of being stared at. Girls, shall we have
a round game? I will teach Val some of Bishop's melodies to-morrow
morning."
"I am going home," said Carr, quietly. "I did not know that anyone was
looking at you except your wife. Wyndham. Good-night?"
It was an uncomfortable little scene, and even the innocent,
unsophisticated rectory girls felt embarrassed without knowing why.
Marjory almost blamed Gerald afterwards, and would have done so
roundly, but Lilias would not listen to her.
At the next night's concert, Valentine sang almost as sweetly as the
others, but Carr did not come back to the rectory for a couple of
days.
"I evidently acted like a brute, and must have appeared one," said
Gerald to himself. "But God alone knows what all this means to me."
It was a small jar, the only one in that happy fortnight, when the
girls seemed to have quite got their brother back, and to have found a
new sister in pretty, bright Valentine.
It was the second of November when the bride and bridegroom appeared at
a big dinner party made in their honor at the house in Queen's Gate.
All her friends congratulated Valentine on her improved looks, and told
Wyndham frankly that matrimony had made a new man of him. He was
certainly bright and pleasant, and took his part quite naturally as the
son of the house. No one could detect the shadow of a care on his face,
and as to Val, she sat almost in her father's pocket, scarcely turning
her bright eyes away from his face.
"I always thought that dear Mr. Paget the best and noblest and most
Christian of men," remarked a certain Lady Valery to her daughter as
they drove home that evening. "I am now more convinced of the truth of
my views than ever."
"Why so, mother?" asked her daughter.
"My dear, can you not see for yourself? He gave that girl of his--that
beautiful girl, with all her fortune--to a young man with neither
position nor money, simply and entirely because she fell in love with
him. Was there ever anything more disinterested? Yes, my dear, talk to
me of every Christian virtue embodied, and I shall invariably mention
my old friend, Mortimer Paget."