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diff --git a/old/62295-8.txt b/old/62295-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d15f6ae..0000000 --- a/old/62295-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17914 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mary Lee, by Geoffrey Pomeroy Dennis - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Mary Lee - - -Author: Geoffrey Pomeroy Dennis - - - -Release Date: May 31, 2020 [eBook #62295] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY LEE*** - - -E-text prepared by ellinora, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/maryleeden00dennuoft - - - - - -MARY LEE - - - * * * * * * - -_NEW BORZOI NOVELS FALL, 1922_ - - - THE QUEST - _Pio Baroja_ - THE ROOM - _G. B. Stern_ - ONE OF OURS - _Willa Cather_ - A LOVELY DAY - _Henry Céard_ - MARY LEE - _Geoffrey Dennis_ - TUTORS' LANE - _Wilmarth Lewis_ - THE PROMISED ISLE - _Laurids Bruun_ - THE RETURN - _Walter de la Mare_ - THE BRIGHT SHAWL - _Joseph Hergesheimer_ - THE MOTH DECIDES - _Edward Alden Jewell_ - INDIAN SUMMER - _Emily Grant Hutchings_ - - * * * * * * - - -MARY LEE - -by - -GEOFFREY DENNIS - - -[Illustration] - - - - - - -New York -Alfred A. Knopf -MCMXXII - -Copyright, 1922, by -Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. - -Published, August, 1922 - -Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, - N. Y. -Paper (Warren's) furnished by Henry Lindenmeyr & Sons, New York, N. Y. -Bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. - -Manufactured in the United States of America - - - - -CONTENTS - - -PART ONE - - I I AM BORN 3 - - II BEAR LAWN 14 - - III CHILD OF PRIVILEGE 24 - - IV I GO TO MEETING 36 - - V I GO TO SCHOOL 55 - - VI CHEESE, LUMPS, CREWJOE, THE SCARLET WOMAN - AND THE GREAT GOD BENAMUCKEE 73 - - VII THE END OF THE WORLD 87 - - VIII SATAN COMES TO TAWBOROUGH 95 - - IX AND SO DOES UNCLE SIMEON 101 - - X OLD LETTERS 120 - - XI EXTRAORDINARY MEETING FOR PRAYER, PRAISE - AND PURGING 135 - - XII THE GREAT DISCLOSURE 144 - - XIII I GO TO TORRIBRIDGE 158 - - XIV I BECOME CURIOUS 172 - - XV WESTWARD HO! 179 - - XVI ROBBIE 192 - - XVII CHRISTMAS NIGHT 206 - - XVIII NEW YEAR'S NIGHT 223 - - XIX BEAR LAWN AGAIN 233 - - XX DIARY 243 - - XXI I AM BAPTIZED IN JORDAN 253 - - XXII THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER 265 - - XXIII WINE THAT MAKETH GLAD THE HEART OF - WOMAN 282 - - XXIV PROSPECTS 301 - - XXV I SAY GOOD-BYE 312 - - -PART TWO - - XXVI CHÂTEAU VILLEBECQ 319 - - XXVII MARY THE SECOND 327 - - XXVIII LAYING-ON OF HANDS 336 - - XXIX HAPPY FAMILY 340 - - XXX CARDBOARD 356 - - XXXI WAY OF AN EAGLE IN THE AIR 362 - - XXXII PAREE! 370 - - XXXIII I BECOME AN HEIRESS 377 - - XXXIV I BECOME A DAUGHTER 381 - - XXXV WAY OF A SERPENT UPON A ROCK 386 - - XXXVI THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 389 - - XXXVII WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA 393 - -XXXVIII DEATHBED 408 - - XXXIX END OF THREE VISIONS: THE STRANGER'S 412 - - XL END OF THREE VISIONS: NAPOLEON'S 420 - - XLI END OF THREE VISIONS: MINE 424 - - XLII TWIN DEATHBEDS 427 - - XLIII ONE LONG PRERCESSION O' DEATHBEDS 431 - - XLIV CHRISTMAS NIGHT 434 - - XLV WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID 439 - - - - -PART ONE - - - - -CHAPTER I: I AM BORN - - -I was born at Tawborough on March the Second, 1848. - -It seems to have been a great year in the history books. Fires of -revolution sweeping over Europe; half the capitals aflame. From Prague -to Palermo, from Paris to Pesth, the peoples rising against their -rulers. Wars and rumours of wars; civil strife everywhere. Radicals in -Prussia, revolutionaries in Italy, rebels in Austria, republicans in -France. Even in old England we had our chartists. - -All such troubles failed to touch Tawborough. What did she know of it -all, or care if she knew? She was a good old peaceful English country -town, with her own day's work to do. The great world might go its way -for all she cared--a wild and noisy way it seemed. She would go hers. - -Not that Tawborough had always been without a say in England's affairs. -She had indeed a long and honourable history. At the dawn of time there -was a settlement in the marshes where the little stream of Yeo empties -itself into the Taw: a primitive village of wattled huts, known to -the Britons as Artavia. The Phoenicians record the name for us, and -describe the place as a great mart for their commerce. Here the tin of -the western mines was bartered against the rich products of the East: -camphire and calamus, spikenard and saffron, fine linen and purple -silk. This was the origin of Tawborough market, which is the first in -Devonshire to this day. Artavia seems to have been an important seat -of the old British worship. The see of the Arch-Druid of the West was -near at hand in the Valley of the Rocks at Lynton; from the sacred -oak-groves above the Taw on a clear day the Druids could see the fires -of the great altar on the Promontory of Hercules--Hartland Point they -call it now. - -Religion, indeed, in one way or another, seems to have coloured most of -the big events of the town's history. The next great fight was between -pagans and Christian men. - -It was the foeman from the North, threatening the men of Wessex with -desolation. One day the terrified townsfolk heard clanging in their -ears the great ivory horns of the Northmen, and beheld the blood-red -banners sailing up the Taw. One of the standards had upon it a Raven. -Then the Englishmen knew their foe for the wild Hubba, King of the -Vikings; since the Raven floated always at his mast. The banner was of -crimson. It had been worked by the King's three sisters in a noontide -and blessed by a strange Icelandic wizard, who endowed the Raven sewn -upon it with this magical gift: that she clapped her wings to announce -success to the Viking arms, and drooped them to presage failure. Never -till this day had the black wings drooped; they drooped this winter's -morning. So the English took heart. Odin, Earl of Devon, sallied forth -from Kenwith Castle, defeated and slew King Hubba, and captured the -magic banner. Then came peace for a while. King Alfred, full of piety, -came to Tawborough and set up the great Mound by the Castle. King -Athelstan gave the town a charter, and housed himself in a magnificent -palace at Umberleigh hard by. - -In the wake of the Normans came the religious orders. The Cluniacs -built a monastery in the town, the Benedictines another at Pilton just -outside. With the monks came light and learning, better lives and -milder ways. Tawborough became rich and prosperous. Her trade excelled -that of Bristol. Her fair and market were famous "tyme out of mynde." -For many years the Taw--that "greate, hugy, mighty, perylous and -dredful water"--became a highway for the ships of all nations. - -When the New World was found, Englishmen sailed west for glory. Devon -led the way, Tawborough men among the foremost, and Tawborough ships -did valiant deeds against the Invincible Armada. Those were the -great days of England. The townsfolk were all for the new religion. -Spaniard and Papist were twin-children of the devil. A murrain on -both! They favoured the Puritan party in the civil wars, stood out -against the rest of the county, and shouted for the Parliament. Though -when the Royalists took the town and gay Prince Charles made it his -headquarters, the townspeople were charmed with His Merry Highness; -and he, as he told Lord Clarendon, with them. All the courtiers were -of the same mind. Lord Clarendon himself declared that Tawborough was -"a very fine sweet town as ever I saw," while Lady Fanshawe thought -that the cherry pies they made there "with their sort of cream" were -the best things that man, or woman, could eat. Gay John Gay, who wrote -the Beggar's Opera, showed to the world the fair and likeable character -of his native town, which at heart, however, was always of the godly -serious-minded quality, Puritan to the core. No town in England gave a -warmer welcome to the poor Huguenots, who were flying from King Lewis. -One Sunday morning as the townsfolk were coming forth from Church -they saw against the sky--not this time the scarlet banners of the -North--the brown sails of an old French schooner, bearing up the Taw a -band of exiled French Puritans, weary and wretched after their voyage. -Tawborough found every one of them a home. In return the grateful -Frenchmen taught the natives new ways of cloth-weaving, which sent the -fame of Tawborough Bays through all the land. - -Later came a change, a new century, the reign of King Coal; and -Tawborough, like many another historic Western town, sank into -comparative decay. What did the new industrial cities know of such as -her, or care if they knew? For her part, she was indifferent to their -ignorance or their indifference alike. She was a good old English -country town with her own day's work to do. Troubles, invasions, -vicissitudes had assailed her before. New blood, Saxon, Danish, Norman, -Huguenot had coursed through her veins. Her dead had buried their -dead. The people pass, the place alone is abiding.... Abiding, yet not -eternal; for there comes the day when the old earth will fall into the -sun.... Meanwhile, Town Tawborough had her daily life to live, her -townsfolk had theirs. - - -Two of them, indeed, were living theirs with plenty of zest, somewhere -in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Jael and Hannah -Vickary were the daughters of an old sea-captain, Ebenezer Vickary of -Torribridge. He and his brother had three or four vessels of their own, -trading with the Indies in sugar and molasses, or with the Spanish -Main, as it then still was, in logwood and mahogany. The brother died -in Cuba of the yellow fever. Soon afterwards Ebenezer gave up the -sea, settled down in Tawborough, and died in his time. He left his -two daughters enough money to live upon in the quiet style of those -days, together with a big dwelling house by the old North Gate. Here -Jael and Hannah Vickary lived alone, with an old servant whose years -were unknown and unnumbered, and whose wages were six pounds a year. -They had a few friends and visitors, faithful women of the Parish -Church, chief among whom were the Other Six of "the Seven Old Maids of -Tawborough." By a strange coincidence seven female children had been -born in Tawborough on August the First 1785, all of whom had risen to -be devout handmaidens of the Lord in the work of the Parish Church, -shining lights around the central figure of the Vicar, and all of whom -had dwindled into a sure spinsterhood. "We are the wise virgins," said -Jael Vickary, their leader and spiritual chief, in whom the scorn of -all menfolk except the Vicar (who had a meek wife and twelve children) -amounted to a prophet's passion. This passion was shared in various -degrees by the Other Six, to wit: Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny Baker, -Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Sarah Tombstone, and last but not least the -Heavenly Twins, the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. The Twins were -the only regular visitors at Northgate House. There were a few others, -no relatives among them. Jael and Hannah had indeed an elder brother, -John: Ebenezer's only son. He had gone to London as a boy, worked his -way up in a wholesale sugar house in the City, and become passing -rich. His sisters were kept aware of his existence only by receiving -occasional presents and more occasional letters. He never married. -Thus it was that his death, if nothing so crude as a self-acknowledged -source of financial hope to Miss Jael, would nevertheless have been -borne by her with true Christian fortitude. - -If alike in a salt and shrewdness of personality unknown to our end -of the century, in most ways the two sisters differed as much as two -human beings can. Miss Jael was hard, Miss Hannah kindly; Miss Jael -stern, Miss Hannah gentle; Miss Jael was feared, Miss Hannah loved. -Though Hannah was less than eighteen months her sister's junior, -this unbridgeable gulf enabled Miss Jael throughout life to refer to -Miss Hannah as "a young woman," and to treat her accordingly. Then, -behold, in the year 1822, when both were nearer forty than thirty, the -Young Woman brazenly gave ear to the suit of one Edward Lee, an old -sea-captain, who had sailed under her father, and was twenty years her -senior. Jael mocked (Why did he choose her? asked her heart bitterly); -yet stayed on at Northgate House, when Captain Lee came to live there, -to bully and bludgeon the dear old man into his grave. This procedure -took but five years. The old man died, leaving to his widow two little -girls and a boy: Rachel, Martha and Christian. - -In the godlier activities of Tawborough life Jael and her widowed -sister were leading lights, with the parish church as General -Headquarters of their operations. Miss Jael was the vicar's right-hand -_man_. She ran his poor club, his guild, his Dorcas-meeting, effacing -completely the meek many-childrened little lady of the Rectory. He -thought her a queen among women, a tower set upon a rock. - -All this was in the twenties and thirties of the century, ere yet -the Church of England had taken her earliest step on the swift steep -path to Rome. The same wave of evangelical fervour that had swelled -Wesley's great following had strengthened also the Church from which -they broke away. This fervour, whether Methodist or Established, did -not however go nearly far enough for certain pious souls, especially -in the West country, who formed themselves into little bodies for the -Worship of God in the strictest and simplest Gospel fashion. "They -continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in -breaking of bread, and in prayer." They called themselves the Saints, -or more modestly the Brethren. Outsiders called them the Plymouth -Brethren--they flourished in the great seaport--or more profanely, -the Plymouth Rocks. They were drawn from all communions and no -communion, if principally from the Established Church; from all classes -and conditions, the humbler trades-folk perhaps predominating. In -Tawborough they were especially active. From the days of the primitive -Druids away through the long story of missionaries and monks, seafaring -Protestants and Huguenot exiles, here was a town that took her religion -neat. She preferred the good Calvin flavouring, and thus it was that -the Plymouth evangel sent up a savoury smell in her nostrils. There -were literally hundreds of converts. The Parish Church lost some of -its leading members. Arose the cry "The Church in danger!"; and of -all who responded, most valiant was the Vicar's right-hand man. She -stemmed the tide of deserters with loins girt for battle. Like St. -Paul, she breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the new -sect. She encouraged the faithful, visited the wavering, anathematized -deserters. To crown her efforts she counselled the vicar to summon -a great Church Defence Meeting in the Parish Room, to rally and -re-affirm the confidence of the faithful. The Vicar agreed. The hour -of commencement saw a right goodly and godly assembly foregathered -together. On the platform sat a Canon of Exeter, the old Marquess of -Exmoor, several county bigwigs, the Mayor and the Churchwardens. Seven -o'clock struck, the Vicar was about to open the proceedings, everything -was ready--except--except that two honoured places on the platform (in -those days a place on a platform was for a woman an honour indeed) were -not yet occupied. Miss Vickary and her sister were late. The Vicar -hesitated. There was a distinguished company, true: but start the -meeting without its guiding spirit--never! Give her five minutes.... -Some one handed the Vicar an envelope. He opened it, read through the -contents, and fainted then and there. - -How the reverend gentleman was brought round from his swoon by the -joint endeavours of the Canon, the Marquess, two Churchwardens, nine -ladies and a bottle of sal-volatile; how the great Church Defence -Meeting fizzled to an inglorious end; and how Jael Vickary and Hannah -Lee were baptized in the Taw in the presence of three thousand five -hundred spectators, there is no need to relate here. The facts were -well enough known to the older generation in the town. Some say -that the Vicar made a last despairing effort to retain his apostate -right-hand man; that, with tears in his eyes, he went down on his knees -before her. If so, as Hannah wickedly said, he was the only man who -ever did so, and in any case he achieved nothing. On the contrary The -Great Betrayal encouraged wholesale desertions. The Other Six deserted -_en masse_. - -Henceforward Jael Vickary's life was occupied with two main things: -building up the new sect, and bringing up her sister's family. She -filled the vacant post of father with thoroughness and vigour. Her -method was the rod, or to be accurate the thorned stick, and a horrible -weapon it was. Hannah approved the method in moderation, though she -could never have applied it herself. Much of her life, indeed, was -spent in protecting her children from her sister. Rachel, the eldest, -was best beloved. She was a sweet, gentle child; bright, tender and -gay. Martha was quieter, even morose. Christian was a peevish child, -weak and ailing from birth. With no husband to help her, and her sister -on the scold from morn till night, Hannah Lee's life was not an easy -one. She gave her two daughters the best schooling in Devonshire, as -schooling for girls went in those days; so that when they grew up they -were able to take positions as governesses in the best families of the -county. Rachel went to Woolthy Hall to teach Guy, the Lord Tawborough's -five year old heir. Martha was employed by the Groves, of Grove House -near Exeter, to begin the education of their daughter. The two girls' -attainments and appearance explained their good fortune. Rachel in -particular was a refined and attractive young woman, with bright eyes, -a peerless skin, and a gentle winning expression. Dressed oftenest in a -dove-coloured cotton robe, she had a Quakerish charm, simple yet sure. - -Hannah was left alone at Tawborough with Jael and young Christian. -As the years passed, life turned greyer. When the Devon and Three -Counties' Bank collapsed, nearly half the household income disappeared. -Jael's imperiousness grew with her years, while her temper soured. -Christian was in a decline, dying slowly before his mother's eyes. Then -came Martha's marriage. She had fallen in with one Simeon Greeber, a -retired chemist, who lived over at Torribridge--the Taw's twin-river's -port, and Tawborough's immemorial rival. This Greeber was the local -leader of the extreme wing of the Saints, the Close or Exclusive -Brethren; a man twice Martha Lee's age, and one who filled her aunt and -her mother with a special sense of dislike and mistrust. Against their -will she married him, gave up her excellent post with the Grove family, -and went to live at Torribridge. - -Hannah's consolation was always Rachel, whom she loved most dearly. -Then, in its turn, came Rachel's marriage. - -At Woolthy Hall the young governess had come into contact with Lord -Tawborough's cousin, Mr. Philip Traies, who was a frequent if not -welcome guest. He had served in the Navy, but had left the service -under doubtful circumstances. He had led a scandalous life and earned -a reputation to match it. A clear-cut handsome mouth set in a proud -aristocratic face, a fine bearing, a fine speech, and an honoured name, -deluded many and were his own undoing. In ill odour with his family -and his Maker, he decided to come to terms with the latter. At the age -of forty, he joined the Plymouth Brethren. When the Devil turns saint -he does a very sharp round-about, and no withered Anglo-Indian colonel -who communed with the Saints in his dotage to ensure himself as gay -a time in the next world as he had passed in this, ever excelled Mr. -Philip Traies in fervour and piety. He worshipped occasionally with -the Tawborough Saints, who were duly honoured. Sometimes here, and -sometimes at his cousin's, he met Rachel Lee, at this time a girl of -twenty-one. He bestowed upon her the favour of eager kindly patronage, -as such men will; though if she were beneath him in station, and his -equal in manners and good looks, she was far above him in everything -else: goodness and purity and wholeness of heart. Quite how it happened -nobody knew; but one day Rachel came home from Woolthy Hall, and said -to her mother, "I am going to marry Mr. Philip Traies." - -Hannah entreated. A "good" match with a bad man had no attraction for -her. She pleaded with Rachel. Aunt Jael would not stoop to plead; she -gave her niece instead a plain outline of Mr. Philip Traies' past. - -"I know," said the girl, and murmured something about "reforming" him. - -Neither mother nor aunt achieved her surrender. Pleading and -plain-speaking did nothing, nor ever do. The wedding took place at -the registry office, as in those days the Brethren's Meeting Houses -were not licensed for solemnization of marriages, and neither bride -nor bridegroom would enter a church or chapel: temples of Antichrist. -Hannah sat through the ceremony with a queer sense of foreboding, -of sickness, and coming sorrow; an order of sentiment which, as a -sensible Devon woman with no tomfool tombstone fancies ever in her -head, in sixty years she had not known. Immediately after the ceremony, -at the registry office door, the bridegroom suddenly loosened himself -from the bride's arm, and walked sharply away without saying a word. -Nobody knew why. Everybody stared. The wedding breakfast at Northgate -House began without him. They waited; he did not come. After an hour -the tension became unbearable. The guests whispered in groups; Rachel -and her mother bore already on their brows the sorrow of the years -to come. Aunt Jael's face was a gloomy triumphant "I told you so." -Pastries were nibbled, wine was sipped; the joy-feast continued. After -nearly two hours a bell rang, and the bridegroom appeared. - -"Your explanation?" asked Hannah. Rachel dared not look. - -"Oh, I had another woman to see. A glass of sherry please. Besides, it -amused me." - -He took her away to his house at Torquay. Their married life -was wretched from the start. Among many evil passions these two -predominated in Mr. Philip Traies: desire and cruelty. Here was a -lovely and gentle girl who would satisfy both. The first was soon -appeased (shattering love in her heart once and for all), the second -never. Cruelty is insatiable. With this man it was a devouring passion. -It is doubtful perhaps if he was sane. Taunts, foulness, sneers.... He -starved her sometimes, taunted her with her lowlier birth, engaged the -servants on the condition of ill-treating their mistress, dismissed -them if they wavered. All the time he talked religion. The knees -of his elegant trousers were threadbare with prayer. He could fit -a text to every taunt. Then a baby-boy came to cheer the sinking -heart. A few hours after the child was born, when the young mother -lay in the agony and weakness she alone can know, Mr. Philip Traies -entered the room--with a gentler word to-day surely?--no, with this: -"So this is how you keep your fine promises to make a good lady of -the house, a busy housewife and the rest of it"--he raised his voice -savagely--"idling in bed at four in the afternoon. _Get up, you idle -bitch!_" Leaning over the end-rail, he spat in her face. - -The baby soon died. He taunted her with nursing it badly; and doubled -every cruelty he knew save blows. - -"Strike me," she said once. - -Her patience was a fool's, a saint's, a loving woman's; her goodness, -if not her spirits, unfailing. In writing home she made the best of -things. But her heart was broken, her spirit wasting away. - -"Why did you marry me?" she asked. - -"To break your spirit," was the amused reply. - -"Then your marriage has fulfilled its purpose," she said wearily. "My -spirit is broken. Now I can go home." - -That night she wrote to Hannah. The letter is faded, and stained with -three women's tears, wife's, mother's, daughter's. "Dearest Mother," -she wrote, "I am ill and weary. Another little child is coming, but I -may not live for it to be born. I can leave him without failing in my -wife's duty now, for the end is very near. I am coming home to die. -Your loving broken-hearted Daughter." - -Next day she packed for home. - -"Deserting me, are you? Fine Jezebel ways! A good Christian wifely -thing to do, I'm sure. I thought we were proud of doing our duty." - -His sneers did not move her now. She was going home to die. - -Northgate House was a dismal place to return to. It was a wet cheerless -winter. Hannah was tired and heart-sore. Christian was dying. Jael -was evil-tempered, scolding harshly: her comfort to her mother and -daughter was still "I told you so." Rachel went straight to bed. In a -few days Christian died, a sickly pitiful boy of twenty. "It is the -Lord's will," said his mother. Hannah had everything to do, for Simeon -Greeber would not let Martha come over from Torribridge, and Jael took -to her bed with a convenient fit of the ague. Faith in the eternal -love of God was Hannah's only stay. Always, ever, "It was the Lord's -will." This sufficed her, though the times were bitter. The day after -Christian's funeral was wet and wintry: March the Second 1848. Rachel -was twenty-four. Three years ago she had been a happy healthy girl. Now -she was a dying broken woman. The morning of that day she gave birth to -a daughter. Then she was very weak. Her eyes closed, yet she seemed to -see something. - -"What do you see, Rachel, my dear?" asked her mother. - -The spirit was already half away, looking through the golden gates of -Heaven. - -"There is a little angel born. I see her in God's cradle. _My_ little -angel, God's little angel. I shall be with her always--though far away. -I see ... the King in His beauty ... I behold the land ... that is very -far off." - -Her face was radiant as a lover's, yet sad as Love is. Hannah could not -reply. The dying woman seemed to sleep. Her mother watched. An hour -passed. Rachel opened her eyes. - -"Mother." - -"Yes, my dear." - -"Love my little baby for me; and--tell _him_--I forgive him." The eyes -closed, this time for ever. - -My poor mother. - - - - -CHAPTER II: BEAR LAWN - - -My first memory in this life is of a moving. I am sitting in a -high chair, kept in by a stick placed through a hole in each arm. -I am surrounded by the utmost disarray. In front of me is an old -sponge-bath, crammed full of knick-knacks and drawing-room ornaments. -I stretch out my hands yearningly, acquisitively, and make signs of -wrenching from its offensive gaolerlike position the stick which bars -my way. My Grandmother coaxes me to keep it in, and uses the words she -is to use so often later on--words which will punctuate my daily life -in days to come: - -"Don't 'ee do it, my dear. Sit 'ee still and give no trouble. Ye'll -tumble and hurt yourself, so leave the stick alone. Don't 'ee do it." - -"If she don't, I'll take it out myself and lay it about her," comes -another voice, which is to punctuate as regularly and much more -raucously my early doings. And Aunt Jael shakes her fist, and lowers at -me. - -Perhaps I don't really remember the trifling incident. Most likely I -only remember that I remember. It is a photograph of a photograph, -smudged by the fingers of Time. Yet I see as clearly as ever the -dark room in disarray, my Grandmother kind and coaxing, Aunt Jael -threatening and harsh. The memory is clearer because Time has not -blurred but rather sharpened it. I grew up the gauge of an unequal -battle between Grandmother and Great-Aunt. Moving-day is merely the -moment in which my infant intelligence first caught news of the -struggle. - -At this time I must have been about three years old, for it was some -three years after my mother's death that we moved from the High Street, -at the time when--I think it was in 1852--the old North Gate was -removed, and our house pulled down. Our new house was Number Eight, -Bear Lawn. The Lawn was a biggish patch of grass with houses on both -sides. At the far end from the road it merged into a steep grassy bank, -crowned with poplars, which allowed no egress. At the near end a big -iron gate barred us off from the plebeian houses of Bear Street, to -which the Lawn mansions felt themselves notably superior. - -The Lawn lay to the right of the street some little way out of the -town. In reality it was an old barrack-square, "converted." The houses -on each side of it were barracks put up during the French Revolutionary -Wars. When Boney was beaten and the soldiers sent away, an enterprising -builder turned the barracks into two terraces of houses, and sowed -the barrack-square with grass seed. Bear Lawn became one of the most -elegant quarters of Tawborough, a quiet preserve of genteel habitation; -though the houses never quite lost their barrack quality. They were too -square and bare and big to be truly genteel. And too roomy. - -Number Eight was one of the squarest and barest. - -It was gloomy. How far the aspect it will always bear in my mind may be -a reflection of the dark and unhappy days I spent there, and how far -it was real, I cannot ever say. It was a house of big empty corridors, -dark bare spaces, and an incommunicable dreariness that somehow stilled -you as you crossed the doorstep. There was none of the cosy warmth that -makes so many dark old houses a homely joy to the senses and a warm -fragrance for the memory. It had the silence in it that only large -empty spaces can create, did not seem inhabited, and smelt of coffins, -I used to think. Even in summer there was a suggestion of damp and cold -and bleakness, and always there was the silence which made me wait--and -listen. - -Downstairs there were three big rooms: Aunt Jael's, the dining-room -and the kitchen. Aunt Jael's was the front one. The door was always -unlocked, yet the key was left on the outside of the door, and I -was forbidden to enter. Like Mrs. Bluebeard (of whom I had never -heard) or our first mother Eve (in the knowledge of whom I grew to -understanding), I felt that prohibition made perfect; and the forbidden -room attracted me beyond all others. I visited it usually in the -afternoon, when the thunder and trumpets of Aunt Jael's after-dinner -doze in the dining-room announced that the road was clear. The -blinds were always drawn, winter and summer alike; and the windows -closed. The room seemed filled with a dull yellowish kind of mist, -the ochre-coloured blind toning the darkness, and just permitting -you to see a yellowish carpet and dull yellowish furniture. A row -of dismal plants, standing in saucers on the floor, filled the bay -window. There was a great oak sideboard, stuffed with Aunt Jael's -preserves and pickles; though it was long before I had the courage -and the opportunity to ransack it thoroughly. The walls were covered -with spears and daggers, trophies of the Gospel in distant lands. In -a corner reposed the supreme trophy, a huge wooden god, sitting with -arms akimbo. His votaries (until salvation, in the person of Brother -Immanuel Greeber, had turned them from their ways) dwelt, I believe, in -the Society Islands; though he looked for all the world like a Buddha, -with his painless impenetrable eyes and his smile of changeless calm. -In his dark unwholesome corner he dominated the room. The yellow mist -was incense in his nostrils. - -The middle room we called the dining-room, though Aunt Jael favoured -"back parlour." Here we lived and prayed and ate, and here a large part -of this story took place. The window overlooked our small backyard, -which being flanked by out-houses gave little light; so this room too -was dark, though not as dark as Aunt Jael's, since the blinds were -not usually drawn. It was more barely furnished. There was the table, -a chiffonier, a side-board, a bookcase, and two principal chairs: a -"gentleman's" armchair to the left of the fireplace, with two big -arms; and a "lady's," armless, to the right. One was comfortable, the -other was not. One was Aunt Jael's, the other was my Grandmother's. -There were four bedrooms on the first floor, and I must note their -strategic positions. Aunt Jael's was the first on the right, my own -the second; we were over the dining-room and surveyed the backyard. -My Grandmother's chamber, the first on the left, and the spare-room -beyond it overlooked the Lawn. At the half-landing above was Mrs. -Cheese's bedroom, while the top of the house consisted of an enormous -whitewashed attic, lighted by an unwashed skylight and suffused by a -cold bluish gloom that contrasted queerly with the foggy yellow of the -front room downstairs yet excelled it in silent cheerlessness. Here I -would spend hours, or whole days, either of my own free will, that I -might moon and mope to my heart's content, and talk aloud to myself -without fear of mocking audience; or perforce, banished by the frequent -judgment of Aunt Jael. - -It was our moving into this house that supplies my first earthly -memory. My first important--dramatic, historic--remembrance must date -from several months later, when I was nearly four years old. The scene -was our evening reading of the Word. We were sitting in our usual -positions round the dining-room fire after supper. - -To the left of the chimney-piece, in the big black horsehair chair--the -comfortable one, the one with sides and arms--sat my Great-Aunt Jael. -This was her permanent post. From this coign of vantage she issued -ukases, thundered commands, hurled anathemas and brandished her -sceptre--that thorned stick of whose grim and governmental qualities -I have the fullest knowledge of any soul (or body) on earth. She was -a short, stout, stocky, strong-looking woman, yet bent; when walking, -bent sometimes almost double. Leaning on her awful stick, she looked -the old witch she was. Peaky black cap surmounting beetling black brows -and bright black eyes, wrinkled swarthy skin, beaky nose, a hard mouth -whiskered like a man's, and a harder chin: feature for feature, she -was the witch of the picture-books. All her dresses, silk, serge or -bombazine, were black. On the night I speak of, an ordinary week-night, -she was dressed in her oldest serge. The great Holy Bible on her knees -might have been some unholy wizard's tome. - -To the right of the chimney-piece sat my Grandmother. She resembled her -sister in feature; the character of the face was as different as is -heaven from hell. This indeed was the very quality of the difference, -and I had a fancy that they were the _same_ face, one given to God, -the other sold to Satan. My Grandmother had the same beaky nose and -nut-cracker face. Her mouth and chin were firm, but kind instead of -cruel. Her skin was milk-white instead of swarthy, her caps were of -white lace. Her eyes were as bright as my Great-Aunt's, but bright -with kindliness instead of menace. Her whole face spoke of goodwill to -others and perfect peace. It was a sweet old face. I love it still. - -In the middle, facing the fire, sat Mrs. Cheese. She was a farmer's -daughter and widow from near South Molton; and looked it. She was -short, fat and ruddy; a few years younger than her mistresses, perhaps -at this time a woman of sixty. - -I myself crouched on a little stool between Mrs. Cheese and Aunt Jael; -but nearer the latter, that I might be watched, and cuffed, with ease. -On this particular evening, my heart was hot with rage against Aunt -Jael, who had flogged me and locked me in the attic: I don't remember -what for. She ordered me more sternly than usual not to dare to move -my eyes from her face as she read the nightly portion from the Word -of God. To-night it was from her favourite Proverbs, the thirtieth -chapter: the words of Agur the son of Jakeh, _even_ the prophecy; the -words the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal. - -Aunt Jael read, or rather declaimed the Word, in a harsh staccato -way; not without a certain power, especially in the dourer passages -of Proverbs or the dismaller in Job or Lamentations. In one of her -favourite Psalms, the eighteenth or the sixty-eighth, reeking with -battle and revenge, and bespattered with the blood of the enemies of -Jehovah, her voice would rise to a dark triumphal shout, terrible as -an army with banners. This evening I looked sullenly at the floor as -she boomed forth the words of Agur, determined _not_ to fix my eyes -on her face at any rate until Stick coaxed me. Suddenly my eyes were -transfixed to the floor. A gigantic cockroach was crawling about near -my feet. I wanted to cry out but managed to contain myself until, -behold, the creature crawled away from my left foot towards the leg -of Aunt Jael's chair, reached the chair leg, began to climb it with -resolution. I watched, half in fascination, half in fear. It reached -the level of the horsehair upholstery. Aunt Jael had reached verse -thirteen. - -"Their eyelids are lifted up." She looked meaningly at me. - -Fortunately my eyelids were by this time well lifted up, as the beetle -was now half way up the chair, approaching the awful place where Aunt -Jael's shoulder touched the upholstery. No--yes: it crawled on to the -arm, and mounted her sleeve right up to the shoulder. Righteous revenge -for her cruelty and harshness counselled silence. "Let her suffer," I -said to myself, "let the cockroach do his worst." Fear of interrupting -gave like counsel. On the other side spoke the prickings of conscience -and pity, and above all a wild desire to scream. - -Aunt Jael read on, innocent of the unbidden guest upon her shoulder. -"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the -way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a -maid--" - -"Ay, and the way of a beetle with a Great-Aunt," I could have shouted. -The beast, after a moment's hesitation and survey, had now turned along -the shoulder to the neck. The warm hairy flesh of Aunt Jael's neck was -but six inches away. - -"The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the -summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in -the rocks; The locusts have no King, yet go they forth all of them by -bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands--" - -"Yes," I shrieked--in a moment shot through with terror, joy, relief; -suffused by a new beatific sense of speaking historic words--"and -the beetle taketh hold with his claws!" As I uttered the words the -insect crawled from her collar on to the very flesh of her neck. She -understood, with Spartan calm took hold of him, squashed him carefully -between her thumb and forefinger and threw him on the fire, where he -sizzled sickeningly. - -"Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of -the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth -strife." - -There the chapter ended. She slammed the book and turned on me. - -"You have forced wrath, Child. I shall bring forth strife." - -And despite my Grandmother's entreaties, she led me from the room by -the nose, which she pulled unmercifully: though no blood was brought -forth. Out in the passage she gave me a cruel beating with the thorned -stick, till I screamed for mercy, and my Grandmother intervened. - -"'Tis cruel, Jael. The child cried out about the beetle for _your_ -sake." - -"Sake or no sake, she cried out unseemly and irreverent. That's all I -look at." - -I was sore in body and sorer in heart. I had screamed out to warn Aunt -Jael of the insect's approach, and now I was flogged for my pains. I -knew in my own heart that what Grandmother had pleaded was not in point -of fact quite true, I knew I had been secretly glad to see the creature -making for Aunt Jael's skin, and for this reason had kept silence for -so long. The physical instinct to scream had merely been stronger in -the end than my resolution to say nothing. In a dim sort of way I -realized this, and saw that my Grandmother's plea was unwarranted. But -I saw more clearly that the common-sense of the position was that I had -done Aunt Jael a good turn, and that the flogging was--in the light of -the facts as she (not the Lord or I) knew them--mean and undeserved. -I brooded revenge, as always. Aunt Jael's beatings were always more -or less cruel, always more or less unjust; this I knew with a child's -instinct, distorted and exaggerated no doubt by wretchedness and pride. -So always I planned revenge, which sooner or later brought on the next -flogging. - -This time, however, my revenge was undetected. Next morning I came -downstairs just as Mrs. Cheese was beginning to lay the table for -breakfast. There were two separate sets of everything--breakfast-ware, -dinner-services, tea-things, plate, knives and forks, even -cruets--Grandmother's and Aunt Jael's, which the latter insisted on -keeping rigorously separate. So, every day for breakfast or tea there -would be two cups and saucers and plates with the gold pattern for -my Grandmother and me, and one solitary cup and saucer and plate of -Willow-pattern for my Great-Aunt. She had her own tea-pot too, a great -fluted thing in old silver-plate, which could have held tea for a -dozen; but never a taste of tea was poured forth from it for any one -else, save on occasions so rare that I can number them on the fingers -of my hand. So there was no mistaking the utensil with which, in which, -from which, or out of which Aunt Jael would partake of nourishment. I -was wandering round the table when I noticed, at first with fright, -then, when I ascertained that it was dead, with interest and purpose, -a large beetle much the same as its fumigated brother of the night -before, lying on its back, claws heavenward. A divine idea possessed -me. I picked it up, squashed it between my thumb and forefinger in -the true Aunt Jaelian manner, and smeared the loathsome substance all -over my Great-Aunt's teaspoon and the inside of her cup. It was an -act of genius, that rare thing: the Revenge Perfect. "With the beetle -hast thou slain," I said solemnly out loud, "by the beetle shalt thou -perish." - -"Perish" was a poetic flight, as Aunt Jael entirely failed to notice -the mess in her cup, which she filled with tea from her exclusive -pot, or the mess on her spoon, with which she stirred lustily. She -drank three cupfuls, and belched as blandly as usual. Now I saw the -imperfection of my revenge perfect. In idea and execution it had been -superb, and to see her guzzling down the embeetled tea was very sweet. -But she did not _know_ she was drinking it--this was the eternal thorn -that mars the everlasting rose. I had, however, the compensation of -safety. All through breakfast, I looked meek and forgiving. Aunt Jael -relented. - -"Here, child, have a drink of tea out of my cup; 'twill do 'ee more -good than the milk-and-water stuff your Grandma always gives 'ee." - -"No, thank you, Aunt," I replied. And I triumphed in my heart. - -Fate was about to triumph over me. Beetle had led to beating, and I -had used beetle (with tea-cup) for revenge. Now Fate used tea-cup for -triumph. It befell at tea-time, I think the same day. My arm was on the -table-cloth, and, before I knew what I was doing, it (and Fate) had -swept Aunt Jael's own old blue exclusive willow-pattern cup on to the -floor, where it lay in a thousand avenging fragments. A brutal cuff -full in the face changed fear and remorse into rage. - -"Careless little slut!" she shouted. "What are 'ee biding there for -staring like a half-daft sheep?--Say you're sorry, say you're sorry." - -"I was sorry," I faltered, "but I'm not now." - -This was the first brave thing I ever did, so brave that I hold my -breath now to think of it. I shrank from some monstrous blow. - -No blow came; partly because my Grandmother looked warningly ready -to interfere, partly because my Great-Aunt had decided on another -punishment, the only one I feared worse than blows. - -"Oh, not sorry, eh, careless little slut?--" - -"Stop it, Jael, I tell 'ee," broke in my Grandmother. "The child must -try to be more careful and handy, and she's to say she's sorry, but--" - -"Say she's sorry?" echoed Aunt Jael. "But she's just said she's not. -'I'm not sorry _now_' quoth she! Not sorry, not sorry, young huzzy, -do 'ee know where Not-sorry goes? Do 'ee? I'll tell 'ee: straight to -Hell. Obstinacy in sin is the worst sin, and its reward is Hell. Hell, -child, where your body will be scorched with flames and racked with -awful torments. Devils will twist and twease your flesh, and 'twill be -for ever too. You've done a wrong thing, and your nasty proud soul is -too wicked to say you're sorry. You spurn the chance of repentance, -the free offer of God A'mighty, made through me His servant. You shall -suffer eternal punishment." - -I quailed. At four the fear of that word had fallen on my soul. She -knew it: the beady eyes gleamed. - -"No hope, no escape. Flames, pains, coals of fire, coals of fire! -Ha, ha, ha!" (Here she cackled.) "Not sorry, eh? Very like you'll be -sorry then, when you look across the gulf and see all your dear ones -in Abraham's bosom. No hope of ever joining them. Torture for all -eternity. Have you thought what the word Eternity means, child? You're -young in your sins as yet, but you know that well enough, ha, ha, ha!" -(She chuckled again, three hard little cackling noises they always -were, cruel enough.) "It means that you will suffer the torments of the -lake of fire that is burning with brimstone, not for a mere thousand -thousand years, but for ever and ever and ever--" - -I was less than four years old, and I could bear it no longer. I flew -to my Grandmother's arm for safety, sobbing brokenly, half-wild for -fear. - -Aunt Jael leaned back, content, pleased with the success of her -punishment, and sure of heaven. Though if there be the Hell she raved -of, it is for such as her. - -My Grandmother comforted me. She was torn, I suppose, between two -feelings. Her faith told her that what her sister said was true, her -heart that it was cruel. I felt somehow even then that this was the -nature of my Grandmother's struggle. The good heart turns away from -cruelty, even when it speaks with all the authority of true religion, -and so my Grandmother always turned away. She compromised: said -nothing to Aunt Jael, while she comforted me; while soothing the -victim, did not scold the scolder. - -"Don't cry my dearie, and don't 'ee be frightened. Nought can harm 'ee. -Your good aunt is right. 'Tis true that Hell is terrible, 'tis true -that you're a sinful child, and 'tis true that you'll be going to the -cruel place, if you have no sorrow and repentance in your heart. You -broke your Aunt's fine cup; run to her now, tell her you're sorry. Only -then can you be saved from the wrath of Jehovah, freed by repentance, -cleansed by love of Christ. And even as Hell is awful, so is Heaven -good. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God hath -prepared for them that love Him. Run to your Aunt. Say: 'I'm sorry, -Aunt.'" - -I hesitated. Like my Grandmother's, my four-year-old heart found it had -to decide between two calls. The call of fear was, "Say you're sorry, -and escape surely from Hell." The call of hate was "Why? She is a bad -cruel woman; and you're not sorry at all, you're glad you've smashed -her evil cup." - -"Besides," added the Tempter, "as you're not sorry, it would be lying -to say you are." - -I hung doubtfully. At length I pouted, "I don't want to." - -"But true repentance," said my Grandmother, "means doing things you -don't want to." - -I said nothing. - -"Mary, child--" my Grandmother paused a moment, "there is a bright -angel in heaven who wants you to give way--your dear mother. I seem to -hear her speaking to me now, and telling me so." - -It is hard for me to explain the power that word had over me from my -earliest days. I had a dear angelic vision of kind eyes and two white -shining wings. I would shut my eyes in bed at night and see her. -Sometimes she seemed to come very near, sometimes she would seem to -bend over me and kiss me. Now, as my Grandmother finished speaking, I -seemed to see her near. I ran across the room to the old arm-chair. - -"I'm sorry, Great-Aunt," I said. - - - - -CHAPTER III: CHILD OF PRIVILEGE - - -Such a life and such a household encouraged unchildlike emotions. I -was puzzled far too soon in life by the puzzle of all life. I could -not reconcile the wrath of Jehovah with the love of Christ, or the -harshness of my Great-Aunt with the kindness of my Grandmother, which -was the near and earthly form of that discrepancy. The world was a -mysterious battlefield between Wrath and Love, as No. 8 Bear Lawn -was a nearer and more familiar battle-place between Aunt Jael and -Grandmother. Hell versus Heaven was another aspect of the battle. These -two words were part of our daily life. They helped to make the two -battles seem but one; for all the innumerable struggles between Aunt -Jael and my Grandmother were conducted in the words and in the ways of -our religion. - -Our whole life was indeed our religion, or rather our religion was our -life. From morn till night our daily life at Bear Lawn was an incessant -preparation for our eternal life above. First we said our own private -bedside prayers and read our "bedroom portions" of the Word. Then down -in the dining-room after breakfast, Aunt Jael read the Word and prayed -aloud for half-an-hour or more; the same after supper in the evening. -Then, last thing at night, my Grandmother came to my room and prayed -with me by my bedside. We lived in the world of our faith in a complete -and intense way almost beyond the understanding of a modern household, -however God-fearing. The promises of the faith, the unsearchable riches -of Christ, the hope of God, the fear of Hell were our mealtime topics. -Sin, as personified by me, was a fruitful subject. Both my Grandmother -and Aunt Jael returned to it unwearied, the former mournfully because -she loved me, the latter with a rough relish because she loved me not. - -The main principles of our faith may be summed up in a few -capital-letter words. First, there was THE LORD: the God whom all -men worship: Who is One. My child's difficulty was that He seemed -to be Two. There was Aunt Jael's God, a Prince of battles, revenge -and judgment, dipping His foot in the blood of enemies and the -tongue of His dogs in the same; a King terrible in anger, dark as a -thundercloud; Jehovah, the great I AM. There was my Grandmother's -God, a loving Heavenly Father, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, -pitying His children like a Father, Whose mercy was from everlasting to -everlasting, Whose loving kindness was for ever. - -"I will avenge," thundered Aunt Jael from her horsehair throne. - -"God is Love," replied my Grandmother. - -There was the WORLD, a comprehensive word which covered all concerts, -entertainments, parties--whatever they might be, for I cannot say I -knew--all merrymakings, junketings, outings, pleasures, joys; all books -save _the_ Book; all affection save for things above; all finery, -furbelows, feathers, frills; smart clothes, love of money, lollipops, -light conversation and unheavenly thoughts. Everything was of this -world worldly which did not savour strongly of the next. There was -the FLESH or the World made manifest in our bodies. It existed to be -"mortified," chiefly by dancing attendance on Aunt Jael. Not to be up -and about, getting Aunt Jael's morning cup-of-tea was fleshly, though -it does not seem to have been fleshly to drink the same. Then there was -the DEVIL, styled Personal, whom Mrs. Cheese in a fit of regrettable -blasphemy once identified with Some One Else, and though the blasphemy -shocked, I cannot truly say it pained me. - -"She'm the very Dow'l hissel, th' ole biddy," said our bonds-woman one -day after an encounter in the kitchen in which "th' ole biddy" had -brandished big words, and had ended by brandishing the frying-pan also -before leaving the beaten Mrs. Cheese to blaspheme, and later to be -soothed by th' ole biddy's sister. - -Then there was the BEAST, the _so-called_ Pope of Rome: and his -Mistress, that great WHORE that sitteth upon many waters, that Woman -sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, -having seven heads and ten horns, that Strumpet arrayed in purple and -scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a -golden cup in her hand full of abominations, upon whose forehead was -her name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS -AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH--known also, in cravener circles, as the -Roman Catholic Church. Beast and Whore were inextricably mixed up in my -mind: an amorphous twin mass of scarlet and monstrous horror. I hated -them with the passionate hate of ignorance, religion and mystery. - -There were the ELECT, the Saints, the Few, God's Chosen Ones. There -was the ROOM they worshipped in, the BLOOD which redeemed them, the -GRACE which sustained them, and the eternal Rest or REWARD on High they -aspired to. There was the WAY they reached it, the PLAN of Salvation -which shewed them the Way, and the BOOK in which the Plan was to be -found. - -The Book! We read it aloud together twice a day, and privately many -times. We delved into its pages early and late, in season and out of -season. They say that the old Cromwellians were men of one book; No. -8 Bear Lawn was a house of one book with very vengeance, for Aunt -Jael would suffer no trumpery sugar-tales such as "The Pilgrim's -Progress"--a book which many even of the staunchest Puritans stooped, I -have learnt later, to peruse. There were other books in the dining-room -bookcase--works of devotion, exhortation and exposition that I shall -speak of later--but until I was ten years old, my Grandmother and Aunt -decided I should read no other word whatsoever save _The_ Book. Looking -back, I do not regret their decision. - -Day and night we searched the Scriptures. Aunt Jael and Grandmother -discussed them interminably, and sometimes I dared to join in. Our -preferences varied, and were the best index of our characters. Aunt -Jael's favourite book was without doubt the Proverbs. Its salt old -wisdom found echo in her mind. Its continual exhortations to chasten -and to correct, nor ever to spare the rod, because of the crying of the -chastened one, appealed to her nearly. They were quoted at me daily; -usually, alas, as the prelude to offensive action with the thorned -stick. Job was another favourite, and the din and bloodshed of the -Books of Kings. Jeremiah, prophesying vengeance and horror, was her -best-loved Prophet. Parts of Isaiah found favour too, most of all the -thirty-fourth chapter where the prophet sings of the wild terrors that -shall fill the day of the Lord's vengeance, when the screech-owl shall -make her resting place in Zion and the vultures be gathered together. -Of the Psalms she read most the forty-sixth, "God is our refuge and -strength!" and the sixty-eighth, "Let God arise, let His enemies be -scattered." Ah, she was an Old Testament woman. "Eye for eye, tooth -for tooth" was a dispensation she could follow better than "Love your -enemies." The law of Moses was more acceptable in her sight than the -Law of Christ, Jehovah's word from the mountain than the Sermon on the -Mount. The Epistle to the Romans, where Saint Paul scolds and scourges -the saints of the Imperial City, was her favourite New Testament book. -She loved the whole Bible, however, and knew it better than any one I -have ever met except my Grandmother. She kept all the commandments, -except perhaps the tenth. For she coveted Miss Salvation Clinker's fine -white teeth. Her own were few--and black. - -My Grandmother was a New Testament woman. She loved the Gospels best: -the story of Jesus. She knew--and lived--better than any one the Sermon -on the Mount, but came most often to St. John: the third chapter, -"God so loved the world"; the tenth, "I am the Good Shepherd"; and -the fifteenth, "I am the True Vine." She read through the Epistles -every week, quoting most often from I Corinthians XIII--the Charity -chapter--and the Epistles of John. In the Old Testament, she loved -best the Psalms. She knew them of course by heart, as did I. The -twenty-third and the hundred-and-third meant most to her. Aunt Jael's -favourite, the savage sixty-eighth, was alien to her whole faith. She -would not say she disliked it--to dislike a word or a letter of God's -Word would have been sin. She obeyed the ten commandments that God gave -to Moses and the two greater ones that Christ gave to the questioning -scribe. She loved the Lord, and she loved her neighbours as herself. -She was the only Christian I have ever met. - -My own early loves in the Book I can record faithfully. From the age of -four to the age of twelve, I always used the same copy; a large musty -old Bible that had belonged to my Mother, though not too large to hold -comfortably in both hands. It was heavily marked. - -There were three different kinds of mark: in ordinary black lead -pencil, to show chapters I was studying with Grandmother and Aunt -Jael, or portions I had to learn by heart; in blue crayon to indicate -well-liked places; in red crayon to mark the passages I loved best of -all. That old Bible is open before me now as I write: the red marks -are faded a little, but they still tell me what I liked best in those -far-off days, and (nearly always) like best still. - -My preferences fell under three main heads. First, the bright-coloured -stories of the beginning of the Bible, the wondrous lives of the men -who began the world: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, -Jacob and Esau, Joseph and Benjamin; with Princes such as Chedorlaomer -the King of Elam, Tidal King of nations, and Pharaoh, full of dreams. -There were revengeful women and some who suffered revenge: Hagar turned -forth by Sarah into the wilderness of Beersheba; Lot's wife on whom -God took vengeance and turned into a pillar of salt, and Potiphar's, -who took vengeance on Joseph. There were mysterious places: Eden and -Egypt, Ur of the Chaldees, the Wilderness and the Cities of the Plain, -the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey, and the slime pits of -Siddim into which the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell. Wonders of -earth and heaven: the Tower of Babel, the Serpent in the garden, the -Tree of Knowledge; the Creation, the Plagues and the Flood; the Ark of -refuge and the fugitive Dove. - -My second bent was for the mournful places of the Word; a morbid taste, -but then so was I. The gloom of Job and the menace of Lamentations -and the Woes of Matthew XXIV seemed to belong to our forbidding -house. Up in the dim blueness of the attic I would declaim aloud the -twenty-fourth chapter, where Christ spoke of the signs of His coming: -wars and rumours of wars, famine and pestilence and earthquakes: - -"Wheresoever the carcase is, there the eagles will be gathered -together." - -In my weak childish treble it must have sounded comic, though nobody -ever laughed except, maybe, the God above the attic skylight. More even -than gloom, I love pure sorrow: Ecclesiastes, where the Preacher talks -of the sadness of all life, the eternal misery of Man; and the story of -the Passion, the Son of Man Who tasted human bitterness and death. The -subtlety of the Preacher may have been beyond me; it needs no wit but a -child's understanding of English words to feel his unplumbable woe in -her heart. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities: -all is vanity. While Gethsemane saw the whole world's sorrow in a -night-time. - -My third, and chief, happiness was in the words. Passages there are -of sounding wrath or matchless imagery. I did not understand them, -for they pass all understanding. But I loved them, plastered them -marginally with three thicknesses of red crayon, cried them aloud. I -have counted, and the books with most markings are these four: The -Psalms, the Song of Solomon, Isaiah, and The Revelation. In the last I -revelled with a pure ecstasy of awe: in the sixth chapter, where the -sun becomes black as sack-cloth of hair, and the moon as blood; in the -twenty-first, which tells of the City of Heaven, a city of pure gold, -like unto clear glass, the foundations of whose rocks are garnished -with jasper and sapphire and chalcedony and emerald and sardonyx and -sardius and chrysolyte and beryl and topaz and chrysoprasus and jacinth -and amethyst, whose light is the Lamb; most of all in the seventh -chapter: "What are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence -came they? _These are they which came out of great tribulation_ and -have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." - -My Psalms, as I called them, as against Grandmother's or Aunt Jael's -protégés, were the hundred-and-thirty-seventh, _By the waters of -Babylon_, and the twenty-fourth, _Who is the King of glory?_ - -However much I might write about the Book, it would fail to fill the -place in this record that it filled in our lives, of which it moulded -the very moods. Aunt Jael as lover of the Mosaic law and student of the -Proverbs, was herself stern lawgiver and sayer of dark sayings. She -ruled. Ruled my Grandmother (nearly always and in nearly everything, -though there were exceptions); ruled me (except in one or two awful -occasions I shall tell of); ruled Mrs. Cheese (until the latter's -Exodus); ruled the household, ruled the Meeting, and could have ruled -the whole world with a due sense of her fitness for the post. The old -armchair was her throne, the thorned stick her sceptre. As a woman she -had, as I can see now, many high qualities. She did her duty as she saw -it; was honourable and straightforward. She loved the truth, especially -when it was unpalatable to other people. She had a deep fund of -common-sense. She was a thrifty, hard-headed, sensible house-wife; and, -as I said before, observed with zeal some nine of the Commandments. -But of kinder or more endearing qualities I remember none. No doubt -some of the child's bitterness and the child's bias remain with me -still--perhaps it is merely vain to imagine that I hold the scales -evenly and do not let prejudice weight memory--but I look across many -years and see, as I believe the world saw, a hard bad old woman. -Heaven, they say, forgives those who love much; maybe it forgives also -those who are little loved, for they need forgiveness most. Aunt Jael -started life hard, but I feel certain that the hardness was made a -hundredfold harder because no love--no lover--had ever come her way. -Bitter because she had no family of her own, she strove to embitter her -sister's. Cheated of the two things we women need most--lordship and -love--in revenge she lorded it over everybody, and loved not a soul -in the world. Not but what she could have wedded many a time if she'd -felt so inclined, including some as "others" didn't mind stooping to -take though they were her leavings; not but what--in short, to all the -tragical-comical backward boastings of the unchosen woman she would -treat us at times. It was one of her few weaknesses, and I have since -wondered if, failing to deceive six-year-old me, she succeeded in -deceiving herself. During a tirade of this kind, I always fell a-musing -what "Uncle Jael" would have been like. I decided he would wear smoked -black glasses, like the man who came to tune our old piano; because -I once fancied that Aunt Jael's eyes had rested upon the latter with -a suspicion of unwonted coyness. This must have been a freak of my -imagination, if not of Aunt Jael's after-dinner brandy. "For two good -qualities," she used to say, "I thank and praise the Lord. That he has -preserved me all my life from all wanton sentiment; and that it has -pleased Him to make me the most fearless and outspoken woman in this -town." - -What I have said about my Grandmother's pastures in the Bible shows -what manner of woman she was. Yet not quite completely. She was gentle -and forgiving, and the most unselfish human being I have ever met, or -ever shall; but this and more. She was as shrewd a housewife as her -sister; a woman of common-sense and plain seeing. Nor was she weak -or meek. She gave in to Aunt Jael, certainly; but on principle, that -is through strength rather than weakness. And whenever she chose to -fight ungloved, she would usually beat her sister. I was the chief -battle-ground. When Aunt Jael's abuse or ill-treatment of me became too -outrageous, Grandmother would show fight, and on her day could leave -Aunt Jael drubbed and apologetic upon the stricken field. But if my -Grandmother thus defended me to Aunt Jael, she never had a good word -to say of me to myself, or to the Lord. Every night at my bedside she -poured out my wickedness before my Maker; and in all her life she only -praised me once. With rare instinct she refused to water the plant -of self-righteousness which she saw ready to flourish in me like the -bay-tree. In her mild way she could be as outspoken as her sister; -indeed what with the two of them and Mrs. Cheese, who "called a spade -a spade, and a pasnip a pasnip," ours was a stark outspoken house, a -dark palace of Plain Speaking. Despite all my Grandmother's loveliness -of character, she lacked one thing. Demonstrative affection, warm -clinging love, the encircling arm, the kiss, the gentle madness, the -dear embrace,--things I did not know the existence of till a later -unforgettable moment, though they were the mystery, the hunger, never -perfectly visualized, never in the heart understood, that till that -moment I was seeking always to solve, to satisfy; the thing I cried for -passionately without knowing what thing it was--these had no meaning -for her, no place ever in her life. The nearest she had known was in -her love for my mother. Did they kiss? I wonder. In all the years of -her love and goodness to me, she never once kissed me upon the mouth, -nor hugged me, nor let me hug her; nor said the word for which my -little wild heart was waiting. For so good and affectionate a woman -she was strangely phlegmatic. As she did not embrace in love, nor did -she weep in sorrow. Even when my mother died, her eyes, she told me, -were dimmed for a moment only. It was the Lord's will: wherefore weep? -Yet I have seen her shedding tears of joy over a missionary chronicle -which told of the conversion of some African negro. She had tears, that -is, for the Lord; as her strongest love was for Him. Humans mattered -much; but less. Thus I was lonely. - -To give a picture of myself in those early days I find harder, though -once again the Bible helps. I liked the imaginative old stories of -Genesis, I liked the sad and gloomy books, I liked mysterious words; -that is, I was imaginative, morbid, and fond of the unknown and -the beautiful: much what any other child brought up under the same -circumstances would have been. If not a remarkable, and certainly not -a clever child, I was no less certainly out-of-the-ordinary. With -my morbid environment it was inevitable. I was serious, solemn and -sensitive beyond what any child should be. In fact my oddness really -amounted to this, that I was unchildlike--chiefly because I was -unhappy. If ever there were a moping miserable little guy, it was I. I -had no companions of my own age whatever, nor up till just before the -time I left Tawborough for Torribridge had I ever been alone with any -other child for half an hour in my life. Aunt Jael forbade intercourse -with worldly children, and my Grandmother agreed. They were an unknown -race. All my companions were old women; the youngest, Mrs. Cheese, was -sixty. I was never allowed to play with the Lawn children, indeed never -allowed to play with anybody or "at" anything. I was kept indoors all -day long to mope about in the gloomy house. - -The distractions allowed were two: searching the Scriptures, and plain -sewing. At six in the morning I got up, and, from the age of five or -six onwards, made my own bed and dusted my bedroom. Then I went into -Aunt Jael's room, and helped her to dress. Aunt Jael was usually in -an evil temper first thing, and the only coin in which she repaid my -services was hard words and harder bangs. It was a painful half-hour -passed in an atmosphere of laces and buttons, hooks and eyes, blows -and maledictions. Sometimes if I failed to do her boots up quickly -enough, she would kick me. The next duty was helping Mrs. Cheese and -Grandmother with the breakfast, which was eaten at half past seven -punctually. After breakfast, prayers; then I dusted the dining-room; -then from nine to eleven, two wretched hours with Aunt Jael styled -Lessons, a hotchpotch of Proverbs, pothooks and multiplication-tables, -served up with the usual seasoning of cuffs and imprecations. Every day -I cried wretchedly, though tears brought nothing but the stick--and -tears again. From eleven to twelve I sewed with my Grandmother; at noon -we had dinner. After dinner Grandmother usually studied the Word in -her bedroom, while Aunt Jael snored in her chair: I was left to moon -about the house alone, with no plaything, no books, no companions; no -resources whatever but my own imagination. I would sit for hours in -the great blue attic, talking to myself, inventing imaginary scenes in -which I triumphed over Aunt Jael and humbled her before the world, or -reciting from the Word, or often merely weeping. After supper, came -prayers and reading the Word; then bedside prayers with my Grandmother; -then bed, which was not a much happier place, as I dreamt often, -usually nightmares of hell and eternity, Satan and Aunt Jael. - -It was a dreary life. I was a dreary little girl, and I must have -looked it. No photograph was ever taken to perpetuate the prim, sulky, -pale Quakerish little object I am told I was. My odd appearance was not -helped by decent clothes. There was to be no indulgence of the Flesh, -and I was dressed with due unbecomingness, always in the same way. I -wore a dark green corduroy blouse and skirt, and a little corduroy -bonnet to match, bedecked with a gaunt duck's feather. For winter I had -an ugly black overcoat with a cape. I had black woollen mittens and -square hobnailed boots. - -I had no martyr's idea of myself, however, no exquisite self-pity, -and any trace of such that may appear here is to be laid at the -door of the authoress aged fifty, not of her chrysalis aged five. -All I knew was that I was miserable. I had a child's sure instinct -for injustice. I knew it was unjust that Aunt Jael should beat and -abuse me all day long. I hated her bitterly, and hate makes no one -happier. Lovelessness is even worse than hate, and the two beset me. My -Grandmother loved me tenderly no doubt, but her ways were not my ways. -She had no understanding of what I longed for. I wanted somebody--I -only half guessed this, not daring to believe the visualization when -it suggested itself--in whose bosom I could bury my face and cry for -pure happiness. I would whimper myself to sleep thinking of my mother. -Sometimes I seemed to see her as an angel. She looked kind and radiant, -and comforted me. When my Grandmother caught me crying for my mother, I -would say it was because of Aunt Jael's latest flogging. - -Fear ruled me. The Devil and Hell frightened me terribly, and Eternity -more. The thought of living for ever and ever and ever, the attempt -of my child's mind to picture everlastingness, to visualize my own -soul living through the pathless spaces of a billion years, and to be -still no nearer the end than at the beginning,--this morbid unceasing -trick of my imagination filled me with an ecstasy of fear, that froze -and numbed my brain. I would sit up in bed too terrified to scream, -voiceless with fear. My heart beat wildly. The realization that there -was no hope, no way out--oh, heart, none ever--that because I was once -born I must live for all eternity, seized my body and brain alike. I -would jump out of bed, cry brokenly "God, God" in wild agony of soul, -until, at last, the terror passed. Then, in a strange way, the blood -rushed warmly back into my brain, and a languorous feeling of ease -succeeded the terror of a moment before. Sometimes I was wicked and -foolish enough to suffer the horror of thus "thinking Eternity out" -for the sake of the luxurious backwash of comfort and physical peace -which followed. But most often the terror came imperiously, and I -could not escape it. I would be looking at the stars, I would think of -their ineffable distances, then from eternity in space my mind would -be dragged as by some devil to eternity in time, and I would have to -live through the terror of the attempt--against my own will as it -were--to think out, to live out, the meaning of living for ever. It is -the worst agony the poor human soul can know; for a child, unnameable. -There is no escape. The soul must go through the agony of the whole -visualization--it may only be seconds, though it seems (perhaps is) -Eternity Itself--right to the moment when the brain and body can abide -the horror no longer, and from the very depths the soul cries out to -"God." - -A happy healthy child would know nothing of such bogeys; but I was -neither. I was puny and ailing; I rarely went out of doors. Market on -a Friday morning, Meeting on Sundays, and an afternoon walk once in a -long while constituted my record of outings. The only real advantage -I gained from this unhappy and unhealthy life was the development of -a quite unusual power of instinct and intuition. Shut up all day long -with no companions but the same three faces, I could read every mood -and movement of them with unerring skill. Like the savage, or any one -else who lives in an abnormally narrow world, I felt things rather than -knew them. And the thing I felt and knew most sorely was that I was -wretched. And when Aunt Jael moralized and said, "You are a privileged -child indeed," I felt and knew that she was lying. - -"Your holy kinsfolk, your saintly mother, your godly surroundings, your -exceptional chances of grace, all show you to be a Child of Privilege." - -All this, from the earliest days that I could understand, was usual -enough. One day, however, when I was about five, she paused here with -an air of special importance that I scented at once, then proceeded, -"Your Grandmother and I have come to a decision, Child. Everything -points out that the Lord has chosen you for special privileges, and -special works for Him. If you were a boy, Child, the way would be -clear. We should train you for the Ministry of His Word. Yet the way -has been made plain. Your Grandmother and I have decided, after much -seeking of the Lord in prayer, that your lot is to be cast--(she -looked towards my Grandmother for confirmation, and concluded -majestically)--_in the field of foreign labour_. You will bear witness -to the Lord among the heathen. 'Go ye into all the world and preach the -Gospel, for lo! I am with you alway'!" - -I looked appealingly towards my Grandmother. "Yes," she said, "I think -it is the Lord's will." - -So that was my life work. I was to spend Eternity as a missionary. - -"You are indeed a Child of Privilege," Aunt Jael was booming. - - - - -CHAPTER IV: I GO TO MEETING - - -On Lord's Day, March the Sixth 1853, being the first Sabbath after my -fifth birthday, I was taken to Meeting. - -Meeting!--one social sphere my Grandmother and Great-Aunt knew; their -one earthly club, set, milieu; company of saints, little flock of the -elect, assembling together of the chosen of God from Eternity! - -I awoke to find Grandmother standing by my bed; which was unusual, for -I always woke myself. - -"'Tis a great and notable day, my dear; the day you are to join with -the Lord's people in prayer and praise. I want to pray with 'ee." - -I got out of my bed, and when she had put around me the old red -dressing gown, we knelt down together by the bedside, and the Lord was -besought to vouchsafe that my first public acquaintance with His People -might be abundantly blessed to me. After breakfast I was sent upstairs -to my bedroom to meditate apart for an hour before Meeting; an exercise -ordained henceforward every Sunday of my life. - -About a quarter-past-ten we sallied forth, Mary in green corduroy -between Grandmother in her Sunday black and Aunt Jael with her -go-to-Meeting blue-velvet-ribboned bonnet. I should now behold the -inside of the Room, antechamber of Heaven; I should join in public -worship with the Saints. Curiosity alone did not stir me; in some vague -exalted way, I hoped to get nearer to the Lord. - -The Room was a bare little tabernacle in a side-street, built in the -Noah's Ark style dear also to Methodism. Grandmother took my hand as -we mounted the steps from the street; we passed into the Holy Place. -I received at once the curious effect of a light bluish mist which, -though brighter, reminded me of the thick blue gloom of my attic, and -which was caused by the light blue distempered brick of the walls -and ceiling. There were eight windows in the Room, which was many -times larger than our parlour and by far the largest place I had -ever entered; each consisted of twenty-four small square panes, six -in the perpendicular by four breadthways, a source for years to come -of endless countings and pattern-weavings and mystical mathematical -tricks. There were two of these windows at each end of the room, and -two down each side. All eight were set so high as almost to merge -into the ceiling. The curious result was that while near the floor it -was comparatively dark, the upper part of the room was very light. A -symbol, I thought; for Earth is dark, but Heaven bright. Aunt Jael led -the way up a druggeted sort of aisle to the front row where we alone -sat: the family's immemorial place, though purchased by no worldly -pew-rent. In the first rush of newness I but dimly apprehended the -benches of black-clad figures we had passed. Immediately in front of -us stood the Lord's Table, covered with spotless white damask, and -laden with two tall bottles of wine, two great pewter tankards, and two -cottage-loaves on plates. Beyond the Table was a low raised dais from -which the Gospel was preached at the evening meetings for unbelievers; -never used at the Breakings of Bread, for all Saints are equal, and -none may stand above his fellows. On either side of the Table, however, -respectively to our right and left were the (unofficial) seats of the -mighty: Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge and Brother Brawn on one side, Brother -Quappleworthy and Brother Browning on the other. On the wall at the far -end was a clock, loudly audible in the abysmal silences of prayer. - -I did not absorb all the details at a first glance; nor do I really -remember the particular texts, expositions and hymns of that -initiatory day. What I do always retain and rehearse in my mind is -rather one "Type" meeting, from first silence to final benediction; -an ideal combination of many different Lord's Days, in which I have -unconsciously fitted together Brothers, events, homilies, each in most -typical essence. - -This morning meeting, the Breaking of Bread, was the meeting par -excellence. The Breaking of the Bread and the drinking of wine were -the central acts of a tense and devout program of prayer, of reading -and exposition of the Word, and of hymn-singing, unaccompanied by any -choir or instrument of music. Only Saints were bidden, i. e., those who -had testified aloud to the saving grace of the body and the blood, -and had taken up their Cross in public baptism. We were no ordinary -Dissenting chapel, where "All are welcome":--the more the merrier, -more grist to the mill, more pennies on the plate, more souls for -the Kingdom. Only the Lord's own chosen testified people were deemed -worthy of this solemn privilege of eating His sacred Body and drinking -His sacred Blood; and only they were admitted. The only exceptions -were a few children, like myself, who could not be left at home by -their elders. A few non-privileged adults very occasionally came: old -friends of the Meeting who for some reason of reluctance or uncertainty -were untestified and unbaptized, or strangers, drawn by sympathy or -curiosity; but earthen platter and pewter mug were zealously snatched -away if such alien hands essayed to grasp them. (So too was the -collecting-box. I have seen visitors with outstretched arm and generous -shilling gasp with surprise as the money-box was drawn rudely out of -their reach. Unlike worldlywise church or chapel, we would touch none -but hallowed gold. The collection was as close a privilege as the -communion.) - -On an average morning we were fifty or sixty strong; more women than -men, more old than young, more wan than hale, more humble than high. -With dough of small shopkeepers, masons, artisans, gardeners, old women -with pathetic private incomes, washerwomen, charwomen, servants, we had -leaven of more comfortable middle-class people like Grandmother and -Aunt Jael, or "better" folk still like Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, or -best of all dear Brother Quappleworthy, our graduate of the University -of Oxford, our cousin by marriage with a peer of England! Believers in -the aristocratic principle would have noted with satisfaction that from -this blue-blooded minority were drawn almost all the "Leading Saints." - -We were a community. The better-to-do helped the poor, and remembered -that all were equal before God. Odd folk and sane folk, stupid folk -and wise folk: with all their failings, a more gentle, worthy, sincere -and trustful company of followers of Jesus of Nazareth could not have -been found in this whole world or century. The fault they were farthest -from is the one the fool most often imputes: hypocrisy. They were, of -course, a varied company; it takes all sorts to make a Meeting. - -Our Leading Brothers were Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, with Brothers -Brawn, Browning, Briggs, Quappleworthy, Quick, and Quaint. The last was -only included just to round things off and to justify Mr. Pentecost's -holy pleasantry "The Lord is watching us: let us mind our B's and Q's," -for he was really quite an obscure brother who rarely broke silence, -and then to pray so pessimistically that he can never have expected his -petitions to be heard, let alone answered. - -To be Leading Brother implied merely this: to stand out of the ruck -of silent members, either in prayer or exposition of the Word. Many -an obscure Brother, however, who would never have risked his hand at -prayer or exposition occasionally blurted into a morning's modest fame -by announcing a hymn. A stir of special interest was always felt in -the Meeting on such occasions, and it was whispered that "the Lord was -notably working in Brother So-and-So." Giving out a hymn was after -all not so mean a performance. Every line of every verse was slowly -enunciated by the chooser before we began to sing. The church and -chapel habit of reading out only the first verse (or even line!) struck -me as very odd and meagre when I first encountered it many years later. -Prayer, however, was the favourite form of self-expression. All the -Leading Saints were "powerful in prayer." - -Exposition either followed or accompanied the reading of a portion of -the Word. It was our "sermon." Our five regular expounders were Mr. -Pentecost, Brothers Quappleworthy (the chief), Brawn, Browning and -Briggs. - -Though in theory we allowed no official ruler of the synagogue, in -practice Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge was our Great High Priest. He alone -was spoken of as Mister. He alone was immune from error and criticism. -It is hard for me to reconstruct his personality now, when my own -mentality is so different from when I knew him, when he prayed for -me, blessed me, took me on his knees. It is still harder to convey to -this generation the reverence in which his venerable white hairs were -held. The world in which he ruled, the Saints' world, may have been -small; but within its pale, through all England, he was revered as -the holiest child of man. And we of the Tawborough Meeting possessed -him for ourselves: in his old age he ceased to travel, and left us -but little. We shone in the reflected glory of his presence; knew -ourselves the Meeting of Meetings, called blessed of the Lord. He lived -by prayer alone: the anonymous gifts of money on which he chiefly lived -came to him whence he did not know, except that they came from God. In -the old ancestral house another famous Pentecost Dodderidge had built -he still lived; in one hallowed room he welcomed all who came to him -for their souls' good; another was fitted as a workshop, and here till -after his eightieth year he spent a portion of every day at the lathe. -He could preach in eight languages, in five of them fluently. He never -rose later than four and devoted the three hours before breakfast to -"knee-drill," i. e., incessant prayer. He baptized believers in the -river Taw till his eightieth year. One memorable immersion of which I -shall speak later took place when he had turned eighty-four. His one -kink was a trick of godly epigrams and holy repartees, cunningly led up -to, of which he was as nearly vain as he could be. I remember Aunt Jael -once saying to him in our dining-room at Bear Lawn: - -"Your 'Life' should be written, Mr. Pentecost." - -"But it is being written, dear sister," he replied. "It will be -published in the morning." - -"Published? Where?" - -"Beyond the sky. The author is the Lord Jesus Christ. The ink is His -precious Blood." - -Another day my Grandmother asked him if he would begin to remember me -in his prayers. - -"I cannot," he replied gently. - -"Cannot?" faltered my Grandmother. - -"No, I cannot _begin_ to pray for her. I have begun already." - -For all his eminence Pentecost took no preponderating share in worship, -nor ever made himself like the "Ministering Brothers" of some other -meetings, who prayed almost all the prayers, chose almost all the -hymns, gave one long sermon-like piece of exposition, and officiated -alone at the Lord's Table--for all the world like a dissenting parson -in his chapel or a priest in his church. - -Second in importance stood Brother Brawn, a fat, doddering, bleating, -weak-at-the-knees old bachelor and Christian; the maid-of-all-work of -the Meeting, who distributed the offertory, paid the caretaker, saw to -the heating and cleaning of the room, and bought the bread and wine. -With his white waggly little beard and gentle animal features he looked -absurdly like a goat, and ba-a-a-d just like one too. He had two little -homilies only, which he and we knew by heart; one on 'Ell and the other -on Mysteries, often given one after the other to form a continuous -whole. Some of the Saints, I fear, dared to think these holy discourses -dull. Not so Miss Salvation Clinker, who declared that "ivry word wat -falls from 'is blessed lips is a purl uv great price." - -Brother Quappleworthy, who stood equal in importance, was a striking -contrast. He was our intellect, our light of learning, our peer's -cousin-in-law. His erudition in real Hebrew and real Greek ranked -with Brother Brawn's devotion, if a little lower than Pentecostal -saintliness. Sneer we never so smugly at the filthiness of mere book -knowledge, not one of us but was somehow elated to hear that favourite -phrase: "Now in the original Greek--" His supplications, if acceptable -to many, were perhaps too much of a muchness. It was all "Yea Lord, Nay -Lord, Oh Lord, Ah Lord, If Lord...." - -After Brother Quappleworthy, Brother Browning was our most frequent -speaker. He came to Meeting accompanied by his little boy Marcus, the -most youthful person present save me, but not, alas, by his spouse, who -belonged, alas, to that pernicious sect of Bible Christians whom he -(seven times alas) did occasionally himself frequent. - -There was Brother Briggs, by vocation an oilman's handyman, whose face -always shone with oil of happiness and hope, whose utterances were -charged with an uncontrollable optimism and joy, a ringing, shouting, -h-less content with the universe. The learned would call it cosmic -expansiveness. Beside him Walt Whitman was a prophet of despair, Mark -Tapley a misanthrope. His favourite word was "bewtivul" and he used -it without mercy. There was Brother Quaint, the gloomy pray-er. There -was Brother Lard, who emitted from his mouth periodic noises--signs -of bad manners and digestion--which it is unusual to mention on -paper: endemic endeavours that punctuated the subtlest exposition of -Quappleworthy, the dreariest prayer of Quaint's, and added a spice -of charm and unexpectedness to the whole service. I enjoyed them -coarsely; with solemn face, pious unawareness. One joyous occasion I -remember when Brother Quappleworthy was beginning the eighth chapter -of the Revelation in his most impressive style. At the words "There -was silence in heaven about the space of half-an-hour," he paused -dramatically to illustrate, as it were, the meaning. Then, after -five seconds of rapt silence, Brother Lard trumpeted forth: long, -loud, luscious, lingering; a diapason of swaying sound and chronic -indigestion. To the eternal credit of my Grandmother and Great-aunt, -I record it that they smiled.... There was Brother Marks, a thin -unhappy-looking man, wearing large black-rimmed spectacles, who mourned -in a far corner apart, and never uttered a word or even joined in the -hymns. I thought him a sinister figure; his goggles repelled me; I -associated him by some vague but authentic impulse with the Personal -Devil. - -The Sisters were of course less important than the Brothers. "Let your -women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them -to speak." Above all the others towered Sister Vickary and Sister -Lee. My Grandmother was universally loved. Before Aunt Jael the whole -meeting quailed. Brother Briggs grovelled. Brother Brawn obeyed, -Brother Quappleworthy deferred. She herself deferred to Pentecost -Dodderidge alone; indeed the veneration she felt for the venerable -instrument of her conversion, her Ananias of Damascus, was touching -in so masterful a soul. In the ledgers of the Lord, I make bold to -guess, it stands to her credit. In the counsels of the elders she was -supreme; she was the wise woman of the Proverbs. No decision affecting -the welfare of the flock could be taken by Pentecost or Brawn without -the assent of the Shepherdess, as the former called her, perhaps -not unmindful of her crook. No meeting felt it had the right--or -courage--to begin without her presence. When it was over, she walked -out first, bowing to right and left like an Empress as she stalked the -length of the Room. She had as much common-sense as any other three -Saints added together. Not a soul of them loved her. - - * * * * * * * - -We arrived each Lord's day about twenty-five past ten. When all were -assembled, there was a period of five or ten minutes' absolute -silence, broken only by the strident ticking of the clock. Some pairs -of eyes were closed in silent prayer, others stared straight before -them at some heavenly object of reflection. - -Up rose Brother Browning. "Let us sing together to the glory of -the Lord hymn number one-four-two: '_We praise Thee, O Jehovah!_'" -There was a turning of leaves, for at this time most of us possessed -hymn-books, though a few of the older generation, including Aunt Jael, -viewed all hymn-books as snares of the Devil, and bore witness against -the fleshly innovation by still singing always from memory. Brother -Browning read aloud the whole hymn: - - - We praise Thee, O Jehovah! - We know, whate'er betide, - Thy name, "_Jehovah Jireh_," - Secures, "Thou wilt provide." - - We praise Thee, O Jehovah! - Our banner gladly raise; - "_Jehovah Nissi!_" rally us - For conflict, victory, praise. - - We praise Thee, O Jehovah! - In every trouble near; - "_Jehovah Shalom_"--God is peace,-- - Dispels each doubt and fear. - - We praise Thee, O Jehovah! - And, clothed in righteousness, - "_Jehovah_" great "_Tskidkenu_!" - Complete, we gladly bless. - - We praise Thee, O Jehovah! - Thou wilt for Israel care! - "_Jehovah Shammah_," precious thought! - Henceforth "The Lord is there." - - -We sang sitting. Oh, inharmonious howl! Some Brother--usually Brother -Schulz, who was fancied to possess musical talent--pitched the key and -set the time as he fancied. The latter was always funereally slow, the -former more often than not much too high or too low to be persevered -with. Not that that mattered. Somebody would merely switch off into -another key anything from a semitone to an octave higher or lower as -the case might be: switching part of the way back again if the change -proved too drastic. The consequence of this go-as-you-please policy was -that a hymn would sometimes be sung in four different times and seven -or eight different keys. Above all the holy din you could hear Brother -Briggs bawling forth his joy in the Lord; higher still the awful -metallic howl of Sister Yeo. - -When the hymn was done there was another space of complete silence till -the spirit moved Brother Quappleworthy to utterance. Once on his feet, -he found his two Bibles, English and Greek, rather difficult to wield, -especially as his reading from the Word hardly ever consisted of one -solid chapter read straight through, but of snippets of two or three -verses each from half-a-dozen different books, connected only by their -(imagined) relevance to the topic he had in mind: grace or trustfulness -or hope or sin. We all followed him in our own Bibles: so that his -Reading had orchestral accompaniment of zealous page-rustlings. "Let -us read together in the Book of Genesis, that sixth chapter and those -fifth, sixth and seventh verses ... and now let us turn to the Book of -Job, the fifth chapter and the thirteenth verse ... and now a verse in -that sweet Second Epistle of Peter, the second chapter and that fourth -verse...." - -After we had rustled backwards and forwards for a few minutes, Brother -Quappleworthy closed first one Bible and then the other with two -emphatic snaps, and put them under his left arm, leaving his right -hand free to gesticulate,--more especially the right forefinger, -which ever and anon he brandished to exhort, to emphasize, to warn, -to wheedle. "Well, brethren, the upshot and outcome of all that we -have read is--ah--manifest. It is--ah--this. He alone saved us from -the pit. He alone, not--ah--another. He saved _us_--miserable sinners, -grovelling worms--us and none others. Far be it from us ever to think -ourselves worthy of such grace and favour! Far otherwise!--but so He -willed. Our souls--your soul, ah, my soul--would have gone into eternal -darkness save for Him, the Lord,--[Greek: Kyrios]--how I love it in -the old Greek! He alone, brethren, can--ah--renew our natures; and -can--ah--shape better desires for our natures when renewed--can show us -the more excellent way!..." - -After a new silence, the spirit would move Brother Brawn to clamber -to his feet, and give us his changeless utterance on "'Ell" or -"Mysteries." I give it with a word for word accuracy I cannot often -vouch for. His _er-er_ was a bleating sort of stammer much less elegant -than Brother Quappleworthy's _ah_. - -"My mind, brethren, 'as bin--er--er dwellin' much all through the -mornin' on the subject of _'Ell_. On the torments and 'orrors that -all the 'eathen and unsaved will taste down there below, yes, and are -tastin' at this very minnit as we are praisin' the Lord 'ere in this -Rume. Torments and--er--er--er--'orrors. You know. I know. And they -torments are for _all_ the sinners an' unsaved: ivry wan uv them, not -for _some_ jis', as I've 'eard folk say. No for all, _all_, _ALL_, -_A L L_. You mark my words. _All_ the _'eathen_ shall be _'urled_ to -_'Ell_, _whether_ they've _'eard_ or _whether_ they _'aven't_!" (This -last sentence he sing-songed with violent emphasis, clapping his hands -together at the syllables I have marked) "O Yes! I can imagine 'em -wallering in the brimstone and sulphur. I know. _We_ shall be wi' -Lazarus in Abraham's--er--er--bosom, and _they_ will be down the fiery -gulf, down in the fiery pit. So, brethren, let us be ready for the -Lord, let us make sure uv _our_ place in the bosom, not the pit. Bosom -for us! BOSOM! We must watch and er--er--pray. We must. I'm sure we -must." - -A pause. He shifted his feet clumsily. His thick lips moved stupidly as -he made mental preparations for Part Two. - -"My mind, brethren, 'as been--er--er--dwellin' much on another subjict -this mornin', the subjict of Mysteries. It has; I'm sure it has. There -are two mysteries. There is the mystery of godliness, that's one; and -the mystery of iniquity, that's two. It all 'appened at the Fall. The -Fall was when the mystery of godliness became the mystery of iniquity; -an' the mystery of iniquity became the mystery of godliness; all -mixmuddled up together as you mid say. It became 'ard to-er--er--tell -'em apart. 'Tis only 'Is chosen ones as can do it--that's you and me, -brethren--and 'tain't orwis easy for us. Let us try to know one from -the other, and if we tries our 'ardest, the Lord will 'elp us to. Yes -'E will. I'm sure 'E will." - -After Brother Brawn, the beginning of the meeting was well over. We -knew that the great moments were drawing near. A deeper silence filled -the little room: the hush of pure holiness. There was a prayer or two, -and then we sang the Bread hymn. Usually this one: - - - Through Thy precious body broken - _In_side the veil. - Oh, what words to sinners spoken-- - _In_side the veil. - Precious, as the blood that bought us; - Perfect, as the love that sought us; - Holy, as the Lamb that brought us; - _In_side the veil. - - When we see Thy love unshaken, - _Out_side the camp. - Scorn'd by man, by God forsaken, - _Out_side the camp. - Thy loved cross alone can charm us; - Shame doth now no more alarm us; - Glad we follow, nought can harm us; - _Out_side the camp. - - Lamb of God! through Thee we enter - _In_side the veil. - Cleansed by Thee, we boldly venture - _In_side the veil. - Not a stain; a new creation; - Ours is such a full salvation! - Low we bow in adoration, - _In_side the veil. - - Unto Thee, the homeless stranger, - _Out_side the camp. - Forth we hasten, fear no danger, - _Out_side the camp. - Thy reproach far richer treasure - Than all Egypt's boasted pleasure; - Drawn by love that knows no measure, - _Out_side the camp. - - Soon Thy saints shall all be gathered, - _In_side the veil. - All at home, no more be scattered, - _In_side the veil. - Nought from Thee our hearts shall sever, - We shall see Thee, grieve Thee never; - "Praise the Lamb!" shall sound for ever - _In_side the veil. - - -We sang it to a slow drawling tune, incommunicably dreary. - -Pentecost arose, white and priestly. "Little children, every time I -come to this Table, I come with a joy, a peace and a gratitude that are -ever new. My heart is too full of love for my Saviour for any words of -mine to tell you. Let us bear in mind, little children, rather His own -precious words: This is my Body, which is given for you." - -As he ceased, Brother Brawn arose from his seat at the right of the -Table, took each of the loaves, held them sacrificially aloft, broke -them in twain. One plate he himself passed round among the Saints, -Brother Browning the other. I watched with evergreen curiosity and -reverence how each Saint broke off a piece of bread and with closed -eyes slowly munched it away. Once in a way the impious thought seized -me that 'twas all farce, mummery, tomfoolery: this chewing of dough. -The next instant I would flush crimson to have let such wickedness find -place for an instant in my mind: I would look and behold the rapture -on the munching faces; and understand beyond all doubting that here -was something mystical, magical, holy. I could see that those who took -bread obtained thereby some supernal joy that I was too young or too -sinful to share. It could not be tomfoolery if it gave you the rapture -I could see on the faces around me. Besides, Jesus had ordained it. - -Another silence--the middle space of the double sacrifice--ere we sang -the Wine hymn: - - - It is the blood, it is the blood, - Which has atonement made; - It is the blood which once for all - Our ransom price has paid. - - It was the blood, the mark of blood - The people's houses bore; - And when that mark by God was seen - His angel passed the door. - - Not _water_, then, nor _water_ now, - Has ever saved a soul; - Not Jewish rites, but Jesus' stripes - Can make the wounded whole. - - "I see the blood," "I see the blood," - A voice from Heaven cries, - The soul that owns this token true, - And trusts it, never dies. - - For He who suffered once for all, - That we might life obtain, - Will never leave His Father's throne - To shed that blood again. - - -Brother Quick, in a low voice trembling with passion, prayed that God -would make us worthy of this chief experience. - -There was a moment of the holiest and most breathless silence I have -ever known. I have stood alone at midnight when no birds sang, no leaf -stirred, and the autumn stars shone silently through the unwhispering -roof of a dark Russian forest. I have stood on the summit of the Great -Gable and gazed at the wild soundless mountains all around, in that -wild soundless moment before the dawn arrives. But never except in -the Romish Mass, at that multitudinous most sacred moment when the -heart stops beating, have I tasted so awful a silence as this, when -the Spirit of God moved in the hearts of our little company. I did not -greet Him in mine--not yet. - -Brother Brawn uncorked the two bottles of wine and filled the tankards. -The rapture on the faces round me was tenser than after the Bread: -especially, I thought, in Pentecost's and my Grandmother's. The longing -to share it possessed me more and more every day as I grew up. I hoped -that at a very tender age I too might break the bread and drink the -wine. - -The third and last stage of the Meeting usually began with an utterance -from Brother Briggs. If everything before had led up to the communion, -Brother Briggs led on from it. He bellowed so loud that at times the -roof rang. "Aw, my dear brethering, after the cup us all 'ave tasted, -there be only one thing I'ze goin' to zay--Praise the Lawd, O my -Sowl! Praise ye the Lawd! I'm only a pore hignorrint zinner, but I -knaws this yer: That Jesus zhed 'Is bled vur me, and that 'tis uv 'Is -precious bled as I've bin a-privil'ged to drink this mornin'. 'E 'ath -'olpen hus! O 'ow I luv that word _hus_! O 'ow I luv that word _hus_! -Turn wi' me to the gauspel accordin' to St. Matthew, chapter eight -verse zeventeen: 'Imself took our infirmities and bare our zickness. -Praise 'Im, zes I, praise 'Im! Let ivry thing that 'ath breath praise -the Lawd! Bewtivul! Bewtivul! - -"Us shud orwis be praisin' 'Im, brethering, and us shud orwis be -'appy in 'Is love. Orwis 'appy! If us be un'appy, 'tis along of this -yer--that us 'ave bin drinkin' of zum voul stream, instead uv they -vountains uv 'Is love. And us _are_ 'appy, arn't us, brethering? As I -luke round at 'ee, all brothers and zisters, and zee what triumphs and -trophies of grace ye all be, I zes to missel', and I cries aloud to -'eaven: Praise ye the Lawd! Bewtivul! - -"'E 'ave dragged us up out of a _nor_ribull pit, a _nor_ribull pit, out -o' the moiry clay, and shed 'Is blid that us may live wi' 'Im vur iver -and ivermore. Turn wi' me to the blessid gauspel according to St. Jan, -the sixth chapter and vivty-zixth verse, and 'earken to vat my Lawd zes -there: 'E that eateth my flesh, 'e zes, an' drinketh my blid, dwelleth -in me, 'e zes, an' I in 'im. O 'ow I luv that word _'Im_.' O 'ow I luv -that word _'Im_! O the blessed thought: to dwell for iver in 'Im, an -'Im in us! Bewtivul! Bewtivul! Bewtivul!..." - -Then would he bellow forth and would we sing "He sitteth o'er the -waterfloods" or "I hear the Accuser Roar":-- - - - I hear the Accuser roar - Of ills that I have done, - I know them well, and thousands more-- - Jehovah findeth none. - - Sin, Satan, Death, press near - To harass and appal; - Let but my risen Lord appear, - Backward they go and fall. - - Before, behind, around, - They set their fierce array, - To fight and force me from my ground, - Along Emmanuel's way. - - I meet them face to face, - Through Jesus' conquest blest, - March in the triumph of His grace, - Right onward to my rest. - - There, in His Book, I bear - A more than conqu'ror's name, - A soldier, son, and fellow-heir - Who fought and overcame. - - Bless, bless the Conqueror slain-- - Slain in His victory; - Who lived, Who died, Who lives again, - For thee, dear Saint, for thee! - - -Brother Brawn made the Announcements. On that first occasion, -I remember, he made some reference to me ("One of tender years -worshipping with us for the first time"), to my dedication to the Lord, -and to his hopes that I might be made meet therefor. - -Everybody stared. I flushed, with infant conceit rather than pious -ecstasy: it was my first appearance in public. After Announcements, -the Offertory. This was taken in a large square box divided into four -slit compartments labelled in white painted capitals: MINISTRY, FOREIGN -FIELD, POOR, EXPENSES. My Grandmother was always much exercised in -her giving. Her own inclinations were more towards Poor and Foreign -Field, but she felt she ought not to neglect less showy and alluring -Expenses nor coyer, more elusive Ministry. She would compromise between -duty and pleasure by putting a sixpence in all four, with perhaps an -extra copper or two in Poor; of her modest income giving half-a-crown -to the Lord at this morning service alone. Aunt Jael with a rather -larger income (and no Mary to support) never gave more than a shilling -between all four compartments. She also had a _penchant_ for Expenses: -I suppose it pleased her--waywardly--as the least human of the four. - -(This fourfold collecting-box allowed a pleasurable width of choice, -but a quite different consideration had led to its introduction and -the supersession of the cloth bag formerly in use. During a period of -several years a lump of sugar had been put in the bag every Lord's -day at Breaking of Bread, and though clouds of prayer were offered up -to soften the heart of the sinner-Saint who played this weekly prank -upon his Meeting and his Maker, they were all of no avail. He (or she) -hardened his heart; every Lord's day the bag was found to contain yet -another impious lump. Stare Brother Brawn never so stark at every -giving hand, the sinner remained undetected in his sweet career. It -was finally suggested by Aunt Jael that a new type of box, with but a -narrow slit for the coins to pass through, would baffle the evil-doer. -The choice-of-beneficiare partisans united with her, and they evolved -between them this fourfold enormity, with its meat-dish dimensions -and its four defensive slits. Vain precautions! Idle hopes! All the -sugar-sinner did was to insert a much smaller piece than before; -usually in Foreign Field. It was a marvel to the Saints how he squeezed -it through; a tragedy how he persevered in his sin.) - -After the Offertory came perhaps another hymn and prayer; then the End. -We all stood up and sang the following: - - - When we will be - Where we would be, - When we shall be - What we should be, - Things that are not - Now, nor could be, - Then shall be--_ee_ - _Our own!_ - - -While we remained standing, Pentecost raised his hands in benediction. -And so to dinner. - - * * * * * * * - -Breaking of Bread, though the principal service, was only one of five -each Lord's Day at the Room, all of which I attended regularly before -I was seven. There was but an hour at home for dinner ere I set forth -for Lord's Day School at half past one, which lasted for an hour and -was followed immediately by the Young Persons' Prayer-Meeting. I got -home for tea, after which we all sallied forth to the Gospel Address -for Unbelievers, usually delivered by Brother Browning, two hours -long and dreary beyond belief, in a ghostly atmosphere of guttering -candle-light. This was followed by another Prayer-Meeting, followed -again, at least in the summer months, by the Street Testimony, when we -all repaired to the Strand, and gathered together a mixed circle of -friends and curious and scoffers--like the Salvation Army in the next -generation. Even this was not the end; for at home there was Reading -and prayers, just as on week-days. If I were more deadly-tired than -usual after that awful Sunday, Aunt Jael would spin the prayer out and -choose a specially long chapter. Most Sundays I went to bed half sick -with fatigue, my head aching, hardly able to undress. - -Smiling was forbidden, and I had little reason to break the rule. -Tears, however, were allowed, and I shed them in plenty. - - * * * * * * * - -If Breaking of Bread was not our only Meeting, nor was our Room the -only Meeting in the town. I knew of four others. First, the Grosvenor -Street Branch Meeting, offspring of ours, in the special care of -Brother Quappleworthy, who preached there on Sunday evenings. Salvation -always derided my Grandmother and Aunt for calling it Grow-vner Street. -"I'm no scholard," she said, "but tidden common-sense to mispernounce -like that. Gross-veener 'tis, and Gross-veener ollers 'twill be!" - -Second, there was the Close, Exclusive or Darbyite Meeting, ruled -over by one Mr. Nicodemus Shufflebottom, a giant-tall man with a flat -white face, who reminded me of a walking tombstone. The Exclusives -or Darbyites regarded us, I suppose, much as we regarded the rest of -Christendom; as walkers in darkness. We regarded them as wandering -sheep, foolish perhaps, rather than sinful. "Those brethren," Mr. -Pentecost described them, "whose consciences lead them to refuse -my fellowship and to deprive me of theirs." I never went to their -Tawborough Meeting while I was a child. - -Third, there was Brother Obadiah Tizzard's Upper Room for Celibate -Saints, a kind of loft in which half-a-dozen old maids and two or three -bachelors met together for meditation and breaking of bread. All were -singular as all were single. Their service was one of silent hymnless -worship interspersed by personal quarrels; silence broken by backchat. -The last word as well as the first was with Salvation. Glory did duty -for Brother Lard; less vulgar if more incessant. All were sustained -by the conviction of their unique fidelity to scripture. "We break -bread in an upper room," said Glory to my Grandmother time and again -on Tuesday afternoons, "as did Jesus with the Twelve. We are poor an' -'umble: an' so was Jesus. We are not wed, an' no more was Jesus. We -shall go to heaven pure: an' so did Jesus." - -Fourth, there was Ebenezer. The name was applied indifferently to the -meeting-room itself or to the one gentleman who attended it. He was -the Meeting, the whole Meeting, and nothing but the Meeting. He sat -on a bench for silent prayer all alone by himself, got up and read -the Word aloud to himself, mounted on a little dais and lengthily -harangued himself, handed round the bread and wine to himself, and (for -all I know) took the collection from and appropriated it to himself. -Ebenezer had once belonged to our Meeting, but in some occult way we -had displeased him, and he left us for Mr. Nicodemus Shufflebottom, -leaving him also in turn for the straiter ways of Brother Obadiah -Tizzard. Him even too he left finally, to worship God in his own way -all alone. I doubt if he was really mad: odd only, and nearer to Heaven -than Hanwell. His real name, if he had one, I never knew. - - * * * * * * * - -Perhaps I have said too much of the Meeting; for though the one great -piece of the whole outer world I saw during many years, it was never -more than that: something I saw. I was never _of_ it, as of Eight Bear -Lawn. It never helped to fashion my child's life or longings, nor -touched at any time the _inside_ life I led: the real Mary. - -One other thing stands clearly apart in my memory as taking place that -first Lord's Day. - -Alone together at my bedside my Grandmother confirmed my dedication to -the Lord's service. She told me of her vision, renewed that day as she -had drunk the sacred wine, that I should serve Him as a Missionary in -the foreign field with glory and honour. She told me of the trials and -tribulations I should have to face; but that if a faithful steward, -I should find my reward in heaven. Then she read aloud my favourite -seventh Chapter of Revelation. When she came to the fourteenth -verse, _These are they which came out of great tribulation_, I could -keep silence no longer. I cried to her to stop. Words had already a -magical effect on me, and could throw me into ecstasy. All through my -childhood "tribulation" was big magic. Now it threw me into a trance of -disordered emotion and delight. - -"O Grandmother," I cried, "I will! I will! I will serve Jesus for -ever! I am longing to go through tribulation, through lovely lovely -tribulation!" - -I broke into crying and laughing. I hungered to suffer, to embrace, -kiss, adore, go mad, abase myself, throw myself on the floor before her -feet, love, hold, possess, be possessed, mingle.... Why could she not -put her arms around me, seize me, comfort me, crush me? - -For one imperceptible moment my child's soul _understood_. The moment -passed; too swift to be retained, even remembered. - -Had I been dreaming? What was it all?... Yes, I had wanted something, -something that Grandmother could not give, could not take. - -"You're overwrought and tired, my dear," she was saying. "What you want -is a good sleep." - - - - -CHAPTER V: I GO TO SCHOOL - - -Next morning Grandmother and I sallied forth. It was a bright spring -day, with a high wind blowing. We went down Bear Street and along -Boutport Street to where it joins the High Street; and just beyond, on -the far side of the road, saw the old ivy-coloured house whose door was -to be my portal of worldly understanding. - -My future instructresses, the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker, -were our only regular visitors at Bear Lawn. They were third cousins -of a sort, though a social grade or two lower than ourselves, I -apprehended,--more Devonshirey, "commoner" than we. Tuesday after -Tuesday they came to our house for a long-established weekly afternoon -of tea and godly discoursing. Glory was a tall, thin, bony old woman, -with a bleary far-away stare. She wore a faded black serge dress, -whereon the only ornaments were dribble-marks in front, which spread -fan-wise from her chin to her waist; and a tiny black bonnet, tied -round her chin sometimes by a ribbon, oftener by a piece of string, -at one whimsical period by a strip of carefully-prepared bacon-rind. -She spoke little, chiefly of Death and the New Jerusalem, though -a perpetual clicking noise--represented most nearly by er-er-er, -and variously explained--always kept you aware of her presence. -"_Life_," ran her favourite aphorism, "_is but one long prercession -o' deathbeds_." She was quite mad, very gentle, wrapped in gloom, and -beatifically happy. Er-er-er-er was unbroken and continuous. You could -have used her for a metronome. - -Salvation was a saner, a coarser type: a noisy, aggressive woman, -whose chief subject of conversation was herself; a pious shrew with -a big appetite and a nagging tongue. She always ate an enormous tea, -though Aunt Jael, of whom alone in the world she was frightened, would -sometimes keep her hunger roughly in check. Glory, on the other hand, -always brought special provisions of her own, and at tea-time made -her own exclusive preparations. First she went into the far corner, -where she had deposited a net-bag full of parcels. From this she -abstracted a saucepan, a little spirit-lamp, a box of rusks shaped -like half moons, a bottle of goat's milk, a porringer and a great -wooden spoon. She put the lamp on the floor, lighted it, boiled the -milk in the little saucepan, threw in six or eight of the rusks and -stirred with the wooden spoon until she produced a steaming mush. She -didn't eat this, nor yet did she drink it; neither word describes the -fearful and wonderful fashion in which she imbibed, absorbed, inhaled, -appropriated it. Of every spoonful she managed to acquire perhaps a -quarter; the other three-quarters strolled gently down her chin. As she -was short-sighted, and as when she ate she ignored her food and looked -steadily ahead at the glories of the New Jerusalem, she often missed -the spoon altogether. The noise she made was notable. Hence Aunt Jael -always refused to allow her to eat at our table, and consigned her to -"Glory's corner." - -Though I saw the Clinkers in our house Tuesday after Tuesday, I had -never yet beheld them in their own. My eyes fastened on the brass door -plate: - - - The Misses Clinker - - ELEMENTARY EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT - - For the Daughters - - of Gentlemen. - - -The top line was in elegant copy-book writing. - -"Look, Grandmother," I cried, "Misses is spelt wrong. Why do they put -M-i-_f_-s-e-s? It's silly." I resented the absurd "s". My faith in the -infallibility of the twin Gamaliels at whose feet I was to sit was -dashed on their very doorstep. Could the blind lead the blind? - -"Why, 'tis often written that way," rejoined my Grandmother, "'tis an -old way of writing a double S. You've plenty to learn, you see." - -If the first line was offensive to common-sense, the remainder of the -notice challenged mere truth. Elementary you could not gainsay, but -Educational Establishment for a description of that frowsy den and -those two ignorant old maids was florid rather than faithful, while -Gentlemen as a term to connote the male parents of the clientèle -was--even in the most dim and democratic sense of that unpopular -word--just false. Finally, there were sons as well as daughters: some -three or four of the fifteen pupils who comprised the school. - -Salvation opened the door, grinning an aggressive welcome, but we were -officially received by Glory. "Welcome! Welcome to this place!" she -cried impressively. I saw that the sisters' rôles were here reversed. -Glory was as unkempt as ever, the "black" serge she wore shades greener -than her Tuesday afternoon one, and quite four inches higher one side -than the other. As next-worldly and bleary-eyed as in our house, her -part here was the part of a Principal: Principal of an Educational -Establishment for the Daughters (yea and Sons) of Gentlemen. Salvation, -screech she never so loudly, was in this schoolroom but second fiddle. - - * * * * * * * - -The schoolroom was an old-fashioned kitchen. The day's dinner was -cooked before our eyes on a spit before the fire; the pupils acted as -turnspits. The room was low, smoke-begrimed and dingy; the windows -opaque with dirt. On the filthy walls were a print of the Duke of -Wellington (?), all nose and sternness, an old Map of the World on -Mercator's Projection with the possessions of the Spanish crown yellow, -and the possessions of the British crown red, and many framed texts -worked in white and blue wool. One huge text, worked in many colours, -stood over the doorway: A ROD FOR THE FOOL'S BACK. Prov: xxvi. v. 3. -There were two classes, on different sides of the room. I was put -with the younger. They were all new faces, except one or two that I -had seen the day before at the Room. They were, indeed, the first -children I had ever spoken to. In grown-up parlance the pupils would -have been dubbed lower-middle class, though Marcus Browning, whom I -knew by sight because he lived in the Lawn in a house just opposite -ours, was as middle-middle class as Aunt Jael and my Grandmother. I -felt these distinctions perfectly, and regarded one Susan Durgles, a -lank untidily-dressed fluffy-haired child of seven or eight, and the -leading spirit in our class, with that feeling of quiet disdain which -the sureness of higher caste can alone bestow: her father was a mere -cobbler in Green Lane, and while I looked at her as though I knew it, -she looked back lovingly as though she knew I did. Between Susan and -myself sat a pale thin child, Seth Baker, who had St. Vitus' dance. I -had never seen anything of the sort before, and stared more through -curiosity than pity as his slate and slate-pencil shook in his hand. - -The first lesson was Rithmetick with Miss Glory called (vulgarly) by -Miss Salvation Figurin'. With her best far-away look Miss Glory peered -forth into eternity: "If eggs be twenty-eight a shilling" (they _were_ -in those days, at any rate in Spring) "how many be you agwain to get -for, er-er-er-one poun' three shillin' and vourpence ha' penny?" - -Up shot the grimy hand of little Seth Baker. "Please'm, please'm," -appealingly. He was always first and always right, but the rest of us -were not suffered to dodge the labour of calculation, as Miss Glory -would oftenest ignore Seth and drop on weaker members of the flock, -myself or Susan Durgles. - -"Now then, Susan Durgles. 'Ee heard the question. How many -then-er-er-er-er-er-?" - -"Please'm, I-er-er-er-er-er-don't know." - -This shameless mockery was allowed to go unpunished. My mind strove to -picture Aunt Jael coping with a like impertinence. I imagined the black -wrath, the awful hand upon my shoulder. With what new weapon would she -scourge me? Scorpions, perhaps, if obtainable. - -During our mental arithmetic lesson, the advanced students at the -other end of the room were receiving combined instruction from the -deputy-principal in crochet-work and carikter-formation. Miss Salvation -was shouting technical advice of the stitch, slip, three treble, four -chain, and draw-through-the-first-loop-on-the-hook order, together with -more general instructions how to earn the joys of heaven and eschew the -fires of hell. - -After a while the sisters changed places, and my efforts were -transferred from high finance to handwriting, called (whimsically) by -Miss Glory, Penmanship. Miss Salvation distributed dirty dog-eared copy -books. I was set to work on the last page, the Z page, of an otherwise -completed and wholly filthy book, to reproduce fourteen times in -zealous copper-plate: "Zeal of Thy House hath eaten me up." Meanwhile -Miss Salvation transferred to us her godly bawling as to the way we -should, or chiefly, shouldn't go: interlarding this with fragments of -more specialized holy information, which being entirely useless I have -never forgotten; e. g., which was the longest verse in the Word of God, -and which was the shortest; the number of books in the Old Testament, -and in the New; that "straightway" was the private and particular word -of St. Mark, while "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the -prophet" was the chosen cliché of St. Matthew. - -Miss Glory took turn with us again for the third lesson: Reading. Our -book was of course _The_ Book. One mouldy old Bible was passed round, -and we read in turn from its brown-spotted and damp-smelling pages. I -think it was my first or second day that it fell to my turn to read -from the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, where the Lord -appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and Abraham said unto -the Lord concerning the destruction of Sodom, Wilt thou also destroy -the righteous with the wicked? I knew the passage well, and read with -relish and excitement the diminuendo Peradventures. - -"Good, my child, good. Your readin' is a credit to your dear Grannie -and your dear Great-Aunt. You read it fine, as to the manner born." - -For the first time in my life the enchanting incense of praise filled -my nostrils. I flushed, and while others read of Lot at the gate of -Sodom and what-not else, I ceased to listen. My heart was beating -to this refrain: You read it fine--as to the manner born. So I was -good for something, for all Aunt Jael's daily blows and curses, my -Grandmother's nightly She-is-weak-Lord-and-sinful petitions. I read -fine! - -The first day Mrs. Cheese called for me; but afterwards I was -entrusted to Marcus Browning as escort. He was two years older: "a -good child, not like some I could name" (Aunt Jael), "Born of Saints" -(Grandmother), and possessed of the more fleshly merit of also living -on the Lawn. We spoke little together. - -The event I remember best of my first days at the Elementary -Educational Establishment was a fight. Susan Durgles was for ever -making fun of poor little Seth Baker's affliction. One day when Miss -Glory and Miss Salvation were both out of the room Susan went a little -too far. - -"Look to 'im, look to 'im!" she mocked. "He looks like wan o' thase yer -weather-cocks what wag and wobble about on the church steeple. Goes -like this, do he? Ha, ha. Can't help hisself, can't he, palaverin' li'l -wretch?" She flapped her hands in Seth's walrus way, and nodded her -head convulsively in mocking imitation of poor little St. Vitus. - -He was a meek child, but this time he could stand it no longer. "Dirty -cobbler's lass!" he cried, and banged Susan full in the face with his -small clenched fist. A regular fight began. My sympathies were wholly -pro-Seth. Was not Susan the sneerer, the tormenter, the tyrant, the -Aunt Jael, and Seth the harried one, the oppressed one, the victim, the -_me_? - -Seth punched and lunged and butted with his head. Susan slapped and -shoved and scratched. The boy kicked in payment for the scratching, -and the girl tore at his hair to get even for the kicks. Fair play and -fair-weather methods went by the board. Rules are for the ring; when -ultimate things are at stake, a child's sneer at her schoolfellow's -deformity to be repaid, a nation's existence to be lost or won in war, -then red tooth and claw tear the paper conventions of sport asunder, -and each side fights to win. Miss Glory returned to witness a bleeding -and bedraggled pair still scuffling savagely. Not one of the rest of us -had dared or wished to intervene. Very properly Miss Glory decided that -we were the guiltier ones, and while the two principals amid tears of -gradual forgiveness were hustled away to soap and water, we lookers-on -had to stand up on our forms for one solemn hour with our hands behind -our backs while Miss Glory preached us a sermon; the text being Matthew -five, nine. - -A brighter feature of school-life was the frequent sweetmeats brought, -passed round and devoured. There were chocolate drops, sticks of -Spanish, peppermint humbugs, jujubes, lollipops and toffees. I had -never tasted such dainties before. - -"Wude 'ee like a sweetie?" asked Susan Durgles one day. - -"Yes please," said I. - -"Quite sure, are 'ee?" - -"Yes please. Please give me one." - -"Nit likely, nit likely," she sneered. - -"But why?" I flushed, not understanding. - -"Why? And a very gude raison fer why. 'Cause 'ee gobble up other volks' -sweeties fast enough, but you'm not so slippy about bringin' any of yer -own fer _me_ to eat, are 'ee? Nit likely." - -I felt as though she had struck me in the face. All the other children -were looking and listening. It was not that I ever had any sweets of -my own which I consumed in greed and secret, it was not that I had any -money, or hope of money, for buying any. The sting of Susan's words lay -in this: that I ought to have seen and pondered on the fact that while -I took all that was offered me I offered nothing in return. I was in -the wrong, and therefore all the angrier. - -"You wait!" I cried. My tone was not too confident, for in a second's -rapid survey I could not see the how or the wherewithal of obtaining -sweets to fling at Susan. It must however have been confident enough to -inspire her with a lively sense of joys to come. - -"I didn't mean nort. Only my li'l joke. Have a lollipop--or two." - -On the way home I left Marcus Browning in silence, and evolved plans. -Suppose I were to ask Aunt Jael to give me a penny! My heart beat -at the thought. I rehearsed to myself my opening "Please Aunt Jael" -a score of times. Such rehearsings, inspired by my timidity, served -always to increase it. Then I remembered a bottle of acid-drops in the -medicine cupboard in the bedroom. Dare I beg a few? Or _take_ a few? -suggested the Tempter, take being His pretty word for steal. This was -the easier plan, but I shunned its dishonesty. I would ask her _first_. -Or ask even for the penny, I decided, if at the moment I found courage -enough. - -All the way through dinner I put off making my appeal. Several times -I moistened my lips and came to the very brink, where the glimpsed -precipice of Aunt Jael's wrath drove me back. Yet brave the precipice I -must, or tumble into the abyss of Susan's scorn on the morrow. - -At last I blundered in, heart beating and face flushed: "Please may I -have a penny?" - -"A penny?" - -"To buy some sweets." - -"Highty-tighty! Don't you get enough to eat here? Never heard of such a -thing. Your Grandmother and I never had pence for sweetmeats and such -trash. Be off with you." - -"But--" - -"No buts here." The thorned stick stamped the floor. Grandmother -concurred. - -Fair means had failed. I would try foul. By her meanness she had forced -me to help myself to her acid-drops. My guilt be on her head. - -I waited until she was well away into her after-dinner doze, and -Grandmother safely closeted for her afternoon's study of the Word. Then -I stole softly up to Aunt Jael's bedroom. Her physic-cupboard was on -the far side of the bed. It had a sliding door; inside there were four -shelves, the bottom shelf dedicated to Aunt Jael's night-needs. At -every watch she fed. Once or twice I had slept with her, and discovered -that though she had rusks and beef-tea just before getting into bed -(soon after a heavy supper) and rusks and a cup of green tea while she -was dressing (just before a heavy breakfast), yet she got out of bed -twice during the night to brew herself a potion and chew old crusts or -gingerbread-nuts or rusks. The bottom shelf was complete with every -accessory of these four bedroom feasts: spirit lamp, matches, saucepan, -cups; green tea, Ceylon tea, beef-tea, meat extract, herbs of divers -properties and powers; gin, cowslip wine, elderberry wine, brandy; with -many tins devoted to gingerbreads, half-moon rusks (bought at the same -baker's as Miss Glory's), seed-cake, Abernethy biscuits, and old crusts -rebaked in the oven. The upper shelves bristled with medicine bottles -and jars. These were grouped methodically according to the ills they -combated. There was a cough-and-colds corner. For burns scalds and -chaps, bruises weals and wens, there was poor-man's-friend, a great -jar of goose grease, and a small white pot of mixed whitening, most -drastic of all; often my Grandmother used it on my body after a bad -beating, fitly borrowing Aunt Jael's whiting to ease the marks of Aunt -Jael's stick. The particular galaxy of bottles from which Grandmother -had oftenest to beg and borrow for me consisted of various telling -encouragements and exhortations to those like myself whose mills ground -slowly and withal exceedingly small. Castor oil, Epsom salts, senna -pods, fennel seeds and roots of jalep: I knew them all. It was to King -Senna I answered swiftliest (five pods to be soaked in a tumbler of -water for a few hours, and drunk last thing before retiring to bed); to -replenish this jar meant frequent visits to the druggist's, for which -my Grandmother paid. To pods she added prayers. Whenever the last thing -before retiring chanced to be the tepid tumblerful, the last thing but -one was always a supplication to Heaven to speed the parting dose. "O -Lord," pleaded my Grandmother on her knees, "Bless the means! Bless the -means, Lord; and if it be Thy will grant her relief!" But Aunt Jael -relied on worldly remedies exclusively. Her medicine cupboard was her -shield and buckler, and like the cupboard in the front room downstairs, -ministered to her pride of possession also. And the night-life made -possible by that festive bottom shelf! O 'twas a Prince of Cupboards, a -vineyard planted with bottles. - -Today I had eyes for one bottle only. I reached it down, and regarded -the precious objects which would confound the sneers of Susan. Thief! -said a voice within, as I tipped the bottle up and curved my other hand -to receive. - -Susan's sneers! urged the Tempter. How just they are, and how they -wound you! I hung doubtfully; the acid-drops' fate and my own trembled -in the balance. I remembered how Aunt Jael counted everything. For -a certainty every acid drop was counted; she would miss the meanest -couple, and then the sequel! No, I dare not. - -The moment my indecision was over, I was braver. Once I had decided -I dare not eat any, I dared to reflect how pleasant they _would have -been_ to eat. It was the bravery of cowardice, that valour that is -the better part of discretion. I smelt the bottle's mouth long and -longingly. Suddenly the fair odour inspired in me a new idea. I would -just suck the drops, and then put them back. They were of the shiny -sort, which judicious sucking would hardly change; not your dangerous -powdery acid drops, which merest touch of the tongue transforms. I set -to sucking as evenly as possible, so that none would look smaller than -the rest. They were delicious, and I enjoyed recompense for my noble -decision not to steal. Suddenly my heart stood still. The door-handle -turned. To fling the bottle into its place in the cupboard, and slide -the cupboard door to, was the work of a fevered moment. Aunt Jael -entered. She must surely have seen. My guilt was clear, for all the -look of meekness I sought to wear. She had her suspicions too of -what the guilt was: she seized my arm and ducked her nose down to my -mouth to confirm them. Acid-drops have a tell-tale odour, unique, -unmistakable. My smell bewrayed me. Out of my own mouth I stood -convicted. - -"I thought as much,"--even for her the words came grimly--"how many -have you stolen?" - -"None, Aunt Jael." - -There coursed through my veins the perverse exultant delight of her -who utters a great white lie. Not for anything would I have told a -downright falsehood. Here was an answer true as Truth herself--sucking -is not stealing--yet by the look (and smell) of things plainly false. -Aunt Jael darkened. - -"I-have-not-stolen-one. I-have-not-eaten-one," I repeated, noddingly. - -"Liar, black little liar!" she shouted. "The rope-end at last; you'll -taste it now." - -She rummaged under the bed. As she barred the egress by the foot of the -bedstead, I scrambled over the bed, gained the door, and fled to the -attic. She was after me at once, wielding the famous weapon, a good -yard of stout old ship's rope, a relic of Grandfather Lee or maybe -Great-Grandfather Vickary. In the middle of the attic stood a large -elliptical table. Round and round it she chased me. It was a defiance I -had never shown before. She was appalled. I was appalled. Defiance was -a quality she never encountered, and now for meek miserable little me -to show it! Her features were a livid blue-black. She lashed out with -the rope frequently; I dodged and ducked. The attic was wide enough -for me to elude her reach. In a corner I should have had no chance; -so Knight of the Round Table was the part I played. Once the rope -grazed my shoulder. After ten minutes perhaps, the part of slasher at -emptiness had become so undignified that Aunt Jael suddenly stopped. A -ruse? A minute's rest before a last wild spring for victory? No; for -she could hardly breathe. Then she gave me a long cruel stare, eyes -saying _I Will Repay_: for all my defiance I cowered. She went out, -slammed the door behind her, and stumped heavily down the uncarpeted -attic-stairs. - -The heat of battle over, my spirits sank. Why had I defied her? There -was no ultimate escape. For every gesture of defiance, every moment -of that round-the-table chase, she would repay me a hundredfold. Yet -what else could I have done? If I had owned up to _stealing_ her sweets -and thus (perhaps) incurred a lesser wrath, I should have owned up to -something I had not done. I should have lied. I had told the truth -instead, and my only reward was a clear conscience. (I was staring, as -so often, at the great blue picture on the wall, whose deep violet blue -seemed to be toned down by the cold grey-blue of the room; an old print -of some tropical sea with a volcano belching forth fire, smoke and lava -in the background,--the Caribbean Sea perhaps, with one of the Mexican -craters, or the Mediterranean with Vesuvius; a gaudy gorgeous thing -such as sailors buy on their travels.) - -I waited over an hour before risking a descent. When I turned the -half-landing by Mrs. Cheese's bedroom door, I sprang back. There -beneath me, sitting on the stairs, her feet on the main landing just -outside her bedroom door, was Aunt Jael. A small table was drawn up to -the foot of the stairs. A good tea was spread thereon; she was eating -and drinking heartily. I spied the rope by her side; she heard my -footsteps above her, and her hand closed on it. I went back. She meant -grim business. Still, she could not stay there all night. I sat down -outside the attic door and listened. Mrs. Cheese cleared away her tea -things, grumbling; Grandmother came up to her, gently remonstrating. -She stayed on. Darkness set in. I heard her stamp the floor for Mrs. -Cheese to bring her supper. After all, she might stay there for the -night: knowing her will to be not weaker than mine, I put my self in -her place, and I felt almost sure she would. I was hungry, and there -would be no escape. Escape I must. How? My first plan was that Mrs. -Cheese--Aunt Jael would have to get up to let her pass, I reflected, -since either one of them was as broad as the attic staircase--should -bring me something to eat when she came upstairs to bed. Then I could -survive till the morrow, sleep on the attic floor, and confound Aunt -Jael. I would show her who had the stronger will. The weak point of -this notion was that I could not shout instructions to Mrs. Cheese to -bring me something to eat, nor rely on her doing it unprompted. A more -desperate plan suggested itself, and before I had time to shrink back, -I put it into action. - -I slid down the banisters and took a flying vault safely over Aunt -Jael's head and the little supper table in front of her. If there had -been a big open space beyond, all might have been well. Unfortunately -the banister that surrounded the sort of well in which you saw the -ground floor began only a yard beyond Aunt Jael's door; my flying feet -knocked against it, and I fell; I was hurt badly, and could not get -up. In a second Aunt Jael was up, and at me with the rope, savagely. -She saw I was in pain and helpless, so lammed the more brutally. I -screamed. Grandmother came running upstairs, and with a strength and -daring she rarely used wrenched the rope from her sister's hands. - -I limped downstairs. - -"Before you eat, child, confess your lie, and apologize to your aunt -for telling it." Grandmother was unwontedly stern. - -"What lie?" I did not flinch. - -"Smell her! Smell her!" shouted Aunt Jael. - -"Mary, in all her life your mother told not one single lie." - -"It's not a lie," feebly. "I swear it," pitiably. - -At last Grandmother succeeded where Aunt Jael had failed (this was a -little sub-triumph in my defeat). I told the true version and for all -the Tempter's hints I knew that my Grandmother was right that evening -when in our bedside prayer she pleaded, "Forgive her, Lord; in her -heart she lied!" - -Next day, I learnt from Mrs. Cheese that the bottle of acid drops had -been flung by Aunt Jael into the ashpit. I rescued it, and pocketed the -contents, which were stuck together like a coarse hard sponge, emerald -bright. There were thirty-seven in all. By the distribution of this -lordly largesse I rose high in the esteem of the school. A pocket full -of acid drops: my position was assured. None doubted their virginity, -all consumed them with zest. Thus did I triumph over Susan Durgles, who -sucked humbly; humblier, had she known that another had sucked before -her. - - * * * * * * * - -School took but a small place in my life. The music-lessons I began -to take at home were much more to me: for piano-playing was a worldly -luxury some generous whim of Aunt Jael's supplied. Her reward was her -own loud announcement, whenever topics even remotely musical were -mentioned, "_I_ pay for the child's music." These lessons, and a -very occasional dress and hat--once a pair of mittens--were all she -contributed to my upkeep in all those years. I am glad it was never -more. She had no call to do it, she often explained. Well and good: -I had no call to be beholden to her. All my expenses, nothing heavy, -but heavy enough for a light purse, were borne by my Grandmother: and -thus at the end of their lives, Aunt Jael had three times as much to -bequeath as her sister. Grandmother accepted five pounds a year from -my great-uncle John on my behalf, refusing his offer of more, and -taking nothing of what my father's relatives had proposed from the -beginning. Yet she would have laughed, and the mirthless Saints would -have laughed, if you had called her proud. Meanwhile, because of these -music lessons, Aunt Jael cried her generosity from the house-tops. I -little cared: I was grateful. I could soon play all the simpler tunes -in Hoyle's Anthems. - -My life was still entirely spent in the Bear Lawn household; I was -never allowed to see anything of the other schoolchildren, Saints or -no Saints, beyond school hours. None ever crossed our threshold, nor -I theirs. I watched the daily struggle between the two old women, -Grandmother and Great-aunt. I read the Word. I prayed, and I lived wild -lives within myself. I was for ever visualizing, thinking out dramas -in which I and those I knew would figure, living in a self-fashioned -self-fancied future, deciding on lines of conduct in innumerable -situations I invented. At this time my imaginings did not run, as with -megalomaniac little boys, to ambitious futures for myself: great -sounding deeds done before admiring multitudes. My castle building was -conditioned by the narrow humble life I knew. The stuff of my dreams -was my own hates and loves. - -At this early time my surest emotions were I think three: hate of my -tyrant aunt; longing for some one to love and some one to love me; fear -of eternity and hell. I would play with these terrible ideas sometimes -with the cheerfulness natural to six-years-old, more often with the -despondency more natural to myself. Hate achieved no triumph of hate -even, would eat itself out miserably and everlastingly in my visions as -hate always. Longing was never appeased; love would never come to me. -Fear was justified of her child. - -A cheerful vision I conjured up was Aunt Jael on bended knee before me, -making a hoarse and humble appeal to be forgiven for her wrong-doings, -to be shriven of her many sins. I revelled in the delightful picture. -How I dealt with it depended on my mood. If it was soon after a beating -(a real-life beating) my conduct would be just, stern, inexorable. "Go -to, thou vixen, thy judgment awaits thee!"; and I would deliver her -over to the tormentors. If beatings of late had been few or frail, -and a sentimental rather than revengeful mood held me, then I would -act with a high Olympian generosity, imagination's sweetest revenge, -and lifting her gently to her feet would say "Thy sins are forgiven -thee--Go, and sin no more!" - -I often tried to create an imaginary person to love, some one I could -embrace and be embraced by. Once I got as far as picturing a face for -perfect loving, but I found that it was the spirit, the soul, the -person who gave you love, and my perfect face (a dark young girl's) -though I named it Ruth Isabel, remained a face and a name only. There -was no real Ruth Isabel behind the face; so she faded away. I had one -success, one consolation. By a hard effort--closed eyes, clenched fists -and fervid prayer to God--I could sometimes picture my dead mother so -vividly, that I could literally feel and return her embraces. She was -clad always in white; her face was warm, and glowed. "Kiss me, Mary," I -could make the vision say, though whensoever I put out my hungry arms -to draw her closer to my breast, the vision fled. - -Of my chief fears, hell and eternity, the first was always terrible--I -pictured it in all the luxurious completeness of horror Brother Brawn -described--yet I had this comfort: I believed in the Lord, and He -could save me. But save me for what? He rescued me from hell to grant -me eternity in heaven, and from His boon there was none to rescue me. -_Eternal life!_ Once my brain attempted to grapple with everlastingness -and to think out the full frightful meaning of _living for ever_, I -sickened with fear. There was no escape: ever: anywhere. A terror, -unanswerable, unpitying, controlled me. One way out of it, one mad -child's trick to cheat Infinity was to convince myself I had never been -born. "You're not real!" I would say to myself, "You're only dreaming -you're alive. You're a dream of God's. You have never really lived, so -you can never really die. So you escape eternity. You cannot live for -ever, if you are not alive at all!" - -This belief I helped by staring into my own eyes in the glass, my face -close up to its reflection. After a minute or two, a tense expectancy -would seize me. I was elated, exhilarated. - -"Mary, what are you, who are you?" I cried to the face in the mirror. - -My own voice sounded strange and far away, belonged to some one else, -proved that _I_ had no voice, that there was no real me, that I was -Another's dream. - -"What are you? What are you?" - -The exhilaration and the expectancy grew. I was on the brink of solving -the mystery of all life: my child's mind would find what the universe -was, what _I_ was.... The exaltation was almost more than I could bear. -I kissed wildly the reflection of my own mouth in the mirror. Suddenly, -imperceptibly, elusively, the great hope vanished. There was a swift -reaction in my mind and body, and I half swooned away on to a chair. - -In other moods my picturings were completely black. I saw my future as -an unbroken series of savage triumphs for Aunt Jael. She discovered -new and horrible beatings. I should be left quite alone with her: -Grandmother would die. She would flog me from morn till night, always -brutally, always unjustly. Or I would think of love as a thing I should -never, never know. I pictured myself a lonely old woman, loved by none, -loving none. Or, if I thought of hell, I doubted my salvation, and -suffered in imagination all its pains. Or, with eternity, the fiction -that I was not alive failed me dismally. I pictured myself sitting for -ever on a throne near God, bearded and omnipotent. A billion years -rolled away, I was still no nearer the end, no nearer escape from my -soul, from life, from me. Sometimes I shrieked. My cries rent heaven. -God motioned the golden harps to cease and consigned me to the torments -of hell. I was borne downwards at incredible speed by two bright angels -who, as we got lower and lower, took on the shape of devils. They cast -me shrieking into the lake of fire and brimstone. Sometimes in heaven I -could keep my agony mute. This was no better. Amid the angels' psalmody -there rang in my heart like a beaten bell: _For ever, for ever, for -ever!_--taunting me into a supreme feverish effort to think _For ever_ -out. Then came the last moment, the crisis of hypnotized fear, as my -finite mind flung itself against the iron door of the Infinite. The -struggle lasted but a few seconds, or I should have gone mad. Then the -warm back-rush of physical relief as the blood poured back into my -brain. - -I came to believe there were two persons in myself, two distinct souls -in my body. It was my way of accounting for the two strangely different -manners of thought I experienced. I thought and felt things in an -ordinary, conscious, methodical way--the self-argumentative, cunning, -careful little girl that most often I was. At other times, ideas, -promptings, wishes, beliefs came to me in quite different fashion--or -not so much to me as from within me, from some inner source of my -being. They coursed through my blood and stormed my brain; they were -blind, warm, intuitive; supernatural, sudden. There is no one word -in my vocabulary, still less was there in those seven-year-old days, -to define or explain this distinction. It was no matter of Reason -with Common-sense on the one hand, and Conscience or Instinct on the -other. Conscience--"God knocking at your heart's door," Grandmother -called it--is a very incomplete description; at most it could apply -only to the good promptings of the other Self. For the reverse reason -Instinct will not suffice. It was no question of two modes of thought -or feeling, but of two persons inhabiting my body. The Mary Lee every -one saw and knew was the two of them taken together. I called them Me -and the Other Me. I felt the difference between them in a physical way. -With the more usual self, my blood flowed gently, my pulse was normal. -The other self marched through my flesh like an army with banners; the -hand of this more mysterious me literally knocked at my heart; she came -from some deep inmost place and vanished as swiftly as she came. She -went; my pulse flagged. - -My loneliness too encouraged the sociable idea that there were two -people inside me--Two's company, one's none! In bed or blue attic, -duologues were better than monologues: but as a rule I could not -arrange these, because Other Me blew where she listed; I could never -fix her for a talk as I chose. She came with some sudden word or -warning, prompting or precept--and was gone. When I was bent on some -moment's peccadillo, she--he?--would come, whisper "It is wrong"; for -one moment the whispering voice was my voice, the voice of another Me, -a new person and soul whose being seemed to flood my veins. She fled, -and I was alone again. The way I tried to formulate the experience -was this: One is my normal human sinful Self, is Me, Mary; Two is the -Spirit of God possessing me, the movement in me of the divine, the -indwelling spirit, the Holy Ghost made manifest in my flesh. I saw it -all as a special privilege, a new proof that the Lord had set me apart. - -Sometimes the two selves battled for mastery. I thought that one thing -was the right course to follow, and felt that another was. I knew it -was the _feeling_ I ought to obey, though sometimes I was not positive -of its divine, Other Me, Apostolic quality. In such cases my plan was -to count thirty-seven--aloud as a rule--and if at the end of my count -the impulse was still in me, I obeyed it. The test itself was of course -of _Other_ origin. "In cases of doubt, count thirty-seven" came to me -one day with a warm lilt of authority I did not question. I adopted it -as my sacred number for all emergencies. When Aunt Jael was flogging -me--I remember well how it helped me in that rope-end beating after I -had sucked the sweets--I would shut my eyes and see if I could count -thirty-seven between each stroke. Success depended on my rate--and -hers; in any case the mere endeavour seemed to lessen the pain. - -Note, too, that there were thirty-seven acid drops in the fatal bottle, -and that my favourite psalm, number 137, was on page 537 of my old -Bible:--Heavenly proofs of the pure metal of my golden number. - - - (Note: This chapter in my notes fills exactly 37 pages!-M. L.) - - - - -CHAPTER VI: CHEESE, LUMPS, CREWJOE, THE SCARLET WOMAN AND THE GREAT GOD -BENAMUCKEE - - -That rope-end beating was a bad one, but I can remember worse. The -worst one of all came a year or so later, when I was about seven -years old, and formed part of a series of events that stands out with -peculiar clearness in my memory. - -It all began with porridge lumps. - -One morning Aunt Jael went into the kitchen before breakfast, and began -stirring at the porridge pan and looking for something to grumble at. - -"Lumps!" she cried angrily. "Lumps! What's this mean? 'Tis a pity if a -woman of sixty don't know how to cook a panful of porridge. Or too idle -to stir it, most likely. Lumps! Lumps!" - -Mrs. Cheese lost her temper: the end desired. - -"What d'ye expect? Do 'ee think I cude see to the stuff while I'm -trapsing up and downstairs to yer bedrume all the time waiting on 'ee -'and an' foot, an' you thumpin' and bangin' away wi' yer stick ivry -blissid minute? I can't be in two places at once, and I ain't agwain -ter try. Lumps indade! I've 'ad enuff o'n. You do'n yersell, ol' lady." - -Whereupon did Aunt Jael aim the lid of the pan at Mrs. Cheese's head, -which it just managed to miss. A frying-pan full of half-cooked -potatoes lay to the wronged one's hand for retort perfect. She mastered -the dear temptation when she saw my Grandmother quietly edging up -toward Aunt Jael; found vent instead in bitter irony. Sarcasm hits -surer than sauce-pan-lids, and harder. - -"Behavin' like a true Brethering, aren't us? Like a meek bleatin' -Christyun lamb as doesn't know it's weaned? I tells yer straight, Miss -Vickary, I crosses your doorstep this same day. Ye'll be done wi' yer -lumps termorrer." - -Grandmother contrived to calm her down till she consented to stay after -all; and, with more difficulty, to close her sister's mouth. - -Mrs. Cheese, however, was not the one to sit down under a saucepan -lid, and I think it was revenge, joining forces with a long-repressed -love for a good "tell," which prompted her to close the kitchen door -that afternoon when the dinner things were put away, and to sit down -to tell me a story. She had once begun to speak to me of fairies, and -Aunt Jael's reproof was too violent and too recent for her to have -forgotten. Rather it was that she remembered it, and rejoiced, as she -posed me the unfamiliar sweet question: - -"Wude 'ee like me to tell 'ee a story?" - -"Yes, please, Mrs. Cheese." I cocked my ear. Far away in the -dining-room the dread one snored. - -"Wall then. This tale is all about what a sailor-man did. Even '_er_" -(she jerked her finger in the proper direction) "cude say nothin' agin -it, for 'tis all true. 'Tis true gospel, I'll be blummed if tidn': -tho', Dear Lawr, some o' the things is that wunnerful that if a body -had told me, and I did'n _knaw_ fer certain that 'twas all true, and -all written 'pon a buke that the party wrote hisself, I shude 'a zed -they was lyin', I shude railly. 'Tis'n everybody, you knaws, as lives -a life like we, always quiet and peaceful like, always the same ol' -place. There's many volk, sailor chaps and sich like fer the bettermos' -part, that has middlin' excitin' times in these yer vorrin parts, and -zees the most wunnerful things. Wall, this one chap in partic'lar lived -for thirty year all alone on a desert island with not another soul to -pass the time o' day with, thirty years I tell 'ee if 'twas a day. -Robinson Crewjoe 'is name was--" - -"Why?" - -"'Cos fer why? 'Cos that's what 'e were caaled, o' course, silly -mump'ead! Anyway, there 'twas. Some say 'e 'ad 'is wife and childer to -the island with 'im, and they talks of the Zwiss Vamily Robinson, but -'tisn't true anyway; first 'cos 'e weren't alone in an island if there -was other folk with 'im, second 'cos he wasn't a Zwiss, or any sort o' -them vurriners, third because 'e 'adn't got no vamily, 'cept for 'is -ol' vamily at 'ome that is, as tried to stop'n runnin' away to sea, 'is -ol' father and 'is ol' mother--" - -"What did his father do?" - -"Didn't _du_ nort." - -"I mean like Brother Briggs is an oilman and Brother Quaint keeps a -baker's shop--" - -"Oh I don't know thikky. 'Tis some 'undreds o' years agone since it all -first 'appened, you knows. 'Owsomever--" And so on: the whole imperial -tale. - -When in later years I read the book for myself I found how accurately -she had stressed the salient points. The father of young Robinson, -always growlin' and scoldin' like some others she cude mention; -the young raskel himself with whom these methods were not entirely -displaced; the flight to sea; the ship doing battle with Turks and -Portugeeses and Vrenchies and Spanyerds; the wreck on the desert -island, young Robinson alone being saved; his infinite resource, -practical, mechanical, architectural, culinary, dietetic; his ills, -moral and physical.--Every known pain of the body he suffered, finding -some slight alleviation, it is true, in the miniature Aunt Jaelian -physic-cupboard from the all providing Wreck. His worst affliction -was a malady--the Blues or Deliverums--at once moral and physical, a -kind of soul's nightmare accompanied by sharp "abdominable pains." All -around him, as he writhed in agony, roared an islandful of wild beasts; -tigers and jeraffs and hullyfints and camyels and drumming-dairies-- - -"What's that?" I remember asking. - -"Wull, either 'tis camyels wi' one 'ump to the back, or else 'tis -camyels what 'ave one 'ump and drummy-dairies two; 'tis one or -'tother--and bears and munkeys and girt sarpints what they caal -boy-constructors, I don't knaw fer why:--a regler munadgery like -Tobbery Vair--and birds too. The pore chap 'ad one particler parrit or -cocky-two as they caals 'un, what 'e taught to 'oller out: 'Pore ol' -Robinson Crewjoe! pore ol' Robinson Crewjoe!' 'Tis true what I tell -'ee, my dear, 'tis true's I zit yer." - -Nor did I doubt it. The notion of an invented story was one I could not -have conceived. - -The narrative came particularly near home with the arrival of the -savages, and the domestication and conversion of Man Vriday--"or Man -Zaturday maybe--I know 'tis one o' the days o' the wake." Robinson -saw that he could atone for his own unholy past by snatching this -black-skinned brand from the burning. I listened eagerly, with -conscious professional interest; the snatching of black-skinned brands -was the very work for which the Lord had set me apart. - -"And so he praiched the Gospel to 'im, and shewed 'im all the mercies -o' God A'mighty." - -"But _could_ he, Mrs. Cheese? Was he a Saint, was he one of the Elect?" - -"I don't knaw fer certin'. Don't rekellect it ackshilly zaying 'pon the -buke that 'e was a Plymith Brethering in so many worrds as the sayin' -is. A Methody maybe. But that's neither 'ere nor there." - -"But it is, it's _very_ important," I cried, "it's everything!" - -"'Owsomever, 'e taught this yer Man Vriday ter pray ter the Lord. -That's gude nuff. 'You goes down on yer knees, and you prays to Im,' -'e zes. 'Why that's jis' what we do too,' zes Man Vriday, to _our_ -God'--meanin' a girt idol set up on a hill in the other island 'e com'd -from, zummat like the girt idol o' Miss Vickary's in the corner there -in that ol' front-room uv 'ern. 'Us valls vlat on our vaces before un,' -'e zes, 'and us 'owls out O-o-o-o Benamuckee! O-o-o-o Benamuckee!' that -bein' the god's name, as yer mid say. Tis a fac', I'll ait vire an -smoke if tid'n." - -"Did he convert him?" anxiously. - -"Zome zay 'e did, but I shudn' 'ardly think 'tis true, fer Man Vriday -turns to ol' Robinson Crewjoe--'e was an ol' chap now, you knaws, -'aving been there the bettermos' part o' thirty years--and 'e zes to -'im, zes 'e, 'I don't zee much odds to't, master. You prays to your God -up i' the sky, and you zes 'O God' and we prays to our god up i' the -mountain, and we zes 'O Benamuckee.' He'm a great god too, a mighty -great god like yourn; I don't zee much odds to't, master,' 'e zes. So -if 'e did convert 'im, it was a middlin' stiff job, I reck'n. And I -ain't afraid ter zay that ol' Robinson was a middlin' big fule ter try. -If a vorrin savage is so big a fule as to lay down flat on 'is stummick -and 'oller out 'O-o-o-o Benamuckee' and sich like jibberish, 'e's a -bigger fule still as tries to make 'im mend 'is ways. Missyunaries -can't du much gude wi' such fules as they--" - -Blasphemy supreme. The listener behind the door could restrain herself -no longer. Aunt Jael stumped in. - -"Well?" - -"Wull?" said the _raconteuse_, bold and unabashed. She had the -morning's score to settle. - -"Well? Well this: '_ee_ talked about notice this morning, madam. Now I -give 'ee notice." - -"Du yer, Miss Vickary, du yer? Wull, I don't take it then. I'm Missis -Lee's servant as much as I'm yourn. You only pays 'alf my money, tho' -you may du six-vivths o' the mistressin'. An' 'tis no lies I've been -tellin'; 'tis all true gauspel--" - -"Order!" stamped the thorned stick. "'Ee leave a week to-day. Silence!" -(For repartee was ready.) "And for you, Child, there's no excuse. None. -You knew. You knew your sin sitting listening all through that pack of -lies--" - -"'Tiz _not_ lies!" cried Mrs. Cheese. "'Tis true's I stand yer," for -she had risen to face the adversary. "Can't the poor lil chil' listen -to a trew story? Thank the Lawr there aren't many little children in -Tobbry cooped up like 'er is, as can't move her lil finger wi'out -gettin' cussed and banged; I ain't got no patience wi't, and there's -plenty uv other volks as I cude mention as 'ave passed a few remarks -too--" - -"Silence!" shouted Aunt Jael, furiously stamping the stone floor -two-to-the-second with her stick. - -In came my Grandmother, drawn by the tumult. At once both Aunt Jael and -Mrs. Cheese began defending themselves: the first word with neutrals -counts for much. To Mrs. Cheese: "Miss Vickary first"; to Aunt Jael: -"Speak, sister." - -"I've caught her telling the child a long lying rigmarole about savages -and idolatry--" - -"'Tis not lies! 'Tis truth!" blazed the other, "and don't yer let the -pore chil' be punished for listenin', Missis Lee." - -Grandmother apportioned blame: for me "You knew you ought not to have -listened"; for Mrs. Cheese "Be more careful in what you talk about, and -don't forget your manners with Miss Vickary"; for Aunt Jael "There's -not much harm been done, Sister; no need whatever to carry on so." - -Aunt Jael was infuriated. The balance of Grandmother's judgment was -obviously against her; the fact that her younger sister was judging at -all was against the first principles of the household, a slight to her -position--and to all those sixty-nine years' of an eighteen-months' -seniority. - -"There!" looked Mrs. Cheese and I, and though neither of us smiled -nor spoke, Victory sang in our eyes. My triumph was short. She struck -me with her clenched fist; my shoulder received all she owed to Mrs. -Cheese and Grandmother as well. So brutal and unexpected was the blow -that it stirred me to a spontaneous and venomous cry: "Ugh, I _hate_ -you." - -Fear and forethought which shrouded and bowdlerized most of my remarks -when angry had no time to give me pause. "I hate you!" I repeated -savagely. - -Silence, Sensation, Crisis. Who would resolve it? How? - -Grandmother spoke first: "Hush, child, hush. Your Aunt is angry, but -you are beside yourself. Jael, I'm ashamed; to strike like that! But -'hate,' child: the Devil speaks in you. Think, do you mean it?" - -"Not quite, no, not--not so bad as that," I faltered convincingly, not -from contrition, but to ward off, if might be, another blow, which in -the logic of things lay near ahead. - -"H'm. 'Tis as well as not. It all comes to this, young minx: You're bad -all through; the Devil's in 'ee all the time. Your Grandmother and I -have always forbidden 'ee tales of fairies and such like. 'Ee knew, and -'ee listened. Were 'ee wrong--or were 'ee not? I correct 'ee, and all I -get for years of care is that 'ee spit out hate. Are 'ee sinful--or are -'ee not?" - -I looked at Grandmother: I must take care not to alienate supporters. I -looked at Aunt Jael: that blow must be exorcised. "Yes." - -She thirsted for super-victory. "Repeat: 'Yes, Aunt Jael, I was sinful -and wrong.'" - -"Yes, Aunt Jael, I was sinful and wrong." - -"And so when I reproved 'ee for being wrong and gave 'ee a well -deserved blow, I was right?" - -No reply. Her brow darkened. Blow nearer again. - -"Come now, quick about it: 'ee were wrong?" - -"Yes, Aunt Jael." - -"And I was right." - -No reply. She half raised her stick--not fist this time--but noting -Grandmother's eye, restrained herself with an effort. Both belligerents -played still for neutral sympathy. She must be moderate, as Salvation -said of her scholastic fees. - -"Now, child, I'll give 'ee five minutes. If by that time 'ee haven't -looked me in the face and repeated twice ''Ee were right, Aunt Jael, -and I'm very sorry,' then I'll bang 'ee till 'ee won't be able to sit -down. Now then." - -She leaned against the table, eyeing the clock. Mrs. Cheese sat silent, -but ready I could see for intervention. That was Grandmother's look -too. Both were ready to ward off the soon-to-be-uplifted stick. Aunt -Jael feared this, and was uneasy. She broke the silence after about two -minutes. - -"I warn 'ee. For your own good, mark. 'Tis no odds to me: I'd as lief -thrash you. Don't 'ee know your Proverbs, child: 'Chasten thy son while -there is hope, and let not thy rod spare for his crying.' _I'll_ not -spare for your crying. And 'ee'll be free from me for a spell, for -'ee'll dwell up in the attic for a few days all alone to give 'ee time -to think over your sins. Now then. What d'ye say to that?" - -"What do I say?" I shouted. "I say this: '_It is better to dwell in a -corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house!_' -Don't 'ee know your Proverbs, Aunt Jael?" - -The supreme defiance of my childhood; the aptest quotation of my life. -Never before nor after was I so great. There was no hope now, the -beating would equal my deserts, and I had doubtless alienated my best -ally. Even so, there mingled with my fear delight in my retort-perfect. -It was worth living to have said that; I must be brave and show that it -was worth dying for. - -For a moment my boldness had staggered her; for a moment only. Then -she brought down the great stick with a crash on my shoulder that sent -me reeling against the dresser. Grandmother snatched at the stick; she -flung her roughly aside, and sent her tottering against the flour-bin -with a savage shove. - -"How dare you? How dare you knock my Grandmother about? You bad, cruel -old woman!" - -"There's perlice in this town, Miss Vick'ry, you'm forgetting." - -"Jael!" - -For answer to the three of us, she struck me brutally twice, once on -the leg, and once on my ear, which began to bleed. The two others made -a joint rush for the stick. - -"Jael, you're beside yourself." - -"'Old 'ard, ol' biddy." - -I had one idea: flight. There was a nightmare sort of struggle now in -progress, swaying first toward one side of the kitchen, then toward -another: three black-bodiced old ladies in a Rugby football scrum, Aunt -Jael and Mrs. Cheese, as far as one could see, scuffling for the stick, -and Grandmother half-scuffling for the stick also, scuffling also to -prevent the other two from scuffling each other to death: at once -participant and peacemaker, and certainly not blessed. Past this black -swaying mass I dashed, along the hall, hatless out on to the Lawn, and -on into the forbidden street outside the Lawn gates. - -I ran blindly; where, I did not know. It was a sultry day; my aches -and bruises began to tell, and I had to slow down before my rage was -worked away. I was wild and rebellious, not only against Aunt Jael, but -against God Who allowed her to treat me so. I was walking slowly now. -I looked about me; stared at a new brick building on the other side of -the road, crossed to read the notice-board outside. "Roman Catholic -Church!" Aunt Jael had spoken of this;--this monster we had weakly -allowed to be erected in our midst, this Popish temple, this Satan's -Synagogue. - -"Go in!" said Instinct. This was puzzling: the suggestion was clearly -sinful, yet here it came with the authority of my trusted better self. -Well, I would commit the sin, the sin deadlier than the seven, the sin -crying to heaven for vengeance, the sin against the Holy Ghost! No -modern mind could grasp the sense of supreme ultimate wickedness with -which my deliberate contact with the Scarlet Woman filled me, for there -is no live anti-Popery left among us today. As I pushed open the red -baize door, my heart beat fast. Here indeed was defiance to Aunt Jael -and to God Who permitted her. I was making a personal call on the Devil -in his own private residence. I should have been much less surprised -than frightened to find him inside the chapel, seated on a throne of -fire; tail, hoofs and all. What should I find? I trembled with emotion. - -My first impressions were of the darkness and the smell. This curious -odour was doubtless the "insects" against which Miss Salvation -thundered; that burnt-offering which cunningly combined cruelty -with idolatry. It was an interesting smell; I thought of the -paint-and-Bibles odour of our Room. Much of the character of churches, -as of books, is discovered in their smell: it is by my nose rather than -my mind that I can best recall the rich doctrinal differences between -Calvinistic Methodists, and (say) Particular Baptists. You may smell -out a Tipper--or a Bunker--or a Believer in the Divine Revelation of -Joanna Southcote--with blindfold eyes; and the odour of an English -Roman Catholic Church is, I think, the most distinctive of them all. -So too its darkness. How unlike the bare lightness of the Room. This -Papistry reminded me of Aunt Jael's front parlour with its perpetual -yellow darkness, its little heathen images and its great wooden god. -Everywhere there were images and idols, though I was disappointed--and -surprised--not to see more sensational symbols of evil. I dared not -begin to _think_ so, though I _felt_ already that this mysterious place -gave (somehow) pleasure. - -"Habitation of devils and cage of every unclean and hateful bird": our -phrases did not fit here,--but perhaps I should soon behold a Sign. -A young man came in and knelt before one of the idols: a mother and -baby-boy, the Mary Mother and the Son of God. I watched him on his -knees before the graven image, Man Vriday on his knees before God -Benamuckee. I had a wild notion of crying aloud; I would then and there -testify to the true God. But I could not--something held me back--the -incense, the holiness, the young man's face, pale and kind and pure.... -I looked away. In the side aisle were two or three old women in prayer. -How like our old-lady Saints were these Papist women! However different -their souls, how alike their clothes and faces! The one nearest me -reminded me at once of my Grandmother. Kneeling with her eyes closed -and her lips moving in prayer, she looked strangely like the dear -devout face I watched each night at bedside prayers. Said Reason: this -is an old Papist sinner, a lost soul, an eldest beautiful daughter of -Antichrist, who hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, whose -sins have reached unto heaven, whose iniquities God hath remembered. -Said Instinct, which came from the Lord: "She is good." (Perhaps she -was one of those two or three Papists who were going to heaven, as -Grandmother said, despite all.) The kind old face, rapt, adoring, -the lips praying as my Grandmother prayed; the pale clean sorrowful -young man too; above all, the rich sacramental stillness--these -things _of course_ were wrong. In the swifter more intuitive way I -knew that they were right, and that _I_ was wrong. I was baffled; and -frightened. These impressions come back to me dimmed maybe, or rather, -over-clarified by the notions of later years; but however vaguely and -childishly, they are what I surely felt. I had come into this place to -commit sin: I knew now that I was committing sin by having come here in -such a spirit. I had known it was sacrilege to hold communion with the -evil thing; now the sacrilege seemed to be in the mood in which I had -come here. For Papist temple or no, God was somewhere here. The dark -incensed holiness of this unholy place was sapping my faith and will. I -must fly. - -And my revenge? I had forgotten that. I slunk out feebly, fleeing from -the church and fleeing too from new thoughts I dare not think. I ran to -stop myself thinking. - -There was no alternative but home. They must be wondering where I was, -searching perhaps. They would be anxious; Aunt Jael's conscience, I -hoped, would be smiting her. It was already near dusk when I slipped -through the Lawn gates. When I reached the door my fear grew again; but -I was too tired to wander further. Beatings or no beatings, I would -go into Aunt Jael's own front room, curl myself up in the armchair; -the place was so strictly forbidden that she would never dream of -searching for me there. The key, as always, stood in the door; mean -and purposeful temptation. It was not far from supper-time, and with -the blind drawn the room was pretty well dark. I lay back in the -armchair and looked around me at the yellow darkness, at the great oak -cupboard, the blanched plants in their row of saucers on the floor, -the walls covered with spears and clubs, the mantelpiece littered with -gods. There straight ahead, high on his walnut whatnot, the great idol -blinked down at me. - -Here, here was my revenge! The notion stormed me. Dare I? Dare I go -down on my knees and worship the graven image? 'Twas a fine way of -getting even: to kneel on the floor of her sacred room, and there -perform that idolatry which was for her the nameless sin, through even -talking of which today's trouble had begun. It would be getting even -with God too. If He allowed cruelty and injustice to go on, if He let -me be treated as I was, if He failed to deal fairly and faithfully -between Aunt Jael and me, if He came short in His duty to Himself and -myself; then in my turn I would fail in my duty to Him, I would break -His commandments. From the second the notion came, I knew I should -obey; though it puzzled me to hear what seemed to be the Tempter's -voice speaking for the second time today with the voice of God. To give -the Right every chance, and as a sop to fear, I would count a slow and -impartial thirty-seven. If at the end of my count the desire to sin was -still there, I should have no choice but to obey: the deed must have -been predestined, foreordained. Slowly I counted, trying desperately -not to influence the decision, and keeping an even balance between -wickedness and fear: ... thirty-five ... thirty-six ... thirty-seven. -Yes. The idol still leered invitation; worship him I must. Yet fear -numbed me as I sank on my knees; so I made this pitiful pretence, that -I was only pretending to do it, not really performing idolatry, but -just making believe that I was. (In a way this was true.) - -Aloud I piped feebly in faint shameful voice: "O-o-o-o Benamuckee," -but dare not face the idol yet. In my heart I screamed, "O God, God, -I'm not doing this _really_. Strike me not dead, show no vengeance, -spare me, O Lord. 'Tis all make-believe, that I'm worshiping this idol. -Thou knowest it. Spare me, spare me!" Every second I expected some -dread sign, waited God's stroke. Surely it must come. Here was I--a -Christian child, Saint of Saints, dedicated to preach the gospel to the -heathen, who in their blindness bowed down to wood and stone--doing -the self-same thing, and with no blindness for an excuse. Jehovah -would bare His terrible right arm in one swift gesture of supreme -revenge--lightning, thunder-bolt, death--only let the stroke come -quickly! I waited through a moment of abject fear. Nothing happened; -nothing. Was God--? I dare not ask myself the question I dared not -formulate. - -The first moment passed. I grew less fearful. I grew bold. I felt -confident in the instinct that had prompted me, morbidly delighted with -the quality of my sin, mighty in its importance and in my own. I felt -I was the central spot in the universe: all the worlds were standing -still to gaze upon my wickedness. God did nothing. He gave no sign. I -took courage; I abandoned all pretence that I was pretending, and flung -myself prostrate on the carpet. - -"O-o-o-o-Benamuckee! O-o-o-o-Benamuckee!" with all the fervour of true -prayer. - -Still no sign. By now I was not afraid, but rather disappointed. Why -had the Omniscient and Omnipotent left me unpunished, unreproved, -unscathed? Swiftly the answer rushed to my brain--I counted a desperate -thirty-seven, but the notion stuck--He gave no heed because He so -utterly despised me. He saw nothing in me but a miserable play-acting -little worm, too mean even for punishment. It was true, and in the same -moment I despised myself. "O-o-o-o" died lamely on my lips. As I got up -from my knees I dared not look around me for fear some one was watching -my folly and shame. Had anybody seen? And what harm had I done to Aunt -Jael, the source of all my misery, the real author of all my folly? -None. First by going into a house of idolatry, and now by performing it -myself, I was wreaking no hurt on her, while imperilling my own eternal -soul. I was a fool. - -Then came the day's third notion. Cupboard, cupboard!--rifle it! Open, -look, steal! This massive piece of oak excelled the physic cupboard in -mystery, while equalling it in Aunt Jael's affections. Its contents -were largely unknown: I knew it housed a jar of ginger, and in -benignant mood Aunt Jael would make it yield a box of Smyrna figs, from -which she doled me one or two for senna's sake--as dainty supplement or -shy substitute. Like the door of the room itself, the door of the rich -cupboard stood always key in lock. Once before I had reached this point -of handling the key; today, the day of many sins, I took the one step -further, and opened to my gaze a new world of jars, pots, boxes and -bags. I opened my campaign on a jar of French plums, the jar massive -stone and broad-necked, the plums large black and luscious. I had -eaten perhaps my sixth (one of my unlucky numbers), when--a sound--and -I half dropped the jar in fright. The door, there was a noise at the -door; the handle turned, it was opening. An opening door is the thief's -nightmare; I dared not get up from my knees. The noise ceased; I -peered through the darkness. Then the atoms of _seen_ atmosphere that -sometimes fill a half-darkened room played me a cruel trick. They -shaped into a great leering face--half Aunt Jael, half Benamuckee;--it -peered round the door, it mocked, it sneered. I was petrified with -fear, and for something to hold clutched fiercely at the stone jar. Was -the face real? Look, it was fading away. Then, without any manner of -doubt, the door softly shut. So the face was real, and I knew its owner. - -What new tortures would she find to meet the score I was running up? -Why had she withdrawn? Ah, she had gone for the ship's rope, was coming -back to give me the last flogging of all, the one that would kill -me. A few minutes passed. As in the Papist chapel, and again during -my idol-worship, I waited for a great something to happen. Nothing -happened. I attended a sign. No sign came. - -I must venture forth; sooner or later I had to face the music. I had no -stomach left for plums. I put the jar back, locked the cupboard door, -and stole softly out into the hall. Far away along the passage I could -see Mrs. Cheese bustling about in the kitchen; it must be supper-time. -She was still in the house therefore; she had ignored her notice and -survived the _mêlée_ in which I had seen her last. I turned the key -softly behind me, then stole to the house front-door, which I noisily -opened and shut, to pretend I had just come in. - -I walked straight into the dining-room. - -Aunt Jael _smiled_. I had foreseen many things, but not this. She said -nothing. This proved that the face at the door was hers. A grim smile. - -"At last!" said my Grandmother. "It was wrong to run away and scare us -like this. I'll talk to you afterwards upstairs. Have your supper now, -as you've had no tea. Then to bed." - -I ate. Aunt Jael sat and smiled. A grim smile. - -Upstairs in my bedroom Grandmother asked me where I had been. "I -walked about the town" satisfied her. She rebuked my initial sin in -encouraging Mrs. Cheese, my second in insulting Aunt Jael, my third -in running away; she anointed my sores, first on the ear, second on -the calf, third on the shoulder where the first ruffianly stroke had -fallen; she prayed with me, and said good-night. - - * * * * * * * - -Alone in bed I went over the day's events: from porridge pan to -plums, from lumps to Aunt Jael's smile. Suddenly, causelessly in the -way one finds in a dream lost objects whose hiding place is long -forgotten--I saw the stone cover of the plum jar lying in the middle of -the front-room carpet. Remembrance followed vision, and I knew I had -hastily put the jar away without it. At all events the cover must be -restored; if by any wild chance the face at the door had not been Aunt -Jael's this tell-tale object would anyhow give me away if she should -find it; if the face _were_ hers the cover would be fine "evidence." - -I got up. I always lay awake till after midnight; Aunt Jael and -Grandmother were long ago in bed. The day's horrible excitements had -made me more cowardly than usual. The darkness frightened me, the -creaking stairs frightened me, my conscience frightened me. Shapes -loomed everywhere. The pillar at the foot of the banisters towered down -on me like some avenging ghost. At last I reached the front-room door; -I turned the key slowly and carefully; it clanged unpiteously in the -silence. I peeped in. The moonlight piercing through the drawn blind -lit up ghoulishly the god's evil face. I stared a moment; his features -_moved_; and I fled in frantic terror. - -Though the object I sought was but a couple of yards away, I could not -for all the world have dared a single step nearer. I shut the door -and, praying fervently all the way, crept up to bed again. I would go -and pick up the cover of the jar first thing in the morning; Aunt Jael -never went in till after breakfast; the daylight I could dare. - - - - -CHAPTER VII: THE END OF THE WORLD - - -All night I did not sleep. Conscience busy with the day past and fear -anxious for the day ahead gave me quite enough to think about, and I -was feverish and overwrought. As soon after daylight as I dared I set -forth downstairs. It was early enough for me to retrieve the tell-tale -object before Aunt Jael was astir and light enough for me to brave Lord -Benamuckee. At the foot of the stairs I met Aunt Jael, fully dressed, -nearly two hours before ordinary time; smiling. - -"Good morning, child. You're up betimes." - -I did not dare a _tu quoque_, but uttered a feeble tale about helping -Mrs. Cheese to clean the boots, Friday being her busiest day. - -Aunt Jael, by a singular coincidence, had risen in the same helping -spirit, and the two of us burst upon the astonished Mrs. Cheese in -the midst of her first matutinal movements. Though I was by now quite -certain that the face at the door had been Aunt Jael's, this did not -prevent my wishing to restore the jar-cover to its place. It was -preparing for the best, so to speak, on the faint off-chance that I -was deluded. Meanwhile her smile prepared me for the worst. It was -more complex than a blow, for it portended blows to come and added to -their evil charm by heralding them afar off. Aunt Jael's floggings had -at least this merit, that as a rule they came suddenly; the stick was -across my back before I knew where I was. - -I walked out of the kitchen, straight through to the front room door. -Before touching the handle, I took a glance down the length of the -hall. Yes, there she stood at the kitchen door, watching me like a -hawk. At breakfast, hope pointed out one more chance. I would gobble -down my food, and essay a dash for my objective just as I was leaving -for school. I ate as fast as I could; she at once ate faster. I got -up, she got up too. There was no chance, and she even saw me to the -house-door as I set out for school. In the game we were playing, no -word was spoken. Her weapon was her smile, which was the proof too that -she was winning. - -On my way to school, as I thought now of this latest menace, now of -yesterday's deeds, I admitted that here at last was a case when I -_deserved_ punishment. "I hate you"--entering a House of Sin, and -approving it almost--breach of the third commandment--common theft--a -white lie to Grandmother as to where I had been--what an awful record -for one day! Truly I was a queen of sinners. Perhaps God saw fit to -humble me in the exaltation of my sin by scorning direct vengeance -Himself (three times I had waited for the sign), and had chosen as the -vehicle of His vengeance Aunt Jael, my every-day inglamorous tyrant. In -any case vengeance was certain; the sultry thunder-weather of the new -day seemed to announce it. - -Soon after I got to school, it began to grow dark, then very dark. It -was one of those rare occasions when the pitch-black of utter darkness -falls in the day-time; I only remember one other in nearly fifty years. -Miss Glory wondered; Miss Salvation exclaimed; we children cowered. I -alone had an inkling of what the portent really betokened. It was the -Sign. Now that I felt certain once again that the moment of my doom was -at hand, all the exquisite extreme fear of yesterday came back. - -It was swiftly too dark to read. Panic set in. All the children, from -both classes, clustered round Glory. She, not Salvation, was the refuge -and strength which instinct pointed out on this Last Day. The situation -was worthy of her prophet's soul: to her was assigned the awful honour -of ushering in Eternity, and announcing the sure signs of the beginning -of the end. She stood up, gaunt, prophetic, towering far above the -children who clustered round her, waved one hand towards the heavens, -and chanted forth: - -"The End, little children, is here! Fear not! Repent! 'And the fourth -angel sounded and the third part o' the sun was smitten, and the third -part o' the moon and the third part o' the stars; so as the third part -o' them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part uv it, and -the night likewise.' The End is here! The bottomless pit is opened, -then cometh forth smoke out o' the pit, and the sun and the air are -darkened. Out o' the smoke come great locusts upon the earth, great -locusts--" Some of the children shrieked. - -Now at one stride came utter darkness. Salvation fell on her knees in -a corner apart, yelling and howling to the Lord to save her. "O Lord, -Lord, remember us as is chosen, remember, Lord. Smite the ungodly, -Lord, smite 'em all, but spare the righteous, spare the righteous! -Strike the goats with thy angur, but zave the pore sheep; smite the -zinners, but zave Thy own Zaints! Oh, aw, ow! Zave, Lord, zave!" - -While this pitiable object yelled away, and the children cried, Miss -Glory's solemn voice chanted on, awaiting God's stroke. I the Papist, -the idolater, the liar, the thief--this visitation was for _me_. And if -it was the end of the whole world too, as I believed, I was the cause, -and I should be the first victim. - -"Plagues, locusts, scorpions, the pit, the great tribulation! Life is -death, me children: _'tis one long prercession o' death beds_. Listen, -hearken. First the darkness, now 'tis the thunders and lightin's that -is at hand. Watch, oh, my children, watch; pray and fear not. 'Tis the -end o' the Worrld, I tell 'ee, the end o' the Worrld." And all the -children clutched at her in a frightened desperate ring, so that they -should all go to heaven or hell together. I could just distinguish the -group a few feet away; it looked in the darkness like a swarm of giant -insects. Miss Salvation was pleading and howling away for a heaven to -herself, and hell for all folk else. Still I waited; the slowness of -God's stroke was half its terror. It was too hard to bear. - -Then, far more suddenly than it came, the darkness lifted. With -returning light came confidence. I breathed freely. Once again respite. -Fear, prime instigator of goodness, lost his hold as the shadows faded. -I began to _expect_ escape; to think, after so many favours, that I was -privileged, and could take the risk of wrongdoing. I was a chartered -libertine. - -When I got back to Bear Lawn before dinner, no sign of Aunt Jael. There -was still a chance then to put things right if it was not too late. I -stole into the front room. There, in the middle of the floor, just as -I had seemed to see it in bed, lay the stone jar-cover. Good fortune -once again. After all Aunt Jael could know nothing. Those smiles were -innocent; their menace must have been born of my disordered mind. -Anyway, here was yet another stroke of luck. But, alas, these perpetual -escapes emboldened me. Fear is the guardian of virtue, safety the -guide to sin. God's repeated forgivenesses for my sins inspired in me -security rather than gratitude: a feeling that I could sin safely. - -So why not another French plum? Only just one,--or two. Before fixing -the cover on the jar, it was natural enough just to taste. I knelt down -to open the cupboard. I tilted the heavy jar to look down into it and -make my choice. In a second I dropped it with a wild frenzied shriek, -wrung from the depths of my heart. Staring at me from inside the jar, -painted there in great letters of shining fire, lay the Sign: - - - THOU GOD SEEST ME. - - -The King of Terrors had got hold of me, and I shrieked and shrieked -again. I writhed on the floor like a wild thing, clasping now my side, -now my knees and again my forehead in all the pitiful gestures of -terror. I cut my hand against the broken fragments of the jar that -lay scattered on the floor. I licked at the blood. Now the air seemed -filled with those awful letters, in blood-red capitals everywhere. -I shut my eyes: against the blackness the letters stood forth more -bright and terrible than ever: THOU GOD SEEST ME. He saw, the Almighty -saw. God had given me rope and I had hanged myself. It had needed this -miracle to bring me to a sense of my sins: this Sign whereby the Lord -God wrote with His own finger in letters of fire in the plum-jar; the -earthen vessel of my sin. This was but the beginning of terrors. "Tis -the End o' the World, I tell 'ee, the End o' the World," rang my brain. -I waited the next sign: a stealthy sound--the door, the door!--then -again that face, leering, mocking, horrible. It was Aunt Jael--no, it -was Benamuckee--it changed again, it was the Devil himself! I fainted -away. - -In the "mental illness" that followed I came near to losing my life -and nearer still to losing my reason. For many days I was unconscious, -and then for long weeks I lay in bed under my Grandmother's loving -care. In my delirium I must have told her everything. Sometimes I can -recall that fevered time; it comes back to me in the swift evanescent -way that one remembers a dream long afterwards, and it is one long -hideous nightmare. I live again those dark delirious days when I knew -myself for a lost soul flying in terror from God, the Devil, the Pope, -Aunt Jael, Benamuckee and Eternity, who menaced me in turn with their -various and particular terrors, in all the formless frightfulness of -dreams. The pursuit was everlasting. An evil black shadow prowled -close at my heels with pitiless, unbroken stride. The face, which -kept forcing me against my will to turn round to look at it as I ran, -changed from time to time. First I thought my pursuer was Aunt Jael, -brandishing a huge stick studded with thorns and spikes of inhuman -size. As I looked, hate of the coarse old face rose within me: then -the face changed, I thought, into God's; stern, just and terrible, -seeking me out to stifle the wicked hate in my heart. Now again it was -the Pope, horned and horrible, seeking to avenge my sacrilege in his -temple, and now Benamuckee, hastening to devour me for having repented -of my idolatry and deserted his shrine. I ran, it seemed, for ever. I -had no strength left, and fear alone worked my weary limbs. Now the -face was formless: a black shapeless mass without limbs or features -was pursuing me. He was the grimmest of them all, and followed for -ever and ever. I knew the formless face; it was the last worst terror, -Eternity Himself! Sometimes, as my Grandmother told me long afterwards, -I shrieked in my delirium till my voice failed me and I could shriek no -more. - -Perhaps it was at such moments that the dream changed. I thought that -I was God, with all the labour and responsibility of creation upon -my soul. Every clod of earth that went to make the world I had to go -and fetch from some far-away corner in utmost Space; I staggered with -them, in it seemed a million journeys, to the central place where with -infinite labour I had to piece them all together one by one. When I -came to making the first man, my conscience--God's conscience--smote -me: "Think and ponder well: if you fashion but one man, it is you who -must bear the guilt for all the awful sorrows and wretchedness of the -millions of men who will come after, it is you who will be responsible -for all the agony of eternal life you are conferring upon a new race." -I shut my ears to the voice (Who is God's conscience?--the Devil?), -hardened my heart, and created mankind. Then as I beheld his fall, and -all the unhurrying centuries of woe and pain and cruelty and sorrow -that followed, and knew that every one of those creatures I had called -forth was damned into everlastingness without hope of happiness or -death; suddenly on me too, on me the Lord God, there fell the terror -of the Everlasting. All the fear I knew so well as Mary Lee was now a -hundred times intensified when I was God. I too, the Almighty, was a -victim on the wheel of Space and Time; and as my brain pictured the -awful horrible loneliness that would face me for ever watching the -birth and death of all the stars and half-a-million worlds, and knowing -there was no escape, I made a wild despairing attempt to fling myself -headlong over the edge of Space and commit soul-murder if I could. I -flung myself over what seemed to be the margin of the universe; I was -falling, falling--then arms restored me;--and Grandmother saved me just -in time, and put poor delirious brain-sick little God back into bed. - -I was in bed for many weeks; it was three or four months before I went -back to school. The permanent effect of my illness was an increased -nervousness I have never shaken off. To this day, whenever a door opens -suddenly without warning, my heart stands still, and try as I may not -to see it, the vision of a cruel mocking face comes back. The most -immediate effect was that I became a "better" child. My Grandmother's -daily gentleness and sacrifice during those long long days, made me -resolve to be more like her; and I prayed God fervently to make me so. -I saw too, for all Aunt Jael's provocations and harsh treatment, that I -had been wrong and wicked. I numbered my sins one by one and repented -of each and all. A miracle had been wrought to save me: the finger of -the Almighty had sketched in letters of flame the reminder that _HE -SAW ME_. He had intervened miraculously and directly, to secure my -spiritual state. I determined to be worthy of this signal proof of -God's special favour. By a sacrifice not easy to exaggerate I managed -to see that Aunt Jael might have been God's "instrument" throughout: -perhaps the idea was more possible since now, during my recovery, she -treated me far better than at any time before: kept a sharp hold on her -tongue, indulged in no recriminations or abuse, and bought me a bottle -of barley-sugar. I saw nothing more of that curious mocking smile that -had helped to haunt me into delirium. Once or twice I thought she had -a guilty look, especially once when Grandmother made some reference to -the plum-jar. Was it possible? Never. For if so, _how_? No; it was the -Lord's doing. - -Mrs. Cheese had left. I gathered from Grandmother that there had -been a stormy scene, Mrs. Cheese accusing Aunt Jael of directly and -deliberately causing my illness, and Aunt Jael ordering Mrs. Cheese out -of the house then and there. She refused to go till she had helped my -Grandmother to see me through the worst days. - -In the stead of Mrs. Cheese arose a dim unapostolic succession of -fickle and fleeting bondswomen. Most of them were Saints. All of -them quarrelled with Aunt Jael. Their average sojourn with us was -perhaps ten months, which in those stable and old-fashioned days would -equal (say) two weeks in this era of quick-change kitchen-maids and -kaleidoscopic cooks. - -There was Prudence, rightly so-called, for although she skimmed each -morning the milk the dairyman had left overnight, she cautiously -concealed her jugful of cream in the remotest corner of the least-used -scullery cupboard. Aunt Jael, however, was on the watch. She thought -the milk woefully thin, and Prudence's explanations still thinner. Then -one morning she found the prudent one busy at early dawn, spoon in -hand, her little jug half-full; caught in the very act. - -There were Charlotte, Annie, Miriam, Ethel, May, Jane, Sarah, Bessie, -Ann, Mary, the Elizas (two), Kate, Keturah, Deborah, Selina, and Sukie: -I am not sure of their strict order of precedence. Nor do I remember -their life with us half so well as the manner of their leaving it. -The climax came variously. Charlotte told me what I now know to have -been dirty stories. Annie told Aunt Jael herself a very dirty story -indeed--precisely what she thought of her (Aunt Jael); Miriam spat in -her (Aunt Jael's) porridge, Kate when attacked with a shovel hit back -with a floury rolling-pin, Bessie stole a shilling, Ann (Anglican) -giggled during prayers, Jane--or may be this was Sarah--brought unsaved -"followers" into the house, Selina did no work; one of the Elizas -swore and the other was a Baptist. May and Keturah were fetched away -by indignant parents. Deborah disappeared. One only died a natural -death--Mary, my namesake, who left us to get married. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII: SATAN COMES TO TAWBOROUGH - - -"Yes," said Miss Glory shaking her head gravely one Tuesday afternoon. -"I fear 'tis true. Satan hisself is coming to this town." - -"Oh," said Aunt Jael, "I should have thought he was here already." - -"The ole Devil hisself," continued Glory, staring far into space and -ignoring Aunt Jael. - -"Now what do you think you mean?" snapped my Great-Aunt. - -"She means the ole Devil hisself, which is what she said," interposed -Salvation, hoping to raise ill feeling. - -"Peace, sister! All I means is this 'ere. God A'mighty meant us to -travel on our two legs or by the four legs of four-footed beasts. 'Tis -only the Devil as can want to go any other way. We know 'ausses, an' -donkeys, and mules too for the matter o' that, but when it comes to -carriages and truck loads o' folk being pulled along as quick as a -flash of lightning by an ole artifishul animal belchin' up steam and -fire, like the n'orrible pit it is, 'tis some'at a thought too queer -for an ole Christian woman like myself and for God A'mighty too I -should think. No wonder there are orwis actsodents--act o' God, _I_ -calls 'un. I've heard tell of these 'ere railway trains in vorrin -parts, but I never did think we should see 'un in North Devun. But 'tis -true I fear; Salvation went across the bridge to see with 'er own two -eyes, and saw a pair o' lines as the wicked thing runs along on, and -bills and notices all braggin' about it. There didn't used to be no -sich things, and there didn't ought to be now; 'tis all the Devil's -works and there'll be a judgment on them as 'elps 'em, a swift an' -n'orrible judgment, you mark my words." - -"Stuff and nonsense!" cried my Aunt. "'Ee may both like to know that -I sold that field o' mine, down beyond the meadow, to this railway -company. There! Got a middling good price for it too, as all the -Meeting will soon learn from yer two wagging tongues. Judgment indeed! -Poor ignorant old fool. 'Tis a sensible invention, and the Lord permits -it. Be you daft? 'Ee just show me a scripture that's against railway -trains!" - -"An' 'ee just show me one that's _for_ 'un!" cried Salvation. - -"I'm sorry, Jael," said Glory, ignoring her sister as always, "but I -assure 'ee I didn't know when I spake they solemn words. 'Tis a very -seldom thing for me to speak out, but I feels deep. Even if 'tissen the -spirit of Satan that's moving in these 'ere railway trains, what's the -_good_ of 'un anyway? Will the worrld be any happier, will there be a -single sinner the more as repenteth? Will there be less poor folk in -the worrld and less souls going to 'Ell? You wake up in a hundred years -and see if these 'ere railway trains 'ave brought the kingdom 'o God on -earth! There's no two ways about it, the worrld is getting wickeder, -and these new invenshuns a sign. Things bain't what they used to be, -and they'm gettin' worse." - -"That field, Sister Jael," added Salvation, with gleaming teeth, "that -field you sold was a field of blood. Alcedama! There'll be a judgment, -a n'orrible judgment, you mark my words." - - * * * * * * * - -A few weeks later Aunt Jael heaped coals of fire by asking the Sisters -to accompany us to the official ceremony of the Devil's arrival in -Tawborough. All, I suppose, who had sold land to the Company were -invited to this function. Aunt Jael had a white ticket giving right -of admission to the uncovered platform at which the Devil would draw -up--"the Company's railway station" as the ticket grandly called it. It -was a preliminary trip from Crediton to Tawborough, before the general -opening for traffic: a kind of dress rehearsal. - -The day, July 12th, 1854, stands clear in my memory. It was the chief -purely secular event of my childhood, the only time before I was a -grown woman that I went to any assembling together of people other than -the Lord's. I marvelled to see how numerous they were, and I remember -the dim suspicion that haunted me throughout the day, and never -completely left me afterwards, that perhaps, despite Brother Brawn, not -quite _all_ of them were being 'urld to 'Ell. They did not seem aware -of it, and the moments when I did not doubt their fate were filled with -pity. - -The day was to be treated as a holiday. Glory was persuaded by Aunt -Jael to announce that there would be no school. I was up betimes, -wakened by the bells of the parish church, which rang a merry peal, -and by the firing of guns. It was one of those fresh glorious summer -mornings which promise delight, and do not leave the memory. Soon -after breakfast the Clinkers arrived in a carriage. Glory with brand -new bacon-rind strings to her bonnet, Salvation ominously cheerful, -confident of some awful disaster. Grandmother, Aunt Jael and I were -ready waiting, and the five of us drove to the scene of action. I felt -elated and important, perched up on the box, as we drove slowly along -streets thronged with crowds in their Sunday best. Every one appeared -in high spirits; I conjectured that those who shared Miss Glory's -gloomy views must all have stayed at home. The crowds became denser as -we approached the railway station, a kind of long wooden platform with -a high covering. It looked like a very odd top-heavy sort of shed. A -few feet below the platform and close beside it ran two parallel metal -lines on which the Thing would arrive. A high triumphal arch covered -with green-stuff and laurel leaves and bedecked with flags, the first -I had ever seen, English, French and Turkish ("Our Allies": There was -a war, said some one), spanned the line. The platform was crowded with -people, and very gay and worldly they looked. Our little company of -Saints tried to cling together, and I held tight to my Grandmother's -hand, but the crowd was too close all round for us to look as separate -as we tried to feel. Quite near was a body of gentlemen dressed in -ermine and rich surprising costumes and furs and wigs and cocked -hats, and holding mysterious gold and silver weapons. Some, said my -Grandmother, were the Mayor and Corporation, others were Oddfellows and -Freemasons. I had not the least idea what these words might mean, and -was too busy staring to ask which were which. My heart was filled with -envy of those portly gentlemen and their gorgeous robes; a hankering -envy as real as any sentiment I have ever felt. - -As the time of arrival drew near the excitement and jostling on the -platform increased. One lady fainted; "A jidgment," commented Miss -Salvation. - -I overheard some saying the train would never arrive, others that It -would be hours or even days late; others again that It would arrive to -time and confound all doubters. Excitement rose to a pitch of frenzy -when two galloping horsemen drew up at the platform and announced that -within five minutes It would be here. Only half of It however would -arrive, as the back portion had somehow got detached and left behind -at Umberleigh: "The Devil losing his tail," said Miss Salvation. When -about two minutes later a tall gentleman near us shouted excitedly that -he sighted It afar off, there was such a tiptoeing and straining and -squashing and peering that I could have cried with vexation at being so -small. My Grandmother lifted me for a moment, and I had a perfect view -of the monstrous beast as it drew near. The first carriage was belching -fire and smoke from a funnel--just as Glory had said--and the carriages -behind it, brown scaly looking things, were like the links in a -hell-dragon's tail. The fear seized me for a swift moment that perhaps -after all she was right. Then the people broke into deafening cheers -and hurrahs, and waved handkerchiefs and funny little flags. Aunt -Jael and Grandmother stood impassive, but excited a little in spite -of themselves. Glory and Salvation set their mouths, and determined -to hold out. As the great engine puffed past us I was trembling with -excitement. It was the purest magic. - -When the Thing stopped we were about in the middle of its length, -opposite the second carriage, or link of the tail. We were all pressed -back to make room for the great people who were emerging. The majority -were gentlemen, a few grandly and mysteriously dressed like ours, more -Corporations and Oddfellows and Freemasons I supposed, but most of -them, including some very angry-looking gentlemen, whispered to be His -Worship the Mayor of Exeter and the Aldermen of that ancient city, in -plain clothes. Alas, all their toggery had been left behind in the -back half of the train which had been shed at Umberleigh. - -A very stylish gentleman dressed in black came forward in front of -everybody else: Chairman of the Company, I heard whispered--whatever -that might mean. He shook hands with several of our dressed-up -gentlemen, and then one of the latter, a fat man with a wig and white -curls, read to the stylish gentleman from a long roll of paper a very -long and very dry speech congratulating him on bringing the railway -train to Tawborough and describing his person in very flattering -terms. The stylish gentleman made a speech (without roll of paper) in -response; it was much shorter, but about as dry. - -Then some of the dressed-up members of our side came forward in a body -and poured out corn and oil and wine, very solemnly. When the wine had -been spilled, a solemn man dressed like a high priest (the Provincial -Grand Chaplain of the Order of Freemasons, I discover forty years later -from the files of a local paper) lifted up his hands and prayed over -the Oblation. So people who were not Saints prayed! - -The next thing I remember was our dressed-up people and the visitors -moving off the platform to form themselves into a procession to march -round the town, and all the rest of us repairing to witness it. In the -stampede that ensued Aunt Jael tripped over a beam that was lying on -the platform, and went flying. - -"A jidgment," began Salvation, triumphant at last; when she tripped on -the beam and went flying too--which _was_ a "jidgment." - -We were only just in time to get a good view of the procession, as it -took Aunt Jael and Miss Salvation some time to limp along. All the -Mayors and Oddfellows and Corporations and Freemasons were there, -carrying symbols and rods and devices; there were soldiers, Mounted -Rifles and officers gay with swords; shipwrights in white trousers, and -clergymen in black; uninteresting looking people in ordinary clothes -who had no more right to be there, I thought, than I had; and at -least four bands of music. The glamour of martial music and brilliant -costumes raised me to a pitch of ecstasy and envy; from that moment -blare and pomp filled a great place in my hankerings and hopes. - -After the procession we took a walk round the streets, which were -crowded with people from all North Devon. There were flags at nearly -every window. A great triumphal arch was erected in the middle of the -bridge inscribed "Success to the North Devon Railway." The High Street -was one series of festoons, from upper storey windows of one side to -upper storey windows of the other. One said "God Save the Queen," -another "Prosperity to our Town," and another which puzzled me a good -deal, hanging from the windows of what I now know to have been the -local newspaper office, declared in huge red bunting capitals - - - THE PRESS, - THE RAILROAD OF CIVILIZATION. - - -We got home to dinner tired and excited. Glory and Salvation left -to attend a Tea in the North Walk given by the tradespeople to six -hundred poor people, amongst whom the Clinkers had hastened to number -themselves. - -"It may be the Lord's way after all," said Miss Glory. "God moves in a -mysterious way." - -Aunt Jael and Grandmother had been asked to take tickets (not gratis) -to a great banquet in the Corn Market, but whether for economy's or -godliness' sake, decided not to go. I gather from the old local paper -before me that they did not miss much; for despite the giant "railway -cake," a wonderful affair covered with viaducts and trains and bridges -all made of icing sugar, and despite the vicar who ably "performed the -devotions of the table," the dinner is candidly described as "poor" and -the caterer roundly trounced for her failure. - - -Soon the railway passed into the realm of ordinary accepted things. -The Meeting was at first a little exercised about its attitude. A few, -including Brother Brawn, agreed with Glory and Salvation that it was -the Devil's works. The majority, including my Grandmother, took the -pious and common-sense view that since the Lord permitted the thing it -must be His Will, and prayed that he would bless and sanctify it to His -own use and glory. - - - - -CHAPTER IX: AND SO DOES UNCLE SIMEON - - -August the First, 1855, was the seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael. - -Moreover, as the Old Maids of Tawborough were seven, six other ladies -completed their seventieth year on this self-same day, to wit: Miss -Sarah Tombstone, Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny -Baker, with the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. When Aunt Jael -decided on the astonishing plan of a great dinner party to celebrate -the day, by the very nature of things the Other Six figured at the head -of her list of prospective guests. - -Who else should be invited? This question was lengthily discussed with -Grandmother, discussed of course in Aunt Jael's way; i. e. she decreed, -Grandmother agreed. The party was to be a representative one, with a -worldly element and a spiritual element, a rich element and a poor -element, a this-world element and a next-world element. There were four -main divisions: first, the Other Six; second The Saints (selected); -third, old friends; and fourth--a grudging fourth--relations. - -Of the Saints, Aunt Jael invited Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, the Lord's -instrument for her own spiritual regeneration forty years before; -Brother Brawn and Brother and Mrs. Quappleworthy; and Brother Quick, -he who had once proposed to young Jael Vickary, then the Belle of -Tawborough--though Grandmother always averred that his shot at Aunt -Jael was at best a ricochet. - -After much discussion and more prayer, the Lord guided Aunt Jael's mind -to but one solitary Old Friend; a Mr. Royle, churchwarden at the Parish -Church, the only friend dating from Jael Vickary's young unsaved days -with whom she had kept up, if indeed decorous chats in the market when -they chanced to meet might be so considered; for he never came to the -house. - -Relations were a simpler problem. There were no close ones except the -elder brother of my Great-Aunt and Grandmother, my unknown Uncle -John, who was too rheumaticky to travel down from London even if Aunt -Jael had had a mind to invite him or he to accept her invitation; -and my mother's sister and Grandmother's only surviving child, Aunt -Martha of Torribridge, with her husband, Uncle Simeon Greeber, whom -I had never seen; there was some feud between Aunt Jael and Uncle -Simeon, dating from before I can remember, sufficiently formidable to -prevent his crossing our threshold for many years, although he lived -but eight miles away. Aunt Martha, however, paid us fairly frequent -visits. She was a pale thin, indeterminate-looking woman, who impressed -me so little that I was often unable to conjure up her face in my -imagination; a vague, tired face, in which Grandmother's gentleness -had run to feebleness. When her husband was unpleasant with her, which -according to Aunt Jael was pretty often, she submitted feebly; when -Aunt Jael spent the whole of one of her afternoon visits to Bear Lawn -abusing her, she listened feebly. For this one occasion, however, Aunt -Jael decided to sacrifice her dislikes to that ancient law by which the -family must be represented at all major festivals and feeds. For some -time, too, Aunt Martha had been insisting, with all the feebleness of -which she was capable, on Mr. Greeber's longing for a reconciliation -with his revered aunt by marriage. So he too was invited. The only -other askable relative was a niece-in-law of my Grandmother's, -the daughter of old Captain Lee's only sister, now a fat widow of -forty-five, Mrs. Paradine Pratt. She lived over at Croyde, on three -hundred pounds a year of her own; was a Congregationalist, and fond of -cats. - -The final list thus comprised: Old Maids of Tawborough (including the -hostess), seven; Saints, five; Old Friend, one; Relations, three. -Total with Grandmother and myself, eighteen. Never before had such a -multitude assembled within our doors. - -The problems of space and food were next envisaged. The sacred -front-room was to be thrown open; there the guests would be entertained -before and after the meal. Dinner would of course be served in the -back-parlour; by putting the two spare leaves into the table and -tacking a smaller table on at one end, Aunt Jael calculated that there -would be adequate eating-space and breathing-space for all. - -"'Twill be a tight fit though. You, child, will have your meal in the -kitchen." - -"Then so will I," said my Grandmother. - -Aunt Jael was taken aback. She was silent for a moment, casting about -for another unreasonable suggestion with which Grandmother would have -to disagree; the old trick by which she always strove to pretend that -the guilt of cantankerousness was my Grandmother's. - -"Glory, of course, will be in her usual stool in the corner." - -"Now, sister, don't be foolish--" - -"There you go! Disagreeing with everything I say. Whose party is it, -mine or yours?..." - -Miriam--Miriam who used the Great One's porridge plate as spittoon--was -our cook at the time. Sister Briggs, humble little Brother Briggs' -humbler little wife, was called in for the day itself as extra hand. -"Proud to do it, I know," said Aunt Jael, "and glad of the meal -she'll get and the pickings she'll carry away." Aunt Jael held with -no nonsense of class-equality, no "all women-are-equal" twaddle. -Spiritually the Briggses ranked far above unsaved emperors, or kings -who broke not bread. Spiritually, but not socially. So while Brother -Brawn and Sister Quappleworthy were summoned to the seats of the mighty -in the parlour, Sister Briggs, their co-heiress in salvation, came to -the scullery to wash-up at the price of her dinner, a silver shilling -and pickings. - -Vast preparations went forward: a record Friday's marketing, a record -scrubbing and cleaning, a record bustle and fuss. - -The great day dawned. Both armchairs had been removed from the -back-parlour to the front-parlour to increase the table-space in -one and the sitting accommodation in the other. In her familiar -chair, therefore, though in an unfamiliar setting, my Great-Aunt sat -enthroned: robed in her best black silk, crowned with a splendid cap -all of white lace and blue velvet ribbon that I had not seen before, -and armed with that stout sceptre I had seen (and felt) from my youth -up. - -The first arrivals were Aunt Martha and her husband. They came over -early from Torribridge, and had arranged to spend the whole day and -stay the night with us. I was curious to see Mr. Greeber, as I had -never seen an uncle before. Aunt Jael's dislike of him whetted my -curiosity, and also of course prejudiced me in his favour. Any such -preconceived sympathy fled from me the moment I set eyes on him. Can -I have foreseen, half-consciously, that this was the creature to be -responsible for the wretchedest moments and the worst emotions of my -life? Anyhow, I remember with photographic accuracy every look, every -gesture, as he minced through the doorway behind Aunt Martha, springing -softly up and down on the ball of the toe, moving quite noiselessly. -He was a thin little man, narrow shouldered, small-made in every limb. -His face was pallid, without a trace of blood showing in the cheeks. He -had a mass of curious honey-coloured hair, that you would have thought -picturesque, if it had crowned the head of a pretty woman or a lovely -boy. Of the same hue was his pointed little beard. His mouth I did not -specially notice till he began speaking, when he moistened his lips -with his tongue between every few words and showed how pale and thin -and absolutely bloodless they were. His eyes changed a good deal. For a -moment, as when they rested on mine and read there my instant dislike, -they answered with a moment's stare of hard cruelty, such as blue eyes -alone can give; most of the time they rolled shiftily about, chiefly -heavenward. His gestures were exaggerated; he bent his head forward, -poked it absurdly to one side, and gave a sickly smile--intended to -be winning--whenever he spoke. With his soft overdone politeness, his -pointed little beard, his gestures, he looked like the traditional -Frenchman of caricature; except for his eyes, which whether for -the moment cruel or pious, had nothing in common with that amiable -creature. He was unhealthy and unpleasant in some undefined way new to -my experience. Aunt Jael had a sound judgment after all. - -He advanced to greet her, oozingly. - -"Good day, good day, dear Miss Vickary. One rejoices that the Lord has -watched over you these three-score years and ten; one is thankful, -thankful indeed. M'yes. Your kindness, too, in extending one your -invitation--believe me, one will not readily forget it! And you too, -dear Mrs. Lee, one is pleased to see you, to be sure. So this is the -little one! One is well pleased to meet one's little niece." - -He chucked me under the chin, saw the expression in my eyes, and never -tried the playful experiment again. It was hate at first sight, and he -knew it. - -Aunt Jael's voice sounded gruff--and honest--enough after the unctuous -flow. "Well, good day to 'ee, Simeon Greeber, and make yourself -welcome." (Meaning: "You know I dislike you and always shall. Still, -now that for once in a way you are in my house, I shall try to put up -with you.") - -A slight pause, while his eyes wandered piously round the room, -encountering everywhere spears, clubs, tomahawks, idols, charms. "What -interesting objects! Trophies of the Gospel, one may surmise! Why, -surely not, surely not, can that great heathen image in the corner -be the same, the selfsame one, as was brought back by one's dear -late cousin, Immanuel Greeber, Immanuel Greeber of Tiverton, one's -well-loved cousin Immanuel?" - -Benamuckee stared impassively. "Yes," said Aunt Jael. "It is the same." - -"Ah, what a symbol of folly, what a sign of darkness! The field of -foreign labour is, of course, your own special interest in the Lord's -work, both yours and dear Mrs. Lee's, is it not? That is _well_ known." - -"Yes," replied my Grandmother, "as you know, the child here is -dedicated to the Lord's work among the heathen." I puffed inwardly. - -"What an honour, ah, what an honour! For oneself, one confesses, the -home field comes nearest to one's heart; to one's earnest, if humble -endeavours. M'yes. There is sad darkness far away, in the heathen -continents and pagan isles, one knows, one knows: but here in England -among one's nominal Christians, there is, alas, greater darkness still. -Ah, these half-believers, these almost-persuaded Christians!--Once one -was one oneself. So one knows. One was a Baptist, as you know, dear -Sisters; one hardened one's heart against the ministrations of the -Saints. Then one blessed day, the scales fell from one's eyes--one saw -the error of one's ways--and one joined the one true flock." - -I disliked him curiously as he murmured and whispered away in a soft -treacly flow punctuated only by sticky lip-moistenings and heavenward -sniffs; this miracle-man who never ever used the best beloved pronoun -of all the human race. - -His utterance was cut short by new arrivals. Grandmother received them -in the hall, saw to the hat and coat doffing, and ushered them into the -throne-room. I noted the slight variations in my Great-Aunt's manner -as she motioned the different guests to chairs and accepted their -congratulations and good wishes. With Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge she was -regal. - -"Thank 'ee, we are old friends, you and I. Yes, thanks be to the Lord. -I'm well enough. And you? How are 'ee?" - -"I am burdened this morning," he said, with that kingly glance all -round him to see that all his subjects were attentive, which we knew to -herald some pearl of godly epigram. "Yes, I am burdened this morning." - -"Burdened?" echoed Aunt Jael. - -"Burdened?" echoed my Grandmother. - -"Yes, dear sisters. 'He daily _loadeth_ us with benefits.' Psalm -sixty-eight, nineteen." - -This was the old patriarch's immemorial trick: to make some statement -that was certain to provoke query, and then to explain its apparent -paradox by swift quotation from the word of God. A later generation -might think his method crude, his texts subtly irrelevant; but there is -no question that the Saints, including my Grandmother and Great-Aunt, -admired the godly wit and treasured all the texts. So when "the pilgrim -patriarch of Tawborough" came up to me in the corner from which I was -staring at him, I felt a high sense of pleasure and importance. - -"Well, well, and how is this little sapling in the Lord's vineyard?" -Paternally, pontifically, he patted my head. - -"Well enough, thank 'ee," replied my Grandmother for me, "but not -always a good little handmaiden for Him. She likes better to waste -her time sitting and doing nothing than mending her socks or studying -the Word. She could testify by a happier frame of mind and busier -fingers in the house and by speaking more freely of the things of the -Lord. Would you not urge her, Brother, even at this tender age to do -_something_ for the Master?" - -"No, I would not." Query invited, epigram looming ahead. - -"Then what would you do?" asked my Grandmother. - -"I would recommend her to do '_all things_' for the Master. Titus, two, -nine." - -Mr. Royle stumped in, a fat short old man, with a cheerful unsaintly -countenance and a general air of wealth and prosperity that I could -put down to nothing definite except a heavy gold watch chain which -spanned the upper slopes of his enormous stomach. His only rival in -this particular quarter of the body was Mrs. Paradine Pratt. These -two alone, who wandered wearily outside the fold in the darkness of -Congregationalism and the Church of England, had contrived to put on -plenteous flesh. Was there some subtle hostility, I recollect asking -myself, between corpulence and conversion? - -The before-dinner conversation was preoccupied and scanty. Brother -Quappleworthy came alone, as Sister Quappleworthy was "not--ah--too -well." - -The company repaired to the dining-room. Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge -pronounced the Blessing, and we all sat down to do justice to that -mighty meal. How odd this great assembly seemed in our austere -room, now for once looking reasonably well filled; I could see that -the experience was as odd to most of the guests as it was to me. -Great feasts were not within the ordered course of their spare and -godly lives. There was a certain constraint around the table, quite -unmistakable, marked by loud and sudden silences. - -This is how we sat: - - - Aunt Jael - +---------+ - Pentecost Dodderidge| |Mr. Royle - Lucy Clarke | |Fanny Baker - Brother Quick | |Brother Quappleworthy - Aunt Martha | |Keturah Crabb - Uncle Simeon | |Brother Brawn - Salvation | |Sarah Tombstone - Glory | |Mrs. Paradine Pratt - +---------+ - Grandmother - Mary - - -(Note that the masculine element was stronger, both in quality and -quantity, at Aunt Jael's end of the table than at ours. I was put on -the music stool, by my Grandmother's side at the doorway end of the -table, flanked by Glory on the left. Salvation had pleaded for a -place by dear beloved Brother Brawn; Aunt Jael condescended so far -as to place them nearly opposite each other, but Brother Brawn was -too nervous of his exposed right flank to allow his utterances to -be a feast of good things. He could not forget the piece Miss Crabb -had--long ago--bitten out of his beard.) - -It was a royal spread. In the old West Country fashion, of course--no -new-fangled foreign nonsense or London messes. First appeared a great -roast goose, a very queen of geese, turning the scale at fifteen pounds -if an ounce. Her entourage included green peas, a vegetable marrow -with white sauce, gravy, and an onion stuffing beyond the power of -my poor pen to praise. Aunt Jael carved the monster, apportioning of -course the choicest tit-bits to herself, the next choicest to Mr. Royle -and Pentecost Dodderidge, the next choicest to Brother Quappleworthy, -and so on; the quality of your portion varying with your position in -Aunt Jael's esteem. Thus I had a rather gristly piece of leg, and -Miss Salvation some scraggy side-issues with that part more politely -imagined in the mind's eye than mentioned on paper. The second course -was a great squab pie, made on Aunt Jael's own recipe: slices of apple -and second-cooked mutton alternately, six layers deep, a sprinkling -of shredded onion, with plenty of salt and Demerara sugar, pepper -and cloves, a covering of delicious pie-crust. The third meat course -(cold) comprised a fine ham and one of Mrs. Cheese's special beef and -ham rolls covered with bread crumbs and as big as a large polony: with -pickled onions (Aunt Jael's) and pickled plums (Grandmother's), to help -them down. For Sweets, which honest folk call pudding, you could choose -between dear little cherry tartlets, made in our best shell-shaped -patty-pans, all crinkled-edged; or stewed raspberries and black -currants with junket and Devonshire cream, this fourfold alternative -being my choice and (to this day) my own private notion of what they -eat in heaven. On, on the banquet rolled: Cheddar cheese, biscuits, -nuts, pomegranates, and home-made apple ginger. In contrast with Aunt -Jael's closeness and our every-day plain living, this sardanapalan -spread was the more sensational. The drinks were sherry, raspberry -vinegar and water. - -My Great-Aunt was in a rarely serene mood, enthroned far away at the -head of the table, with white-haired Pentecost on her right hand and -bald-headed Mr. Royle on her left. Salvation chewed enjoyingly; the -fork method of picking your teeth at table struck me, uninstructed as -I was, as somehow unsuitable for an important social gathering. She -remarked in a noisy whisper to Glory that it was just as well we'd -begun at last as she was feeling "turrible leer."[1] Mrs. Paradine -panted as she ate; her damp and diminutive handkerchief was applied -incessantly, often only just in time to prevent a trickling on to her -immense bombazine bosom. I spied Uncle Simeon with a higher quality -of curiosity. He knew I was watching him. In return he began craftily -eyeing me when I was looking elsewhere: I pretended I was unaware of -his scrutiny. In this specially feminine habit I was already an adept; -and I feel sure I deceived Uncle Simeon, who stared his fill. When, -however, I took my turn at staring, and he tried the same pretence, he -failed utterly to deceive me, for I could see his eyelids twitch, while -the faintest flush came to his pallid cheeks. - -I cannot pretend to remember much of the conversation, though I could -invent it and be near enough the truth. The awkward silences were still -apparent. My explanation of it is this: that everybody present (for all -but two were Saints) was quite unused to meet together except for godly -discoursings. Though it was the creed they believed (and practised) to -testify of holy things in season and out of season, yet all dimly felt -that today was somehow exceptional, that it was neither necessary nor -suitable to preach to each other over roast goose and squab pie Christ -and Him crucified. Yet what other topics had they? Hence the uneasy -quiet, which the clatter of knives and forks and the orchestration -accompanying Miss Glory's curious methods of absorbing nourishment only -seemed to heighten. What a slobbering and sipping and a spluttering and -a splashing! The liquid mush consisting of tiny morsels of goose-meat -(chopped up by Grandmother) and scraps of soft bread mixed with -stuffing and sauce and soaked in gravy, which she was now administering -to herself with her wooden spoon, offered good scope for her talent; -though being of a greater consistency than her usual goat's milk and -rusks, it did not allow her to display her supreme effects. Even so, -she made herself heard by her far-away hostess. A warning look shot -from the table-head:--"Quieter there, or to the corner yer go!" it said. - -For a moment Glory subsided, but this made the general silence only -more obvious and painful. Aunt Jael realized that though good eating -is the object of a dinner, good talk is the condition of a successful -one. She stooped to conquer, broke the last canon of hostship, and as -the great squab pie was placed before her, praised it blatantly. The -success was instantaneous. Echoes of praise rang up the table. "Ay -indeed!--a fine one that!--you're right, Sister Vickary!"--and what -not. Two tributes distinguished themselves, as you might expect. - -"There's squab pie _and_ squab pie," said Miss Salvation. "This _is_ -squab pie," and, last of all, when every one else had tired of eulogy, -the still small voice: "One wonders if one ever tasted anything one -liked so well." - -Tongues were at last set wagging. Different recipes were discussed -and their respective merits compared. Some thought the mutton should -be fresh, others that second-cooked gave the best flavour; some that -moist white sugar cooked better than Demerara, others that you should -use hardly any sugar at all, as a squab pie wasn't a sweet pie after -all, now was it? Some thought it was, however: the idea of cooking -apples without sugar, mutton or no mutton! Then the puff-paste issue -was raised, and here the gentlemen joined in, as this was a question -of taste rather than technique. Gradually the conversation veered -to the wider topic of food in general; and before long every one -present was exchanging tender confidences in that most intimate form -of self-revelation: "one's" favourite things to eat. Even Grandmother -joined in. I alone said nothing, being under strictest orders "to -be seen and not heard." (I felt the restraint keenly, for I was -proud of my own catalogue, viz:--Devonshire cream, whortleberry jam, -mussels, tripe and treacle; then pancakes, potato-pie (the browned -part), sage stuffing, seed-cake, junket, crab, apple-dumpling, -bread-and-butter-pudding, especially the "outside," brawn, cockles, and -black-currant jam.) - -I must have been reflecting on my own pets rather than hearkening to -the praise of other people's, for the conversation had changed, and -they were discussing "degrees." One of my favourite psalms, the 121st, -_I will lift up mine eyes to the hills_, was described in the Bible as -"A Song of Degrees," and I had always wondered what they were. - -"Degrees, degrees? That means puttin' letters after yer name, does it? -Wull, then"--Salvation fumbled in her reticule, always a veritable -mine of papers, letters, photographs of herself, and other _pièces -d'identité_ (as though she lived under the fear of perpetual arrest) -and produced triumphantly an addressed envelope--"There now!" It was -passed round that all might read this legend: - - - Miss Salvation Clinker, - Sinner Saved by Grace, - High Street, - Tawborough, - N. Devon. - - -"What _splendid_ testimony for the postman, zes I, what _splendid_ -testimony for the postman!" - -"But--" Brother Quappleworthy alone dared a "but," for had not he alone -among the Saints achieved the honour of putting real letters after your -name? He smiled; with maybe a dash of quiet superiority, with just a -seasoning of annoyance, just a nice Christian seasoning, mark you, -nothing more. "But--is that a _real_ degree, sister?" - -"Rale degree? 'Course 'tis: S.S.G.--_Sinner Saved by Grace_. None o' -yer cheap truck: S.S.G.!" - -"Yes, yes; but like B.A. for instance, dear sister?" - -"B.A.? I'm a B.A. too." - -"_You_ a B.A.?" echoed voices. - -"Yes: Born Again!" shouting. - -"Quite so, quite so, please God so are we all. But I am talking of -earthly degrees." - -"Are yer? Wull, I'm a-talking uv 'eavenly ones!" - -"There's B.B. too," put in little Lucy Clarke, nervously seeking to -pour oil on troubled waters, "two B's arter your name, I think it is, -tho' mebbe I'm wrong." - -"Two B's or not two B's!" observed Mr. Royle, and laughed loudly when -he found that no one else did. I wondered why. I doubt if any one -present saw the point except my Great-Aunt and Grandmother and Brother -Quappleworthy. It was many years before I did. - -"Good, sir, good," said the latter worldlily, "a quotation from the -works of Shakespeare, if I mistake not." - -"Shakespeare!" shrieked Miss Salvation, as though uttering some lewd -word, "I'm surprised at 'ee, 'avin' the chick to mention such a -sinner's name in a Christian 'ouse; an 'eathen play-actin' sinner, now -wallerin' in everlastin' torment for his sins." - -"How do _you_ know he is?" asked my Grandmother quietly. - -"And 'ow du 'ee know 'e isn't? A Papis' too." - -Blessed are the peacemakers, so Lucy Clarke tried again. - -"I don't think 'tis B.B. at all after all; 'tis D.D., two D's arter -your name in a manner o' spaikin'." - -"Yes, it's D.D.," said Aunt Jael. "All the big preachers in the -Establishment print it after their names; not but what their preaching -is poor enough. Letters after your name don't put either a tongue into -your head or the knowledge of God into your heart. I've no patience -with D.D.'s." - -"None," echoed the table. - -"Not so," corrected Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge. "It is a great pity there -are so few D.D.'s." - -"Surely not!" exclaimed the table, awaiting pearls. - -"Yes, we want more _D_own in the _D_ust. Psalm one hundred and -nineteen, verse twenty-five. Then we would also have more 'quickened -according to Thy Word.'" - -A pause, forced by the awkward finality of the patriarch's utterance. - -"Er--let me see," said Mr. Royle to Brother Quappleworthy, "you are an -M.A. of the University of Oxford, are you not, sir?" - -"Yes," was the reply, spoken with just a seasoning of pardonable -pride, just a Christian seasoning, mark you, nothing more. "Yes" -(confidentially) "as a matter of fact I am. I took my degree, -second-class honours, in the classics: 'Greats' as we say--" - -"Did yer?" interrogated Salvation (for pride is a deadly sin and a -weed that must be checked, lest it grow apace). "Wull, _I_ took _my_ -degree in summat greater, in God's great Scheme o' Salvation, and _I_ -passed with first-class honners, glory be! Unuvursity uv Oxvurrd eh? My -schoolin' 'as been in the Unuvursity uv _God_!" - - * * * * * * * - -After that I recollect nothing clearly till all the guests, save Uncle -Simeon and Aunt Martha, were gone, and late in the evening we sat -talking in the unfamiliar idol-haunted dusk of the front parlour. I -can feel again as I write the heat of that stuffy August night, and -hear Aunt Jael's and Uncle Simeon's voices engaged in the talk that -is stamped indelibly on my mind. I recall the scene most intimately -when the same external circumstances recur. The heavy-laden atmosphere -of a hot August evening, at that still murmurous moment when twilight -is yielding to night--the smell, the touch, the impalpable _feel_ of -the atmosphere--always brings back to me every phase and pulse of my -feelings as I sat listening to the warfare of deep raucous voice and -soft honeyed one. The memory of the senses far transcends the memory of -the mind. Memory in its most intimate possessions is physical. - -Though mental too. In this particular instance, quite apart from any -physical aid to memory that atmosphere brings, I remember, verbally, -almost all that was said. It is odd that while for stretches of whole -months I can often fill in but the dimmest background of my early days, -at other times I retain the fullest details of a long and intricate -conversation, with the gestures of the speakers and the very words they -used. The explanation is to be found partly, I think, in the extreme -monotony of my life and the uncommonly vivid impression which any -break in the monotony always made; so that this record tends to be a -stringing-together of the odd and outstanding events rather than an -even and continuous narration of my "early life"; for it was a life of -landmarks. But the chief explanation of the uncanny degree to which I -remember certain particular scenes lies in my nightly "rehearsals." -If there had been any scene or words of special interest in the day's -round--if I had observed a new phenomenon (such as a Madonna or a -gold watch-chain)--if I had heard a new word (like University) or had -new light shed on an old one (like Degrees)--if in short the day had -yielded any new fact or idea, the same night saw it deliberately -stored in my mind; a treasure-house--a lumber-room--which stood open to -all comers. Every night, as soon as I was in bed and my Grandmother had -blown out the candle and closed the door behind her, I began. I thought -my way through the day, from the moment I had risen onwards. Every new -notion or notable event, I recalled, re-lived, and received into the -fellowship of things I knew, felt and remembered; into myself. I had -also weekly, monthly and yearly revisions. - -This seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael's was a red-letter day. My -emotions as I lay awake watching with memory's eye that curious dinner -party, with its wealth of new food, new faces, new situations, new -sensations and new talk, were of the same order as those of a playgoer -who lives over in his mind the pleasures of a new and brilliant -drama he has witnessed. New persons and new conversations were my -favourite acquisitions; these were in the strict sense dramatic, and -they approached most nearly the other habit of my inner life--my -visualizings and imaginings--of which indeed they furnished the raw -material. I would only memorize conversations from the point at which -they began to interest me; hence, even when I remember them best, they -begin suddenly, and causelessly. - -So it was with the conversation on that memorable evening. I fancy Aunt -Jael and Uncle Simeon had already been talking for some time--probably -on the things of the Lord, which were not new and not dramatic--but I -recall nothing until Uncle Simeon was well set in a review of his life; -his holy, if humble life. - -"M'yes, ah yes, the Lord found it good to try one's faith; from the -very day on which one saw the error of one's ways, and the scales fell -from one's eyes, and one closed with God's gracious offer, from that -very day the Lord found it good to extend His hand in chastisement and -to visit one with trials and afflictions. One bowed one's head: but -it was a sore trial for one's faith, one's earnest, if humble, faith. -First one's sister passed away, one's dear sister Rosa. Then came one's -business troubles, one's ill health, one's grave illness. Last of all -one's dear old father went before--" - -"Your brother too," interrupted my Great-Aunt. "You don't mention him; -and he was the best of the Greebers, from all accounts." - -"Ah, surely not, surely not?" ignoring the main point of the -interruption, "what of Immanuel Greeber, who gave you these glorious -trophies of the field of missionary labour, one's well-loved cousin -Immanuel?" - -"There was some mystery about his death," pursued she, ignoring -red-herring missionaries. "They never really knew how he died. Immanuel -told _me_. He went to lie down in his bed one afternoon, saying he felt -sick, and within the hour he was dead." - -"Ah, yes," sighed Uncle Simeon, passing his hand over his brow in -anguish, "one had not spoken of him; one could not; one's love was too -tender. Heart-failure, one thought oneself. M'yes." His head m'yessed -sadly to and fro. - -"More like something he'd been eating," suggested my Grandmother. - -"Too sudden for that," objected Aunt Jael. "No bad food could kill -you so sudden. 'Twas something a deal quicker than bad food; more -mysterious, folk said." - -"Poison," said I. - -I was staggered at the sound of my own voice. All day I had been mute, -observing so obediently Aunt Jael's "To be seen and not heard" mandate -that she had been almost annoyed. Listening was more remunerative than -talking; it yielded the wealth for my lonely talks with myself. I think -it was that in my interest in this mysterious death I forgot I was not -alone; and so uttered aloud the word "Poison" that leapt absurdly to my -mind. - -The effect on Uncle Simeon's face amazed me. - -His look of meek head-nodding sorrow gave place to one of such -unmistakable _guilt_ that the most monstrous suspicions seized me; nor -did they disappear when guilt changed to fear, then fear to hate; still -less when hate in its turn gave place to the meek accustomed mask. Mask -it was, for I had seen him deliberately twitch the muscles of his face -back into position. From that moment, and with no other evidence than -a few seconds' change of expression, in which my eyes might have been -deceiving me, I believed him a murderer. - -Grandmother and Aunt Jael saw nothing of this. The first was too -short-sighted--the room was nearly dark, and no candle had been -lighted--the second was too busy for the moment rating me for breaking -laws and talking "outrageous nonsense" to keep her eyes on him. - -This gave him time to twitch the muscles of his brain and tongue back -into position also. - -"Anyway, whatever the sad cause of his earthly death, one may rejoice -that he went to be with the Lord." - -"Yes, and that he left all his money to you. Leastways there was no -will found, and you were next of kin. That helped to console you a -little, maybe." - -"Miss Vickary!" - -"Yes, more than a little, too. It left you enough to close your shop in -Bristol and do nothing ever since." - -"Nothing, Miss Vickary, nothing? All one's years of hard, if -humble, toil in the Lord's vineyard, one's ministrations to the -Saints--nothing? And poor Joseph's wealth, it was but a modest sum--" - -"So modest no one's ever heard. It's mock poverty yours, and you know -it." - -"But one's humble manner of life should show--" - -"Folk as are mean aren't always poor." - -"Aunt!" pleaded Martha feebly. - -"Mean; dear Miss Vickary, may you one day regret that unjust word. Far -be it from one to speak of all that one has given to the gospel work in -Torribridge, of all that one has lent to the Lord. Yet what are worldly -riches? One cares only for the unsearchable riches of Christ. What are -the earthly gifts one may have given away? One has given to many a -greater gift far. Not only the knowledge of Salvation, but a Christian -deed here, a helping hand there--" - -"Open sepulchre! Helping hand--like when Rachel and Christian lay -dying, and you forbade Martha to leave Torribridge even for a few hours -to come and help her mother. Let your wife's mother half kill herself, -and her brother and sister crawl into their graves before you'd let her -move. 'Couldn't spare her' from the side of yer 'dear little son'--ugly -little brat, I'm glad you've not brought him here today." - -Now there was a spice of righteous protest in the meek voice. "Pray -what has one's poor little son done to be so spoken of? Or one's dear -wife to hear him so spoken of?" - -Martha was silently wiping her eyes. Aunt Jael, struggling with temper, -made no reply. - -"Or oneself to see one's wife so wounded? One has never forgiven -oneself for not realizing till alas too late how near the end dear -Rachel and dear Christian were; but at the time one's little baby-boy -was ailing, and Martha none too strong. One was selfish, perhaps." - -"Ay." Temper rising. - -"One failed in one's duty to dear Mrs. Lee, because of one's jealous -care of one's dear child and wife." - -"Fiddlesticks! I know some of your goings-on. Poor Martha!" - -"Poor Martha? One fails to understand. _If_ Martha had been treated -as poor Rachel's husband treated her; _if_ she had suffered -cruelty--adultery--vileness--sin; _if_ one were hounding her to her -grave as he hounded poor Rachel; _if_ one had killed her and broken her -heart, and then sneered that one could not pay to bury her--" - -"The brute," cried Aunt Jael, sidetracked. - -His crude attempt to transfer her rising wrath on to the head of -another had succeeded. He knew the quality of the memories he evoked. - -"The brute; the cruel, fleshly scoundrel!" - -"Hush, Aunt," whispered Aunt Martha, "after all it is the Child's -father." - -I coloured violently, and my heart beat fast. The unfamiliar phrase -"Rachel's husband" had conveyed nothing. Now I was throbbing with -excitement, curiosity and shame. - -"Well, let her know the truth." - -"O Mother, plead with Aunt not to talk so!" Aunt Martha was trying -to stifle the topic on to which her husband had so successfully -emptied the vials of Aunt Jael's wrath. He gave her a "you wait till -afterwards" glance that told me a good deal, concentrated though I was -on this other overshadowing thing. - -"I don't know," said my Grandmother, "leave your Aunt be. The child -will have to know it some day; and 'tis the truth." She sighed. - -"There you are! If a child has the wickedest beast of a man on earth -for her father, the sooner she knows it the better, so that she may -mend her ways and turn out a bit different herself. She has more than -a spice of his ways about her already. She'd best be told every jot -and tittle of the whole story. No one's too young to hear the truth. -'Tis your task though, Hannah. You tell her, if you think fit. But not -tonight, it's past the child's bed-time. Be off now! To bed!" - -I undressed feverishly, that I might be the sooner in bed to go through -all I had heard. I recited hymns rapidly to myself so that I should not -think at all till I could do so properly and at peace. - -Grandmother came in for her nightly prayer. - -"Grandmother, is it true? My father. Who is he? What did he do? Tell -me, is it true?" - -"Yes, my dear." - -"Did he do--all those wicked things?" - -"Yes, my dear." - -"Will you tell me everything?" - -"Yes, my dear, if the Lord so wills. Let us approach the throne of -grace and discover His good pleasure." - -Down on my knees by her side I watched her as she asked the Almighty -whether He willed that the story of my father and mother should be -told me. Grandmother was always fair. She did not try to influence the -Lord's decision, as Aunt Jael might have done, by giving undue weight -in her supplications to the arguments either for or against. - -"Dost Thou will that at this tender age she should learn of these -sorrows, that they may be sanctified to her for Thy name's sake; or -dost Thou ordain that I should wait yet awhile before I speak?" - -We waited the Answer. I knew it would be "Yes," I knew it with the -sudden instinct that so often served me. Prayer and intuition were -indeed sharply commingled in my mind. One was your speaking to God, the -other God speaking to you. God is swifter; instinct is swifter than -prayer; answer than question. - -"Tell the child now? So be it, Lord; since such is the answer that Thou -hast vouchsafed." - -Then she prayed that the story might be richly blessed to me, and that -he whom it chiefly concerned might be given, despite all, contrite -heart and true forgiveness. - -When she left me to myself and darkness, I was repeating to myself -the stinging words I had heard. Cruelty, adultery, vileness, sin--the -fleshly scoundrel--he had hounded my mother to her grave, broken her -heart--killed her. _He my father._ I had a father then. It is proof of -the gaps in my many-sided visualizings day after day and night after -night that I had never thought of this, never even wondered whether I -had a father or not. - -I did not know how to wait till the morrow. Perhaps they were talking -about it downstairs; I jumped out of bed, crept halfway down the -stairs, and listened. The front-room door was shut, and though I -soon heard that a duologue between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon was -in progress, I could make out only a few words here and there. My -imagination constructed a conversation connected with myself, and -somehow too at the same time with Torribridge and Aunt Martha and -studies. I did not think much of it at the time, as my ears were hungry -for "father" and "mother" only--"Rachel" and "Rachel's husband." - -I went back to bed. Early next day Uncle Simeon and Aunt Martha -returned to Torribridge. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Empty. - - - - -CHAPTER X: OLD LETTERS - - -Next day after dinner, when Aunt Jael had settled down for her doze, -Grandmother called me upstairs to her bedroom, pulled out an old brown -tin box from under the bed, unlocked it, and drew forth a large brown -paper packet. We sat down, and she told me my mother's story. - -"Your father belonged to a different class from us, my dear, quite to -the gentlefolk of the county. Your mother met him at his cousin's, Lord -Tawborough's, when she was governess there. - -"This Lord Tawborough died a few years ago. The boy who now bears -that name is a lad of maybe seventeen or eighteen, who I expect knows -nothing about it at all, although he was very fond of your mother when -she taught him as a little boy." - -"Shall I ever see him?" - -"No, my dear, no. You are in a different walk of life. Young squires -don't come to visit us. Not that his father ever had any false pride; -I know he was always very kind to me. He came to Rachel's funeral, and -never had his cousin--your father, that is--inside his house after the -trouble. He wanted to help us too in educating you, but I said No. -I would not touch money belonging in any way to _him_, though I've -forgiven him long ago, as I trust the Lord has. He thought I was too -independent, but maybe he understood all the same. I've heard that the -young boy is as good-hearted as his father. He lives at the family -house over near Torribridge; he's just going up to Oxford, I believe, -like his father, or maybe 'tis Cambridge--" - -"What is Oxford-and-Cambridge? Brother Quappleworthy was there." - -"They're two big colleges, or universities as they call them, where the -gentlefolk go. Anyway, his father was always kind to us and ashamed -of his cousin. He said to me when he called to see us after your dear -mother's death that he felt guilty because Rachel met her husband in -his house. However, there 'tis, they were married. I never took to him -and your Aunt Jael could never abide the sight of him. 'Twas a cruel -time. I can't tell you all now, my dearie, though one day you may know. -But I'm going to read you some of the letters she wrote. Here they all -are, I've not had the heart to touch this package since they were tied -up ten years ago. She wasn't happy from the start, though she wrote -brave letters home. We first got to know how it was with her through -your great-uncle, her uncle John. She'd stayed once or twice with him -in London, as a little girl, and he loved her dearly. We have never -seen much of him since he first went away over fifty years ago. He and -Jael don't get on together; he's an invalid too, and not able to take -a journey. After your dear mother died he let me see all her letters -to him, and I copied them out. Here is one of the first, written just -three or four months after she was married, the 'long letter' I call -it:" - - - THE WHITE HOUSE. - TORQUAY, - August 14th, 1845. - - Dear Uncle John,-- - - Thank you for you kind letter of sympathy. Yes, I am an unhappy - woman, and unhappy for life. - - Perhaps it will simplify matters for me to say that he is in a - very precarious mental condition. The doctor tells me he has - every symptom of softening of the brain. Though the disease may - not culminate for several years. He says my one object must be to - keep him quiet and not oppose or excite him in any way, as that - would always tend to hasten the climax, and would make things - very trying for myself, especially just now; for I must tell you - that something will be happening to me, about next February I - think. Last week he had a dreadful turn, and said the most cruel - things, shouting and sneering at me like one demented. I went off - then to the doctor, really thinking myself he was there and then - going or gone out of his mind. He told me what I have said, and - through all subsequent improvement adheres to the same opinion; - he is very kind and sympathizing to me, calls it, "a painful and - extraordinary case," and tells me not to be upset when he gets into - this state with me--that it is an almost invariable symptom of the - disease for the patient to set upon his wife and bring against her - outrageous accusations of every sort, that I must not contradict - him in whatever he says, but rather "assume contrition for faults - you have not committed, regarding him as an invalid that cannot be - dealt with by ordinary rules." I must tell you that I have begun - to doubt all this, I don't mean the doctor but my husband. He has - a nervous weakness, it is true, but exaggerates this when he goes - to see the doctor by getting himself into a state, then the doctor - says he has softening of the brain and that will excuse all his - ill-treatment to me. - - That is not all, the two youths, Maurice and Trevor who are living - in the house and whom he calls his "cousins," are really _his - illegitimate sons_, he told me so outright and mocked at me when I - blushed. They swear and shout at me, and he encourages them. With - all this he is the leader at the Room, the meeting of the Close - Brethren we go to. The Saints don't seem to like him very much. I - think they know something of his goings on. My dear uncle, I charge - you not to speak of all this; I should not on _any_ account like - mother to know it, it could do no good for her to worry. He may - keep like this for years, or perhaps I might be taken away to the - Lord first. - - I was glad of your loving letter; had begun to think there must - be one awaiting me (from the style of your previous one) before - yesterday morning confirmed it. They raise objection however at the - Post Office, saying it is against the rules for residents to have - them left there, so I suppose you must address to me here. Philip - seems never to expect me to show him my letters. I did one a few - weeks ago, in which there was some business message or statement. - So you will always be safe in writing direct. It is one of his - peculiarities that though he has often thrown at me my depth, - "keeping matters to myself," "telling him nothing," etc. etc., yet - from the very first he declined to see my letters. I used even to - press him to do so but he replied one day, "I take no interest in - letters from people I don't know, still less from common people" - (among whom my relations are included). Then if I tried reading him - any specially interesting extracts he would say it wearied him or - would assure me I had read or told him all that before. Since he - said one day, "Dear me, what shopkeeper's talk!" I have quite given - up intruding my correspondence on him. At rock bottom it is a sort - of jealousy. Some husbands seem to have the idea that their wives - should throw to the winds all old ties and relationships. - - As to my going home now; it is utterly out of the question. All - other objections apart, I could not now take the journey. Then as - to having Mother here, as things are (even if he would allow it), - the worry of it would do me more harm than her presence could do me - good. There might be an actual outbreak on his part, and Maurice - and Trevor would give her an experience such as I would spare her - at all costs. What could she do for me? Later on, I should have - a nurse and of course a doctor, the kind one I spoke of, the one - Philip consults. You rather mistake me as to the possible _end_ - these matters may bring. I don't mean that I should be more likely - to die from what has been taking place, simply that from natural - causes it is a thing that has to be faced at such a time. Many - women _do_, who have all the love and devotion they can require, - and I have all along felt (not forebodingly or morbidly, but as a - matter of fact) that such an event might be of more than ordinary - risk in my case. I am not very strong, and always lacking in power - of endurance, and then I am so wretchedly unhappy and lonely. All - my trouble and despondency will lessen the natural clinging to - life and give me instead a longing to be at rest beyond it all, as - far as self only is concerned. But on the other hand if the baby - lives, that will be sufficient counteractive against my giving-away - tendency. I shall feel more than a mother in ordinary case could - do that I _must_ try to live for its sake. Any other issue I am - content to leave in God's hands but cannot face the thought of - leaving the child behind me--_with him_. So if I should be taken, - don't trouble yourself with the thought that my end has been - hastened by these things that ought not to have been. For the Lord, - I believe, has taken special care of me and given me more health - of body than I could under ordinary circumstances have expected, - to meet the extra strain laid on mind and spirit. So we may trust - surely by what has gone before that He will uphold me all through - with special health and strength. "He setteth His rough wind in the - day of His east wind" has been constantly before me of late. - - I shall not leave my husband as long as it can anyhow be avoided. - Death is to me a far more welcome thought to face than being a - trouble or a burden for my friends. There are troubles in which - sympathy makes all the difference, but between husband and wife - it is different, and the quieter one can keep things the better. - Uncle, dear, don't you see that the sting and real heart-bitterness - a woman must feel at wrong and unkindness from the one from whom - she has expected only love and protection, can never be healed - or soothed by proclaiming it to the world at large or by leaving - him? It may be pride or self-respect that makes me shrink from - the thought of such a thing, but have no scruples as to your - responsibility in keeping it quiet, since I told you I have no - _bodily_ fear of him, and he knows it. Suppose you tell mother - or any one else, if they share your view they can but repeat the - same arguments, and if repeated twenty times my feelings and - instincts remain the same. Say nothing, uncle, for my sake if not - for his--for mother's too. It is true if I came away he could not - rail at me but still that is only the outward expression of what - is within and which distance would not alter, and with the baby - it will be easier to bear. I shall have something to live for and - comfort myself with, and considering his condition I cannot see - that it would be _right_ to leave him unless I am in danger of my - life. It is a wife's duty to endure. I have thought of speaking - to Mr. Frean, a leading Brother at the meetings and a very kind - man. I think a fear of exposure in this quarter would have more - weight with him. While he can afford to set at nought the opinions - of my friends and relatives at a safe distance, he clings very - tenaciously to his religious position. I should have sympathy - there. I think they know I have something to put up with and they - show me great kindness and would show more if I availed myself of - it. Philip remarked one day it was strange that "his wife should - be popular at the Room while _he_ never had been!" - - On one point your anxiety is needless. I have what I wish for - in the shape of nourishment. Was never a large or extravagant - eater, but what I want I have. Was reflecting only a day or two - ago that this is the _one_ point on which he uniformly shows me - consideration. In fact, I think he does this on purpose to salve - his conscience, and to have something to throw back at me. Once - when I said "Oh, Philip, don't be so unkind to me," he replied, - "Unkind? Damn you, I don't see what you have to complain of, you're - living on the fat of the land, better than with your shopkeeper - friends." Sometimes, you know, I believe he imagines he loves me; - perhaps he does as much as he would any wife, but I have told him - he does not know what love is. Love! - - The only thing which sometimes nearly drives me to the breaking - point is this; he praises my amiability, meekness, wifeliness, - obedience, and says "you are different from most women who are - always either nagging and answering back or gloomy and sulky." I am - "so much better than he ever expected." When he talks like that I - feel stirred up to say some pretty plain things to him, and clear - my mind at all costs, but then if I do I might excite him and bring - on a fit of apoplexy or paralysis as the doctor said. If I say the - least little word he holds this over my head. I wonder now, after - only a few short months, why I ever married him. I have spoilt my - whole life. Two years ago, I was a happy young woman; and now-- - Don't write to him, don't threaten him, and don't come near here, - it can do no good. Good-bye, Uncle dear. - - Your ever loving - RACHEL. - - -My Grandmother paused. I know what I thought--I can live my feelings -again at this moment, forty years later. - -"At the time," said my Grandmother, "Rachel said very little to me. I -knew it was difficult, but not as unhappy as it was. In the March of -the next year a baby boy was born. You're not old enough, my dear, to -know what it is to be a mother when her baby comes; a man should be -good and kind to his wife more than at any time, and thank the Lord -most of 'em are. _He_ was wicked. May the Lord in his mercy forgive -him. Still, the baby made her happier. Here is a letter she wrote to me -a month or two after it was born." - - - THE WHITE HOUSE. - TORQUAY, - May 20th, 1846. - - My Dearest Mother,-- - - Thank you for all the loving sympathy from all. Am getting on well, - though the heat has been trying me greatly. I came downstairs - yesterday. I cannot stand a minute without help, as the lying in - bed has made me so weak. Baby is doing first-rate, grows more - engaging every day. It was rather too bad of you to rejoice in my - disappointment, especially as the little girl was to have been - named after my dear mother. What is the supposed advantage you see - in a boy? Why is a boy thought more of than a girl? Perhaps you are - proud of having a grandson; I certainly have centred all my ideas - on a girl; I have always had an idea that the child I should have - that would be most like me, and _who would do what I might have - done if I had been happier_, would be a girl. I feel so still; - though I can't tell you why. - - But this is a dear little man and I should not like to spare him - now he has come. He never squeals but stares the whole time; the - doctor says he is big enough for five or six months old. After - the miserable state I've been in, I rather wondered whether his - brain would be right, but he is certainly "all there," and a bit - over, if it comes to that. He is very sharp. But he is very good - at night and has slept seven hours right off for five nights past. - He notices everything, his little eyes will dance round after any - one who notices him and when the door one day suddenly rattled - with the wind he turned his eyes towards it with a look of inquiry - and astonishment. Some wagging ends on Nurse's cap are a source of - unfailing interest. He has not a flaw or even a sore upon him, has - a nice little round, comfortable, sensible face, just plump enough - to be well conditioned but not coarse. I think he is something like - Martha. He has nice eyes, dark blue, which when closed take rather - a Japanese curve, the Traies' snub nose, a pretty little mouth, - large hands, very long fingers with pretty little filbert nails. He - is more like his father than anybody in face. He is full of pretty - little antics, will clasp his hands as if in prayer, or shade one - over his eyes with a thumb extended, exactly like "saying grace." - Will labour hard sometimes to stuff both fists into his mouth at - once, it is amusing to see his wriggles and struggles, getting - quite angry, till at last he gets hold of some knuckle or thumb - and settles down to enjoy it. He wants his milk very irregularly, - but so far I've kept pace with him.... We have not yet decided on - his name. Not Philip, I think, for I don't like the "big Bessie, - little Bessie, old George, young George" plan. I should like Harold - or Edgar, or perhaps Christian--by the way I'm sorry to hear that - Chrissie is still so weak, give him my best love. Do you know - that baby's birth made me _want_ to like Philip more than ever? I - told him so the other day, he just _sneered_. It's hard, mother, - isn't it? But I must not worry you, or make you think he is really - treating me so very badly, he sees that I get all the food and - nourishment I need. Don't believe all Uncle John says! - - Here I must conclude as I'm not yet strong enough to write more. - Give my love to Aunt Jael, and to Hannah, and my respects to Mr. - Greeber, when you write. With my dearest love to you mother, I - remain - - Your loving - RACHEL. - - -"Here is one she wrote to her Uncle about the same time:" - - - THE WHITE HOUSE. - TORQUAY, - June 24th, 1846. - - My dearest Uncle John,-- - - Many thanks for your kind and prompt reply to my note. My reason - for requiring a promise was that I feared that on knowing how - things stood you might be unwilling still to do nothing, as I know - you have even as much of the outspoken Vickary disposition as Aunt - Jael! You will be sorry if not surprised when I tell you that my - husband leads me a more trying life than ever. I cannot repeat or - write the words he uses or the things he abuses his position as a - husband to do. My little boy is the only earthly comfort I have, - and but for him and the dear Lord I don't think I could have borne - up at all. I have kept it carefully from my own family all along, - it is not my fault that mother knows as much as she does. I hate - her to have to hear my troubles. Then, too, I've excused things on - the ground of disease, for his mind is disordered, but still he - is nothing like so far gone but that he could behave better if he - chose. I am surer than ever that he deceives the doctor so that - he can use the bad view of his health which the doctor takes, as - a cloak for all his cruelty. 'Tis very good of you to assure me - of your help but I will still try to stay with him, and so far he - has not used actual bodily violence. He has gone the length of - threatening it, of lifting up his foot as though to kick me and - shaking his fist in my face but stopped short each time, saying he - was "not such a ---- fool as to give me a chance of getting the law - for him!" I will promise this: to make your silence conditioned on - his behaviour not getting worse. That may have some effect on him. - But mother _must_ not be worried. In any case it would not be worth - while to try to come here to see him, he has threatened he will set - the dogs on them if he finds any of my relatives "prowling about - the place." - - Don't worry about me. Now that I have my little boy to kiss and - comfort me I can put up with everything. - - Your loving niece, - RACHEL. - - -"And here is another to me:" - - - THE WHITE HOUSE. - TORQUAY, - Aug. 20th, 1846. - - My dear Mother,-- - - Many thanks for kindly sending on the vests, they are (both sizes) - a nice easy fit, and I'm very pleased with them. I am feeling - better, though Torquay is very relaxing and in the summer, at - times, unbearable. - - Now that Uncle John seems to have told you all it is no good - pretending any longer that I am anything but absolutely wretched. - Believe me, mother, it was not dishonesty but for your sake only - that I said so little. Now it is getting so bad that I should not - have been able to keep it from you longer. They are all behaving - disgracefully, worse than ever. Not only all the family, the two - boys Maurice and Trevor, I mean, but all the servants too, and - the very errand lads who come to the house are encouraged to be - insulting. I'm really afraid to go about the house and when keeping - in my own immediate quarters am shouted at and annoyed from stairs - and windows. He and Maurice attacked me together last week, or - rather he called Maurice to join in, and the two called forth the - most unprovoked and outrageous insolence while the scullery maid - shrieked with delight and clapped her hands at the fun. Another - day, the cook threw a cabbage root at me when I went into the - kitchen, hitting me on the neck. Mr. Traies' only redress when I - turned to him was "That's nothing, you shouldn't go into quarters - where you're not wanted. A wife in her kitchen, indeed! what _are_ - we coming to?" It is something sickening the whole time; I know I - shall go mad before long. Have run right out of the house twice - lately but the poor child drags me back. I don't know that you - can do anything beyond plainly speaking your mind, or threatening - to expose him right and left if that would do any good. There - certainly ought to be some law to prevent a woman being hounded - out of her life by the very servants in the house. If I say the - least word or attempt to expostulate he puts his hand up to his - forehead, begins to moan and say "the doctor said I was on no - account to have opposition, he said it might bring on a fit, indeed - I think it is coming." The wretched man--is there no law in England - to save a woman from cruelty far worse than the things for which - she can get the courts for her? Last week, he actually laughed in - my face, "Your heart is breaking I suppose," he sneered. I said - "Yes," looking him straight in the face. "It's a damned long time - about it," he said. Yet I can do nothing; _that_ is not cruelty! I - do wish he would do me some real bodily harm that would give me a - hold over him as long as he didn't permanently incapacitate me. I - have thought of asking Brother Frean at the Meeting to find me a - safe temporary lodging where I could go, and say I would not return - until he dismissed these insolent maids. That would be at least - one point gained. But until he sent Maurice away there would be no - real improvement. You cannot imagine, mother the filthy things he - says, and _does_ before me. They have made a complete tool of the - new servant too. She has been very unsatisfactory in every way, - refusing to get up in the morning and shouting at me. However she - kept within bounds till I gave her a week's notice last Wednesday. - Immediately he came and raved and sneered at me: "Come, come, the - mistress of the house dismissing a housemaid, surely this is going - a little _too_ far," and he ordered her to stay. Since then she - has behaved shamefully, they all of course upholding and cheering - her, making her presents, etc. Today I have proved her having - stolen some silk handkerchiefs of mine, in even this he upholds - her. "Freely ye have received, freely give," he said! Yesterday it - reached the climax. The whole pack were howling at me, he, looking - on and mocking and encouraging them. Then Maurice tripped me up as - I was going out of the room, and I went full length on the floor. - In my weak state, I nearly fainted. _He laughed._ I still want to - hold out; I will never leave him unless it is to come home and die. - All I have to comfort me is your sympathy, my little baby and the - love of Christ. - - In haste, your loving daughter, - RACHEL. - - -My throat was very dry, I could not trust myself to speak. - -"Soon after," went on my Grandmother, "the little baby boy died, and -then we persuaded her to take a holiday. At least we put it to her that -we thought we hoped it might be bringing her away from him for good. -She came home, spending November and December of 1846 with us at home -in the old house in the High Street, and then went to her Uncle John's -in London for the first few weeks of '47. When your mother left her -uncle, she came to us again for a few days and then decided to go back -to her husband. Jael was against it, but she was sure it was her duty -to the Lord, and I would not persuade her though my heart sank when she -left us. He behaved worse than before. The last few months at Torquay -were beyond her endurance and she began to sink away. Now here is a -letter your great-uncle wrote me just before she left him, when things -had reached their worst." - - - Messrs Vibart & Vickary, - MINCING LANE, - LONDON. - Jan. 3rd, 1848. - - Dear Hannah,-- - - I have been out of patience with you as you will know. Since last - March when she stayed with you and you allowed her to go back to - the fellow. If I don't hear definitely that she has left him within - the next ten days, infirm though I am, I shall take the coach to - Exeter and on to Torquay taking a friend with me, and if we have - any trouble whatever with Traies he will get such a thrashing that - he will not be able to appear in public for some time. If ever - there was a cruel, damned scoundrel who deserved shooting he does, - and should not in the least mind putting a few bullets into him. - What annoys me more than anything is that you should encourage - the poor girl, agreeing with her that it is her Christian duty to - remain there all this time and put up with such diabolical cruelty; - worst of all now that there is another child on the way. - - Let me know at once that she has left him or I shall act without - delay. - - Your affectionate brother - John. - - -"And here is the last letter she ever wrote me herself. It was snowing -the day it reached me:" - - - THE WHITE HOUSE. - TORQUAY, - Jany 7th, 1848. - - My dearest Mother,-- - - Your kind and loving letter came yesterday. Well, mother dear, - I have given in. I have decided to go away. I am weaker now, - broken in body and spirit, and if I stay here with his taunts and - ill-treatment _I shall go mad or die_. In any case I think it is - the latter; but now that there is a child coming, for its sake I - must go where I shall have more peace. My life is a broken failure. - Four short years ago what a happy girl I was at the Hall with kind - people around me, a loving little boy as my daily companion, and I - was a credit and pride to you all. I know you never wanted me to - marry him. I chose my way and I have failed utterly. Yes I know, - mother, I know with a positive assurance that I could have loved a - good and loving husband as much as any woman in the world; it was - _in_ me. Well, it is no good talking of that now, for I have not - very long before me now. Today I told him I was leaving him for - the last time. He mocked in his usual sort of way, but I am beyond - minding that. He is too much of a coward, I have come to know, to - prevent my leaving by physical force. I hope to get away tomorrow, - and am already halfway through my packing, so expect me very soon. - - Your loving - RACHEL. - - -My Grandmother spoke in a calm way, much sadder than any sobbing or -crying. Here for the only time she put her handkerchief to her eyes for -a moment. "Just at the time your dear mother came back to us to die, -my little boy Christian was dying too. The day after we buried him you -were born, then seven days later your mother died. Your Great-Aunt was -a good sister to me, she took turns at sitting with your mother every -night; saw the friends who called and wrote all the letters. Here is a -copy of what she wrote to your Great-Uncle: - - - NORTHGATE HOUSE, - HIGH STREET, - TAWBOROUGH. - March 2nd, 1848. - - Dear Brother,-- - - You will be glad of a line to tell you a fine girl was born this - morning at half past five; the baby is doing splendidly, but Rachel - is very weak. Nurse and doctor are in constant attendance. Hannah - stays with her all the time and doesn't go downstairs. With young - Christian just buried the Lord is trying us hard. We are truly - passing through the waters of affliction. Hannah is too busy to - write herself or I should not be writing to you, the first time I - think for nearly thirty years. - - Your affectionate sister, - JAEL VICKARY. - - -"Here is your Great-Uncle's reply, addressed to me:" - - - LONDON. - - _In haste._ - - Dear Hannah,-- - - Do everything possible for dear Rachel as regards nursing and - doctors that money can command. I pay everything. - - JOHN. - - -"And two more letters your Great-Aunt wrote to your Great-Uncle will -tell how your dear mother died:" - - - NORTHGATE HOUSE, - HIGH STREET, - TAWBOROUGH. - March 8th, 1848. - - Dear Brother,-- - - I write again to give you news of Rachel. Upon receiving your kind - note we decided on calling in Doctor Little but I don't think he - can do more than Dr. Le Mesurier has, he has been unremitting in - attention but there will be nothing to regret in having had further - advice. Nurse Baker looks after the baby, she is a very nice child - and is doing well. Hannah is wonderfully sustained, she sat with - Rachel last night, I was with her the night before. It would make - things very much easier if Martha would come over from Torribridge - but Mr. Greeber, her husband, will not allow it, pleading their own - child who is as healthy as he is ugly and now quite a year old. - Rachel has been wandering today, sewing and arranging garments for - the child. She suffers badly. The doctor thinks it is peritonitis. - I fear it will be but a few days more, it wrings my heart to write - it. - - I have just taken the liberty of writing a note to Lord Tawborough - to ask him to use his influence with his cousin that the child - may remain to be brought up by us in case of Rachel being removed - from this world. He replies he will insist on it. It has comforted - Rachel greatly. I wrote to Mr. Traies a few lines on the day she - was confined to state the fact of a girl being born and that his - wife was not doing too well, commencing "Dear Sir" (being civil). I - am glad it was done, although he did not respond; we have done our - part and shall not write to him again until she ceases to be his - wife. Oh brother, when I think of how the wretched man has hounded - her and brought her down in health and strength to an early grave - (for the doctor says she had not the strength to go through her - confinement because of the harass and ill-treatment that preceded) - I feel he will have a recompense even in this world for his cruelty - ... God's vengeance is sure, and He will avenge. The doctor now - says twenty-four hours will decide. We give her Valentine's extract - of milk and ice which she takes every half hour ... nothing has - been left undone. May God bless the means and give us grace to bear - His will. - - Regret you are not well enough to travel. If you had been well - enough to come I need not say that for Hannah's and Rachel's sake - I would have let by gones be by gones, so with our united love, I - remain, - - Your affectionate sister, - JAEL VICKARY. - - - NORTHGATE HOUSE, - HIGH STREET, - TAWBOROUGH. - March 9th, 1848:. - - Dear Brother,-- - - Dear Rachel was unconscious all the night but didn't seem to - suffer. She gradually sank and peacefully departed at a quarter - past ten. I know you will not be able to come to the funeral but we - know all your love to your beloved niece during her life. Hannah - scarcely realizes it as yet. Dear Rachel wished the baby to be - called Mary. She gave a few directions most calmly and quietly, and - wished the text, if we had cards, to be "Made meet to be partakers - of the inheritance of the Saints in light," or else "These are they - which came out of great tribulation." Hannah is hearing up well, - sustained by the Lord's grace. _Thy will be done._ - - With our united love, - Your affectionate sister, - JAEL VICKARY. - - * * * * * * * - -"And so she died," concluded my Grandmother, "and left you to me." - -I wanted to hear more. "And the man?" - -"What man?" - -"My--father." It was one of the hardest things I ever did to utter -that word. I felt foolish, flushed, and somehow wicked. The word was -unfamiliar, and it was vile. - -"Well, I wrote him a letter saying I forgave him for everything--" - -"Forgave him, Grandmother!" I cried. "That was wicked!" - -"I forgave him as I hoped the Lord would too. I just told him in the -letter about her funeral and how it had passed off." - -"Did he write back?" - -"Yes, and in all his life there was nothing so cruel as the reply he -sent me. Here it is. I know the foreign note-paper; for he went abroad -straight away to avoid the scandal and trouble, though the Saints at -Torquay publicly expelled him from their Meeting when they knew the -facts. Listen:-- - - - HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS. - March 31st, 1848. - - _Madam_,-- - - Your letter apprehending me of my late wife's funeral has been - forwarded to me. If you imagine this thinly veiled hint that I - should bear the funeral expenses will succeed, you are singularly - mistaken. For such a wife, nominally Christian, who deserted her - husband, I propose to do nothing of the kind. You may sue me at - law, of course; but pause for a moment: _would your dead daughter - have wished you to?_ - - Yours truly, - PHILIP A. G. TRAIES. - - -"May God in His mercy forgive him for writing that. It took me years -to be able to. I have never heard from him since. I heard he sold the -house in Torquay and lives mostly abroad. That, my dearie, is the end -of a long story. Always love the memory of your dear, good mother and -try if you can to forgive your father, for whatever he has done, he is -your father." - -"I will never forgive him, it would be wrong to forgive people who have -done things to you like that. Never!" - -"It's the only true forgiveness, my dear, to forgive those who wrong -you cruelly." - -"I shall forgive every one in the world; but him, never." - - * * * * * * * - -I don't think these events are told out of their place. It was at this -stage of my life that all these past doings entered _my_ life; it is -here they should be told. For me they took place now; from now onwards -they influenced my life and thoughts. Of the impressions I received, -pity and love for my mother, and hate and loathing for my father ranked -equally. I thought of her still as an angel, but her eyes were sadder. -As for him, I vowed to myself that afternoon, that some day in some way -I would avenge my mother. How I kept that vow is another story; till -then this resolve had a constant place in my life and imagination. It -did a good deal to embitter a view of the world already gloomy enough -for ten years old. - -These were not the only emotions rushing through my heart that -afternoon. There was admiration and love of my Grandmother; how -greatly she had suffered, how little she complained, how heroically -she forgave. There was a new reluctant respect for Aunt Jael; and a -quickening affection for all who had been good to my mother, chiefly -for Great-Uncle John, who in two short hours had been transformed for -me from a shadowy name into a warm and noble reality; for others also -who took a lesser part, such as the kind people where she had been -governess and the little boy who loved her; for Brother Frean and the -sympathetic Saints at Torquay. While I sat biting my nails and thinking -a hundred new things, some kind, some sad, some hideous and bitter, -Grandmother was still rummaging among the letters. - -"Why, here's a bundle of those she wrote when she was at Woolthy Hall, -in her first happy days there. Listen, my dear, I'll read you the first -she wrote:"-- - - - Woolthy Hall, - North Devon. - Friday. - - Dearest Mother,-- - - I hope you got my first note saying I had arrived safely. I am - very happy here, I have a nice little room to myself commanding a - lovely view of the Park. I went to see Lord Tawborough in his study - the same night that I arrived, and he was very kind. There will - be no invidious treatment here, of the kind you hear governesses - sometimes have to put up with. The work will be pleasant, the - little boy took to me at once. He has brown eyes and a frank little - face, rather solemn for his age, indeed I think he likes reading - books too much and not too little. The meals are of course very - good and I never felt better. Yesterday we went a carriage drive - to Northbury, and picked primroses in the woods there, five huge - bunches. The spring is a lovely time. It makes me happy because it - is the beginning of the year and promises so much, just as I am at - a new beginning of my life here, feeling sure I shall have a very - happy time. Send the cotton blouses and straw hat, for there's a - fine summer ahead! - - With love to Aunt Jael and very much to your dear self from - - Your loving - RACHEL. - - -As Grandmother finished reading, I sobbed as though my heart would -break, for that happy letter was the saddest of them all. I have read -somewhere that with old letters, the happier they are, the more full -of hope and life the writers, the more vivid and intense and joyful -the sense of the present time the more melancholy they are to read in -later years. The hopes then so warm and fresh seem now so far away. -Men and women who when they wrote were hoping and planning are now but -hollow-eyed and rotting dust. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, -all is vanity. - - - - -CHAPTER XI: EXTRAORDINARY MEETING FOR PRAYER, PRAISE AND PURGING - - -For some time all had not been well among the Saints. There was -evidence of worldliness, backsliding, apostasy and sin. The Devil was -active in our midst. - -Certain Saints, after tasting for years the privilege of fellowship, -had left us: for chapel, or church, or nowhere. Others were becoming -irregular in their attendance or took part in our devotions without -fervour. There was moral backsliding too: chambering and wantonness. -Blind Joe Packe had been discovered by Brother Quappleworthy in a -drunken stupor on the floor of the attic in which he lived, when the -latter was paying him one of his customary visits of Bible-reading and -exhortation. There walked abroad also a vaguer, darker sin than drink -that I did not clearly apprehend, of which certain of the younger -Brothers who were "keeping company" with certain of the younger Sisters -were whispered to be guilty. The most flagrant example, I gathered -from a shrouded conversation between Grandmother and Aunt Jael, was -Sister Lucy Fry, who had a baby, but no husband. I thought this a -curiosity rather than a crime. For whatever reason, it aroused a sharp -difference of opinion; Aunt Jael denounced the awfulness of Lucy's sin, -Grandmother urged that she was more sinned against than sinning. - -Then Sister Prideaux had been to some concert or "theatre" during a -holiday at Exeter. The precise nature of the godless entertainment was -not ascertained. Nor was it clear how the news had reached us, though -most thought it was wormed out of Sister Quappleworthy by Sister Yeo. -The latter openly taxed Miss Prideaux with it. - -"So you went to the theayter did you, over to Exeter? Next time you're -there I suppose you'll be a-going to the _Cathedril_!" - -Then there were the parliamentary elections in which some of the Saints -had been taking an unsaintly interest, voting for and championing this -candidate or that; a form of meddling with this world's affairs which -Pentecost regarded with special disfavour. Indeed Rumour had it that -one or two of the younger Brethren took part in the famous polling-day -brawl in the vegetable market. Several of even the most prominent -Saints expressed preferences. Brother Browning being a draper was -Radical, Brother Quappleworthy being an intellectual was Whig, Brother -Briggs being an oilman was Tory. - -Aunt Jael was an unbenevolent neutral. "They're all much of a muchness -and none of 'em any good to folk, neither in the next world nor in this -either. In our family, _if_ we had been anything at all, we'd always -have been Whig--except the child's mother. She was Tory, or liked to -think she was. All the gentlefolk belonged to the Tories, and that was -always enough for Rachel." - -I was henceforward a fanatical Tory, though I had not the dimmest -notion what it meant, except that it was somehow connected with London -and the Parliament. Aunt Jael refused to explain; Grandmother said it -was not worth explaining. - -Brother Brawn related how on the occasion of a visit from some -canvassers he had struck a blow for righteousness. "They knocked at my -front door," he told Aunt Jael, "folk as I'd never spoken to avore, nor -so much as seen; 'Good mornin' sir,' said one of them, a tall, thin man -with spectacles he was, 'whose side are you on? Davie and Potts[2] I -trust.' 'No,' I said, 'I'm on the side of the Laur Jesus Christ,' and I -slammed the door in their faces. 'Twas a word in season." - -About this time there was an epidemic of minor illnesses, which -Grandmother said could only be the hand of the Lord extended in -chastisement for sins which the suffering ones had committed. More -modern folk would have sought explanation in low vitality, indoor -habits or bad drainage, but point was given to my Grandmother's -contention by the fact that Sister Prideaux and Lucy Fry, prominent -among the sinners, were about this time laid low with illness--the -latter not unnaturally. Her own attack of bronchitis, she attributed to -the selfish indulgence she had shown of late in perpetually studying -her own favourite portions of the Word and neglecting (comparatively) -those she favoured less. - -Worst of all, that piece of sugar which for nineteen years--the period -is always the same in my memory--had been placed in our offertory as an -insult to the Lord had now for two Sundays past become _four_ pieces, -one in each of the four partitions, a little bit of sugar for Expenses, -a little bit of sugar for Foreign Field, a little bit of sugar for -Ministry, a little bit of sugar for Poor. It had been serious enough -years ago when the box with the narrow slits had been substituted for -the bag, and the sinner had merely retaliated by putting a small piece -through one of the slits instead of a large lump down the gaping abyss -of the bag. But now--four pieces, one in each partition,--what deftness -in utter sin! What zeal in ill-doing! Who was this wolf in sheep's -clothing, this sinner who could sit at the Lord's table for nineteen -years and harden his heart Lord's day after Lord's day by offering -this mockery of an oblation to his Saviour? Who was this evil spirit -slim-fingered enough to perform this fourfold naughtiness, and yet -remain undetected, unguessed? We all peered at our neighbours. Brother -Brawn even began following the box in its voyage round the Meeting, -instead of merely handing it to the first giver and taking it from the -last; for all his spying he could find nothing. Was _he_ the man? - -Thus in devious ways was the Devil active in our midst. He must be -exorcised. - -Sister Yeo's idea of a Special Extraordinary Meeting to chase him out -was finally adopted. All the Saints should assemble on a week night to -pray for help, and for the discovery, confession and true repentance of -all the various sinners; to purge the repentant of their sins and to -praise the Lord for pardoning them; to purge the Meeting itself of the -stubborn and unrepentant--to cast them into the outer darkness. There -should be weeping and gnashing of teeth. - -A preliminary meeting to decide on procedure and agenda was held in our -dining-room. The committee which assembled was chosen by Aunt Jael and -consisted of herself, Grandmother, Pentecost, Brothers Quappleworthy -(despite theatre-going sister-in-law and known electioneering lapses), -Brawn and Browning. Also, at Pentecost's special plea--"'Twill be a -sacrifice of self, I know, dear Sister Vickary; that is why I urge -it"--Sister Yeo was admitted. As soon as all the committee had arrived -I was bundled out of the room, so I knew nothing of what was to happen -except what I gathered from ear-straining on the staircase, and chance -conversation between Grandmother and Aunt Jael afterwards. I gathered -this much: that the Extraordinary Meeting was to be preceded by a Tea. - -To this same Tea on a memorable Saturday afternoon we proceeded; -Grandmother, Aunt Jael, Mrs. Cheese and I. It is the only single -occasion in my memory when the Saints met together for public eating. -In nothing did we differ more from the general body of nonconformists -with their socials, bun-fights, feastings, reunions, conversazioni and -congregational guzzles. - -The Room presented an unusual sight. There were four long trestle -tables covered with white cloths and laden with food, with forms drawn -up beside them. The Saints, dressed in their Sunday best, were standing -about in groups when we arrived. Aunt Jael, puffed with the energies of -her walk, sat down at once on the end of a bench. Her weight sent the -other end soaring gaily into the air while she landed on the floor with -a most notable thud. The form banged back, not into position, but with -a swirling movement on to a plate of bread and butter. - -There is proof of the awful respect in which Aunt Jael was held in -this: that not a soul dared to smile as she sat there on her broad -posterior. For a moment or two no one even dared to help her to her -feet, fearing an outburst, for people like Aunt Jael are most dangerous -when you try to help them out of a predicament. Then by a sudden -gregarious instinct every one ran forward together in a sheep-like -mass, and bore Aunt Jael--red, antagonistic and threatening--to her -feet. - -After a blessing had been asked by Pentecost, we sat down to tea. I -recall ham, bath-buns and potted-meat sandwiches. After tea the tables -were cleared, the trestles packed away and the crockery and cutlery, -all of which had been lent, were put back uncleansed in clothes-baskets -in which they had been brought by the owners; for the Room possessed no -washing-up facilities. The forms were then rearranged as for Breaking -of Bread. Pentecost sat in his accustomed place at the right of the -Table as you faced it; we in our usual front row; Brother Briggs to the -right, Brother Quick to the left, Brother Marks, the old Personal Devil -of my imagination, far away in his goggled corner. In the pulpit or -dais, which was only used for the evening gospel meeting, were ranged -Brother Quappleworthy--in the centre, in charge of proceedings--Brother -Brawn on the right and Brother Browning on the left. Precedence and -position had been arranged at the committee meeting in our dining-room, -when Brother Quappleworthy had been chosen as chairman. The whole -staging was as for a meeting in the secular meaning of the word. Indeed -I remember feeling that the whole affair was a sort of excitement or -entertainment rather than a religious service. This feeling vanished -like dew with the dawn when Pentecost stood up and in a short prayer of -exceeding solemnity craved the Lord's blessing on our proceedings. The -keynote was SIN, its detection, confession, atonement; "and Sin, Lord, -is a terrible thing." - -Brother Quappleworthy rose to deal with the business before the -house. "First now, brethren, there's the question of those Saints -who have absented themselves from our--ah--mutual ministrations, -those backsliders who have left the Lord's table for other -so-called Christian bodies or the walks of open indifference -and--er--infidelity." Brawn and Browning murmured agreement. - -Sister Yeo's voice rang out accusing and metallic: "You're a fine one, -Brother Browning, to um-um-er, and to sit in judgment on others. First -cast out the beam from thine own eye! What of your own wedded wife who -goes openly to the Bible Christian chapel, and 'as done these fifteen -years; a source of stumbling and error to all the weaker brethren." -(Sensation.) - -"Silence, Sister," cried Brother Quappleworthy, "none may speak here to -accuse others, only to accuse self." - -"True," murmured the Meeting, and the Chairman resumed his discourse. -"A list has been--ah--prayerfully prepared of all the Saints who have -withheld themselves from fellowship for a space of time. Do all our -Brothers and Sisters agree that they be struck off our roll of grace? -Shall we say 'Ay' as we call each name? Brother Mogridge." - -"Ay," arose murmurously. - -"Sister Mogridge." - -"Ay." - -"Sister Polly Mogridge." - -"Ay." - -"Brother Richardson." - -"Ay." - -"Sister Petter." - -This time our tongues (I say "our" because I had joined unctuously -in the Ay's) stopped short just in time as we remembered that Sister -Petter was present. We all turned towards her. Her hand was over her -eyes, and she was weeping. - -"Sister Petter," called Brother Quappleworthy in a solemn voice. "You -who scoffed to unbelievers of the ministrations of the Saints, _You_, I -say!..." - -"Lord forgive me," she moaned. "Oh Lord forgive me." - -Pentecost arose with beaming face. "There's joy in the presence of the -angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." He went over to her and -put his hand on her shoulder saying, "Sister, be of good cheer, the -Lord hath forgiven thy sin." - -"Amen," said we all. - -Drink and theatre-going and elections and illnesses were all dealt with -then in their turn; I remember them hazily. When the denouncing voice -uttered the name Lucy Fry, I woke up into the most wide-awake interest, -for a _visible_ hush descended on the Meeting. - -Brother Quappleworthy had lost his usual urbanity: "Sin of sins, -abomination of abominations." His face was hard and fanatical. - -My eyes kept straying to the place where Lucy sat. She was a young -fresh-faced country girl. Tonight her rosy cheeks were pale, her eyes -drawn and she sobbed quietly but continually as her shame was exposed -before us. - -"Sister, repentest thou? Stand up, I say! Repent!" - -It was too much. The poor girl fainted. They bore her out insensible. -"Her first time out of doors," I heard it whispered, "since the child -was born." - -A feeling of pity was evident among the Saints. Brother Quappleworthy -realized this and was determined to crush it. "Remember, brethren, it -is a sin too grave, too vile for God to wink at. No dallying with sin! -I put it to you that Sister Fry be excluded from fellowship. A fleshly -sinner must not pollute the Lord's table." - -"Chase her out, Lord," cried Brother Brawn, "this adulterous woman!" - -"No," said Brother Browning, nervously, bravely. "She repents; the Lord -will be for mercy." The three Brothers fell to disputing on the dais, -and the discussion spread to the whole body of the Saints till there -was a veritable hubbub in the Room. Brother Quappleworthy quelled it by -calling out in a loud voice: "The Lord will show His will by means of a -vote. Now those brethren who think it right that Sister Lucy Fry, the -self-confessed sinner, be excluded from the Lord's table put up their -hands." - -Thirty-six hands were counted. - -"Now those brethren who think that she, the sinning woman, should -remain in fellowship." - -Twenty hands only were shown. Thus by sixteen votes the Lord, who is -merciful, voted against poor Lucy. - -Then a surprising thing happened. My Grandmother, for the only time in -my experience, stood up: "I have one question, brethren. Who is the -man?" - -No one had thought of that. No one does. - -There was a whispering. It was confirmed that Lucy's guilty -partner--whatever that might mean--was not a Saint and that nothing -could therefore be done. - -Brother Quappleworthy with sure dramatic instinct had reserved till the -last the super-sin: Sugar. "This work of Satan persevered in over so -long a period in a human heart ... For nineteen years ..." and so on. -He wound up by conjuring the sinner to confess, to repent ere it was -too late. - -There was no response to his appeal, and a flat and rather foolish -silence ensued. Then Pentecost Dodderidge prayed lengthily and -earnestly that the sinner might be moved to reveal himself. Then -another long fruitless silence. - -Pentecost arose again, solemn and determined: "Brethren, we must slay -the Evil One working in one poor sinner's heart, now, this evening--now -or never. No one shall leave this room until the guilty one has -confessed, not if we stay here for forty days and forty nights. Let us -pray silently that he may be moved." - -A new silence followed, but this time I was somehow expectant. The -minutes, however, dragged on, five, ten, fifteen; I watched the -crawling clock. Surely it could not last for ever, surely the patience -of the sinner must be worn out by our unending vigil. - -There was a noise of some one moving. Every one opened their eyes and -looked up. It was only Pentecost Dodderidge on his feet again. "The -Lord hath made it plain to me. He saith 'I will send a sign and then -the sinner will confess.'" Hardly had he sat down than there was a -great pelting of hail on the roof which continued for two or three -minutes. With the noise no one heard Brother Marks, my spectacled -Personal Devil, until he stood in front of the Lord's Table facing us -all with a countenance of ghost-like white. - -What followed I could never have believed had I not seen it with my own -eyes. He took a dark blue paper package from one pocket and emptied it -on one side of the Lord's Table; a shower of sugar came forth: little -white lumps, the sort with which he had fooled us--preserving sugar the -grocers call it, the sort with which jam is made. Then he took out from -his other pocket a little cloth bag and poured out into a separate heap -on the other side of the Lord's Table a shining heap of golden coins. -Then he knelt down in front of us all and sobbed and groaned and rocked -himself to and fro in an extreme agony that was terrible to see. - -No one knew what to do, no one except Pentecost, who went up to him and -lifted him to his feet; "Jesus forgives thee," he said, "let all of us -praise His Holy Name." - -The whole Meeting sprang to its feet, and burst forth into a hymn of -praise. A solemn fast was declared for seven days, and we sang the -Good-night Hymn: - - - Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu! - Still in God's way delight; - May grace and truth abide with you-- - Good night, dear saints, good night. - - When we ascend to realms above, - And view the glorious sight, - We'll sing of His redeeming love, - And never say Good night. - - Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu! - Still in God's way delight; - May grace and truth abide with you-- - Good night, dear saints, good night. - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] Colonel Ferguson-Davie of Crediton and Mr. George Potts of -Trafalgar Lawn, Tawborough, the two candidates successfully returned -for the Borough at the Election of 1859. - - - - -CHAPTER XII: THE GREAT DISCLOSURE - - -Soon after this, somewhere about my tenth birthday, in the early spring -of 1858, an important relaxation in my rule of life was made. I was -allowed, under strict limitations, to go out on the Lawn for a certain -period every afternoon, and to mix with the children there. - -In view of my Great-Aunt's principle, namely, to make my life as harsh -and pleasureless as possible, and of my Grandmother's steadfast prayers -and endeavours to keep me pure and unspotted from the world, this was a -big concession. The reason was my health. Grandmother saw that I never -got out of doors half enough, and that a couple of hours' play with -other children in the open air would be likely to make me brighter in -spirit and to bring colour to my cheeks. One Lord's Day, as we were -walking home from Breaking of Bread, I overheard Brother Browning: "If -you don't take care she will not be long for this world,"--nodding his -head sadly, sagely and surreptitiously in my direction. Anyway, the -amazing happened, and with stern negative injunctions from Aunt Jael -not to abuse the new privilege, nor to play "monkey tricks," for which -I should be well "warmed," and with more positive and more terrible -instructions from my Grandmother to use my opportunity among the other -children to "testify to my Lord," I was launched on the sea of secular -society, the world of the Great Unsaved. - -Except for what little I saw of them at the Misses Clinkers' I had no -acquaintance with other children, nor any knowledge of their "play." -While in the obedient orbit of my own imagination, I was bold, none -bolder, in the situations I created, the climaxes I achieved, the high -astounding terms with which I threatened the attic walls; face to face -with flesh-and-blood children of my own age, I soon found I was shy -to a degree, until they were out of my sight, and I was alone again, -when they joined the ever-lengthening cast of my puppet show, and, like -everybody else, did as they were bid. Not that I was shy of grown-ups; -it was the fruit of my upbringing that I was at ease with any one but -my equals. - -It was a horrible ordeal, that first afternoon, when I stepped through -our garden gate on to the Lawn. I walked unsteadily, not daring to look -towards the grass slope at the higher end, where all the Lawn children -were assembled in a group. "Waiting for you! Staring at you!" said -self-consciousness; and fear echoed. I flushed crimson. I was half sick -with shyness. It seemed to my imagination that every child was staring -at me with a hundred eyes--they knew, they knew! Marcus had heralded -the fact, had played Baptist to my coming--they were all assembled -here to stare, to flout, to mock. How I wished the earth would open -and swallow me up or that the Lord would carry me away in a great -cloud to Heaven. I dared not fly back into our garden: that way lay -eternal derision. Yet my legs would not carry me forward to the group -of children who stood there staring at me without mercy, without pity, -with the callous fixity of stars. I was filled with blind confusion, -and prayed feverishly for a miraculous escape. - -Miracle, in the body of Marcus, saved me. He came forward from the -group. - -"Hello, Mary Lee, we've been talking about you." (Of course they had.) -"I've told everybody you're allowed to play on the Lawn now, but we -don't know which League you ought to belong to." - -"What do you mean? What's a League?" - -"Well, all Lawn children are in two sides for games and everything. -Leagues means that. If your father and mother go to Church, you belong -to the Church League, if they go to Chapel, you belong to the Chapel -League." - -"I see." Secular distinction based on religious ones was a principle I -understood. - -"Yes, but you're not one or the other. Brethren aren't Church, are -they? And they aren't _really_ Chapel." - -"You're a Brethren too." - -"Not like you are. Mother goes to the Bible Christian Chapel, and -father really belongs there too, for all he goes to your meeting. So I -count as Chapel." - -"What do Papists count as?" - -"There aren't any. If there were any and if they were allowed to go -about, they'd be like you, neither one thing nor the other." - -"Like me indeed! Papists like Brethren! Saints like sinners!" - -"Not really, not like that; Brethren are more like Chapel, I know. -Besides _I_ want you to belong to our League, but--Joe Jones says -you're not to. There's a meeting about it tomorrow. All our rules and -sports and everything are decided at the meeting we have--not like -Brethren meetings--usually up at the top of the bank, near the big -poplar. Joe Jones sits on the wall, and he's our president. I'll let -you know what happens about you afterwards. Till then I don't think -you'd better play with us. _I_ don't mind, but the others say you'd -better not. If Joe Jones caught you! _I_ don't like Joe Jones,--don't -you ever whisper that, it's a terrible secret--but he doesn't like you, -and he's the top dog." - -Joe Jones, topmost of dogs, Autocrat of the Lawn, pimpled despot -against whose evil pleasure little could prevail, was a good deal older -than the rest of the children, by whom he was obeyed and feared. From -what Marcus said his heavy hand was against me from the start. I knew -why. He lived next door to us at Number Six, with an invalid, widowed -mother (whom I had only seen once or twice in my life, as she was kept -indoors by some mysterious infirmity which some described as grief and -others drink) and his sister Lena, a big freckled flaxen girl about -a year younger than himself. We rarely saw any of the three, and our -household of course had nothing to do with theirs (Church of England, -strict). But one morning as I was walking up the Lawn path on my way -from school, Lena had called out to me over the privet hedge. - -"Hello, you!"--and then something else, including a word I did not -know, though instinct told me it was bad. The obscenity of the -traditional filth words lies as much in their sound as in their -signification. She repeated the words several times, combining artistic -pleasure of mouthing the abomination with sheer joy of wickedness in -shocking me and staining my imagination. - -I went straight indoors and appealed to the dictionary. No help there; -Lena Jones had wider verbal resources than Doctor Johnson. Grandmother -would be sure to know. I went to that dear blameless old soul with the -foul word on my lips. - -"What does ---- mean?" - -"Nothing good, my dear," she replied calmly, imperturbably, without -a trace of the flush that would have appeared in the cheeks of -ninety-nine parents out of a hundred. "Nothing good, my dear. Where did -you hear it?" - -"Lena Jones--just now." - -Grandmother walked out of the house and rang the next-door bell. What -passed between her and the grief- (or gin-) stricken Mrs. Jones I do -not know, but the results were, first, that Lena was sent away to a -boarding-school, where I have no doubt she added suitably to the virgin -vocabulary of her companions; second, that Joe, taking up the cudgels -for his sister's honour, became suddenly and most unfavourably aware of -my existence. He would threaten me if I passed him on my way to school, -when I would cower to Marcus for protection. Once he chased me with a -cricket bat. And now that at last I was near to gaining the status of -"one of the Lawn children," he was going to revenge himself by standing -in my way. With the Lawn community a word from Joe Jones could make or -mar. If he forbade the others to speak to me, they would not dare to; -if he ordered them to persecute or tease me, they would obey. He was -the typical bully ruling with the rod of fear by the right of size. He -was the typical plague-spot too, polluting the whole life of the little -community. - -For the Lawn was, in the true sense, a community. The well-defined -bournes that were set to the oblong patch of greensward--the steep, -poplar-crowned grass bank at one end, surmounted by a wall over which -you looked down into a back lane and a stable some twenty feet below -you; at the opposite end that marched with the street the high brick -wall with one ceremonious gate in the middle for only egress to the -outside world; then the two rows of houses the full length of both -sides--gave to it a separate and self-contained character; the charm -and magical selfishness of an island. All the children who lived -in the Lawn houses played there, and played nowhere else. Though -divided into two mutually hostile leagues, they felt themselves to -be one blood and one people as against the strange world without the -gates. Of this community Joe Jones was the uncrowned King. Like the -early Teutonic monarchs he was limited in power by the folk-moot, or -primitive parliament of all his subjects. Questions of Lawn politics -were decided at democratic meetings under the poplars at the top of -the grass bank. There were equal suffrage, decisions by majorities, -and the feminine vote. Unfortunately Joe Jones had the casting vote, -and as there prevailed the show-of-hands instead of the secret ballot, -a look from his awful eye influenced a good many other votes as well. -In short, the Lawn, like all other democracies, was, as wise old -Aristotle saw, always near the verge of tyranny. At the tribal meetings -were discussed and decided sports and competitions, penalties and -punishments, ostracisms and taboos; unpopular proposals were consigned -to Limbo, unpopular persons to Coventry. In all doings that allowed of -"sides"--cricket, nuts-in-May, most ball games, tug of war, tick, Red -Indians, clumps (what were they, these mysteries?)--the two leagues, -Marcus told me, were arrayed in battle against each other. - -The Church League was of course led by Joe Jones, seconded, until her -departure for wider spheres of maleficence, by his devoted sister Lena. -Then there were Kitty and Molly Prince, also fatherless. Their late -parent was a "Rural Dean," and they were thus our social élite (Mr. -Jones, Senior, had been a mere butcher;--nay, pork-butcher even, said -the slanderers, with a fine feeling for social shades). Kitty and Molly -were dull, stupid girls. Molly was as sallow as a dried apple; Kitty -lisped; they were always dressed in brown, with large brown velvet bows -in their hats. There was a dim George Smith; a loud-voiced Ted King, -Joe Jones' principal ally, with his two sisters Cissie and Trixie. I -hate them vaguely to this day, that silly giggling pair with their -silly giggling names. I do not forget or forgive that they wore nice -clothes, and mocked cruelly at mine. About this time, Aunt Jael had -my hair shorn--it was my one good feature, and Aunt Jael knew that I -knew it, and decreed that I must "mortify the flesh" accordingly--and -sent me out into a mocking world in school and Lawn, with my face -full of shame and my hair clipped to the head like a boy's. How those -King girls sneered and giggled, and how I loathed them. Finally there -was little John Blackmore, of whom it was whispered abroad that -"his father died before he was born." The import of this fact was -dimly apprehended, but Lawn opinion was unanimous in regarding it as -something unique and special, something sufficient to endow little -Johnny Blackmore with an air of quite exotic velvet-trousered mystery. -He was a gentle, dark-eyed, olive-skinned child, and the only member -of the Establishment party I could abide. He shared the fatherlessness -which was common to his League--the Kings were an exception--and -which probably accounted for their eminence in ill-behaviour. Another -coincidence was that all the members of the Church League, except -George Smith, lived on our side of the Lawn, i. e. the same side as my -Grandmother's house. In defiance of Number Eight, Fort of Plymouth, -halting-place for heaven, they called it "the Church side!" - -The leader of the Chapel League was Laurie Prideaux, whose father kept -the big grocer's shop in High Street; a tall, pretty, picture-book -boy with golden curls, a Wesleyan Methodist, and I think the nicest -of all the Lawn children, with whom his influence was second to Joe -Jones' only, and for good instead of evil. The power of one was because -he was liked, of the other because he was feared: those two forms -of power that hold sway everywhere--Aunt Jael and Grandmother, Old -Testament God and New Testament Christ; fear and love. If there was -any weeping, Laurie was there to comfort it; any injustice, Laurie -would champion it. Against Joe Jones he was my rod and my staff. His -second-in-command was Marcus, Marcus who hovered on the marge between -Bible Christianhood, which qualified him for admission to the Lawn, and -Plymouth Brethrenism, which qualified him for admission to Heaven only. -He was a nice boy, Marcus, for all the uncertainty of his theological -position, and I remember him as one of the few bright faces of my -early life. The strength of Lawn Dissent lay in the unnumbered Boldero -family, a seething brood of Congregationalists, who lived over the way -in the corner house opposite Number Eight. Only five of them were of -appropriate age to possess present membership of the Lawn--Sam, Dora, -Daisy, Bill and Zoë--but on either side of the five stretched fading -vistas of babes and grown-ups. Dora was clever, Daisy good-natured, -fat, dull and bow-legged, Zoë fat only, Sam and Bill rough, stupid and -friendly. Finally there were Cyril and Eva Tompkins--twins; Baptists: a -spiteful couple who vied with the Kings in mocking me. - -To sum up. On the whole, despite Joe Jones, the boys were kinder than -the girls; a first impression which life, in the lump, has borne out; -and on the whole, despite the Tompkinses, the Chapel League was the -nicer of the two; the brainier also, despite the Boldero boys, and -Johnny Blackmore, who was the shining intellect of the Establishment. -Though I have no longer the faintest hostility to the Anglican -Communion, I find inside me a dim ineradicable notion of some moral -superiority, some higher worth, however slight, which I concede to -the Nonconformists; and I trace it back to my first experience of the -two. If I bow my head in reverent humility before the Dissenters of -England, I know that the real reason is because Laurie and Marcus and -the happy Bolderos were such, while Joe and Lena and the Kings and the -Princes--Beware of Kings! Put not your trust in Princes!--were not. - -Church League and Chapel League, and I could belong to neither! My -first feeling should have been sorrow that among that score of young -souls there was not one single sure inheritor of glory; I fear it was -pride instead; in my heart I rejoiced as the Pharisee, that I was not -as other children, and that in me alone had the light shined forth. -Yet at the same moment, parallel but contradictory, I found this -question in my heart: why am I not as other children? Why cannot I -mix with them as one of them, and belong to their Leagues and joys? -After all, my right to belong to the Church League was about as good -as Marcus' Chapel pretensions: had not Grandmother and Aunt Jael both -been Churchwomen once? Or again, if Marcus, who was at least half a -Saint, was allowed to belong to the Chapel League, then why not I, who -was only half a Saint more? I had for a moment a rebellious notion of -forming a new League of my own, a Saints' League, a Plymouth League, -a League of the Elect; but reflection soon showed me that one member -was barely enough. Could I convert others though? The notion warmed -my heart, the more luxuriously because though at root ambitious, it -seemed so virtuous and noble. Missionary zeal would further personal -ambition. In testifying to the Lord, I would raise up unto Him -followers who should be _my_ followers too; forming at one and the same -time the Lord's League and _my_ League. There burned together in me for -a queer exalted moment the red flame of ambition and the pure white -fire of faith; burning together in Mary as in Mahomet; as in the souls -of the great captains of religion. The fires died down; till there -burned within me just the candle flicker of this humble hope: that -the morrow's meeting would suffer me to join the Lawn at all, as the -lowliest novice in whichever League would take me. - -Next day after tea, I watched from afar the deliberations of the -assembly that was handling my fate. - -Some one shouted my name; I approached and appeared before the tribe. -On the wall that surmounted the mound of justice sat Joseph Jones, -surrounded by his earls and churls. I observed his pimples, his ginger -hair, his fish-like bulging eyes. - -"Come here. Stand straight. Look at me." - -I obeyed. He faced me. The tribe surrounded me. - -"Your name?" - -"Mary Lee." - -"You're allowed now to come out and play on the Lawn?" - -"Yes." - -"You can't just play and do as you like, you know. There are Laws of -the Lawn. And there are two Leagues, and you must belong to one of -them." - -This sounded encouraging; he was not going to stand in my way after all. - -"I know," I said. "Which shall I belong to?" - -"We'll see. Let me see, which are you, Church or Chapel?" He was too -dull to conceal the wolf in the sheep-like blandness of his voice. -Well, I would fight for my footing. - -"Neither. You know that." - -"Neither?" incredulously. "How do you mean?" - -"I belong to the Brethren, the Saints. That's neither Church nor -Chapel." - -"Well then, you can't belong to the Church League or the Chapel League, -can you, if you aren't either? Of course you can't. We're _sorry_, but -you can't belong to the Lawn at all. Still" (generously) "we'll let you -walk about." He dismissed me with a nod. I did not move. - -"But--" - -"Now shut up. No damned chatter. You should belong to a decent -religion." - -"It is a decent religion," I cried. "Don't you talk so; it is my -Grandmother's. 'Tis as good as any of yours, and a lot better. And 'tis -not a good enough reason for keeping me out." - -The Lord of the Lawn was not accustomed to being addressed thus. He -darkened--or rather flushed; gingerheads cannot darken. - -"If you want another reason, 'tis because you are a dirty little -tell-tale sneak." - -"Hear, hear! Sneak, Sneak!" Chorus of Kings and Princes. - -"I'm _not_ a sneak. I'm _not_ a sneak, and I don't want to belong to -your miserable Lawn. I'm a Saint anyway, and better than you churches -and chapels." - -I turned and moved away. "Saint, Saint, look at the Saint! The sneaking -Saint, the saintly sneak. The Brethering kid. Plymouth Brethering, good -old Plymouth Rocks. Three cheers for the Plymouth Rocks!" Church and -Dissent mingled in this hostile chorus that pursued me to our gate. - -"Look at the corduroy skirt, he, he, he!--just like workman's -trousers," was the last thing I heard. My cheeks burned with rage and -shame. - -I ran up to the attic to sob and mope in peace. I was Hagar once again, -turned out into the wilderness alone. Every child's hand was against -me. I sobbed away, until at last the luxury of extreme grief brought -its comfort. Mine was the chief sorrow under the heavens, it was unique -in its injustice; I was the unhappiest little girl in all the world. I -regained a measure of happiness. - -After this experience, I went out on to the Lawn as little as possible; -which achieved the result of Aunt Jael driving me there. - -I could take no part in games, but after a while I became a kind of -furtive hanger-on in the outskirts at the frequent "Meetings" of the -Lawn, at which the division into Leagues did not usually persist. -I only dared approach the company when Joe Jones was absent, which, -however, inclined to be more and more usual as he became absorbed in -gay adult adventures in the world outside the Lawn gates. The moment -Joe was gone, and Laurie Prideaux had stepped without question into -the shoes of leadership, the bullies who, under Joe's encouraging eye, -would have driven me off, were silent and left me alone, obeying with -slavish care the whim of the new Autocrat. So I stood away, just a -little outside the ring of children, and listened. - -Under Laurie's influence, the meetings were more concerned with affairs -of universal moment and abstract truth than with the intrigues and -vendettas so dear to Joseph Jones. Is the moon bigger than the sun? -How far away are the stars? Does it really hurt the jelly-fish like -the big yellow ones you see at Ilfracombe and Croyde, if you cut them -in two with your spade? Do fish feel pain? Is the donkey the same as -an ass, or is ass the female of donkey? What is the earliest date -in the year you can have raspberries in the garden, or thrush's--or -black-bird's--or cuckoo's eggs out in the country? What is the farthest -a cricket-ball has ever been thrown? and will there be a war between -England and the French Empire? With any insoluble question, i. e. a -question to which nobody brought an answer which the meeting regarded -as final, the procedure adopted was for every one present to refer it -to his or her father or mother, and to report the result at the next -meeting. Much valuable information was gleaned by this means. The final -decision was by a majority of votes. Then if five parents said the moon -was bigger than the sun, and only four that the sun was bigger than the -moon, then the moon _was_ bigger than the sun. Voting was by parents. -Thus the Bolderos counted as one vote only; which was not unjust, for -the brood, who were inclined, under Dora's orders, to stand or fall -together, would otherwise have swamped the meetings; as indeed they -frequently did when the question was not one which had been referred -back to parental omniscience. - -One day the supreme problem was raised. Joe Jones was not present, but -perhaps he had inspired the discussion. It came breathlessly, with -the swift tornado-strength of great ideas. Every one of us knew at -once that we were face to face with something bigger than we had ever -encountered before. Into our camp of innocence it fell like a bursting -bombshell, scattering wonder in all directions. Of the innocence I feel -pretty sure; I do not believe a single child knew. - -"They are _born_, of course," said one, sagely. - -"Yes; but _how_?" - -"Storks bring them," said little Ethel Prideaux. "On my panorama, there -is a picture of a big white stork carrying a baby in its beak, and it -puts it down the chimney." - -"Where does it get it?" objected Marcus. "Besides storks are only in -Holland and places abroad; there aren't any left in England, and there -are babies in England just the same." - -"I think it has something to do with gooseberry bushes," said Trixie -King. "I overheard my Auntie saying so." - -"Well, we have nothing but flowers in our garden," said Billy Boldero, -"and there are twelve in our family, and no gooseberry bushes." - -"It is neither storks nor gooseberries," said Dora Boldero, aged -thirteen, importantly. "These are only fairy tales for children. The -real reason" (she lowered her voice impressively) "is this. Doctors -bring them. Whenever we have a baby born" (at least an annual event -in the Boldero ménage) "the doctor comes. He always brings with him a -Black Bag. _That's it!_" (Sensation.) - -Marcus was the first to recover. Even Black Bag was inadequate as First -Cause. - -"Yes, but where does he get the baby first, before he puts it in the -bag to bring? He must get it somewhere." - -"From the gooseberry bush, of course," said Trixie King, in a bold -effort to recover her position. "I expect there is a special garden -behind doctors' houses where they grow." - -"But if there isn't?" objected Marcus pitilessly. "Doctor Le Mesurier -has no garden at all, neither has Doctor Hale." - -"No," said Laurie Prideaux. "And I don't believe the Black Bag story -one bit. Because if it were that, the doctor could take the bag -anywhere, and give whoever he liked a baby, just whenever he liked. And -he can't, I know. Anybody can't have a baby just when they like. Mother -says Mrs. Pile at Number Three has wanted one for years. Besides, any -one can't have one. Only mothers have babies." - -"_And_ fathers," said some one. - -"Fathers and mothers together; there must be both. At least there -always _is_ both." - -"Except--" We all looked awkwardly at Johnny Blackmore, the posthumous -one. He flushed slightly under his olive skin. - -"No, I had a father too; he _was_ my father, though he died before I -was born." - -"Well, if your father can die before you are born, what makes him -your father? What does 'being your father' mean?" We were getting to -fundamentals. - -"Can a mother die too before her baby is born?" - -Nobody could answer this. Somehow it _seemed_ more improbable. Besides, -we had no motherless counterpart of Johnny Blackmore to support the -notion. - -"Whether they die or whether they don't," said Laurie, summing up, "all -that we've found out so far is that there must be a father and there -must be a mother; a gentleman and a lady, that is, who are married. -They must be married." - -"No, they needn't be," I cried eagerly. "Sister Lucy Fry at our Meeting -is not married, and she has a baby four months old!" - -The sensational character of my information allowed my first utterance -in a Lawn assembly to pass unreproved. There was an impressed silence. -Everybody waited for more. - -"It is not often, I don't think," I went on. "It was a mistake of some -kind, and a sin too. Much prayer was offered up, and Aunt Jael nearly -had her turned out of fellowship. It is _wrong_ to have a baby if you -are not married. Wrong, but not impossible." - -"That's important," said Marcus, "but we've really found nothing out. -How are they made? What makes them come?" - -"The Lord," said I, sententiously. This was a falling off. - -"I know. But _how_?" - -Marcus was final. "This is a thing that has got to be asked at home. -Tomorrow evening at half-past-five you will all report what you have -found out. It is a thing we ought to know. We shall have to have -children ourselves one day." - -"I don't like to athk," simpered Kitty Prince. "Mother'd not like me to -I'm thure." - -Perhaps she really knew, though more likely vague instinct coloured her -reluctance. - -It was a reluctance I did not share. The meeting was about to disperse, -and I was resolving in my mind the words I should use when asking my -Grandmother, wondering what her answer might be, when "There's Joe -coming in at the gate," was shouted, "let's ask him." - -We crowded round him as he approached. - -"Well, what is it, kids?" he said, in his royal cocksure way. - -Laurie told him. He smiled: an evil important smile. - -"And nobody knows anything," concluded Laurie. - -"Don't they?" leered Joe, looking around to see that all the Lawn -children were listening, and no one else. "Don't they. _I_ know." - -He told us. He told us with a detail that left no room for doubt and a -foulness that smote our cheeks with shame. - -"It is not true." I kept whispering to myself. My cheeks burned, and I -was shaking all over. Against myself, I believed him. It was horrible -enough to be true. - -He gave us fatherhood as it appeared to him. When he came to the -mother's sacrifice of pain, and desecrated it with filthy leering -words, I could bear it no longer, and eluding all attempts to stop me, -I fled wildly into the house, and upstairs to my Grandmother. - -She looked up from the Word, surprised in her calm fashion. - -"What is it, my dear?" - -I told her. "O Grandmother, it is not as cruel as that, is it? It is -not true? Tell me it is not true!" - -"It is true, my dear." - -"And does it hurt like that?" - -"Yes, my dear." - -"Why--why isn't there some easier way? So horrible the first part, and -then so cruel. It is wrong." - -"It's the Lord's will, my dear. It always has been and always will be. -Meanwhile, you are not to go on the Lawn again till I have spoken to -your Aunt. I must seek the Lord's guidance. Leave me to lay it before -Him." - -The look on Aunt Jael's face at supper-time soon banished the far -terrors of motherhood: Grandmother had clearly told her all. It -was unjust, of course: it was no crime on my part to have heard -something--and something true--to which I could not help listening, -which I had not sought to hear, and which terrified me now that I had -heard it. It was unjust that she was angry. But there 'twas. - -All through supper she said nothing. I feared to receive her wrath, yet -I could not bear that visit should be delayed till the morrow, which -would mean a sleepless night of visualizing. As we rose from our knees -after evening worship, Aunt Jael turned a grim eye on me and spoke. - -"I shall write to Simeon Greeber tomorrow." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII: I GO TO TORRIBRIDGE - - -I knew what that meant. It had been hinted at on several occasions -since the birthday party. I was to go to Torribridge to live with Uncle -Simeon. - -I disliked Uncle Simeon, and did not want to leave my Grandmother. On -the other hand I longed to see the world, and to get away from Aunt -Jael. I must show her how glad I was at the prospect. - -"You mean you're going to write to him about my going to live there?" - -I said it in a cool pleased fashion, then at once regretted I had -done so, for I knew Aunt Jael well enough to see that the pain the -punishment she proposed would cause me was a more important thing than -saving me from baneful Lawn influence; if I showed her too plainly I -was glad to go to Torribridge, which on the whole I fancied I was, she -might cancel the plan without more ado. - -So I repeated: "You mean you're going to write to him about my going to -live there?"--but this time my voice had a note of mournfulness; Aunt -Jael sat up and stared. She failed to see through me, however; could -not probe the depths of my cunning, as I the depths of her ill-will. - -Grandmother comforted me: "'Twill be a change, my dear. Your Aunt and I -think 'twill be a good and useful change for you. Your Aunt Martha will -teach you many new things. Don't 'ee be tearful, my child: the Lord -will watch over you." - -Two days later Uncle Simeon arrived to take me. Pasty faced, -white-livered, cringing little wretch, with his honeyed smile and -honey-coloured hair. He sniffed as always. - -"Good day, dear Miss Vickary. Good morning, dear Mrs. Lee. You too, -dear little one. One is well pleased to see all one's kinsfolk looking -so well in mind and body, well pleased indeed! One scarce knows how to -express oneself. But one can give thanks, ah yes, one can give thanks." - -We sat down to dinner. Food punctuated but did not check his flow of -eloquence. He got the food on to his fork, but did not lift it. Instead -he ducked his head and snatched, tearing the food from the fork as a -wolf warm flesh from a bone. His eyes glistened as Mrs. Cheese placed a -steaming mutton-pie before Aunt Jael. - -"Your daughter, dear Mrs. Lee? Yes, dear Martha was well, when one left -her this morning, and--D. V.--still is. She sends her fond greeting -to you both. One took leave of her with a heavy heart, though 'tis -only for a day, for one's love is so jealous, one's absences so rare. -One took the eleven o'clock railway-train from Torribridge.... There -were two ladies in the compartment with one. One was glad, ay glad -indeed, to observe that ere the train started, they both whipped out -their Bibles. One entered into earnest conversation with them. One was -overjoyed, if surprised, to find that, although they were Baptists, -they were good Christians." - -"There are many such," interposed my Grandmother. "Don't 'ee be narrow, -Simeon Greeber." - -"Maybe, maybe, dear Mrs. Lee. God gives grace in unlikely places. -Be that as it may, however, at Instow both ladies got out, and a -gentleman entered the carriage, a man of means from his appearance, -one would say. One remembered that he was but a sinner. One remembered -the heavenly injunction: In season and out of season. One spoke a -quiet word to him as to the Gospel plan. One was polite, if earnest. -Alas, the poor sinner answered roughly. The Devil spoke in him. He -used an evil word one's modesty forbids one to repeat. But in the -Lord's service one must endure much. One suffered, but one forgave. -Tonight he will be remembered in one's prayers. One was pained, hurt, -wounded, grieved--but angry,--no! Anger is not the sin which doth -most easily beset one." (What was? I wondered. Gluttony perhaps, I -thought, as I watched his staccato snatches at a big second helping of -the mutton-pie.) "One looked again at the face of the handsome sinner -opposite. A voice spoke within one: 'Be not weary in well doing,' but -a second effort at godly conversation yielded, alas, no better result. -One had done one's duty, and for the rest of the journey one reflected -on the different Eternities facing the poor sinner's soul and one's -own. The railway train reached Tawborough in the Lord's good time, -and here one is, rejoiced to see all one's dear relatives ... rejoiced -indeed...." - -The moment Mrs. Cheese had cleared away the table-cloth, Aunt Jael was -curt: "To business, to business!" And to me, "You're not wanted. Make -yourself scarce." - -I went upstairs to the spare bedroom, meaning to sit on a settee by the -window and daydream away the time. I opened the window. The dining-room -downstairs must have been open too, for I could hear Aunt Jael's voice -booming away. "Eight shillings" and "Child" I heard. I should never -have tried to overhear, but now I found I could hear without trying--by -the window here, whither I had come quite by accident. I could not -help hearing if I tried--perhaps I had been _led_ to the window-seat -by the Lord, perhaps it was providential, perhaps I _ought_ to listen. -Besides, Mrs. Cheese did it: I caught her red-handed listening outside -the door one day when Aunt Jael and Grandmother were discussing a -rise in her wages. And eavesdropping was not a _sin_. There was no -commandment, "Thou shalt not eavesdrop"--Our Lord had never forbidden -it--there was nothing in the Word against it. And what harm would be -done? As they were discussing my future, I should know soon enough in -any case what they decided, so why not know at once?... No deceivers in -the world are so easily deceived as self-deceivers. I leaned right out -of the window. - -"Agreed then, Simeon Greeber. You will take her for twelve months, -treat her as your own boy, and have the same lessons taught her by -Martha. And eight shillings a week for the board." - -"Eight shillings?" queried a treacly voice, yet pained as well as -treacly. "_Eight_ shillings?" It is impossible to describe the sweet -sad stress he laid on the numeral, or the wealth of poignant sentiment -that stress conveyed. Not of greed or graspingness, oh dear no! Rather -of pained sorrow at the greed and graspingness of Aunt Jael. "Eight? -One fears 'twill be difficult. If it were _nine_, one might hope, one -might struggle, one might endeavour--" - -"Stuff and nonsense. A child of nine years old, eating little; and your -table don't _groan_ with good things. Eight is enough and to spare. -Not one ha'penny-piece more. Yea or nay?" - -A pause, ere Christian meekness gave in to unchristian ultimatum. - -"Well then, dear Miss Vickary, one will try, one will hope--" - -"Call the child," she cut him short. - -I fled from the window guiltily. "Yes, Grandmother, I'm coming," I -called back. - -Uncle Simeon stayed the night: my last at Tawborough. Grandmother was -kind. I did not know how I loved her till I felt I was going to lose -her. This was my first big step in life. I was losing my old moorings, -and sailing off to a new world. My mouth was dry, as it is when the -heart is sick and apprehensive. Aunt Jael was adamant against my -spending even occasional Lord's Days at Tawborough. I was to visit Bear -Lawn but once during the year, though 'twas but nine miles away. There -was no appeal against this: Aunt Jael had decided it. - -Grandmother came to my bedroom. We read the twenty-third psalm -together. Then she prayed for me, and we sang an old hymn together. At -"Good-night, my dearie" I clung to her more than usual. - -"There's only you in the world that really likes me." - -"No, my dear, there is your good aunt. And there is God. Don't 'ee say -nobody loves you when _He_ is there. Don't 'ee think all the time of -yourself. Think of making others happy. There'll be your little cousin -Albert to befriend. Your Aunt Martha is kind, and will treat you well. -That is why I'm letting 'ee go. Your Uncle Simeon too--" - -"_He's_ not kind," daringly. - -"Hush, my dear, don't 'ee say so. He's a godly man, and fears the Lord -exceedingly. He will treat you in a Christian way. And God will always -be near you. Pray to Him every night, read in His word, sing to Him a -joyful song of praise. Never forget that threefold duty and joy. Never -forget, my dear. You will promise your Grandmother?" - -"Yes, Grandmother, but 'twill be lonely." - -"Your mother--my little Rachel--had worse trials than you, please God, -will ever know; yet she praised God always. Will you be brave like her?" - -"Yes, Grandmother," huskily, and I kissed her twice. - -Next day, after an early dinner, we left Bear Lawn. I had a grim -godspeed from the old armchair. - -"No highty-tighty, no monkey tricks, no stubborn ways. Fear the Lord -at all times,"--and a swift formal peck which was not swift enough to -conceal perhaps a faint tinge of regret. - - * * * * * * * - -We left by rail. Uncle Simeon read his Bible the whole way to -Torribridge, and never spoke a word. It was only my second journey by -railway, and I had enough to interest me in looking out of the window. -The country-side was bright with spring. Little did I foresee the -different circumstances of my return journey. - -I well remember our arrival. There was a tea-supper on the table, so -meagre that my heart sank at the outset. There was my Aunt Martha. -She seemed like a weak tired edition of my Grandmother. She looked -miserable and underfed; I soon came to know that she was both. I -regarded Albert, a dull heavy-faced boy with a big mouth and thick lips. - -The latter soon opened. "Don't stare, _you_! Father, she's staring at -me." - -"It's not true. I'm not staring. I was just looking at him." - -"Come, there, no answerings back in this house, learn that once for -all." There was still a good deal of honey about Uncle Simeon's, still -small voice, but it was flavoured with aloes now and other bitter -things, whose presence he had kept hidden at Bear Lawn. The honeyed -whine was now very near a snarl, as he showed his shiny white teeth -and repeated, "Once for all." The Tawborough mask was being put aside -already. - -A clock outside struck the hour. I looked at the time-piece, which -registered eight o'clock. So did he. - -"She knows her bedroom, Martha? Yes. At eight she goes to bed, and -eight in the morning we take our humble breakfast. Come now, to bed!" - -I was faced with the Good-night difficulty. Albert I ignored, and -he me. Aunt Martha was plain sailing. She looked kind, if weak and -blurred. We kissed each other listlessly on the cheek. But from Uncle -Simeon I shrank instinctively as I came near him. He saw my feelings, -I saw he hated me for them, he saw that I felt his hate. That refusal -to kiss was a silent declaration of inevitable war. - -He took the offensive that very night, as the clock hands showed next -morning. - -I went upstairs with my candle, and sat down on a chair in the middle -of the room. There was an unused smell about everything which seemed to -add to my homesickness and sense of lost bearings. Bear Lawn had never -been a gay and festive place, but it was home, and here in the dreary -room the first-night-away-from-home feeling overcame me badly with all -its disconsolate accompaniments of damp eyes and dry throat. The old -injustice burned in my heart, the old bitterness came back. Why had I -had to leave my Grandmother, the only one in the world who cared for -me? Why was there nobody who loved me even more than that, in whose -bosom I could hide my face and cry, whose love to me was wonderful? Why -had the Lord left me no Mother who would have loved me best of all? -The same old questions reduced me to the same old tears ... I pulled -myself together and remembered my three-fold duty: to say my prayers, -to read my psalm, to sing my hymn. I decided, with a true Saint's whim, -to choose my nightly psalm by opening my Bible at random--I could gauge -the whereabouts of the Psalms well enough, if only by the used look -on the edge--and reading always the first psalm that caught my eye. -Whether the Lord guided me to a choice of His own, or whether it was -that my Bible opened naturally at so familiar a place, I do not know: -anyway, there before me was the dirty, well-loved, well-thumbed page -(page 537 I remember), and in the middle of it, plastered around with -affectionate red crayon, stood my favourite 137th Psalm. I read aloud: - -_By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we -remembered Zion._ - -At once the appropriateness of the words came to me. Never had I felt -till now what I had been told a hundred times, that the Bible was -written for _me_. Here was a psalm which expressed my identical sorrow: - - - _We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof._ - _For there they that carried us away captive required of us - a song; and they that wasted as required of us mirth, saying,_ - _Sing us one of the songs of Zion._ - - _How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_ - - -I finished the psalm and then tried to sing my hymn as I had promised -my Grandmother, but I could not. My heart and my voice failed me: _How -could I sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_ - -I awoke next morning, refreshed, to see the bright sun shining in. I -did not know the time, as nobody had called me, and I had no watch. -Just as I had finished dressing, a clock outside struck, the same -clock as the night before. I counted; one, two, three, four, five, -six, seven--on the eighth stroke I went downstairs. I'll be punctual, -I said to myself. Uncle Simeon, Aunt Martha and Albert were already at -the table. I looked at the timepiece; it marked nearly a quarter after -the hour! Yet last evening it had tallied with the chime outside. Aunt -Martha and I exchanged a brief matutinal peck; I found it easier, after -the first effort the night before, to keep away from Uncle Simeon. -"Good morning, Uncle," was all I said. - -"Good morning," he replied, with a new touch of spite and venom in his -whispering honeyed voice. "Not a good start, young woman. One said -eight punctual for breakfast. 'Tis now fourteen minutes past." - -"I came down the second the clock outside struck the hour. Last night -it was the same time exactly. One of them must have gone wrong all of a -sudden, or been altered perhaps." - -"Altered? So you hint that this clock has been deliberately changed?" -(I never thought of this till he suggested it, but then I knew; his -shifty eyes betrayed him.) "One is not used to that sort of hint, and -one has a way of dealing with it, a certain way." - -I began my bowl of porridge. Meanwhile Uncle Simeon and Albert were -beginning their eggs, and as soon as I had emptied my porringer, I -looked around for mine. There was no egg within sight. I waited; none -appeared. I plucked up my courage to ask. - -"When is my egg coming, Aunt Martha?" There was a dead silence. Aunt -Martha went red in the face, and looked uncomfortable. Uncle Simeon -broke the silence. He looked hard at me, though never into my eyes. - -"When is your egg coming? It is _not_ coming. In one's house little -girls are not pampered. They do not live on rich, unhealthy foods, nor -wear sumptuous apparel. They do not lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch -themselves upon their couches until a late hour, nor eat the lambs out -of the flock, nor the calves out of the midst of the stall. They do not -live in kings' houses; they live at Number One the Quay, Torribridge; -under this Christian, if humble, roof. They eat humble Christian fare, -and thank our Lord for it in a humble Christian way. If a fine generous -bowl of porridge does not suffice, there is always plenty of good, -plain bread. Your Aunt will give you as many crusts as you can wisely -eat." - -So I was to be starved, and preached at in my starvation! He was going -to make sure of his eight shillings' worth. I felt red with anger, but -held my tongue, schooled to silence by ten years of Aunt Jael. Aunt -Martha looked ashamed of his meanness, but was far too weak to fight -it. What will she ever had was stamped out of her on her wedding-day, -poor wretch. Albert, dull, greedy little beast, gloated coarsely over -my discomfiture, his tongue (all yellow with egg) hanging out of his -mouth. Uncle Simeon tried to disguise his triumph under his usual -loathsome mask of meekness, or perhaps he felt that he had gone too far -too soon. - -"Come, come! One is forgiving, one can be generous, merciful," and -handed me the little top of his egg slit off by his breakfast knife. - -This was adding insult to injury. Tears of anger stood in my eyes, but -I managed to get out a calm "No, thank you," which enabled him to write -to my Grandmother, I afterwards found, that "the little one refuses -even part of an egg for her breakfast." - -After breakfast came prayers. He whined where Aunt Jael thundered. -Then came lessons with Albert and Aunt Martha. The former was stupid -to a degree; the latter was very interesting to me, after my years -of Miss Glory, especially in the French, to which I took at once. -Dinner consisted of an interminable grace, three times as long as -Grandmother's longest, and a tiny portion of hash. For "afters" there -was a roly-poly pudding, quite plain, with no lovely hot jam worked -in between the folds. Uncle Simeon and Albert had cold raspberry -jam with theirs, out of a jar on the table. Aunt Martha and I did -not. Manifestly the womenfolk at Number One the Quay did not live in -Kings' houses, if the males did. Uncle Simeon was the King and Albert -the King's son. My slice, the nasty dry bit at the end, was not four -mouthfuls. He served everything. - -After dinner Albert and I were sent out for a walk together. - -"Where are we going to?" I asked. - -"Where I like," was the reply, in a sulky voice, ruder than he dared -use before his father. "And look here you, learn at the start, when you -go walks with me you'll do what I tell you. And if you see me doing -aught as I choose to, and there's any sneaking--I've got a fist you -know." - -The little brute lowered. I wondered what the dark things he hinted -at might be; pitch-and-toss with boon companions of a like age, I -afterwards discovered. Anyway, his hand too was against me: I was -a young Hagar. For tea I had a bit of plain bread and a mug of -hot milk and water, though Uncle Simeon and Albert had butter and -whortleberry jam with their bread, and tea to drink. Afterwards I -worked at the morning's lessons, sums and grammar and _je donne, tu -donnes, il donne_. Then knitting--grey woollen socks for Brethren -missionaries--evening prayers--my own bedside devotions--and bed. - -All days were much like the first one, when not worse. It was the -most miserable period of my life. Soon the daily round at Bear Lawn -became almost cheerful in my memory. I was wretchedly underfed; though -I sometimes lost appetite, and could not even eat the scanty fare he -allowed me. When I left food on my plate, unlike Aunt Jael he did not -force me. Rather he made it a good excuse for saying I had more to -eat than I needed. My morning porridge was what I liked best, and one -day I said so. "Ah, gluttony!" he cried, and snatched my porringer, -pouring off the milk and scraping the brown sugar on to his own plate; -"Whosoever lusteth after her victuals, the same is lost. Ah, to make -one's belly one's God, 'tis a sin before the Most High!" - -A starvation day in the attic was a favourite punishment, as it -combined economy with cruelty. At times I should have fainted away -half-famished but for what Aunt Martha privily conveyed me. - -Three evil passions, I soon found, held pride of place in Uncle Simeon; -meanness, greed and cruelty. Sometimes, if at a meal-time Aunt Martha -went into the kitchen for a moment, he would get up with a cat-like -speed, scrape all the butter off her slice of bread-and-butter, and -spread it on his own piece. Aunt Martha said nothing, to such depths of -fear and obedience can women sink; though she flushed the first time -she saw that _I_ saw this husbandly deed. He was too mean to keep a -servant; helped once a week by a charwoman, a tall funereal Exclusive -Sister named Miss Woe. Aunt Martha did all the work of a house twice -the size of Bear Lawn. - -Cruelty came nearest to his heart. He flogged me brutally. The first -time the trouble began over a letter, a few days only after I arrived -at Torribridge. He came into the dining-room, sniffing spitefully. I -knew something was afoot by the look of mean anticipated triumph in his -eyes. He held out a letter for my inspection, placing his thumb over -the name of the person to whom it was addressed. I could read "1, The -Quay, Torribridge"; the handwriting was my Grandmother's. - -"_'Tis_ a letter from my Grandmother," I cried, "a letter for me." - -"A letter from your dear Grannie, true, true; but who said it was for -you? Who said that? ha! ha!" - -"It is, I know it is. Give it me, please." - -Sniffing and sneering, he handed it across. There was "Miss Mary Lee" -true enough; but the envelope had been opened. - -"_'Tis_ mine then; who opened it?" - -"Who opened it? One who will open every letter that comes if one -chooses, in accordance with your dear Great-Aunt's wishes." - -"It's not true. I'm ten years old. Can't I open my own letters from my -own Grandmother? She's my only friend in the world. It's not true." - -"Have a care what you say, young miss, have a care. There is another -little friend for you in the drawing-room. You shall be introduced at -once." - -I followed him upstairs, rabbit-like, not knowing what to expect. He -locked the door. "Here is the Little Friend," he said, fetching from a -corner a ribbed yellow cane. He gave me a cruel thrashing, clawing my -left shoulder and whirling me round and round. The room was enormous; -a spacious thrashing place. He hurt me as much as Aunt Jael on a -field-day with the ship's rope, but I bawled less; no pain could draw -from me the shrieks I knew he longed to hear. - -Never more than four or five days passed without his thrashing me. I -could review impartially the modes and methods of the two tyrants I -knew: Aunt Jael with her stout thorned stick, Uncle Simeon with his -lithe ribbed cane. Aunt Jael dealt hard brutal blows, Uncle Simeon sly -mean strokes. She hit and banged and bruised. He swished and stung -and cut. Hers was the Thud and his the Whirr. Both of them would have -been prosecuted nowadays; there was no N.S.P.C.C. then to violate the -sacred right of the individual to maltreat his human chattels. Both -Great-Aunt and Uncle always left me bruised, and sometimes-bleeding. -Yet of the two I dreaded his canings more; because he seemed so much -the viler. Not that the dust of the Torribridge beatings formed as -it were a halo round the Tawborough ones, not that Aunt Jael's grim -masterpieces were becoming a winsome memory, not that a safe distance -lent any enchantment to my mental view of her strong right arm. But -with a child's instinctive perspicuity, I felt, though I could not -have put my feelings into words, that there was some notion with my -Great-Aunt beyond mere brutality; some sense of duty, of loyalty to her -own Draconian creed. Her Proverbs counselled her thus. Chasten thy son -while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying--little -she spared for mine;--I found it needed loud houseful of crying for -briefest moment of sparing. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but -he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes--then indeed was her love for -me exceeding great, out-measuring far the love of Paris for Helen for -whose sake terrific war was made and Ilion's plains shook with thunder -of armed hosts and Troy town fell, or King Solomon's for his Beloved -in the garden of lilies and pomegranates. She thought she was doing her -duty. - -I knew that Uncle Simeon had no such excuse, and that he was something -much worse than Aunt Jael: a coward. He was craven, creeping, caddish. -He liked to flog me because I was weak and small and defenceless. His -pale face sweated, his eyes lit up with a loathsome triumph, his lips -were wet with joy. His cold clammy hands--like wet claws--gripped my -shoulder. As evil breeds always evil, his hate bred hate in me: a -physical, unhealthy hate I feel to this day, though he is long since -gone to his judgment. - -I had no friend, no affection, to protect me from this creature or -compensate me for his presence. Aunt Martha, in whom her mother's -gentleness ran to feebleness, was sometimes petulant, often kind (if -she dared), and always null. With Albert, except on walks, I had little -to do. Sometimes he bullied me, or spat or cursed at me, when there was -nobody about. At times he was bearable, because too idle to be anything -else. I missed my Grandmother terribly, whom I saw through this dark -atmosphere as a very angel of kindness. - -Life was even now more monotonous than at Bear Lawn, except for the -daily walks: there were no changes, no variety, no visitors. Once -indeed Mr. Nicodemus Shufflebottom, who had been ministering on Lord's -Day to the Torribridge Exclusive Saints, and had missed the last -conveyance back to Tawborough, was reluctantly put up for the night -by Uncle Simeon. The ill-concealed tortures the latter endured at -beholding the egg and bacon Aunt Martha had the temerity to put before -Mr. Nicodemus for his breakfast, was a delight that stands fresh in my -memory today. - -On Sundays the week's monotony was hardly broken by the Meeting, a -dull funereal affair, with none of the godly enthusiasm of our Great -Meeting. Some ten dull or consumptive-looking creatures attended. Uncle -Simeon was the one High Priest: he did fifty per cent of the praying, -seventy-five per cent of the exposition, chose and called out almost -all the hymns, and always took and "apportioned" the offertory. Nobody -else counted for anything. I can just recall one Brother Atonement -Gelder, who sniffled richly throughout the service in away that -reminded me of oysters. I see, vaguely, a Brother Berry; and, more -vaguely, a Brother Smith. They are shadows; the Meeting never filled -a place in my life as at Tawborough. I remember more clearly Uncle -Simeon's long sticky half-whispered supplications to the Lord, and one -particular hymn we droned out every Lord's Day: - - - _Come to the ark! come to the ark!_ - Oh come, oh come away! - The pestilence walks forth by night - The arrow flies by day. - - _Come to the ark!_ the waters rise, - The seas their billows rear: - While darkness gathers o'er the skies - Behold a refuge near. - - _Come to the ark!_ all--all that weep - Beneath the sense of sin; - Without, deep calleth unto deep, - But all is peace within. - - _Come to the ark!_ ere yet the flood - Your lingering steps oppose! - Come, for the door which open stood, - Is now about to close. - - -Most of the hymns were in the old London Hymn Book we used at -Tawborough, so I could join in the singing from the very first. It -pained me to hear the thin peevish rendering the Torribridge Exclusives -gave of _He sitteth o'er the water-floods_, or their pale piping of -Brother Briggs' stentorian favourite _I hear the Accuser Roar_. Aunt -Martha and I squeaked feebly, Brother Atonement Gelder sniffled in -tune, and Uncle Simeon whispered the words to himself with his eye -in godly thankfulness turned heavenward. We stood up for the hymns; -it is the only Meeting--but one--at which I have known this done. We -worshipped in a dark stuffy little room behind a baker's shop. Aunt -Martha scarcely spoke to the other Saints or they to her. - -My one idea was to get back to Bear Lawn. Aunt Jael said I was -to live here for at least one year, and for three if it proved -satisfactory--satisfactory to her. I was to have one holiday in -Tawborough each year; but not till the first year was out. Grandmother -had said she would come over sometimes; I knew that Uncle Simeon was -not eager to have her and would find excuses for delaying her visits. -Could I abide it for a year? Fear and ill-usage and hunger were -worrying me into a state of all-the-time nervousness and wretchedness -beyond what I had ever experienced. How could I tell Grandmother this, -and how much I wanted to come back to her? He read all my letters, and -I knew she would disapprove if I tried to write without his knowing. -What should I do? Counting the days and crossing them off each night -on the wall-almanac in my bedroom might help to make them pass more -quickly. - -After all Aunt Jael was no magnet drawing me back to Tawborough. If -life was worse here with him, it was bad enough there with her. Life -was a wretched business altogether. Still, Uncle Simeon was worse than -Aunt Jael, and if the walks and fresh air I got here compensated for -the better food at Bear Lawn, my Grandmother weighed down the balance -overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. I _must_ get back. But how? I -was ignorant and inexperienced beyond belief. I first thought of just -leaving the house one day, and running back to Tawborough. I could -manage the nine miles from one door to the other,--but the doors! I -already felt Uncle Simeon's claws dragging me in as I sought to cross -his threshold, and Aunt Jael's heavy hand on my shoulder at the other -end if ever I should reach it. If I dared to run away, even if not sent -back to worse days here, I could see a bad time of punishment and wrath -ahead at Bear Lawn. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the -fire, bandying myself between the thorned stick and the ribbed cane, -escaping from unhappiness to unhappiness. It was hell here, and near it -there--hell everywhere. If my face was as disagreeable as my heart was -bitter and wretched, I must have looked a dismal little fright. Albert -assured me that I did. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV: I BECOME CURIOUS - - -Uncle Simeon did not improve on closer acquaintance; nor on closer -reflection did my chance of foregoing that acquaintance improve. Just -as he abandoned all pretence of being kind and affable, so I began to -abandon all hope of getting back to Tawborough for the present. How -could I escape him? gave place to: How could I harm him? - -I soon came to see that he was in constant fear of something. Slight -sounds and movements would make him start. Sometimes when we were -talking he would slink away suddenly as though to reassure himself that -all was well in some other part of the house. Could I somehow expose -him, triumph over him? - -In those days Torribridge Quay, though much decayed, was far livelier -than it is today; the river-side was dark with masts, and you could -still see the serried line of brown sails: trading ships that plied the -routes to the Indies and the two Americas. Number One was a substantial -square-looking house hard by the bridge. It was dark, darker even than -No. 8 Bear Lawn and very much bigger. The house had belonged to Uncle -Simeon's brother, and came to him when the brother died. On the ground -floor were three big living rooms--in only one of which we lived. -The first floor contained a gloomy sort of drawing-room of enormous -dimensions, known to me as the thrashing-room, and five bedrooms. -Three of these were large, one being occupied by Uncle Simeon and Aunt -Martha, and the other two permanently untenanted. Two smaller bedrooms -were used respectively by Albert and myself. Two narrow staircases led -to the garrets, the front one to "my" attic (I call it such because -I was locked therein not less than three times a week), a small bare -apartment with one window, so high in the wall that I could barely see -out of it even when standing on tip-toe; the back one to Uncle Simeon's -"study." Here he concocted potions if any of us were ill, and here for -long hours at a stretch he studied the Word of God. Sometimes he spent -whole days there, descending only for meals. This back staircase to -the second storey was from the first forbidden to me, forbidden in so -marked and threatening a manner as to arouse my curiosity. It was on my -second or third day that he found me loitering about near the foot of -it. He came upon me suddenly in his carpet-slipper way. I started. He -started too. - -"_If_ one were to find you where one forbids you to go"--he looked -expressively up the narrow staircase--"_if_--well, one thinks it would -be better not." - -His words had, of course, the opposite effect to that he intended. I -determined to risk a rush up this staircase. There were difficulties. -I was never alone in the house, and the creaky uncarpeted floor would -be sure to give me away. My strong impulse towards obedience, whether -the fruits of a nine-year-long régime of thorned stick, or of natural -instinct, or both, also counselled leaving well alone. Again, fear was -a deterrent, especially when I found that he was watching me; though -this stimulated curiosity as well as fear. For some days the battle, -Curiosity versus Fear, raged within me: a passion of curiosity as -to the mystery of the forbidden room, a lively sense of what Uncle -Simeon's mood and methods would be like if he caught me there. - -One day I plucked up courage for an attempt. I took off my shoes and -tip-toed upstairs. The old stairs creaked villainously. To every creak -corresponded a twinge of fear in my heart; I waited each time to see if -anything had been heard. At last I reached the top in safety. The key -was in the lock inside the door, so I could see nothing. It was some -seconds before I realized the fact that the key was inside proved that -Uncle Simeon was probably there! For a moment I stood petrified with -fear. As he did not seem to have heard me, however, a swift descent was -my best policy. - -It was some days before I recovered enough spirit to make a second -attempt: one afternoon, after tea, when Uncle Simeon was out. This time -there was no key in the door, but it was too dark to see much. All I -could make out was a big square box, painted dark green, straight ahead -of the key-hole--a safe, though I did not know it--and, by peering -up, a dark thing which looked like a big hole in the top of the wall. -This was disappointing; next day I seized an opportunity of going up -earlier. I could see the big green box quite clearly, and could confirm -my idea that the black thing was a large square hole in the wall. There -was nothing more to be seen, and I returned for a cautious descent. But -my feet refused to move. - -There at the foot of the narrow staircase was the white leering face. I -was caught, without escape or excuse. - -I stood still with fright, waiting for him to say something, to come up -to the little landing on which I stood, to touch me, maul me, strike -me. He slunk up the stairs. While he came along, smiling, smiling, I -stood numbed and helpless. We were the cowering hypnotized rabbit and -the sure triumphant serpent. But no, as he came nearer I saw that his -face bespoke anything but triumph. There was the same fear and anxiety -I had noticed on the first day, and in addition a queerer look I seemed -to remember in some more poignant though less definite way. That -half-hunted half-hunter look, sneer of triumph distorted by fear, what -was it? What string of my memory did it touch? As he reached the top I -saw he was sweating with fright, and his fear assuaged mine. I was by -now excited rather than frightened, and puzzled even more. He peered -into my face. It was an unpleasant moment, quite alone with him on that -tiny lonely landing at the top of the house. I feared I did not know -what. He clawed my shoulder. - -"Trapped, young miss, trapped. One will bear with much, but with -disobedience never" (a sniff). "If this should happen again,--but ha! -ha! one has something, something very sure, that will prevent that. -Something that stings and cuts and curls, ha! ha! Something worse than -one's poor mere cane." - -"What?" I said faintly. - -"A whip," he whispered. As my fear grew, so his lessened. Then the -queer unremembered look came to his face again, and he changed his tone -completely. His grasp of my shoulder was transformed from a menace into -a coax. - -"Well, well, we will say no more about it, we will say no more about. -_We_," he repeated meaningly. (With anybody else I should not have -noticed the word, which fell strangely from his lips. "_One_ will say -no more," was his natural phrase.) "If you hold your tongue and don't -tell your Aunt Martha I found you here--there'll be no flogging." It -was a tacit pact. He descended the staircase, and I followed him. - -I thought perhaps I might learn something by pumping Albert. - -"What is there in your father's study?" I asked him casually on a walk. - -"Oh, some old bottles and books; nothing much, father lets me go in -sometimes, but there's nothing special to see." - -This was a genuinely casual reply. It puzzled me. If the room was so -mysterious, why did Uncle Simeon take Albert there, yet forbid me -entrance with such obvious fear? "He thinks I'm sharper," I flattered -myself. This was true, but it explained very little. My curiosity grew. -I rehearsed every detail: the green box, the hole in the wall, Uncle -Simeon's original veto, and his extreme fear the day he caught me. - -And that look? Where had I seen it? I racked my brains without success. -Then one night in bed, with a mad suddenness it flashed into my mind -as these things do. It was the self-same look I had noticed at Bear -Lawn on Aunt Jael's seventieth birthday when we were talking about -his brother and how he died and I had said artlessly: "Perhaps it was -Poison?" The expression on his face that day was the same as when he -clutched me on the staircase. - -The dead brother was part of the same mystery as the attic. - -Wild ideas coursed through my head. The so-called study was one vast -poison-den. The dead brother's skeleton was lying there, the bones were -strewn about the floor. Or he had been pushed through the strange black -hole in the wall--where did that hole lead to? or his body had been -squashed into the green box. - -I resolved to raise the poison topic in front of him, and to watch the -effect. I would mention it as though quite by accident, and look as -artless as I could. Necessity which sharpens all things, had equipped -me with a special cunning to achieve the chief aim of my existence: the -smallest possible number of beatings. But all my cunning never reduced -the least little bit in the world my extreme timidity. Thus while I -was quite equal to preparing beforehand a seemingly offhand question -for Uncle Simeon as to Poison, I quailed at the thought of actually -putting it. I simply dared not talk to him direct, nor should I be able -to look at him so closely if I did. I decided to introduce the topic -to Aunt Martha one day when he should also be present. Should I begin -talking about the dead brother, or more specifically about poisoning? -The latter was more difficult to introduce, but a more crucial test. -How could I begin a conversation about poison? I prepared a hundred -openings, none of which seemed natural. As usual the opportunity came -unexpectedly. Thanks to my scheming I was not quite unprepared. - -One evening Uncle Simeon was sitting at the dining-room table reading -the Word, while Aunt Martha was discoursing to me on God's Plan of -Salvation, exhorting me to repentance while it was not yet too late. -"Ah, how great is the likelihood of hell for every one of us! For you, -my child, it is woefully great. You, who have been brought up in the -glory of the Light, who have communed from your earliest days with the -Saints--" - -"The Saints, my dear?" sniffed Uncle Simeon, "one would hardly say -_the_ Saints. To be sure there are many true and earnest believers -like your dear mother and dear Miss Vickary amongst them; yet the Open -Brethren are for the most part but weak vessels. Only we of the Inner -Flock are truly entitled to be called _the_ Brethren, _the_ Saints. But -proceed, my dear." - -"Well, my dear, though your uncle is of course right, none will deny -that you have had more light shed upon your path than many poor -little children. Think of the little black children out in Africa and -India, think even of the little ones in England who have Methodist or -Churchgoing or Romanish fathers and mothers. Unless you are saved, what -will you do if the Lord takes you suddenly? Are you ready to face Him? -Are you ready to die? There are many, you know, whom the Lord calls -away very, very suddenly. Today they are, tomorrow they are not. One -moment healthy and strong, the next white and stark. The Lord takes -them in an instant--" - -"Like Uncle Simeon's brother," I broke in. "Didn't the Lord take him -very suddenly?" - -I managed to keep my voice steady and to watch him while pretending I -was not. He tried to pretend he was not watching me. Whether I betrayed -my excitement I do not know. _He_ was certainly uneasy. - -"Yes, my child, the Lord took him in a moment. It was never known -of what disease he went." She spoke in her usual lifeless way. She -suspected nothing. - -"Perhaps his heart?" I said learnedly. It was a favourite ailment -of Miss Salvation Clinker's; 'er 'eart. "Or perhaps he had eaten -something that was not good for him, too much laver or some mussels or -periwinkles, maybe?" Here again my dietetic insight was based on Miss -Salvation's lore. I was killing time while I summoned up courage for -the crucial word--"or--or--took something that poisoned him?" - -The word was out and it had gone home. He did not scold me as he -ordinarily would have done for talking so much. I saw him looking -sickly and frightened by the glare of the lamp by which he was -pretending to read. Then he got up hurriedly and left the room. - -I began to rack my brains for some more ordinary remarks to cover -my retreat. Aunt Martha saved me the trouble. "Poison," she said, -"nonsense, most likely heart failure." - -"Yes," I replied, "Miss Salvation Clinker says all sudden deaths come -from heart failure." - -"All sudden deaths come because the Lord calls," she corrected. "The -Lord called him, that was all. If He calls _you_, be ready." - - -What I had so far discovered came to this: first, that talk of his -brother's death brought a queer look to Uncle Simeon's face; second, -that if you spoke of poison there was the same look; third, that it was -one and the same with the expression on his face the day he caught me -outside his study door. In my heart I had already charged him with the -worst of all crimes. I was determined by hook or crook to get into that -study; to solve that mystery, which had the shadow of death--and of -Uncle Simeon--upon it. - -This was about the end of August 1859. Then for a few weeks a happier -interest came into my life. But here again the shadow of Uncle Simeon -interposed, and darkened the happy dream. - - - - -CHAPTER XV: WESTWARD HO! - - -Uncle Simeon did not allow me to go for walks alone. Albert, however, -who was my usual companion, got into the habit of leaving me as soon -as we were away from the Quay, with a curt intimation to clear off in -another direction and to meet him later at a given place and time so -that we might return to the house together. - -One fine day in early Autumn, I climbed to the top of one of the hills -that looks down on Torribridge: a picture made up of white houses, -shining river, old bridge, green bosomy hills sloping down to the -stream, and over them all the sun. The scene was pleasing, yet it -meant very little to me. There was the sun in my blood, and a young -creature's delight in the fine bright day, and in the feeling of space -and power that you may feel in high clear places; no more than that. -There was no conscious enjoyment of the loveliness beneath me. The joy -that beautiful scenery can give to the soul I did not know. Children, -like animals, do not feel it. This emotion comes from books, pictures -and art generally. As to romantic little boys who draw, or say they -draw, their deepest emotions from Nature's well--if so, it must be -because they are learned little boys who, taught by the magical words -of fine books that Nature is beautiful, have turned to her to find it -true. - - - The sounding cataract - Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, - The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, - Their colours and their forms, were then to me - An appetite; a feeling and a love, - That had no need of a remoter charm, - By thought supplied, nor any interest - Unborrowed from the eye ... a sense sublime - Of something far more deeply interfused, - Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, - And the round ocean and the living air, - And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; - A motion and a spirit, that impels - All thinking things, all objects of all thought, - And rolls through all things. - - -Wordsworth (that lost soul) felt those things and described them in -authentic terms. He could do this because he was not an ordinary, but -a very extraordinary, child of the mountains. How many shepherd boys -sallying forth at dawn with their flocks up the Stye or along the -Little Langdale are haunted "like a passion" by the natural beauties -they see? They do not share the poet's emotions because they know -nothing of the lovely words and pictures and ideas that can invest poor -Nature with romance. - -In any case, I was neither a romantic nor a learned little boy, but a -very ignorant and unromantic little girl. It was only when I became -suddenly a little less ignorant of books, history and ideas, that I -came to see--where before there was at most a vague unconscious sense -of pleasure--that Torribridge town seen from the hills was a fair -prospect. - -This is how it happened. - -I was leaning on a stile, idly looking down towards the far-away bridge -and trying to count the arches. - -"Fine!" said a quiet voice behind me. - -I started, turned round, and beheld a stranger looking down at me. He -was a tall young man of perhaps twenty; his face pale and rather thin. -His eyes peered. A proud mouth contrasted with earnest eyes. He wore -breeches and carried a gun. Half squire, half scholar; something of -the studious, the aristocratic and sporting all combined. All I was -sure of just then was a pair of kind brown eyes which I immediately and -favourably contrasted with the steel-blue glitter of Uncle Simeon's, -and something exquisite and somehow superior to myself in their owner. -I had an unerring instinct of class inferiority: I knew my betters. - -"Fine, isn't it?" repeated the Stranger. - -"Ye-es," I said. I thought him a bit silly, and felt sillier myself. - -"It's a fine sight," he said, leaning against the stile by my side. -"Isn't it, little girl? Come, say Yes." - -The enthusiasm I failed to understand made me combative. "What's the -good of it?" I said tartly. "It hasn't a soul." - -The Stranger stared. He was surprised--or amused--I was not sure which. - -"Hasn't a soul! This little town that has nestled there for a thousand -years, from the days when the Vikings first sailed up the Torridge till -the days when the New World was found, when ships sailed forth to the -Indies from that quay there and came back laden with gold and wonderful -spices? This little town we're looking at now that sent many ships to -the Armada and hundreds more to harry the Spaniards on all the seas? -Hasn't a soul, little girl! Are you sure?" - -"I didn't know all that; I have never heard of all those things and -people. There's Robinson Crewjoe, who sailed away to the Indies and -lived on an island, that Aunt Jael wouldn't let Mrs. Cheese finish -telling me about. Did he sail from here?" - -"I'm not sure, but plenty of people like him did." - -"And what's the Vikings and the Great Armada? I've heard of the Great -Leviathan. Is that the same?" - -"Not quite. Most little girls have heard of these things. It's very -strange you know nothing about them. Don't you go to school?" - -"I did when I lived in Tawborough with my Grandmother and Aunt Jael: I -went to Miss Glory Clinker's. But now I'm in Torribridge I do lessons -at home with Aunt Martha." - -"Well, hasn't either the lady with the peculiar name or your aunt ever -taught you any history?" - -"History? All about Saul and David and Solomon and Ahab?" - -"Yes, but there's other history; the history of Torribridge for -instance, and of England; the History of the Armada we have just been -talking about." - -"Why: did _you_ learn about those things at school?" - -"Yes. I do still." - -"But you don't go to school still?" - -"I do." - -"But you're grown up." - -"Well, I go to a school for grown-ups, don't you see?" - -"I've never heard of one. Where is it?" - -"In an old city a long way from here called Oxford." - -"Oxford! Why I've heard of some one who's there. Do you know Lord -Tawborough?" - -The Stranger started. - -"I do--well; very well. What do _you_ know about him?" - -"I know he was there at Oxford, that's all; I heard my Grandmother say -so. What's he like?" - -"That's rather a hard question, young woman." - -"Well, is he like you?" - -The Stranger smiled. - -"Something like me perhaps; about the same age." - -"Does he know about the Armada and all these wonderful things you've -told me about?" - -"Yes, I expect so, I expect he does, and"--he switched away from Lord -Tawborough--"you must learn about them too. You shall read about them -in a book I'm going to give you." - -"A book? What do you mean? My Grandmother would not let me read any -book but the Word, nor would Uncle Simeon. Torribridge doesn't come -into the Bible, nor do the Vikings nor the Armada, because I've read it -all through five times and I would remember the names." - -He smiled; it was a kind smile, yet quizzical. I liked him, but was not -quite sure of him. I went on a little less confidingly. - -"All other books except the Bible are full of lies. Aunt Jael says so." - -This was final. How loyally I quoted Aunt Jael! Sure weapon with which -to combat error. I knew I was a little boorish; perhaps I meant to be. - -"Well," said the Stranger, "your Grandmother and Uncle Simeon would let -you read this book, I know, and as it's all quite true, Aunt Jael won't -mind either. We will go down into the town and buy it." - -I was proud of his company, proud of his voice, his face, his breeches, -his gun, which conferred distinction upon me. I apprehended that there -was something odd or special about me that amused him. He liked me and -I liked him. He was from a kinder handsomer world than mine. His face -was a new treasure in my heart. - -I refused to go into the book-shop with him, partly through fear of -being seen by Uncle Simeon, partly as a concession to Conscience. If I -was going to read a worldly book at least I would not go into the evil -place where it was sold. He came out and thrust a parcel into my hand. -"Good-bye. Meet me on the hill some other day and tell me if you are -still quite sure." - -"Thank you, Sir. Sure of what?" - -"That Torribridge hasn't a soul!" - -I stuffed the book into my blouse and rushed to the meeting-place -Albert had fixed. I was half an hour late and he swore at me. When we -got home, I put the parcel still unwrapped under the mattress. This -was a safe place, as I made my own bed; I must wait to begin reading -till the morning. If I were to begin tonight Uncle Simeon would see the -light under the door and come in to complain of the waste of candles. -So I resolved to wake early. - -Next morning I woke at five o'clock and undid my parcel. The book was -a dark red one. On the cover was printed in gold letters "WESTWARD -HO!" It was as big as an average Bible, but not so thick. The moment -I opened it, I was struck by the scent of the new pages. All smells -are indescribable, though smell aids the memory and quickens the -imagination as much as any other sense. To this day, it is by digging -my nose between those pages that I can best recall the sentiment of -forty years ago: the pleasure of talking with the Stranger, the first -wild rapture of reading. - -I began to read. Here was Torribridge, a place I knew and lived in, -described in print. I had read no other book but the Bible, which -was so familiar as to have become part of myself, part of my life, -something more than any book. Then, too, its glamour was of far-away -folk and lands, holy places and holy people. The fact that now for the -first time I saw printed words about seen and homely places--that I -read of Torridge instead of Jordan, of Torribridge instead of Nineveh, -of little oak ships that sailed from Tawborough Bay instead of great -arks of cedar wood that went forth from Tyre and Sidon--gave me a new -and exciting sensation very hard to describe. In the degree that the -little Devonshire town was less sacred than the Holy City of Mount -Zion, so it seemed to my eager eyes more wonderful to read about. - -"All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North -Devon, must needs know the little white town of Torribridge, which -slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and -many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for autumn floods, towards -the pleasant upland on the west. Above the town the hills close in, -cushioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and there a -crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower, and open more and more -in softly-rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and green, till -they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt marshes, and -rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both -together flow quickly toward the broad surges of the bar, and the -everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell. Pleasantly the old town -stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky, fanned day and night by the -fresh ocean breeze which forbids alike the keen winter frosts, and the -fierce thunder heats of the midland; and pleasantly it has stood there -for now, perhaps, eight hundred years since the first Grenville cousin -of the Conqueror, returning from the conquest of South Wales, drew -round him trusty Saxon serfs, and free Norse rovers with their golden -curls, and dark Silurian Britons from the Swansea shore...." - -That afternoon I climbed the hill again, and saw for the first time -something of the romance of the little white town; the bright roofs, -the line of masts and great brown sails in the harbour, the old bridge, -the yellow sands, the fields green golden or red with pasture harvest -or loam, the dark velvet forests, deep blue sky and quiet silver river. -I could imagine now the fierce Atlantic not far away, to which the -gentle stream was flowing. I saw that it was beautiful, in the same way -that the lilies and roses in Solomon's Song are beautiful; or Heaven -in Revelation, the city of jasper and pure gold, that has set in its -midst the great white throne. This change was wrought by a book. My -Grandmother's oft-repeated words that the salvation of God could only -have been revealed in the Book came into my mind. - -When I came to the story proper of men who sailed - - - _Westward Ho! with a rumbelow,_ - _And hurra for the Spanish Main O!_ - - -I was enthralled. The idea of a story, of a narrative of doings that -never took place, of invented events, had never entered my head. -Goldilocks, Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Riding Hood were not of my -world. I had never begged "Tell me a story," nor heard the magical -antiphone "Once upon a time." - -Had Grandmother ever heard of Westward Ho!? Did she know there were -books like this; true, yet about familiar places? Surely she must. -Would she approve? I doubted for a moment, remembering the picture-book -Uncle John had once sent to me, which Aunt Jael destroyed while my -Grandmother looked on consenting; but was reassured by the godly -sentiments which I found everywhere: by familiar phrases, even on the -second page, such as "heathen Roman and Popish tyranny." Were there -other books like this? If so, I should like to read them. Were they -about the Indies too? A world of ideas possessed me, a new planet had -swum into my skies. I read hard, wildly. I woke up at four that I might -have a good long read before getting up; I went to my bedroom at odd -hours of the day to snatch a few moments' delight. - -One day just after dinner Uncle Simeon came in in his usual noiseless -cat-like way. I just had time to stuff the book under the mattress -and to begin pretending to do my hair. He did not seem to have seen -anything. - -I began to compare or contrast everything I read with myself or my -own experiences. Flogging, for instance,--as practised by Sir Vindex -Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, and master of -the Grammar School of Torribridge. I read with interest that flogging -is the "best of all punishments" (I inclined to doubt this), "being -not only the shortest" (indeed!) "but also a mere bodily and animal -punishment" (why _mere_?), "though for the punisher himself pretty -certain to eradicate from all but the noblest spirits every trace of -chivalry and tenderness for the weak, as well as all self-control and -command of temper." How true! How Aunt Jael's chivalry had waned! How -Uncle Simeon's tenderness for the weak had withered and wilted away! -Surely this book too was inspired. I enjoyed Amyas' encounter with Sir -Vindex Brimblecombe. I loved to read how Sir Vindex jumped up, ferula -in hand, and exhorted Amyas to "come hither, sirrah, and be flayed -alive"; how the latter "with a serene and cheerful countenance" took -up his slate, and brought it down on the skull of Sir Vindex "with so -shrewd a blow" that slate and pate cracked on the same instant, and Sir -Vindex dropped down upon the floor and "lay for dead." Oh vicarious -joy, oh borrowed plumes of valour that I wore for that incident! I -shut my eyes and visualized Aunt Jael in the stead of Sir Vindex -Brimblecombe. "Minx!" she said (not sirrah), as she advanced upon me -"stick in hand," for although I did not know what a ferula was, I felt -it was somewhat too light and lissom a description of thorned stick or -ship's rope. How I envied Amyas' "serene and cheerful countenance" and -revelled in the crash. I rehearsed the scene also with Uncle Simeon -in the villain's part and with an even dearer joy brought down the -avenging slate on his honey-coloured coxcomb. - -To every character in the book I tried to give a face. Amyas, the hero, -was my difficulty; I had met no heroes. Don Guzman I pictured as Uncle -Simeon, though statelier and nobler. Mrs. Leigh was naturally Mrs. Lee, -my Grandmother; in name and character alike. Salvation Yeo I pictured -as Brother Brawn, Frank Leigh,--tall, pale and distinguished--was of -course the Stranger. I did not care very much for the Rose of Torridge -herself, and had little interest in any of the ladies' doings. Theirs -was a secondary part. They did not do things themselves; they stayed at -home in Torribridge to think about and wait for and be loved by the men -who did the valiant deeds. Love affairs, so-called, failed to interest -me at all, though the passionate affection between Mrs. Leigh and her -sons made me husky and envious. It never occurred to me to visualize -myself as Rose; if I took any part it was Amyas'. - -I was much interested in the description of Christmas Day. "It was the -blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; the even-song -was done; and the good folks of Torribridge were trooping home in merry -groups, the father with his children, the lover with his sweetheart, -to cakes and ale, and flap-dragons and mummers' plays, and all the -happy sports of Christmas night." Why _blessed_ Christmas afternoon, -I wondered? Was the word used in Mrs. Cheese's naughty sense or Miss -Glory Clinker's noble one? In either case I didn't see how it applied -to the hideous 25th of December at Bear Lawn. - -I was pleased with the sound views on Popery, described as frantic, -filthy, wily, false, cruel. Papists were skulkers, dogs, slanderers, -murderers, devils. To be brought up by Catholics was to be taught the -science of villany on the motive of superstition, to learn that "all -love was lust" and all goodness foul. A Romanist was not a man, but a -thing, a tool, a Jesuit. I did not understand it all, but I approved -highly. That bigotry which mars the book in the eyes of fair-minded -men was the quality that sealed it with the mark of virtue in my -zealot eyes. Critics (I have since learnt) forgive the slanderous -religious hate of this book for the sake of the fresh spirit and the -fine story: I excused these dangerous delights to my conscience and -to my Grandmother's conscience by the author's pious attitude towards -Rome and error. I felt that the book, in spite of the wild pleasure it -gave me, must nevertheless be godly, because of the pious plenitude -with which it anathematized the Bad Old Man of the Seven Hills, the -Scarlet Woman, the Great Whore of Babylon, the Blatant Beast, the great -HIM-HER. There was self-deceiving here. - -The story was the thing: the most chivalrous adventure of the good -ship "Rose"; how they came to Barbados, and found no men therein; how -they took the pearls at Margarita; what befell at La Guayra; Spanish -Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs; how they took the Communion under -the tree at Higuerote; the Inquisition in the Indies; the banks of -the Meta; how Amyas was tempted of the devil; how they took the gold -train. I lived in a world of gold and silver, ships and swords, Dons -and Devils. I saw the great Cordillera covered with gigantic ferns, -and the foamless blue Pacific. I caught my breath as I stumbled on -the dim ruins of dead Indian Empires; and I wiped my eyes when I read -of Salvation Yeo and his little maid. I liked to read of the Queen of -England, of Drake, Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville, Devon men all, -and John Oxenham swaggering along Torribridge Quay. I was interested -most of all by Don Guzman, with his sweet sonorous voice, his woman's -grace and his golden hair, as of a god. He had been everywhere and -seen all. He knew the two Americas, the East Indies and the West, Old -Spain, the seven cities of Italy, the twilight-coloured Levant and the -multitudinous East.... - -I skimmed through each chapter quickly, and then read it slowly to -drink in every word. Excitement of another kind was added by the -difficulties of reading; I had to stop sometimes in the middle of an -exciting passage and hide the book hastily away, when I heard Uncle -Simeon on the staircase. However, I managed to get three-quarters way -through without mishap: as far as the attack on the gold train. Amyas -and his men were hiding in the forest. The long awaited Spaniards and -their treasure were just in sight. "Suddenly"--my heart beat fast, -then stood still at the sound of a stealthy foot-fall. The door opened -and Uncle Simeon came in. I had no time to stuff the book under the -mattress properly. I leaned against the place where the clothes were -ruffled and pretended to be making my bed. This, I thought bitterly, -was the only sort of excitement my life afforded: not splendid bravery -and adventure in South American forests but mere feeble cunning to save -myself from this whey-faced cringing wretch. He smiled blandly. - -"Your aunt wants you to go for a walk with her," he said. - -He tried to appear unconcerned, but I feared he had seen something. The -moment he had gone I hid the book carefully under the mattress, right -in the very middle of the bed. When I came back from the walk with Aunt -Martha I went straight up to my room. _The book was not there._ My -first rage at losing my treasure gave place, upon reflection, to fear. -What would he do? At tea he smiled in a sneering way and said "What -is worrying you, little one? You are pale." His manner frightened me. -The very fact that he said nothing about the matter was unusual and -presaged something exceptionally bad. Would he use the whip, or make -the worst of it to Aunt Jael and Grandmother? And what had he done -with the book? The answer to these questions, though I did not know it -till much later, is lying before me as I write. It is written on faded -yellow paper, in a neat hand, with old-fashioned pointed characters. - - - NO 1, THE QUAY, - TORRIBRIDGE, - Sept. 17th 1858. - - Dear Kinswomen and Sisters in the Lord,-- - - One hopes the fine weather the Lord is sending finds both of you as - well in body and mind and as thankful in spirit for our manifold - blessings from above as I rejoice to say it finds dear Martha and - one's own poor self. Dear little Mary too is well: the happy result - of the good air of Torribridge and of the plenteous, if plainly, - fare one's table affords. But the little one is not, alas, so - thankful in spirit as her Aunt and oneself could wish. She has just - done a deed which displays but poor gratitude, dear sisters, for - your loving spiritual training of her early years and for one's - own godly, if humble, care. She has, alas, committed a grievous - sin; though it pains one to speak thus, one had best speak openly. - A grievous sin--one shrinks from writing the words, but there is - one's duty to you, to the child, to her aunt and to one's own - afflicted self. The facts are these. - - Yesterday one found her in her bedchamber--a homely if humble - apartment to which one has always trusted her to retire at - will--one found her in the act of reading a _vile and worldly - book_. She hid it craftily under the bed-clothes when she heard - one coming into the room as one chanced to do the other day. One - let her see plainly one had detected all, looking at her sadly, as - though to say "Ah, if Miss Vickary and dear Mrs. Lee knew what a - viper they have nourished in their respective bosoms!", and gave - her one more chance to conquer her sin by herself and destroy the - noisome thing. But no! "As a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool - to his folly" (Prov. xxvi, II--your own favourite Proverbs, dear - Miss Vickary)--and yesterday once again found her flushed with - the carnal pleasure of those evil pages. One opened the book, - not without a silent prayer that the Lord would cleanse one from - its touch. Feeling it one's plain, if painful, duty to see more - clearly the nature of the evil thing, one perused a few pages. One - found it to be a _licentious novel_, treating of haughty women - "with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes" (Isaiah iii, 16), of - men who spend their days "in rioting and drunkenness, chambering - and wantonness" (Romans xiii, 13) and of drunkards, roisterers, - sinners and blasphemers. Here and there the writer, who is, one is - told, a Church of England minister in this town--so what could one - hope?--strives to beguile the unwary by striking a godly attitude - towards Rome. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals--wolfish pretence - to lead poor sheep astray. There is even worse than this; foul and - wanton language abounds. A bad word on page 74 pained one much. - - Nothing has been said to the child yet, awaiting your wishes. One - hopes you will not wish her to be punished _too_ severely. "Whom - the Lord loveth he correcteth!" (Prov. iii, 12). One knows! one - knows! Yet forgiveness may do much. One's heart shrinks from blows; - nothing but the direst sin ever drives one to bodily correction. - No! One will simply burn the book before her, add a few godly - words and read a Psalm together. - - Apart from this, the child's spiritual state is not without hope, - but she is a tree that needs careful pruning, if she is to take up - her cross, as one hopes, in the foreign field. She holds special - place in our hearts (dear Martha's and one's own), nor do we cease - to pray for her. God has blessed her in the past, and bestowed - many gifts and advantages, but one longs to know that she has - received better things than this poor world can give, even joy and - peace, the result of sin forgiven and the assurance of eternal - life by faith in God's Son as revealed in His Word. You will bear - with one in speaking thus. One's love for her is great, and one - dares to hope, dear Mrs. Lee, that your regard for one's self is - considerable too, when you compare one with that other son-in-law, - whose evil qualities, alas, seem to be showing in his little - daughter despite her Christian environment. - - Our Meetings lately have been very helpful. A new sister has been - won from Error; formerly a Wesleyan Methodist, a Miss Towl. Am - deriving great consolation from a careful study of the prophet Joel. - - Forgive the length of this letter; one would have come to - Tawborough had not the Lord's work detained one. Accept Martha's - loving greetings and believe me in the Brotherhood of the Lord, - - One who is less than the least of all the Saints, - - SIMEON GREEBER. - - P.S. The poor wayward child refuses to tell _how_ she came by the - abomination. It was new, so she must have bought it in a shop where - such things are sold. Her money should be watched. Little though - she is so wisely allowed, would it not be better for one to take - charge of it, to ensure that it be not spent in sin? - - P.P.S. Hoping that the Lord is granting you both the best of health - and strength. Dear little Albert has a slight touch of quinsy, but - this is yielding to treatment and prayer. - - -The flattering creeping hound! His letter describes him better than any -words of mine. At the time I knew nothing of it; I was merely uneasy -and wondered why nothing was happening. - -A few days later, just as we had finished evening prayers, he called me -over to the fireside and said, "There's a duty to the Lord, little one, -and to your dear Great-Aunt and Grandmother that has to be fulfilled. -One has their orders and one's Lord's to obey." He rummaged in his -cupboard and brought forth my dear book. He looked at me, the lowest -meanest triumph in his eyes, then flung the book savagely into the -midst of the flames. In the fire-light he looked livid with spite. "So -shall they burn who go a-whoring after strange gods," he hissed. - -How I hated him. Yet for a moment as the dear book burned, I did not -think of him. I was wondering how Amyas captured the Gold Train, and if -Salvation Yeo found his little maid, and what the Stranger would say if -I met him again. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI: ROBBIE - - -More than ever I lived in the world of my own imagination. - -Every day and a good part of every night--for I rarely fell asleep -till one or two o'clock--I was thinking, worrying, brooding, planning, -dreaming. I too would sail to the Indies and the lands of hidden -gold, gleaning fame which would help me to bear Aunt Jael's taunts -with silent scorn, and wealth which I could fling in her face as -clanging and triumphant rejoinder to "_I_ pay for the child's music." -I would succour the oppressed Indians, free the slaves, overthrow the -Inquisition, and bring each and all into the Brethren fold; baldly -unaware that these things belonged to centuries past. To right the -wrong was important; the all-important was that _I_ should do it. -But was it possible to a girl? Could even a grown woman do such -things? Sailors were always men, shipwrecked mariners were always -men, adventurers were always men. Bright deeds were the monopoly of -breaches. It was not fair. - -I would think of Mrs. Cheese's friend, poor old Robinson Crewjoe. I -invented many desert islands of my own on which I was duly shipwrecked, -was for ever drawing new maps of them, showing streams, creeks, -bays and hills, position of my principal residence, summer bower, -landing-spot of savages, position of wreck, etc., etc. I devised walks, -expeditions, explorations; I varied my menu with a feminine skill -unknown to old Robinson; and always, as befitted our morally-minded -race, I would do good in my islands. I would justify my joy by works. -I would convert the savages, and build a Meeting Room of clay and -wattles. I would raid their Great God Benamuckee in his mountain -fastness, burn him with ceremonial state, and thus atone for my own -memorable blasphemy. But the chief joy, alas, of my twenty years' -sojourning was never so much in what I did as in announcing to the -world that I had done it; not in the good I wrought, but in the praise -I should earn. Those twenty years of playing the shipwrecked sea-woman -must be lit up by the glare of fame with which I should burst upon -the world when at last some well-timed passing schooner restored me -to the world. Horrible thought: suppose I, died there? It was not, -for the moment, the idea of death that chilled me--for He chills -everywhere--but the thought of the glory I should lose by dying before -my adventures had astonished the world. And the sex trouble again. -Would trousers (if I wore them) however masculine, however bifurcative, -enable me to build huts, to shoot, fish, hunt and to fight savages as -well as a man? My inability to do these manly things, however, deterred -me little in my dreams. The castle-in-the-air-builder may build beyond -her bricks. - -At this time Uncle Simeon was naturally my most frequent actor. I -fashioned a dozen different things I should discover about him and his -attic, and a dozen different ways I should discover them. Sweetest of -all were visions of revenge. He was a papist in disguise; I had him -handed over to a kind of Protestant Holy Office, set up for his own -peculiar benefit, of which I was Grand Inquisitress; I was not stingy -with my bolts and nuts and prongs and screws; my soul spared not for -his crying. A great pitched battle between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon -was my _pièce de résistance_. Their hatred for each other was the fiery -basis of the vision, my hatred for both of them the fuel. He would -swish and she would bang. I let both of them be hurt, while I grudged -to each of them the joy of hurting. If anybody won the battle it would -be Aunt Jael; for my hatred of her was comparatively a mild thing, a -healthy human thing, just as she was a healthy, cruel, humanly bad -old woman, a mere wild beast in comparison to this Greeber reptile. I -preferred a long long struggle of evenly matched sneers, retorts, cuts -and blows, which went on hour after hour until both were bleeding, -bruised and utterly exhausted: grimmest of drawn battles. Then I would -step in as lofty mediator with the blessed aureole of peace-maker about -my head, the pain and weakening of both my enemies for reward. (The -same dream the Third Napoleon dreamt a few years later with Austria and -Prussia in the rôles of Uncle Simeon and Aunt Jael: rudely shattered, -was it not, by that swift Sadowa? But the Saviour of Society could not -work his dream figures at will.) - -In most of my picturings either I was alone, or dealing with enemies, -some of whom, like Eternity, got the better of me, and others, like -Uncle Simeon and Aunt Jael, over whom I triumphed. I shared no castle -with a friend. A friend! Aunt Martha, Albert, Uncle Simeon?--I saw no -one else. No visitor ever came to the house. - -I was astonished therefore when the portents announced one. One -afternoon I heard a noise of shifting in one of the unoccupied -bedrooms. I looked in, and saw all the disarray of cleaning, with -Aunt Martha and the charwoman, Miss Woe, getting the room into order. -Was it merely an autumn spring-cleaning, or was somebody coming to -stay? I peeped in again next morning. There were clean sheets, the -bed was turned down, there was water in the ewer. Grandmother or Aunt -Jael? No; I heard from Tawborough every week. Prolonged visit of Mr. -Nicodemus Shufflebottom? No: it would wring Uncle Simeon's heart to -revive the possibility of that nightmare breakfast of egg _and_ bacon -Aunt Martha had dared to put before him. After the day's walk, I looked -in at the bedroom again on my way down to tea. Oh mystery, there was -a long black trunk, studded with brass nails and bearing in new white -paint the superscription: R.P.G. A small cap and overcoat thrown on -the bed revealed the age and sex of the new comer. I went down to the -dining-room, and found him seated at the tea-table. - -"Master Robert," said Uncle Simeon; introducing us in the honeyed voice -he used before you knew him, "this is Mary. You may come forward, -little one. This is Master Robert." - -Handshake was followed by the furtive silence during which children -stare at each other while vainly pretending to look elsewhere. Master -Robert being the shyer, pretended more than he stared: I, being even -more curious than shy, stared more than I pretended. I saw a healthy -boy's face with big brown eyes, a head of chestnut coloured hair and -a brown velvet suit, the last very impressive. I guessed he was about -my own age, though he was taller and bigger. All through tea I stared -at him with merest snatches of polite pretence. This was the first -time I had ever sat at the same table with any boy, except Albert. The -latter did not appear to share his father's obsequious delight in the -new-comer, over whom Uncle Simeon sat fawning. - -I know now that he was a handsome little boy, but doubt if I thought -so then. If I did, I was too jealous to admit it to myself. I felt I -was an odd drab little object by the side of this healthy, well-dressed -and superior being, as far above me as I above Susan Durgles. His rich -velvet suit, my old grey merino; his laughing, tan-coloured face and -brown happy eyes; my pinched white face and cat-green eyes: he was -something better and richer and finer and happier than I was, and I -did not like him. Little girls, they say, are never never jealous of -little boys' good looks, and the only people whose looks they envy are -the other little girls with whom they are competing for the favour of -the good-looking little boys. It may be so. I was pitiably ignorant of -the proper sentiments. My world was divided not into sexes but into two -classes divided far more deeply: myself and other people. The second -class was mostly cruel and unkind, so every new-comer was suspect. -Master Robert's fine poise, his colour, his health, the curve of his -mouth, the velvet suit (I could not take my eyes from it, what wealth, -what prestige, it betokened!) were all against him, and more so the -favour with which he was regarded by Uncle Simeon. He was shy; I could -stare him out easily. I fell to wondering who he was and why he was -here. - -Robert Grove was the younger brother of Aunt Martha's old pupil (who -had died some years back) and the orphan heir to a fine house and -estate the other side of Tiverton. Nearly all his relatives were dead -except a bachelor uncle, Vivian Grove, Esquire, with whom he lived at -the latter's house near Exeter. Uncle Vivian was travelling abroad for -a few months and had put Robert here in his absence. Aunt Martha was -known to and respected by Mr. Grove as the old governess of his elder -nephew, though if he had known the kind of house she lived in now he -would have hardly sent Master Robert there with so light a heart. The -arrangements must have been made through friends or by correspondence, -as Mr. Grove never entered our house and Aunt Martha never went away to -see him. - -Robert did lessons with Albert and me, and the three of us went our -walks together. Uncle Simeon fawned on the new-comer and was by -comparison sharper than ever with me; until, seeing that Robert did -not like this, he pretended to treat me better. He did not want to -offend Robert, who might write to his Uncle Vivian, and ask to be sent -somewhere else. To make sure of keeping Robert's board money, he had to -curb somewhat his dislike for me. Greed vanquished spite, or rather, -while profit was a thing it must be his present endeavour to retain, -spite would wait. For greed's sake he fawned sickeningly upon the boy; -a few kicks in dark corners and pinches as he passed me on the stairs -sufficed for the present as tribute to spite. Albert and Robert were -on bad terms from the start; Albert disliked him as I did, for his -better clothes and superior ways, and more bitterly, "for sneaking up -to father." Robert despised Albert. Albert tried to win my alliance -against him by treating me better. I accepted his advances while -knowing their motive and value. - -Master Robert and I had not much to say to each other. Despite my -jealousy, I could see how much better and kinder-faced he was than -Albert, but I could not like him, as he was "in" with Uncle Simeon. -The very fact that his face was good made me despise him the more for -liking Uncle Simeon; I felt he was a traitor. He could not be "very -much of it" or he would show much more plainly than he did what he -thought of Uncle Simeon's treatment of me. This I could see upset -him, but he was too cowardly to say so. On the other hand, he knew -nothing of the sly slaps and dark-corner kicks with which his dear -friend favoured me. Jealousy was kept alive by the better treatment he -got in the way of food and everything else, which he seemed to take -for granted. Yet if the facts of the case were against him, instinct -spoke on the other side. I knew that any one whose eyes looked at you -in the same kind way as my Grandmother's must, like her, be kind and -good. I argued that he was horrid, I felt that he was kind. I was as -sure he did not treat me well as I was that I would like it if he did. -Once he made friendly advances. I shied off; toady to a toady of Uncle -Simeon's? Never! When I had rebuffed him, I began to reproach him with -not making further efforts at friendliness. If he really wanted to, he -would try again. If I had been a jolly little girl with fine clothes, -curly hair and dark bright eyes, he would be trying all day long. -Why were these allurements denied me, why had I no single attractive -quality? - -Now if ever in all recorded history there was a little girl ignorant -of the bare existence of boy and girl sentiment and of all the normal -notions that ordinary books, playmates and surroundings give to -children, I was that little girl. Yet here at my first contact with a -presentable young male of the human species, I was a-sighing for charms -to lure him. - -This struggle over the pros and cons of Master Robert raged within. -We had little to say to each other. Uncle Simeon never left us alone -together; watched us and made a careful third when Albert and Aunt -Martha were not about. The first time we spoke to each other alone must -have been two or three weeks after he came. Aunt and Uncle were both -going out. - -"Albert," he said, "don't you leave your cousin and Robert alone. -Entertain them, you know, while one is out, you--ha ha!--are the master -of the house." - -As soon as Albert, leaning out of the window, had seen his father -safely round the corner, he went out too, for communion I suppose with -his unsaved friends. - -"No sneaky tricks, mind!" he said to me, and looked the same injunction -at Robert. - -"Why does he talk like that?" said the latter, as soon as he was gone. -We looked at each other. "Do--do you _really_ like him?" - -The implied tribute flattered me. I flung my new ally to the dogs. - -"Not very much," I said. - -"At all?" - -"No, not at all--really." - -"And--Mr. Greeber, do you like him?" - -"Do you _think_ I do? You know all right. Do _you_?" - -"No." He paused. "You don't like it here at all, do you?" - -"Why?" - -"Because you don't look as though you liked it": awkwardly. - -"I know I don't look as though I liked it," I snapped. "I know I don't -look anything nice! We can't _all_ look lovely. _You_ don't look like -I do, so what does it matter to you? _You_ haven't much to abide. _You_ -don't get it all day long." Starving for sympathy I pushed it away. - -"No--o. I know. But I'm sorry." - -"_Why_ are you sorry?" I would hold out in the grim fortress of my -loneliness, or I would taunt him to say something so plain, to attack -so boldly, that he would force me to give in. I was holding out for a -more complete surrender. - -"Why?" - -"Oh well, I don't know, because--I mean--I think--I like you. You are -not really like he said you were. I never thought it." - -I pounced. "_He_ said I was? What about him? What did he say? Tell me." - -Aunt Martha came in and cut us short. - -That night in bed, in my usual Think I found how much happier I was. -I placed him high; excelling Miss Glory Clinker, equalling Brother -Briggs and much nicer looking, nearing the Stranger, and falling short -of my Grandmother only. That was my complete catalogue of friendly -people. Yet why did he never take my part? Why had he not made it -clearer to Uncle Simeon that he disliked him as he had told me he did, -and disliked him most of all for ill-treating me? Over and above all, -how could he sit at meals gorging himself on dainties and look calmly -across the table at me with never enough to eat? - -Since his arrival food had improved, but not for me. The contrast was -the more marked. At breakfast for instance, Robert began with porridge, -of course with sugar and milk, then he had an egg, usually poached -on a piece of buttered toast; or a rasher of bacon with lovely bread -fried in the fat, and laver; or perhaps mackerel done in butter. Then -he had as many slices of bread and butter as he wanted, spread with -some of Aunt Martha's home-made jam, whortleberry, raspberry or black -currant (by what he was allowed to eat I gauged the mighty sum Uncle -Vivian must be paying for board: I had no idea of money values but the -sum must be vast, infinite). Uncle Simeon had much the same, less the -jam. Albert was not only docked the jam, but his egg was merely boiled -instead of poached and served on toast, or if it were bacon he had no -laver and a much smaller piece of bread fried in the fat. There was a -heavy drop to Aunt Martha, who had porridge, and bread and butter with -jam. I came last of all with porridge and jamless bread and butter; -very often not even the latter because of punishments or "mortifyings." -Note the careful grading. Robert got the most: there was a purse behind -him. Uncle Simeon's lavishness here was dictated by meanness: "If I -feed the boy well, he stays; if he stays he pays." For himself he was -torn as always between meanness and greed. He compromised shrewdly -by foregoing his jam, which he did not care for overmuch. Meanness -alone governed Albert's ration, so the King's son got less than the -King. Aunt Martha received what her husband chose to allow her, as a -good wife should. Spite as well as meanness apportioned to me, Hagar, -least of all; though if my bigger portion of porridge were counted -against her jam, Aunt Martha really fared no better than I did; and -thin and pale she looked. Robert riled me most. It was natural for -Uncle Simeon to be mean, greedy, vile. In Robert I felt it was wrong; -like Methodies, _he knew better_. Kind brown eyes were all very well, -but a poor set-off to a greedy little belly. One morning therefore -when in the middle of breakfast, just as he was beginning his poached -egg, Robert said he felt sick, I neither felt sorry nor pretended to. -Justice at last! I hoped he would be very, _very_ sick. Uncle Simeon -followed him out, fawning. - -"Look here child, eat this," said Aunt Martha passing me Robert's -poached egg, "'twill do you good." Kindly but fearfully: her usual -struggle. She declined to share it with me, so I accepted. I was just -munching the last delicious yellow mouthful, when Robert came back, -looking still pale, but better. He saw what had happened, and flushed -crimson. He saw what I thought of him and flushed deeper. - -That afternoon, when I was in my bedroom putting on my hat, there was a -timid knocking. He walked in. I hardened my heart. - -"I'm sorry about breakfast, Mary," he faltered. I knew his heart was -beating fast. - -"Breakfast? What do you mean, _Master_ Robert?" - -"You know. The egg. I'm sorry--" - -"Of course you are. Sorry I ate it." - -He flushed. I developed a meticulous interest in a pincushion. - -"No; sorry to see you eating it so hungrily. You know that's what I -meant. Now I know it's all lies when he says eggs are bad for you and -that you don't like them and you refuse them when he offers them and -that you mustn't eat much of anything. It's all a lie, because he -doesn't want you to eat things, because he hates you or because he's -mean. I always thought it funny you never had nice things. I asked him -three times and he said you were always taking medicine, and the doctor -said you must eat very little and always very plain. You must have -thought me horrid." - -"I did. I'm sorry. Oh, the liar, the mean wretch, he dare tell you all -that? Look here, we've begun now, haven't we, so I'm going to tell -you what I know of him; everything. First you must answer a question. -Do you just not like Uncle, or do you really hate him, hate him like -this?" I clenched my fists and ground my teeth together. - -"Yes, _now_ I do; he's never done anything to me, but I've liked him a -bit less every day I've been here. Now I hate him, like you do." - -"Well, I'll tell you, he's a mean, cruel, wicked man. He beats and -cuffs and pinches me when you're not looking. He canes me till I -bleed. He starves me so as to make as much money as he can out of what -my Grandmother pays him. The first morning I came I said No, when he -offered me one miserable spoonful of his egg. I've never touched one -since, and he's told you all this about my not liking eggs at all. I do -take medicine, but it's because I'm ill and don't get enough to eat. -He's mean and he hates me, that's why he starves me: one as much as -the other. He's nice to you because you're rich and important and have -friends and relations. Do they pay a lot of money for you?" - -"I don't know." - -"They must do or you wouldn't get so much to eat. Oh, the beast, he's -always talking as though he was so good and then he starves me and -gives me sneakish blows in the dark. He praises the Lord with his lips -and he's got the devil in his heart. He flatters with his tongue, but -his inward part is very wickedness--" - -I stopped short, fancying I heard a noise outside, and looked out -into the passage. There he was, skulking as usual, making pretence to -rummage in a cupboard just outside the door. - -"What are you doing, Uncle?" I asked weakly, very weakly. - -"What are _you_ doing, one asks." - -"I just--opened the door...." - -"_Ah_," he said, slipping away. - -"Has he heard?" asked Robert fearfully. - -"Every word. I don't care. He knows the truth now; he can't treat me -worse than he has done. I hate him. Everything is hateful. All the -world is against me always; 'tis all beating and starving and meanness -and misery; and nobody loves me. I wish I'd never been born, I do, I -do." I broke down and sat on the bed, sobbing bitterly. - -"Don't, Mary," huskily, "everybody doesn't hate you, I don't." He sat -beside me and put his arm on my shoulder. - -That was the beginning of happiness. - -I cried more than ever, but they were other tears. - -"Don't cry, Mary, don't cry, please. I like you. Tell me you know I do. -I'm going to do something, I'm going to help you somehow. I'll never -touch another egg unless you do too, and if he stops mine, I'll write -to Uncle Vivian and tell him why. I shall ask Uncle Vivian to let me go -somewhere else as soon as I can; but you must get away first, you must -ask your Grandmother to have you back with her right away. Mary dear, -don't cry." - -He was on the border line himself. He screwed a dirty little -handkerchief into his eyes. The other arm was still on my shoulder. He -was crying too. Then I comforted him, and found it a joy greater even -than being comforted. - -"We must go now," I said, getting up. "Come on, _Master_ Robert," -smiling; smiling being a thing I achieved perhaps once a year. - -"No, and don't say Robert either. Say Robbie. Uncle Vivian and all the -people I like call me that." - -There were two pairs of red eyes at the tea table that night, and one -pair of steel blue ones which observed them. From that moment, the -political situation of No. 1 the Quay was entirely transformed. In the -field of domestic economy there was a more striking change still. Next -morning, I almost reeled when a boiled egg was set before me, though as -the porridge was cut down by nearly half, my Uncle spiced his defeat -with triumph. Openly he treated me no worse, though he gave me a savage -kick in the hall that night. I knew he was saving up for something -dreadful. Once the mood of passion and defiance had passed away, I was -more afraid of him than ever. He hated Robbie now, while striving not -to show it. Robbie showed his feelings sometimes and was openly surly. -The short-lived Albert-Mary _entente_ collapsed once for all, shattered -by the Mary-Robert alliance. - -The new friendship caused a veritable revolution in all my ideas. Now, -whenever I was brooding or thinking away in my usual bitter fashion, -I would say to myself, "Think of it, quickly, quickly," and I would -feel again his hand on my shoulder; he would comfort me and I him. I -re-lived it over and over again. It was the first purely happy vision -I had ever conjured up. To Robbie it meant much less. I decided he -was a nice little boy, kind and decent-hearted; he had been sorry to -see me unhappy and he had been glad to comfort me. It was an impulse; -not more. He liked me, he _pitied_ me, but the whole thing meant very -little to him. - -One day a letter came from his Uncle Vivian. - -He came to me joyfully. "Hurrah! Hurrah! I shall be going away soon. -I'm ever so glad." - -"In every way?" with a sneer; hungrily. - -He flushed crimson, as we do when any one surprises us in thoughtless -egotism; when another lays bare to us a selfishness we were too selfish -to have seen. Or else it was the cruel injustice of what I said, or -both: the good reason and the bad. - -"You know I didn't mean that. When I get to Uncle Vivian I'll tell him -to write to your Grandmother and tell her all about it and have you -taken away. She'd listen to my uncle. But wait, you must get away from -here before that. It would be dreadful if you were here alone for a bit -between my going and the time you'd be able to get away, if we waited -for Uncle Vivian to write--" - -"He'd kill me if he dared. Can't you write to Uncle Vivian now, so that -he could write to my Grandmother at once? I can't write. Uncle Simeon -reads all my letters to her." - -"A letter of mine mightn't reach Uncle Vivian. The last time he wrote -to me was from Paris in France; he said he was going further south for -Christmas, that's somewhere much further away, and said I need not -write again as he would be back for the New Year. We're quite near -Christmas now, so it's too late. I'll tell you my plan. Now, the day -I go away, Mr. Greeber is sure to be at the railway station to see me -off. The minute we've left the house you must be dressed and ready to -run away and walk back to Tawborough; your Grandmother couldn't be -angry if you told her all about him. Then Uncle Vivian will write as -soon as I see him, and you won't have been alone with Mr. Greeber in -the house for a minute." - -"'Tisn't Grandmother, 'tis Aunt Jael. And suppose only Uncle Simeon -goes with you to the station to see you off. What about Albert and Aunt -Martha? Besides, he'll make me come too. He'd do it to please you, -knowing you'd like it, though out of spite he'd want me not to, because -he knows I'd like to. It all depends whether he wants to be nice to you -more than to be nasty to me. Nice to you, I think, most of the two, -because he can be nasty enough to me the second you're gone." - -"You could say you felt sick." - -"That's a lie. Besides, that might make him want to make me come all -the more, if he thought it would pain me or make me feel worse to come. -I don't tell lies, if he does. Unless of course, I _really_ felt sick. -I could take something and make myself sick, and then 'twould be true. -But then Aunt Martha would say she'd stay with me while the rest of you -went to the railway station. No, the best thing is to pretend very much -I'd like to come, which of course I would, and then he won't let me. -You might pretend to quarrel with me the last day; that would help. The -real trouble is Aunt Jael; she'd get into a frightful rage and send me -back; and when I came back, 'twould be a hundred times worse. He'd kill -me." - -"You said your Aunt Jael hated Mr. Greeber. If she knew he'd like it, -are you sure she'd send you back; when she knew too that you'd run away -for fear of your life? I'm sure she wouldn't do that." - -"You don't know her. No, my plan is this: to write a letter somehow -to Grandmother, who'd talk to Aunt Jael and sort of prepare her -for my running away. I'll write it in bed tonight, it's the only -place I can where he's not watching me; and we'll post it tomorrow -afternoon, sometime on the walk when Albert isn't looking. I'll tell my -Grandmother about the canings, and how he half starves me. Aunt Jael -hates him so much that I think there's a chance. Then I needn't run -away at all. Grandmother would come to fetch me herself." - -The letter was duly written that night. I jumped out of bed and hid it -in the bottom of my chest of drawers, in a far corner of the drawer -between two white cotton Chemises. It would be safe there till the next -afternoon. After dinner next day I came up to put on my hat and to -get the letter. I put my hand in the corner underneath the Chemises. -The letter was not there! I pulled the top chemise right out. There -the letter was after all, but at the other end of the chemise. It had -been moved. The garment was only eighteen or twenty inches long, but -I remembered perfectly I had put the letter at the outside-end of the -drawer and now it was right at the other end of the chemise, near the -middle of the drawer. Yet there was my handwriting, there was the -envelope: no one had tampered with it. It must be my over-suspicious -mind. Aunt Martha had been tidying my clothes, or putting the clean -washing away and so had moved the letter without seeing anything.... -We posted it that afternoon. In a couple of days came my Grandmother's -reply. - -The first sentence made my heart sick. "Your uncle writes me--tells me -he has destroyed an untruthful letter, full of untruthful complaints -that you had written me without his knowledge--how grieved he and -your Aunt Martha are--how they do everything to make you happy--your -Aunt Jael is grievously annoyed--your loving Grandmother is -disappointed--Always come to me, my dear, for help, but don't give way -to discontent so easily. Reflect always what your dear mother had to -put up with. Take up thy cross and walk!" - -This letter Uncle Simeon never asked to see, but he had had one for -himself from my Grandmother by the same post. He said nothing, but -looked at me from time to time with malicious triumph, meaning "Revenge -is near; it will be sweet. Wait till this fine young friend of yours is -out of the way. One has a whip, you remember, ha, ha, one has a whip!" - -A few days later Robbie had a letter from his Uncle Vivian announcing -his return to England for December 30th and arranging for Robbie to -leave Torribridge on New Year's Eve, now only three weeks away. - -New Year's Eve then was the day, and though I did eventually fly from -Torribridge to Tawborough within a few hours of the time we fixed, it -befell very differently from anything we had planned or foreseen. - - -Heaven was dark; yet the clouds at last had begun to break. For always, -eternally, I could re-make the moments that had been, and live and cry -and laugh and love it over again. - -I pretended his arm was round me each night as I fell asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII: CHRISTMAS NIGHT - - -"What do you do for Christmas?" asked Robbie a day or two later. "It's -only a week tomorrow." - -"What do you mean--_do_ for Christmas?" - -"Why, people coming to stay, and a party perhaps. You know." - -"What do you mean? The only party we ever had was on Aunt Jael's -seventieth birthday and that's in August." - -"It must be different at your house from anywhere else. People have -a jolly sort of time, a lot of people in the house and that kind of -thing." - -"There was something about it in Westward Ho! the book _he_ stole from -me and burned just before you came. It said something about 'happy -sports and mummers' plays,' and cakes and ale and some word like -flapdragons. It's what worldly people do, I suppose, and sinners, but -not us; I've never heard of it with the Saints." - -Robbie was too wise to attack priggery-piety in the open. "I don't -know about all that. You do talk funnily; your Grandmother seems to be -different from other people. You _must_ know all the special things you -do at Christmas, all the special things you eat--" - -"I don't. What are they?" - -"Oh, roast goose and turkey and plum-pudding and mince pies. Then for -tea the big Christmas cake, crammed with raisins and covered with -almond paste and icing sugar with crystallized fruit on top and those -little green bits like candied peel--not really candied peel, it's some -name I forget, anyway it's nice. If you're a little boy you're allowed -to stay in the dining-room all the same and eat all the walnuts and -dates you want and drink a little port or madeira! What do _you_ have -for Christmas dinner?" - -"Hash," I replied enviously, "and a roly-poly pudding with no jam, or -hardly any, for afterwards." - -Incredulity seemed to struggle with pity in his mind. - -"I'm sorry. It sounds so funny. I didn't know there were people like -that. The villagers are just the same. Mrs. Richards down at the -Blue Dragon makes the biggest Christmas cake I've ever seen, lovely -bluey-looking icing with preserved cherries in it, those big red ones, -and almond paste an inch thick. Everywhere it's the great day in the -year for feasting." - -"Why?" I asked. "Why should Christmas Day be the great day for -feasting? It's the day Jesus was born; why should that make people -guzzle? A funny way of keeping His birthday, eating and drinking. I -know what it is, it's what the Papists do: eat all day. That's it, -it's Popish." My voice rose combatively in the good cause of plain and -Protestant living, hash and heaven. - -Weakly or wisely, he skirted the theological issue. "Don't be silly. -Besides it's not only what you eat yourself. At Christmas time you -always give a lot away to the poor people. Uncle Vivian gives heaps of -logs and firewood and coal all round the village, and gives geese to -the tenants and heaps of other things; giving things away is a good -enough way of keeping Christmas, isn't it? There are presents. You get -presents, don't you?" - -"Never." - -Here I was wrong, for on Christmas morning a parcel came addressed to -Miss Mary Lee. It was the first I had ever received, except some new -winter underclothes Grandma had sent me from Tawborough, and I undid it -eagerly. Inside was a box of colours. I found from a little note inside -the cover of the box that Great-Uncle John had sent me this in addition -to his usual half-sovereign. This made me ponder. I had heard vaguely -of his half-sovereign at long intervals of time, but had never thought -of it in the light of a Christmas present. I had never seen or touched -it; it was "put by" or otherwise dimly dealt with by Grandmother and -Aunt Jael. - -This box of colours was the finest thing I had yet possessed. No -doubt the art of mixing paint was then in its infancy, and this box -provided me with but a few of the simplest colours; no doubt a mere -half crown box of today is superior both in number of colours and -quality of paint. No doubt, but ignorance was bliss; no such odious -comparisons came to cloud my joy. I had never seen a paint box before -except through a shop window; and now I had one in my own hands and was -gloating with all the joy of proprietorship over the twelve little pans -before me and the high adventurous names with which each was labelled. - -Gamboge, yellow-ochre; cobalt, Prussian blue; green-bice, Hooker's -green; carmine, crimson-lake; raw-sienna, burnt-sienna; sepia and ivory -black. There was also a mysterious little tube tucked away in a niche -at one end and labelled Chinese white, the contents of which oozed -out when pressed, like a white tape-worm. These names were a delight. -Carmine: the colour which Brother Quappleworthy painted his sins in -discourse. Crimson-lake: which called up a vision of a great sea of -Precious Blood with wave-crests of scarlet-foam. - -Robbie had several presents: a box of soldiers, a picture book, some -sweetmeats and money. - -"That's much less than usual," he said, not too kindly. "I expect -there's more waiting for me at Uncle Vivian's." - -Albert was bare and giftless, for his half sovereign from Great-Uncle -John meant no more to him than to me, being instantly put (or not put) -into "the bank" by Uncle Simeon. He was naturally jealous, envied -Robbie's wealth and luck, cursed his father's meanness in giving him -nothing, reviled Uncle John for sending me the paint-box as well as -the half sovereign, and to himself no corresponding extra. All this -well distributed hostility he could vent on me alone. The means of his -vengeance should be my solitary ewe-lamb. He waited his opportunity. - -Robbie went out to dinner, invited by some friends of his uncle's. So -Uncle Simeon brought a cane in to dinner, lodged it on the edge of the -table, and allowed me to taste it now and then. I espied neither goose -nor turkey, cakes nor ale, port nor madeira; though there was a much -better pudding than usual, a suet one made in a basin with sultanas -and citron peel which bore--alas!--an awful and edible likeness to the -genuine popish article. After dinner Aunt Martha, who said she had -a headache, retired to her bedroom to lie down, and later on Uncle -Simeon went out, his big Bible under one arm and his big umbrella under -the other, to expound the former to a bedridden old female Saint he -visited twice a week, a second cousin of Brother Atonement Gelder's. - -Albert and I were left alone together in the dining-room. It was -perhaps not more than three o'clock, but it was a cold, dark day and -the room was already dusk. Uncle Simeon was hardly out of the house -before Albert came up to the table at which I was just settling down -to begin using my treasure, snatched the box away, dipped the biggest -brush into my cup of water and began roughly digging it into the pans -of colour. Then he splashed water over all the pans and made great -wasteful daubs on the palette. - -"Don't, Albert," I pleaded, "please don't." - -"I shall, I shall--ugh" (his usual grunt), "nothing will happen to -me if I do. It's no good your whining, I'm going to spoil it, out of -spite! because I want to! Try sneaking to father if you dare. Ha, ha, I -know what you told Robert Grove about father, nasty little sneaks and -liars both of you. Father's on my side now, so you won't get much by -going to him; and if you did I'd bang you afterwards." - -He took up the cup and poured water into the box, smearing all the -colours together with the brush. The little brute was ruining my -treasure before my eyes. Appeal was useless, so I made a deft attempt -to snatch. For reply he struck me heavily with his fist over the ear. I -screamed out half in pain, half in rage, and made another snatch. This -time, throwing the box on to the ground, he struck me on the shoulder -with the full force of his fist and sent me flying. I fell down, half -stunned for a moment, when another voice broke into the room. - -"You beast, you brute," I heard--and saw Robbie, back sooner than we -expected. He slammed the door behind him, went straight across the room -to Albert, and tried to seize his arm. - -"Here, you leave me alone. She hit me first, when I wanted to use -her filthy paint box, and the mean cat said I shouldn't, and started -snatching and scratching so I had to push her away." - -"Oh, you liar!" I cried. - -"Then she banged her paint box on the floor in her rage, and came for -me again, then I punched her, and serve her right." - -"'Tis all lies, lies, lies." - -"Believe her, do you?" sneered Albert, lowering at Robbie, "she's a -nice one to believe. Do you know what her father did? I do; ugh, ugh, -she's a nice one like he was. Look here, just keep your hands off me." - -Albert struck a first blow and the two boys were soon fighting like -savages. My head was still aching from the two blows that Albert had -given me; I forgot them and everything else in the excitement of the -struggle. Blows on head, face and shoulders were exchanged. With every -stout one Albert received I exulted; every one of Albert's that hurt -Robbie hurt me too. Albert was sturdy and strong and even broader than -Robbie; on the whole he was getting the best of it; I felt sick and -apprehensive. I prayed fervently to God for Robbie to win, promising -lordly penances and impossible virtues in return. I would give all my -life and health to comforting the heathen if Robbie might win. I would -be burnt or eaten alive--if Robbie might win. I employed all the magic -I knew, and counted frenzied thirty-sevens between each blow--for luck -to Robbie. Prayer is not always answered by return, and Albert's right -fist now landed a heavy blow on Robbie's left ear, which nearly felled -him; he tottered and paled. So did I as I resolved to intervene. I -would fight till I fainted--to prevent Robbie being beaten. I clenched -my teeth and hovered awkwardly nearer, wondering how to get in my first -blow (or scratch)--when Robbie recovered suddenly and crashed with his -fist between Albert's eyes. Now it was the latter's turn to stagger. My -spirits rose. Now Albert picked himself up again. Both were battered. -Robbie had a bleeding ear (to match my own), Albert a black eye and -broken nose. The fight went on. Robbie began to get the upper hand; I -could see the loser's look on Albert's face. "Robbie will win! Robbie -will win!" said Instinct exulting. I thought for a moment of that tame -fixture, Susan Durgles versus Seth Baker, when my main emotion was mere -pity for Seth: water to the wine of joy now coursing through my veins -as I watched Robbie pound Albert more victoriously every moment. Albert -was now desperate, came closer, tried to grip Robbie and push him to -the ground. For a moment prize fight turned to wrestling bout. - -The harmony of a choir, singing carols on the Quay outside, fell -suddenly on our ears. It may have been the Parish Church choir, or a -glee party from the Wesleyan Chapel: sinners, in any case, as Miss -Glory would have said. They were singing a carol with a friendly -wave-like tune, merry, yet sad too, as Christmas songs should be: _It -came upon the midnight clear_--though I did not know the words. The -tune revived the fighting. The boys got free from each other's grip; -blows were resumed. The end came at last with a swift, terrific stroke -on Albert's shoulder, which knocked him flat. In a second Robbie was -kneeling on his body and had pinioned his arms. The victim scowled, the -victor showed modest pride, the spectator exulted like a savage. - -"There now," said Robbie, "that's what you get for striking a girl. -Worse another time. Say you're sorry you hit Mary. Say you were a -brute." - -Albert scowled, growled, made efforts to get free, failed. - -"No good, you'll stay here till you say it; 'I'm sorry I hit Mary and I -was a brute.'" - -Albert wriggled again, perceived that all endeavours would -be fruitless, and surrendered. "Well, then, you great bully. -Sorry--hit--Mary--and--was--brute. There you are, now let me go." - -"Not until you've made one more promise, 'I'll never hit Mary again.'" - -For some reason Albert obeyed with alacrity this time. "I'll never -strike Mary again." - -Robbie released him, and walked towards the door saying shyly to me: -"Come to my bedroom, and help bathe my face; it's awful." - -I followed him upstairs. Just as we reached the landing Albert came out -and shouted. "Ugh, you nasty beasts. I promised I'd never strike Mary -again and I won't--never want to see her ugly face again--but I'll see -that father does all right. This very night too, as soon as ever he -comes in. He'll make you cringe and bleed; he'll make the flesh fly. -You too, you bully, you overdressed flashy big--" - -We went into Robbie's bedroom and stopped to hear no more. - -"It's not much good," said Robbie, smiling mournfully, as he washed the -blood from his ears and face, "because I shall get hurt much more when -Mr. Greeber comes in. That beast downstairs is sure to set him on. I -think he would dare to flog me this time, because he'd be able to say -to Uncle Vivian that I'd half killed Albert." - -"Yes, he'd say 'one felt it one's painful duty after young Master -Robert's brutal attack on one's own dear son,' and that you had really -hurt Albert. Which you have," I concluded with satisfaction. - -"Still, it'll be nothing to what he'll do to _you_ if he gets you -alone; so you must get away the same day as me; or sooner would be -best." - -"No, sooner wouldn't do, because then he'd flog _you_ worse; he'd be -sure to know you'd helped me get away." - -"Yes, my first plan is best; while they're at the station seeing me off -you must run away to Tawborough or take the coach, because we've enough -money for that now. Here's the half-sovereign, my present, you know; -the half-crown mightn't be enough and I've nothing in between--" - -The door, opening softly, cut him short. Uncle Simeon, very pale and -slimy and cat-like--himself at his worst--was followed by Albert, also -at his worst, with an ugly black eye and an uglier leer. - -"No, father," he whined, "not one; both. Flog 'em both, father, both of -'em." - -Albert's disappointed whine seemed to mean that his father might not -dare to touch Robbie. I was glad for Robbie's sake; what my own fate -would be I hardly dared to think. I shrank from him into the seat of -the window sill. He took a long coil of cord out of his pocket, and -came towards--not me--but Robbie. What, would you dare? Was Robbie, -after all, the victim, and I, if only for the moment, the one to -escape? I must do myself the justice of noting that for once in my life -at any rate I was sorry to bear the easier part: I would gladly have -chosen to take the beating for Robbie, would bravely have played the -Royal Prince's whipping-girl. He bound Robbie with the cord hand and -foot to the bedpost, his own bedpost of course; for it all took place -in his bedroom, where Uncle Simeon had surprised us. Uncle Simeon went -out of the room for a moment, leaving Albert to watch us. - -There was two minutes absolute silence. The three children looked at -each other. We waited. - -He came back, in his right hand the long heralded whip; a kind of -cat-o'-nine-tails for domestic use, with five tails only instead of -nine; these were made of cord, with three knots each at intervals, and -were fastened to a piece of thick rope, which Uncle Simeon wielded. An -evil-looking thing. - -Robbie did not wince. He would not while I was by. But I lost all -control of myself, and, for the first time, burst out openly against -Uncle Simeon. I flew up to him, and with fierce feebleness clutched his -wrist. - -"Don't you dare touch him," I cried, in a treble shriek. "I dare you to -whip him. You cruel, horrible man." - -"Cruel horrible man," he sneered. "Bah! A fine one you are to call one -that; you, your father's daughter every inch of you. Cruel horrible -man, forsooth!--Go and call _him_ that, your own dear, kind, loving -father who drove your dear mother into an early grave and mocked her -when she was lying there; a heartless whoremongering beast who spent -all the time he spared from stews and brothels in hounding her to death -with his cruelties; unfit to untie the shoe of a humble Christian like -oneself, frail and sinful though one doubtless is. You're like him, -body and soul. Come, loose hold!" - -The vile words stung me for a moment, but when he wrenched my hand -from his wrist, scratching at it savagely with his nails, I cried with -redoubled fury: "Don't you dare to whip him, don't you dare." - -"Whip him? Whip him?" he purred with bland enquiry, "Who can be meant -by 'him'? Not Master Robert surely? One would not dream of punishing -one whose only sin is to be led into evil paths by another. One must -tie him up, to be sure, lest he should be led into the evil path of -interfering with a certain little duty one owes to one's Lord, one's -little son, and one's own poor self. Quick, off with your blouse and -skirt!" - -He gnashed his teeth. Even at that moment it fascinated me to watch -how curiously the muscles under his cheek twitched when he was on -cruelty bent. There must be a cruelty muscle. - -I stood before him in vest and petticoat, pale and limp with fright, -a pitiable, cowering object: the sort of rabbit the serpent loves. -I had felt and seen hard blows that same day; now too Aunt Jael's -masterpieces flitted in dour procession through my mind: the rope end, -the day I sucked the acid drops, the three blows of the thorned stick -after Robinson Crewjoe, the great flogging with the butt end of her -stick when I said that Proverbs was the nastiest book in the Bible. -These were as nothing to what was coming now. I lifted my eyes and for -one second looked into his. I shall never again, please God, see a look -so cruel, so craven, so cad-like. There was spite in it, and hate, and -fear. Yet his fear was as nothing to mine. - -Whip in hand he came towards me to catch hold. There could be no hope. -Aunt Martha was not to be seen; in any case what could she have done? -Albert was kneeling hopefully on the bed, Robbie's bed, to get a better -view of the sport. Robbie was bound hand and foot, looking hate at -Uncle Simeon; wretchedness, sympathy and encouragement at me. His lips -were tight together so that he should not cry. Here was Simeon Greeber -approaching me. He looked like the devil; the idea seized me, he _was_ -the devil, the Personal Devil himself; now I knew. But here lay hope: -through the devil's enemy, the Lord God Almighty. Moved by an insane -impulse, I went down on my knees on the bare floor. - -"Oh, God," I cried, "save me from him, now, somehow! Save me, and if it -be Thy will, strike him dead!" - -I was cut rudely short. He clutched my shoulder, his claw striking cold -and damp through my vest, and pulled me roughly to my feet. - -"My Lord, my Lord, how she blasphemes! One will avenge it, Lord, one -will avenge." He dragged me into the middle of the room. - -In that moment a strange thing happened. The sudden sweetness of an -old Christmas hymn smote our ears. It was the carollers again: they -must have moved up the Quay, for now they were singing just outside the -house: - - - Hark the herald angels si-ing - Glory to the new-born King-- - - -For an instant he was unnerved, but for an instant only, and with - - - Peace on earth and mercy mi-ild - - -the first stroke of the whip fell across my back. - -The memory comes back to me in nightmare. I see the honey-yellow face -ghastly against the growing darkness of the room. I see the coarse -little brute gloating on the bed. I see the young prisoner at the -bed-post flushed with rage and pity, biting his lips manfully. I -hear the voices of the singers out on the Quay mocking me with merry -Christmas hymns. To this day I can never hear the opening notes of The -Herald Angels without starting back, and living over again for a moment -all the horror. For all my fear and bodily agony, I would not cry out. -I would not give Robbie the pain nor Uncle Simeon the pleasure. The -whip tore my legs and body and back. I bled all over. He thrashed me -till I was faint with pain; till he could thrash no longer. Then he -kicked me and I fell half-dazed to the ground, where as a final tribute -from his humble if Christian person he spat in my face. As I lay I -heard vaguely the singers outside. The voices now seemed dreamlike and -far-away in their last triumphant unison: - - - Mild he lays His glory by-y, - Born that man no more may di-ie, - Born to raise the sons of earth, - Born to-o give them second birth. - Hark, the Herald Angels sing, - Glory-y to the new-born-king! - - -In the following silence I heard his voice, far away too it seemed. -"Yes, you'd better go at once; dear Mr. Vivian Fortescue would not have -you stay another day to be so corrupted." - -I felt another kick. "Come, up with you now to bed." - -I rose painfully, but was too weak to stand, and tumbled. Albert -guffawed. At last I got up and crept to the door. - -"Good night," he smiled. "Bid us good night, if you please. Let there -be no malice, no evil rage in your heart, for this little _foretaste_ -of correction. Let there be no evil spirit of revenge. One harbours -none oneself. One forgives, forgives freely. Later on when Master -Robert is gone away one may _begin_ to think of the just punishment -that is due. One must not shrink, grievously though it pains one. It -is the Lord's will, and His will be done. One forgives you, my child, -forgives you freely, despite all the wickedness and trouble you have -brought into the house. One forgives, yet one must punish." - -I crawled upstairs to my bedroom. I had only my vest to take off--or -tear off, for it was stuck to me with blood. When I was naked I looked -at myself by the candle-light in the long wardrobe mirror. My white -breastless little body was covered with blood and dark strokes and -great weals. I bathed the worst places with the ice-cold water in my -basin and then rubbed in plenty of the mixed whitening with which -Grandmother had supplied me. It relieved me a little, and I got into -bed. - -Soon the door opened. My heart beat fast. It was only Aunt Martha, -bringing my Christmas supper. Not flap-dragons, nor raisins nor almond -paste; just a small basin of mutton gruel. - -"I'm sorry you've been so naughty, child, and have had to be corrected." - -She produced two apples craftily from her pocket, put them on the -bedside pedestal with the gruel, and went out. I did not touch them. I -was too sick and wretched to eat. - -Nor could I sleep. The long night began; pain, hate and wretchedness -possessed me, first one more than another, and each in turn. My rough -woollen nightgown chafed my sores; the bed, which was never a soft -one, hurt me everywhere. My whole body smarted and ached. Why had I to -suffer such pain? Why was I starved and bullied and abused and beaten -and half-killed? Why had a man, professing to be one of the Lord's own -people, the right to flog me so? Oh, the tyrant, I could only hear -to think of him by picturing to myself a glorious day when my turn -would come, when I would cat-o'-nine-tail him till he fainted and bang -his face against a stone wall till his pale features were one red -indistinguishable mush. Hate, hate, a bitter ointment, had eased my -pain; hate for him, hate for the world, and by silly bitter moments the -Devil's temptation to hate God. From hate for the tyrant I came to pity -for the victim, which was self-pity, so sweet a misery that it drove -away all other trouble. I was the wretchedest of all God's creatures, -the wretchedest being since Creation. For me all things were unjust. -Robbie and Albert were never treated as I was; in this alone were they -alike, and all children save me alike. Every little child I saw in the -street was happy, free, well-treated. Every one else had brothers and -sisters, and friends--and a mother. - -The old new bitterness returned; why had my mother been taken away? She -would have protected me and cherished me. I tried to think more clearly -than ever before what she would have looked like if still alive; like -Grandmother, I fancied, with the same kind gentle face, but taller and -younger and warmer. I should have nestled to her bosom, she would have -taken me in her arms. I should have comforted her. She would have loved -me. The agony of the thought was torture. I needed her to madness. I -could lie down no longer. I knelt up in bed and my soul cried out for -her. Involuntarily my voice was crying too, "Mother, mother!" - -I uttered the words without knowing, as it were, that I spoke; they -were wrung from me without my consent; it was my soul not my mind which -spoke. And I knew this time that the prayer would be answered; I had -the sure supernatural instinct that my mother was coming to me. She -had been mouldering in Tawborough graveyard for ten years now, yet -I knew she was coming. I did not call again, but waited in intense -expectation. I clasped my hands in an agony of hope. - -She came. Right up to the bedside she moved in a white robe. She spoke. -Her voice seemed nearer to me than if it had been at the bedside; -inside me, in my very soul. Mother was with me, in me, around me. - -"I am here, Mary, I love you. You want to know that I love you, and I -have come to show you that I do." - -The darkness was made radiant by the white figure before me. I was -bathed in a new presence, and I knew that it was love. I was still -kneeling on the bed and my face was on a level with my mother's. I -bent forward to fulfil my supreme need; I went nearer, my arms were -closing round her--and she was gone. - -My arms closed round empty space. I came back to reality. I was -kneeling on the cold bed. And she was gone. The feeling of her presence -faded away; the sense of love and comfort was abiding. It abides with -me still. I was sad, forlorn, but happy to think she had gone back -to heaven, and that she loved me enough to come ten million miles to -comfort me. She had shown me the truth of the resurrection, of the -immortality of the soul; and something far greater, the truth of love. - -Hate, pain and weariness were forgotten in the joy of my mother's love, -I nestled in it, sheltered in it, clasped it to me, and soon it was -wooing me to sleep. - -Then--a soft tread in the room--and I was wide awake in a flash. The -moon did not light the corner of the room by the door, but I seemed to -see a white figure standing there. Was it my angel mother again? - -"Mother," I cried faintly. I did not feel the divine sureness of her -presence I had known before. It could not be. Yet I heard the soft -tread again. The white form moved nearer. - -Uncle Simeon! Pity, pity, he had come to flog me naked, torture me in -the darkness, rub salt into my wounds as he had threatened; to kill me. -I hid my face under the bedclothes in terror, then withdrew as quickly -for fear he would stifle me beneath them. His ghostlike figure was -still there. "Mother--God--Jesus!" - -"Mary, don't be frightened." - -It was Robbie. - -Reaction from fear was so strong and overwhelming that for a moment I -could not think. The first words I could speak were prompted by the -fear that had fled, just as the life that has gone enables a tiger -still to spring, though shot through the heart a second before. - -"Hush, hush," I whispered. "Don't make a sound. What is it? Why are you -here? Think, if he found us! Oh, you frightened me. First, I thought it -was Mother, then that it was _him_." - -"Mother?" said Robbie. "Are you dreaming, Mary? Are you awake properly? -I've got bare feet, and he can't hear whispering. Besides he's -snoring. I listened outside his door and it's nearly midnight." - -"Why have you come?" - -"To tell you I'm going away either tomorrow or the day after. He has -written to Uncle Vivian's housekeeper, Mrs. Venn, telling her to expect -me back straight away; and he has forbidden me to try to see you before -I go; dared me to.... This is our only chance, Mary. I overheard him -saying that tomorrow morning very early, before breakfast, he's going -to lock you in the attic and keep you locked there till after I'm gone -away. Well--I came to tell you that--and--to say good-bye." He paused -and took courage. "And to tell you that when I'm a man I've made up my -mind to come back and beat him till he bleeds as he has made you bleed." - -He stopped and waited. I knew what he was waiting for. I trembled, -shook like an aspen leaf; my heart, soul, brain, were all aflood with -what he longed for me to say. - -"Why don't you come nearer?" huskily. He came a little nearer and -waited again, pretending, for all the world like a grown human being, -that he did not see the invitation he longed for. - -"You are cold," I said (truth ready to my hand for use). "Come and lie -under the coverlet." The first word over, it was easier. - -"It must be hurting you horribly," he said. He stood by the bedside in -a last moment of hesitation. - -"_Come_," I repeated. He climbed on the bed beside me. "Yes, it hurts -badly. Robbie, come nearer." - -Then he put his arms round me; I was half out of the bedclothes; but we -were warm together under the coverlet. His curly head touched mine, his -soft boyish cheek gently rubbed against my own. This was what he had -come to do. This was what I had waited to know. - -Here was love again. It was true. It was sweet beyond belief. - -That is many years ago. Since then I have known many glorious things. I -say still that this moment, when he placed his boyish arms around me, -was the holiest and happiest of my life. - -I was crying new tears, not of hate nor misery, but joy. Love opens -the floodgates; and I was surrounded with love, bathed in it; love in -heaven and love on earth; angel mother and human boy. The two little -night-gowned bodies lay close together, the two children's hearts beat. -In one there was affectionate pity, in the other a wild joy; in both -the high happiness of love. This is a joy so pure, that when older we -can never know it again. We kissed each other again and again; eagerly, -tenderly, wildly. The pent-up passion of my bitter heart poured forth; -I strained him tenderly in my arms, he strained me in his. We were -happy, far too happy to speak. His eyes were bright and tender, his -dear face transfigured. We forgot everything, except that we loved each -other. - -The church clock sounded midnight. - -Robbie broke the silence nervously. "I must go--soon. We shall have -to say good-bye, shan't we? It mayn't be safe much longer. Don't -forget you must escape from the attic somehow; break the door open or -anything. Find out from Mrs. Greeber exactly when I'm going. I thought -of your going tonight when I was still here to help you, but you can't; -he has bolted all the doors and locked them and taken away the keys. He -knew we might try. Oh, how I'll flog him when I grow up." - -"He'll be old then, and yellower and wrinkled instead of smooth." - -"I don't care. I'll flog him all the same.... Get a screw-driver or -something and hide it when you are up in the attic. Then when we're at -the station you must break the lock and fly. I'll leave the money under -your bedroom carpet in the corner next to the door, let's say four -inches in--" - -There was a sound; Robbie started up. "Oh, that's only the floor -creaking. Still, it's late." - -"Don't go, Robbie." - -"You know I don't want to, but I'll have to. When I'm older I'm not -going to forget. We mayn't meet for years and years, but we shall see -each other again somewhere, I know we shall. We must try to remember -each other ever so clearly. Isn't there anything we can do to make it -seem we're near together when we're really far apart?" - -"I know. Every year exactly at this minute, a few minutes after -midnight on Christmas night, we'll think hard of each other, shut our -eyes, clench our fists, and think terribly hard. Then it will seem that -we're really right by each other; you'll believe I'm in the room with -you, and I'll believe you are. I shall wait till just after midnight, -then try to think of nothing else in all the world but you. I shall -think of you now as you are this minute--kiss me, it will be better to -remember by--yes, hard, like that--and then I'll pray 'God, oh God, -make Robbie be with me.' He will help it to happen. People who are away -from you can be with you like that, even dead people. My mother came -tonight. I saw her and she spoke to me. I called out knowing she would -come, and she came. You will too. But you must believe with all your -heart that it's going to happen; then it will. I shall think you are -with me; then you will be. Of course I shall think of you other times, -every day I expect, and always when I'm not happy, but only Christmas -night in this special way. It's too special to do often. Will you too? -Remember, every Christmas night, just after midnight, when you're lying -in bed, however far away you are, and every year, always, think with -all your soul of me and of our being together just as we are tonight. -Then we shall be together again really, so that we shall always know -one another whatever happens; always love each other, always be able to -kiss. Promise, will you try?" - -"Yes, Mary," he whispered. - -For another few minutes we lay quietly in each other's arms. We were -together that night perhaps one hour in all; an hour in which my whole -soul changed. At last he had to go. Though he only whispered, I could -hear that the whisper was husky. His little body trembled in my arms. - -"Good-night, Mary." - -"Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear." I hugged him harder than ever to me. I -would not let him go. - -Then the good-bye kiss, sweetest of all, too sad for tears. His soft -boy's lips brushed mine; it seemed too that they touched the tendrils -of my heart and made it blossom like the garden of lilies you read of -in Solomon's Song. A spirit of loveliness filled me. He got up; now it -was last good-bye. I saw his face for a moment in the beam of moonlight -that came slantwise through my window. For many years that vision was -the chief treasure I had: a little boy in a long white nightgown, -a head of tousled curls, a bright face flushed with joy and tears, -radiant with my embrace, radiant with love for me. - -"Good-night, Mary, good-night. I'll never forget you; I'll always love -you." - -"Good-night, Robbie." - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII: NEW YEAR'S NIGHT - - -I awoke next morning to see Aunt Martha standing by my bedside. - -"You're to get up at once. Your uncle says you are to spend a week in -the attic for your naughtiness, so get up and dress quickly. I'll come -back to take you in a few minutes. Your uncle says you're to go before -breakfast, now, at once, so that you can speak to nobody." - -Robbie had heard aright. - -I was still very sore; my nightgown stuck to me here and there with -dry blood, and hurt me as I tore it off. I dressed, and was ready when -Aunt Martha returned. In the grey of a damp winter dawn I followed her -upstairs. No one else was stirring. The unused, airless smell of the -attic seemed more unpleasant than usual in the cold: an atmosphere at -once frozen and stuffy. A mattress had been put on the floor; there -were no bedclothes or coverlets. The room was bare except for a few -boxes and old picture frames in one corner, the rusty old fender that -always stood end upwards against the wall, and one rickety backless old -chair. - -"Here's a cloak to wrap round you in the night. Your uncle said I -wasn't to leave one." She went away. - -All day I was left alone. Twice Aunt Martha came up with a bowl of -gruel and a dry crust, but (evidently under orders) she said nothing. -It was so cold that the cloak could not prevent my getting numbed. I -lay huddled up on the mattress all through the day, thinking, thinking, -thinking.... Now that the first glow of the Wonder Night had passed -away, there came a reaction, and I was gnawing away once more at all -my bitter memories and hates. Pain, too, was governing me; my aching -body was half numbed with cold, especially my legs and feet, which the -cloak was not long enough to cover, huddle as I might. I kept my soul -warm--and body too to some degree--by hugging to me the loves that now -were mine. I lived the time spent with my mother and with Robbie over -and over and over again: every gesture, every kindness, every kiss. -For all my unhappiness and physical misery I could never again be so -blankly, harbourlessly miserable as before. In my darkest moments I now -knew that there were places of comfort to which I could fly. - -I wondered what was going on in the house downstairs. It was night-time -now; tomorrow morning Robbie would be going and I should be alone with -Uncle Simeon. Escape I must. I climbed on to the rickety old chair and -opened the skylight window. I looked out and observed that the skylight -was of a level piece with the sloping roof. I could see nothing beyond -the edge of the roof; the sense of the great drop beyond that edge came -to me, and as I pictured myself falling, I shuddered. That way there -was no escape. - -Then, for one second, as I looked down the sloping roof, came a sudden -notion to throw myself over. It was a physical impulse only, and passed -as quickly as it came. It would have stayed longer had I been the least -bit tempted. But I could never see the sense of suicide. I saw no good -in killing myself, because I believed in immortality. By killing myself -I should only be ensuring an Eternity in hell instead of an Eternity -in heaven. The little boy in one of the new novels makes away with -himself because he believes that there is nothing beyond death, and -that by killing himself in this world he has killed his soul for ever. -If I had believed that I too might have been tempted. But my creed was -in immortality, from which there is no escape. Nor had I the physical -courage which suicide requires. And it would steal my chance of meeting -my mother in the next world and Robbie in this. - -I lay down on my mattress, seeking vainly, like a mouse in a trap, some -new way of escape. During the first night in that cold dreary attic -I slept hardly at all. The rats frightened me; I could not sleep for -fear they would crawl over my face once it was still. Surely Robbie -would send some sign, some message. None came. Later I must have slept; -for again it was Aunt Martha who woke me when she came to bring my -"breakfast." She was startled to see how starved with cold I was, and -came back with a big warm blanket. It was a brave thing for her to do. - -"Robert Grove is going, isn't he?" I asked casually, steadying my voice. - -"Your Uncle thought he was going today, but it has been put off till -next Tuesday, New Year's Day, when his uncle returns from abroad. Till -then your uncle says you must stay here." - -There I stayed. Four walls, locked door, and precipitous roof baffled -all my notions of escape. The best thing I could think of was a rush -for the door when Aunt Martha came with my food; but I saw this would -not be much good. She would raise the alarm, and he would catch me -before I could get clear of the house. - -Five days passed, long, cold and wretched; though with the big blanket, -and the forbidden extras Aunt Martha contrived sometimes to convey me -with my meals, I managed to keep alive, and kept, in my fashion of -health, reasonably well. No message came from Robbie. No doubt Uncle -Simeon was watching him day and night. But still--. - -I was not sure of the passage of time, but I reckoned one night that it -was New Year's Eve. The last night, and still no message. Tomorrow he -was going: this time for certain, and for ever; I should be left alone -with my tormentor. Half in terror (of Uncle Simeon when he should get -me alone), half in hope (of a sign from Robbie), I lay awake through -the whole of that night. It struck midnight. The bells rang out; -merrily, mockingly. It was New Year's night as I had thought. All over -the town people, even Saints, were wishing each other a Happy New Year. -The bells were still. I lay awake waiting for something to happen, -for I knew it would. All the night-time sounds of an old house were -around me. Boards creaked, roof shook, rats scampered. Sometimes I was -startled by a metallic sound as a rat scampered over the tin plate on -which Aunt Martha brought my bread. - -There--that was a new sound! That tapping noise at the door was never -a rat. It seemed low down just where a rat might scratch, but that was -the rap of human knuckles, faint but unmistakable. Who? Why? I crawled -out of the blanket, lay down on the bare boards and whispered under the -door. - -"Robbie, is that you, Robbie?" - -There was no reply except the stealthy sound of something being pushed -under the door. I saw a white thing that looked like a small envelope. -I touched it and felt inside the paper a hard round thing. It was the -half-sovereign he had promised me. - -"Robbie, Robbie, thank you! Are you there? Robbie, Robbie." - -There was no reply. I heard cautious footsteps, with a long interval -between each, going down the creaky old stairs. How I wished he had -whispered one word, one word. He had thought I was asleep and had not -dared to speak loud enough to wake me. Never mind, it was better that -the last thing was Christmas Night's perfect good-bye. - -I clutched the envelope and mourned the weary hours of waiting until I -could read it, for I had no candle. I kept my eyes staring wide open -to prevent myself falling asleep. I could feel that there was a letter -as well as money inside the envelope. I knew it would help me; I was -impatient to know how. So much did it raise my hopes, that I fell to -thinking of the coach-ride to Tawborough, of what Grandmother would say -and how Aunt Jael would receive me. - -As I stared through the darkness I became gradually aware of a ray of -light along the ceiling. It did not come from the skylight, for there -was no moon; and it ran horizontally along the ceiling, not down into -the room. I got up and climbed on to the chair to investigate. Then I -guessed. I had often noticed in a corner in the top of the wall (the -corner farthest from the door) a little wooden door a foot or more -square; it did not exactly fit the space in the wall and there was a -thin aperture between the bottom of this little door and where the wall -began. It was through this slit, not more than half an inch wide, that -the strip of light came. I pulled at the handle and the little door -opened. - -Ten yards or so away, on a level with my eyes, I saw a square patch -of brightness. In a flash, I understood; the light from which it came -was in Uncle Simeon's attic. There was a hole in the corner of the -top of the wall there too, the selfsame square space I had seen when -peeping through the keyhole. What the holes were for I did not know; -most likely to ventilate the room in between. The space mystery which -had so often puzzled me was now explained. There was, in between the -two attics which I knew, mine and Uncle Simeon's, another intermediate -garret twice as large as either. - -Instantly, I formed the resolution of squeezing my way through the -hole, traversing the long dark attic in between, clambering up the -other aperture through which the ray of light was streaming, and -seeing--just what I was too excited to guess, except that I knew that -_he_ was there. The hole was about eighteen inches square; it was a -tight squeeze, but thanks to his dieting I managed it. Clambering down -the other side was awkward work; I held on to the wall part of the -hole to prepare for a jump. I knew it was a longish drop; there was no -convenient chair on this side, and as I had left my slippers behind -so as to make as little noise as possible, I hoped the ground was not -too hard. My feet alighted unevenly; the left foot on the corner of a -beam stuck edgeways, the right on the level of the floor, which was of -course lower by the width of the beam. I hurt my toe badly. The ray -of light was only sufficient to show up very dimly the big garret in -which I now stood; I could make out that the floor was traversed by -long beams laid edgeways, parallel with the front of the house and thus -leading from my attic to his. Along one of these I walked; for although -it was awkwardly narrow, it was better for my stockinged feet than the -floor, which I made out to be strewn with pieces of wood, stone and -plaster. When I got to the other end I found that my objective was too -high; my fingers only just reached the edge of the hole. By standing on -tiptoe, however, and clutching for all I was worth I managed to lever -myself up. Then I looked into the mysterious room. - -What I saw was unforgettable. On a high cupboard flared a lamp, nearly -on a level with the space through which I was looking. This explained -how it was that the light carried right through to the corresponding -hole in the wall of my attic. In the full glare of the lamp sat Simeon -Greeber, leaning over a table covered with papers and documents, at -which he peered. He gloated over them, fondled them, sometimes he -laughed and breathed hard, and his eyes shone. Then he would stop, cock -his head on one side for a moment, and listen anxiously. I watched him, -fascinated. Round him, on the floor and the table, were many envelopes -and papers. The wall was some inches thick; to see as much as I could -I peered further in, so far indeed that if he stood up and looked my -way he could hardly fail to see me. I noticed the big green box I had -observed from the key-hole months before; a heavy door on hinges stood -wide open; inside were more papers. His face, in the moments when he -lifted it up, was of a greenish yellow hue in the lamp-light; and his -eyes shone. - -In my interest I had forgotten the awkwardness of my posture; supported -by my elbows and wrists on the wall part of the hole, with my feet -hanging in mid-air, my toes perhaps barely touching the wall. Once I -lost my hold, and clutched convulsively so as not to fall. He heard the -noise, lifted his face from the pile in which he was wallowing, and -looked round anxiously. I had scared him. - -"No, no, it can't be, it can't be," he whispered, endeavouring to -assure himself of something. - -He returned to his love. Now he rubbed his face sideways against the -papers, gently, like a friendly cat against your leg. - -I resolved to make a noise deliberately, keeping myself far enough back -not to be seen, and to listen to what he might say. - -In silence, at night, alone, a sigh is the most awful noise that can -strike the human ear. I waited till his face was lifted again for a -moment, held myself far enough back so as not to be seen easily, while -still seeing him, and uttered a long-drawn agonized sigh. He started up -with a cry. His cowardly face was a livid green. - -"Brother, brother"--it was a terrified whine--"twelve years ago, twelve -years ago." - -"Twelve years ago, twelve years ago," echoed the watching whisperer. - -He gave a horrible frightened cry, something between a beast's whine -and howl, dropped on his knees, clasped his hands, turned his terrified -eyes upward, and broke into delirious prayer. His face streamed with -sweat. - -"Oh, God, God, visit not Thy servant thus. 'Twas all done for Thee, all -for Thee, Thou knowest. The gold is all Thine. For Thy name's sake, Oh -Lord, pity Thy faithful, humble servant. _He_, Lord, was a sinner, it -was meet that he should go, and that one of Thine own people should -hold his wealth. He was spending all in sin; it was one's duty, Lord, -one's duty. It was Thou who guidedst one's hand that night, and was -he not dying already from the illness with which Thou hadst stricken -him? For Thy sake, oh Lord, it was done. Thou knowest it. Not the -meanest penny has been spent on worldly pleasures nor evil ways nor -self, as he, oh Lord, would have spent it. Thou knowest, Thou knowest; -the meetings, the missionaries, the work in Thy vineyard amongst Thy -people; all that has been spent has been spent in Thy service, and when -Thou callest me to Thee, all will be left for Thy work on earth below. -All, oh Lord, all. Thou knowest, Thou knowest. Grant then that he -trouble me not thus, grant--" - -"Twelve years ago, twelve years ago," I whispered, more boldly, tasting -dear revenge, anxious to see to what length of terror and blasphemy -this snivelling Thing could go. - -I overshot my mark; I whispered a little too loud. He looked quickly up -to the hole in the wall, and though I shrank back like a flash, for a -fraction of a second our eyes met. - -Then he rushed for the door. - -I dropped myself down and ran for dear life back across the beamed room -to my attic. Feverishly I reviewed the position. He had quite certainly -seen me and was now rushing to my attic to cut off my retreat. I sped -across, sprang up to the aperture, squeezed my way wildly through, -calculating all the while, as the quarry does, the number of seconds -it will take the huntsman to finish him. He would have to fly down the -stairs from his attic, along the landing, and up the stairs to mine. -Thank God, he had to fetch the key, which I knew was kept somewhere -downstairs. This delay saved me. I just had time to squeeze through, -shut the little door, drop on to the chair, move the chair from -beneath, fly to my mattress, and throw the cape around me, before I -heard the key turning. - -He came in stealthily and stood listening for a second near the door. -Then he struck a match and lighted the candle he held in his hand. -I dropped my eyelids so that I could just see him, and affected as -far as I could a quiet and regular breathing. He looked first at me, -then round the room, evidently baffled. If he had found my mattress -empty, if I had not flown back on the wings of terror, he would have -had the pleasure of trapping me like a rat in the dark roof-room, the -relief of a natural explanation of the strange whisperings, and at -last a genuine excuse for beating me sick. But here I was, sleeping -peacefully. I could feel him looking at me with intense hate. He hated -me almost as much for bringing him here on a fool's errand as if he had -thought I was really guilty. He bent down and peered more closely at my -face. Instinctively my hand was clasped against my heart. - -The door opened and Aunt Martha came in, shivering slightly in her -nightdress. - -"You here, Simeon? I thought I heard the child cry out." - -"So did oneself. One came to see if anything were the matter; but she -sleeps calmly enough." The lie saved him. - -"Come, Martha, my dear," he said, as he closed the door, "one will deal -with her tomorrow." - -There, however, he was wrong. - -The sights of the past half hour had of course excited me beyond -measure, but I already reflected that they could be put to use; a very -handy lever to turn Aunt Jael's wrath from me to him. Once again, _how_ -was I to get to Aunt Jael? I reckoned that hours must still pass before -it was light enough for me to read Robbie's letter. I got up again from -the mattress to sit on the chair and await the dawn. My feet crunched -against something; it was a box of matches Uncle Simeon must have -dropped in his excitement. By striking these one after another I read: - - - DEAR DEAR MARY: Here is the money for the coach. I am going - tomorrow morning. The door is bolted, it is no good that way, but - I have found a way. You wait till eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, - that will be the morning you find this, then get out by the little - window in the roof, it is quite safe I have made sure. There is a - drain pipe begins at the very top where the sloping part of the - roof stops, you must climb down that, it gets you down into the - back yard, and the back yard door is not locked, I've taken the - key. Then take the coach or run or anything to Tawborough. Get away - from here, that's all, you must. There is _no_ danger, it will be - quite easy to climb down, you'll not hurt. I am always, always - going to think of you and next Christmas we will meet properly like - you said. - - Your loving - ROBBIE. - - P. S. Happy New Year. - - -I kissed the letter. - -There was no time to be lost. I wrapped Aunt Martha's cape round me -and put on my shoes,--indoor slippers without a strap, poor enough -footwear for an eight mile walk. I clambered on to the chair and -lifted the heavy handle of the sky-light window. The damp air of a raw -winter's night crept into the room. - -How I ever got to the ground, I do not know. Somehow I slithered down -the sloping roof till my feet touched the ledge Robbie had spoken of; -somehow I found the drain pipe, and somehow I clambered down. The yard -door was open as he had said, and I walked through it into the deathly -silent street, breathing a sigh of intense relief that I remember to -this day. I broke immediately into a run, that I might put between -me and that accursed house as much distance with as small delay as -possible; when I was halfway across the old bridge I looked back at it, -dimly silhouetted against the winter's night. - -"Good-bye Robbie!" I called. - -I crossed the bridge and climbed the hill. Very soon I was foot-sore; -the toe that had caught on the beam in the roof-room began to bleed, -and my shoes kept slipping off. I was cold, hungry, sore, cramped and -faint. The cold slow rain, somewhere between drizzle and sleet, beat -upon my face. By all the tenets of melodrama my escape should have been -through deep crisp snow with the valiant horned moon astride the sky. -There was no moon, and sleet is crueller than snow. After a while, I -lost one of my shoes, turned back, peered about for it, was unable to -find it; kicked away the other and ran along in my stockinged feet. -Both feet were soon bleeding. After a mile or so, when I could run no -further, I trudged or rather hobbled along, keeping to the middle of -the road, which was the easiest and least muddy part. At moments the -temptation to sit down was almost irresistible; sleep more than half -possessed me. I clenched my teeth and kept on, will power eking out -what little physical force was left. I prayed continuously. - -After perhaps three or four hours, though it seemed unending years, I -saw ahead of me the first roofs of Tawborough. I limped through the wet -silent streets of the town, up Bear Street on to the Lawn, and through -our garden gate. I pulled the bell, and then with a wretchedness and -weariness I could not resist now that my goal was reached, sank down -upon the doorstep. - -Immediately I must have fallen asleep, for it seemed that I awoke from -far away to see my Grandmother in her red dressing-gown and funny -nightcap standing before me. - -"It's me--Mary. I've come back, Grandmother, because he would have -killed me. I've walked all night, and I'm so tired." - -I rose to my feet, and fainted in her arms. Then I remember no more. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX: BEAR LAWN AGAIN - - -I awoke to find myself in my Grandmother's bed. Evening was darkening -the room. Uncle Simeon had already come--and gone. - -Precisely what had taken place I was not told, but according to Mrs. -Cheese neither my Grandmother nor my Great-Aunt had minced their words. -Aunt Jael, particularly, must have been in awful form. Though I had -not yet told my tale, my condition must have spoken for itself; and -if Aunt Jael's sympathy for me was not alone sufficient to pitch her -to the highest key of scorn, the sight of her old enemy made good the -deficiency. Even for him he must have cringed and whined exceptionally, -being quite in the dark as to how much I had told. Whether the -flagellative heart of my Great-Aunt was filled with professional -jealousy or whether the new rôle of Tender and Merciful appealed to -her for the moment, all that is certain is this: that she drove Master -Simeon Greeber with words and scorpions over the doorstep, adding that -he was never required to cross it again. Nor did he. I was many years -older when next we met: under what circumstances the sequel will shew. - -When I regained my health, which under my Grandmother's care and -feeding was speedily enough, I was surprised to find how little -Grandmother and Aunt Jael pressed me for details of my life at -Torribridge. This incuriousness puzzled me: chiefly by contrast with -what my own interest would have been in their place. Details of other -people's doings and sayings were to become one of the absorbing -passions of my life: I was born with my mind at a keyhole. Hence -Tuesday afternoons, when they could be diverted from godly generalities -to piquant personalities were more welcome than of old; and now that -I was occasionally allowed to speak a word at Clinkerian ceremonies, -I became quite deft in sidetracking Miss Salvation down the pathways -of scandal, where Aunt Jael, not too reluctantly, would sometimes -follow her. Aunt Jael, to do her justice, was not much of a gossip: -she was too selfish, just as my Grandmother was too unselfish, too -deeply absorbed in Aunt Jael ever to feel deep interest, even a -scandal-mongering interest, in other people: while her suspicion that -her own efforts were capable of similar sacrilegious discussion would -not allow her to allow me to talk of Uncle Simeon's beatings and -persecutions. She felt that however objectionable Uncle Simeon might -be, she would not permit me--a child, a subject, a slave--to discuss -him. Authority must be upheld, in whatever unpleasant quarters. In the -Tacit Alliance and Trade Union for Cruelty to Children there must be no -blacklegs. - -My Grandmother was the most incurious woman I have ever known: partly -because of her inherent good nature, which made her regard all chatter -about others as unkindly; partly because of her religion, which enabled -her to see, though I think to exaggerate, the unimportance of earthly -things. To every question, every trouble, every accusation, every -wrong, she would everlastingly reply: "What will it matter in a hundred -years?" and then, "Anyhow, 'tis the Lord's will." With a character -thus compounded of kindness, unworldliness and fatalism, Grandmother -was never born to pry. It quite irritated me how little she asked me -about my life at Uncle Simeon's. I had believed myself the centre of -the universe, the victim of the cruellest wrongs in human story; and -here was my Grandmother thinking it friendly and loving and sympathetic -to say "Don't 'ee brood over it, my dear. Forget it all. 'Twill seem -little in a hundred years from now!" - -Apart however from this pique that my miseries should be denied the -glory of posthumous fame, I was glad that I was left alone with the -past eight months of my life. I could hide without subterfuge my -friendship with Robbie. Naturally, and artfully, I mentioned him -sometimes. - -"_Such_ a nice little boy, Grandmother; he was really! We liked each -other--ever so!" - -Always my favourite form of insincerity: to tell the literal truth, -while conveying by the context or my manner something much less--i. e. -morally speaking, not the truth at all. I loved him; I told Grandmother -I liked him. It was the truth, and a lie. - -I also kept hidden in my own breast the chief events of New Year's -Night. - - * * * * * * * - -Within a few weeks the eight months of Torribridge seemed infinitely -far away: as though it were some one else's life I was contemplating -from a distant mountain-peak. I have always found that the more -complete my change of surroundings, the more distant does my previous -life immediately become; until some sudden messenger from the earlier -days brings it back with a vivid rush. I never lived again the -present-moment horror, as it were, of that life with Uncle Simeon until -one day, far ahead, when I realized with frightening suddenness, as I -gazed at a certain face beside me, that those eyes, that smile, that -gesture--were his. - -I fell back almost insensibly into the old groove of Bear Lawn life: -the bare empty-seeming silent house, the long days of loneliness and -godliness, pinings and prayers, the two familiar black-clad figures -in the old familiar horse-hair chairs, the harsh staccato jobations -proceeding from one side of the fireplace, and the gentler but no less -continual "Don't 'ee do it's!" from the other. Torribridge was soon a -nightmare episode shot through with glad dreams more episodal still. -This life in this house that had sheltered my first memories was, after -all, my real life; was Life. It seemed as though I had never known any -other; I often cannot remember whether certain things happened before -or after Torribridge: my Bear Lawn life was all one. - -Nevertheless a few notable changes marked my return. - -First of all, I was received as a full member of the Lawn -confraternity. Aunt Jael allowed me to go out and play: ay, with -this selfsame famous tribe through whose frankness in grappling with -fundamentals I had been disgraced and sent away. - -"No filth, mind! No low talk. No abominations." - -Nor were there. Filth, low talk and abominations had departed with -Joseph Jones to his draper's apprenticeship in a big city--this was -one of the large events of my absence--and what Bristol gained, -Tawborough lost. Under the new rule of Laurie Prideaux I heard no -more of the talk to which my six weeks under Joe had been accustoming -me. The change of chieftainship meant a change in the tone of the -whole community. Joe bullied and sneered if you wouldn't use his -words; Laurie thrashed Ted King for using them. One boy changed the -moral outlook of a Lawn; a generation, a town, a world! Under Laurie's -patronage I was received into full membership. Under which flag? -After a moving discussion, in which arguments charged with the nicest -theological insight jostled with mere vulgar prejudice against my -clothes (this was the Tompkins girl, over-dressed and under-witted -little cat that she was), it was decided that the Chapel League was -best fitted to receive me to its nonconformist bosom. I could not help -feeling it a come-down that a Saint should be classed, as it were -officially, with mere Dissenters: it was, however, the lesser of two -evils, for the Church of England, after all, was something worse than -"mere." - -I was never much good at the various games, tig, French cricket, -rounders and the like, which occupied so large a part of Lawn life. The -amorous ones--Kiss in the Ring and Shy Widow--I shunned altogether. I -was too serious, or too sensitive, or high-minded, or morbid, to be -able to regard touch as a plaything sentiment. Laurie and Marcus were -nice boys, and I liked them, quite definitely; but I refused to respond -when they "chose" me for their lady. In these games of sentiment and -shy surrender, the challenge of choice must be accepted without flush -or murmur: I could not, so refused to take part. Kissing was too -precious a privilege. I cherished it for three people only: my Mother -when I sought the gates of Heaven; myself when on my own lips in the -looking-glass I tried to discover the mystery of this world; Robbie, -when I needed Love. - -I acquired, however, a certain position of my own in Lawn esteem: -the teller of stories. My subject was Aunt Jael; her ways, words and -deeds; her rods and ropes; her food and medicine cupboards, her winsome -underclothing, awful wrath, and appetite diurnal and nocturnal. I told -of the beetle and of the Great God; and of far beatings. The Lawn -listened, admired and applauded; admitted in me something they did -not possess; the power to interest and to amuse. Thus they decided -my fate for me, in showing me the thing in which I was different -from and better than others; and Mary Lee, silent and morose by -instinct, by upbringing and by environment, set up for life as an -amateur-professional _raconteuse_. That way lay success, and success -is what we seek. In forcing myself to talk that I might bask in the -amusement of the other children, I gradually lost some of the moodiness -and glumness of my earlier days; later on in life, in still more -favourable surroundings, I lost them altogether: that is, in the face I -showed to the world. The simple need of status with the Lawn children -drove me to do the one thing I could do: to talk, and so to discover -my talent and overlay my original nature. Thus it is ambition that -transforms character, rather than character ambition. Thus it was that -Aunt Jael provided me with the capital for my new venture, and paid -handsomely for all her oppressions. An eye for an eye, a Lawn laugh for -every blow! - -The Elementary Educational Establishment was now beneath my needs, so -I was transferred from the Misses Clinker (who, while far above vile -pecuniary jealousy, prophesied ill) to the seminary of the Misses -Primp. The latter were Saints, obscure but regular at the Great -Meeting, and socially above the ruck. "Reg'lar standoffish, wi' the -pride ur the flesh in their 'earts," declared Miss Salvation, who saw -clearly from her altitude far above vile pecuniary jealousy. They -held their school in a bleak house with a big bare garden, to the -north of the town, ten minutes or so from the Lawn. The curriculum -embraced Arithmetic to the Rule of Three, Composition, Grammar, French, -Literature (Sacred and Profane), Needlework (Plain and Fancy), Drawing -(Freehand and Design); Botany and Brushwork; together with "a thorough -grounding in the principles of Salvation." - -Not to put too fine a point upon it, this last pretension was a lie. A -Bible-reading, usually Kings or Chronicles, read with parrot-quickness -round the class, one verse to each pupil; a long dry prayer offered up, -with eyes gimletted not on heaven but on us, by Miss Prudence Primp; -and a longer and still drier homily by Miss Obedience Primp, a gaunt -old lady with a gigantic crinoline and a parched soul and throat--in a -later, more worldly age, this allowance of heavenly fare may not seem -so niggardly; to me, bred as it were in the imperial purple of Grace, -the whole performance appeared perfunctory and tepid, and the Primpian -acquaintance with the principles of salvation positively sketchy. My -studies were remarkable only for their unevenness. The net result -of my inequalities was that I occupied a steady middle-place in the -weekly marks. I reflected with pride, however, that it was no ordinary -middle-place, the result of humdrum averageness in everything: and I -was vainer of being bad at my bad subjects than good at my good ones. -Were they not stupid subjects in which a quite special unique set-apart -Chosen little girl like myself would not stoop to shine? Tots indeed! -Brushwork! - -I do not recall many events in my school life. Those that recur to me -are chiefly unpleasant; how some of the girls cribbed and copied and -cheated and lied; how others giggled sickeningly at the word "boys," or -mocked shamefully at their mothers and fathers. They were red-letter -days when Cissie King, my Lawn enemy, had a fit, foamed at the mouth, -went green in the face, was obdurate under basinsful of water, and -only came round at the third dose of brandy; or when Miss Obedience -quarrelled openly with Miss Prudence in front of the whole school, -and cried "Leave me, woman!" Nor can I forget my first day, when Miss -Obedience, as we were leaving after the morning school, asked two of -the older girls who lived my way to accompany me home, and I overheard -them say to each other "Not likely! We'll leave her at the school gate; -wouldn't be seen with her, with her frock all darned and nasty common -clothes and boots, would you? If anybody should think she belonged to -us!" How my cheeks burned, how I hated and loathed those two giggling -little snobs, and still more my own uncomely person and garments. How I -brooded for days and gnawed at the shame. These are the real events of -a child's life; they sound the depths of human passion: shame, jealousy -and hate. - - -One other major event followed close upon my return. Wedding Bells! -For five and forty years had Miss Salvation Clinker been pursuing -Brother Brawn; now the long chase was ended, and the quarry at -last secured. She was seventy-seven, he but seventy-one. How on -a secret visit one morning she broke the news to Grandmother, -postponing vainly the Jaelian wrath to come; how later that wrath -fell ("Bold woman of Proverbs seven-twelve, who lieth in wait at -every corner," said Denouncer; "I shall do more than _some_ as I -know, and go to 'Eaven a wedded wife," answered Denounced, brazen in -vanishing-maidenhood)--while scorn and pity were showered upon the -victim; how Aunt Jael's ban went forth, and the banns despite it; how -they became man and wife; how she had her Triumph, and dragged him -through the streets of Tawborough in an open carriage ... this and much -more I might portray. - -The mild scandal in our Meeting was as nothing to the rage and horror -in the Upper Room for Celibate Saints. At a solemn mass-meeting of -the survivors, nigh half a dozen strong, Doctor Obadiah Tizzard -decreed: that Glory Clinker, aider and abetter in evil, be then -and thenceforward struck from the sacred roll and flung into outer -darkness; that against Salvation, née Clinker, sinner of sinners, be -pronounced the Major Excommunication. - -The "Upper's" gain was our loss. Henceforward the Clinkers were always -with us. (Nobody favoured Salvation with her new surname.) But the -chief loser by her change of state was, alas, poor Brother Brawn. The -sisters let the High Street Mansion, the aforetime E.E.E., and moved, -inseparably, into the White House. There, sandwiched between a gentle -_détraquée_ and a scolding shrew, our bleating leader found repentance, -if no leisure more. - -"I told 'ee so," said Aunt Jael. "'E've done it now. There is _no_ -hope." - -The husband certainly had none, though his spouse, dreamily quoting -Luke-one-thirteen, declared that _she_ had, and the good sister-in-law -er-er-er'd and plied her unsteady needle on swaddling-clothes, while -muttering always to herself "John! Thou shalt call his name John!" ... - - -Neither school nor Lawn nor Clinkers, however, seemed anything but -incidental to my life in the big house at Number Eight, always for me -the first of external things. Here too there were changes. - -Mrs. Cheese had come back. Servant after servant had passed away -like that grass which in the morning groweth up and in the evening -withereth away. Stability reigned in the kitchen once more. Relations -with Aunt Jael partook of the nature of an armed truce. Both restrained -themselves, Mrs. Cheese because she wanted to stay, Aunt Jael because -she wanted her to; though the former was a bit too fond of making it -clear that she had come back to us for my Grandmother's sake only, "and -not to plaize zome others I cude mention." Despite her loyal affection -for my Grandmother, the real person for whose sake she had come back -was herself. At sixty she was too old to break with old habits, such as -our kitchen and her routine therein, or with Aunt Jael, who was a habit -also, if a bad one. - -From this time Grandmother occupies a larger place in my memories than -Aunt Jael. Why, I am somewhat puzzled to say; for their life, and my -life with them, went on just as of old. Perhaps now that beatings -became rarer, it was natural that she whose skill therein had been -the terror of my earlier childhood should loom less large. Perhaps -it was that Aunt Jael, my bad angel, appeared tame in her badness by -the side of Uncle Simeon (but then should Grandmother, my good angel, -have become faint in my affections besides Robbie; whereas I liked her -better and thought of her more). Perhaps it was that Grandmother's -gentler qualities would naturally have made less impression on a little -child than Aunt Jael's harsh ones, or anybody's good qualities than -anybody's bad ones. Further, I now saw more of Grandmother, as Aunt -Jael developed the habit of confining herself to her bedroom for days -at a stretch, only emerging on to the landing to rain curses over the -banisters on Mrs. Cheese for a useless, shiftless idler, unfit to wait -on a suffering bedridden old martyr, or on Grandmother for a selfish, -ungrateful sister always absent from her elder's bed of pain; or -(oftenest) on me. - -With outdoor exercise and good food, which now for the first time I -enjoyed together, I became healthier and I think happier. Though I -still lived for my daydreams, I had less time on my hands. - -What with dusting and bed-making and cooking, what with homework -and meals and prayers and ceaseless reading of the Word in public -and private, and Aunt Jael's and Grandmother's expositions, I -found my days too full to yield the time I needed for thinking and -talking to myself: for living. I got into the habit of stealing odd -quarters-of-an-hour in the attic. Aunt Jael was on my scent in a -moment. How I loathed her when a luxurious heart-to-heart talk between -Mary and Myself was interrupted by her hoarse scolding voice. - -"Child! Child! Now then. Down from the garret, now. No monkey tricks." - -Perhaps as an attraction to hold me downstairs, the portals of the -dining-room bookcase were at last thrown open to me. The wealth therein -would have seemed meagre, perhaps, to worldlier spirits; to me, for -whom all books save One (and one other) had always been closed, it -was a gold mine. Of unequal yield. With some of the more desiccated -devotional works I saw at once that I could make no headway. Such -were Aunt Jael's beloved "Thoughts on the Apocalypse" and a row of -funereally-bound tomes devoted to the exposition of prophecy. Laid -sideways on the bottom shelf was that musty fusty giant, our celebrated -copy of the "Trowsers Bible." I liked Matthew Henry's great Commentary -in three huge black volumes, with the dates at the top of every page, -from which I learnt that this world was made in the year B.C. 4004 (six -thousand years ago: a brief poor moment lost in the facing-both-ways -Eternity that haunted me), and that Christ was born four years Before -Christ. Certain books demolishing the Darbyites or Close Brethren and -their fellow-sinners at the other pole of Error pleased me by their -hairsplitting arguments and vituperative abuse. Then there was "Grace -abounding to the Chief of Sinners" by Master John Bunyan. - - * * * * * * * - -The record of this period of my life is perforce wearisome and -undramatic. There are no events. More than ever my real life was -inside me, was make-believe; that is, real. Change of residence was -but a change of stage. The same comedy-tragedy--ME--was for ever on -the boards. Not that the change of stage meant nothing. Houses, rooms, -weathers, smells, all affected and were somehow a part of my thoughts. -The two towns, I knew, were intimately mixed up with my feelings about -all that had happened to me in them. Torribridge was the more romantic: -little white town made magical by the word-sorcery of Westward Ho! -Quay that harboured brown-sailed ships from the Indies, memories of the -Rose of Torribridge and that salmon-coloured hostelry called by her -name; then Number One, house of gold and murder and mystery. Tawborough -was more real. Graced by no Rose of Torridge, she held instead the rose -of merchandise. The busy, countrified, unimaginably English character -of her market and her streets seemed to make her more genuine, more -actual--the right word eludes me--than Torribridge: Torribridge, that -eight months' rainbow-circled nightmare, mere invention of Mr. Kingsley -and Robbie and Uncle Simeon. Act Three was back in the first setting -again; and here, in dining-room, in bed, in attic, the play went on. -The principal character was Mary Lee. The audience was Mary Lee. I was -player, producer, public all in one. - -"Mary," I would say, as soon as I was alone. "Listen, I will tell you -what I think." - -"Yes, Mary; do!" - -This sense of two selves, one of whom could confide in the other, -was ever more vivid. Some one else inside me was pleased, surprised, -angered, grieved; shared my sorrows and triumphs. Thus it was that -in weeping for myself after some cruelty of Aunt Jael's or some more -spiritual grief, I felt I was not selfish, because I was sharing -trouble with _some one else_, who lived in the same body. Such -impressions are at once too rudimentary and too subtle to be well -conveyed in words. - -When I called out "Mary," and "_I_" answered "Yes" the reality of -question and answer between two different, though curiously intimate -persons, was physical, overwhelming. - -Soon after my return to my Grandmother's this sense of dual personality -began, in its most physical manifestations, to fade somewhat; in its -more spiritual quality, to grow more intense: the first when I began my -Diary, the second at the miraculous moment of my Baptism. - - - - -CHAPTER XX: DIARY - - -The notion came to me one warm autumn afternoon, as I was reading -"Grace Abounding." - -From the first page I struck up a living friendship with the Bedford -tinker, though he had been in heaven for near two hundred years. -I understood him as he talked aloud to himself and peered within -to discover who and what was this John Bunyan inside him. I liked -too--the more so as it was so new in print and from the mind of -some-one-else--the careful detail with which he told of his earthly -outward life: his descent, his lowly parentage, his school, his early -days, though I could have wished for details of his Aunt Jaels and -Uncle Simeons. These did not lack when he talked of his "inside" -life, and told me (who knew) of his childhood's "fearful dreams" and -"dreadful visions" and "thoughts of the fearful Torments of Hell fire," -because of which "in the midst of my many Sports and Childish Vanities, -amidst my vain Companions, I was often much cast down and afflicted." -Why should not I tell a like story of my soul day by day, detail by -detail? - -The notion rolled through me like a tide. I closed the book, sprang up, -shut my eyes, and walked round and round the room in my excitement. -Today, this moment, I would begin. Then as I turned my mind to -practical details--the book I should write it in, the hiding-place -for the book--hesitations appeared. Wasn't it a bit funny? Did other -people do it? Why, yes: John Bunyan was "other people" right enough, -and a good Christian too. And I remembered that I had heard somewhere -before of a man who wrote down the story of his life. In a few seconds -I placed my man. Poor old Robinson Crewjoe. - -I ran into the kitchen. - -"Mrs. Cheese, you know Robinson Crewjoe you told me about, didn't you -say you could read about it all in a book he'd written himself?" - -"'E wrote it pon a bit buke 'e vound on the Wreck, so's 'e shidden -virget it, I reckon, or so's ither volk cude rade it arterwards--" - -"Yes, but _when_ did he write it?" - -"Ivry day, avore goin' to bed nights. Ivrythin' 'e'd been doin' that -day. Leastways that's what my ol' Uncle Zam ollers did, who kep' a buke -of the zame zort." - -"What was it like? Please tell me about Uncle Sam's book." - -"Wull, my Uncle Zam, over to Exmoor, was very aiddicayted he was, a -turrable 'and vur raidin' and writin'. So long as 'twas a buke 'e'd -love'n and spell over'n vur hours and as 'appy as a king, as the zayin' -is, but 'e liked best writin' down in this lil buke uv 'is own--a -_dairy_ they caals un. Why fer I don't knaw, 'cause tizzen much to do -wi' the milk, so far as I can see, and I ain't blind neither. Wull, in -this lil buke, and there was eight or nine uv them avore 'e died, 'e -put down ivry blimmin' thing 'e did, 'tis true's I zit yer. Wull, when -the funeral was over and all the cryin', 'is widder--my ol' Aunty Sary -that was, bein' curyus like bein' a lil bit like you--thought she'd be -findin' zummat tasty in these ol' dairies, and tuke it into 'er 'ead -to try to rade all the eight bukesful, or mebbe 'twas nine. But 'er -cud'n 'ardly du it, not bein' aiddicayted like 'im, and when 'er vound -it tuke 'er 'alf the day to spell over 'alf wan page, 'er got 'erself -into a turrable upset, an threw un all pon the vire, 'ollern' out 'Burn -un all, burn un all, burn un all! Then 'er bangs out uv the rume. I -was up vrom me zeat avore you cude say Bo, and rescued the bettermos' -part uv them avore they was burnt. Aw my dear days, I niver did rade -zuch stuff. 'E'd put 'pon they bukes ivry drimpy lil thing e'd done and -zeen and zed they vorty years: 'ow many calves the ol' cow 'ad 'ad, how -much butter an' crame 'e zold to Markit, all mixed up wi' stuff about -the pixies 'e zaw, or _thort_ 'e zeed, top uv Exmoor o' nights; and a -lot o' religyus writin,' for 'e was a gude Christyen for all 'is pixies -and goblins, wi' plenty 'o sound stuff 'bout 'Eaven and 'Ell, and a -middlin' gude dale about 'is sowl...." - -These were valuable hints. My resolve was confirmed. I would follow in -the footsteps of John Bunyan and Robinson Crewjoe and Uncle Zam. - -That day, October the Twelfth 1860 (thirty-seven years ago come -Tuesday), in the unused half of an old blue-covered exercise book, I -began. With what a sense of pride, of importance, of creativeness, of -high adventure, I scrawled in great flourishing capitals my heading: - - - THE LIFE OF MARY LEE - Written By Herself. - - -My opening sentence was this: "I was born at Tawborough on March the -Second, 1848." I have put it also on the first page of this present -record, which from now, my thirteenth year onwards, is but a matured, -shortened and bowdlerized version of the diary, eked out--more often -for atmosphere than detail--by memory. The keeping of the diary, -however, weakened my memory; which, though of its old photographic -accuracy in what it held, yet held far less. I did not need to -remember things, I said to myself: I could always find them in the -book. Certainly for the first few years, I could have found there -everything that was worth reading, as well as everything that wasn't; -in later years, alas, I have succumbed to the fatal habit of compact -little paragraphs epitomizing whole weeks, and even months, as fatal -as the Sundries habit in a household account-book. Indeed, despite the -pathetic leniency we show towards the trivial when it is the trivial in -our own life, I find the earlier pages of my diary tiresomely full; far -too fond of "What we had for dinner" or "Aunt Jael's scripture at this -evening's worship." - -As I told my diary everything, it began to take the place of my other -self, and it is in this sense that I mean that the feeling of dual -personality was weakened. The self-to-self talks became fewer; the -sense of a person telling and a person told was blurred. Unspoken notes -in a grimy exercise book took their place; although at first, and -always in exciting passages, I would talk aloud, and take down, so to -say, from my own dictation. - -This early diary is morbid, precocious, shrewd, petty, priggish, -and comically, pitifully sincere. Religion looms large, with food -a bad second. This is natural enough. John Bunyan's whole aim was A -Brief Revelation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to his poor -Servant, John Bunyan; Robinson Crewjoe was not the man to let slip -any opportunity for a pious ejaculation, a moral reflection or a -godly aside; while Uncle Zam, according to his niece, took a middlin' -gude deal of interest in his "Sowl." These great exemplars helped to -increase what would have been in any case a heavy disproportion of holy -matter. This kind of thing is typical of the earlier years:-- - - - FEB. 13. Woke still worried by the problems of Infinity in Time - and Space, tho' less despairing and appalled than the day before. - I pray, _pray_, PRAY; but all the time at the back of my soul, - the fear is still there:--Eternity faces me tho' I dare not face - Him, and _Where_ may my Eternity not be spent? Perhaps "One Day at - a Time" is the only way. A wet day. Read Exodus this afternoon. - Aunt Jael rough; so held forth to the Lawn children this evening. - They are _too_ appreciative; roar with laughter at everything I - say; it does me good, though this is set off by the harm done me - by encouragement in self-esteem. But no, no, no--I have a good and - great ideal for this Mary, that I must strive to fulfil; and petty - ministerings to her (my) vanity must be quashed and that right - sternly. Laurie Prideaux gave me some chocolate cream. He is an - obliging, kind, childlike, good, conceited boy. Polony for supper. - - _Sunday._ Meeting. Bro. Quappleworthy on the Personal God. Saw Joe - Jones, I think in Bear Street: must be on holiday from Bristol. - Mrs. Cheese thought he was back. He did not see me; as he never - looked towards or acknowledged me, I assumed did not. To Lord's - Day School, two prayer-meetings, and Gospel-Service this evening. - _Very_ weary. - - -Like Uncle Zam on Aunt Sary, I indulged in a good deal of -"plain-spaikin" on Aunt Jael. The diary thus became invested with a -halo of danger. Suppose she found it in one of its many (and changing) -hiding-places! She would beat me utterly, burn the diary, and mock -cruelly at its contents. Yet it was from my Grandmother that I hid it -with my most ardent cunning. She would neither beat, nor burn, nor -mock, but I knew she would condemn it as "morbid" (the word is a later -acquisition), and search me with her kind common-sense eyes; and I -should be covered with shame. Not guilty shame, rather the shame a man -feels when his naked soul is shown to the world; the shame I always -felt when caught red-handed in one of my self-to-self declarations in -the attic. What if other eyes should read this for instance? - - - 1860. Sept. 25. There are three months just to Christmas. _Then I - shall kiss Robbie._ - - -All through my life these books of revelation have dogged me with the -daily fear that through them _I should be found out_; now that they -have served their purpose in helping me to compile this more permanent -record, I have decided, like Aunt Sary, to "burn un all." (Or nearly -decided; it is hard for a woman to destroy memorials of the past.) - -The precautions I took, beyond subtle hiding, were: prayer, magic, and -the etching in red ink on each exercise-book-cover of this Device:-- - - - PRIVATE - SHAME! - ON WHOEVER MAY THINK EVEN OF READING THIS - BOOK. - SHAME! - - -Whether in the worst of us, e. g. Aunt Jael, curiosity is -not a stronger passion than fear, and whether therefore this -curiosity-tempting cover might not do more harm than good, was a -problem and a worry that continually assailed me. - -In connection with the diary, I must speak of the Resolves or -Resolutions I began to make. These were a result, on one side of my -growing sense of sin (egotism, ambition, triumph, revenge, hate, -greed, dirt, doubt), and on another side of an exactly opposite desire -to realize my imagined ambitions by equipping myself to achieve them -(wide knowledge, better health, nicer looks). They were written on -half-sheets of note-paper, which I immediately put in an envelope. This -was sealed and hidden in between the pages of that day in the diary -on which the resolution was formed. The moment the least part of the -current resolve was broken--I knew it always by heart--I had to break -open the envelope and begin afresh. The old unkept resolve I placed in -the page of the day on which it was broken. Thus an enveloped, sealed, -still-in-action Resolve was kept with the day in which it was formed, -a discarded one on the day on which I fell. I usually began again on a -day that would give me a clean start, such as the first of the month, -or a magic date, or some special anniversary. Here is one that had a -pretty long run:-- - - - March 9th, 1861. - - _My Mother died thirteen years ago today_--Therefore from now - onwards I DO RESOLVE:-- - - - I. EVERY DAY - - To drink a glass of cold water before breakfast and } To help - at night (better than senna) } me be - To go for a walk } healthy - - To brush my hair well } To help - To clean my teeth hard } me be - } pretty - - To learn at least seven new verses of the Word by } To help - heart and revise seventeen old ones } me be - } good - - } To help - To tell the Lord everything in prayer } me be - } Him - - - II. NEVER - - To steal oatmeal from the larder (as I did three times last week) - - To think dirty things (as I did last Wednesday when I laughed when - Mrs. Cheese said Aunt Jael's drawers were like two red bladders). - - - III. ALWAYS - - To eat slowly (37 bites to each mouthful) - - To be like God would like. - - - RESOLVED, with Mother's help - Mary Lee. - - 20 minutes past 6. - March 9th, 1861. - - -For any one to whom this absurd document is absurd only, comment would -be but adding insult to injury. Here is another:-- - - - _New Year's Day_, 1862. - (Beginning of a new year and third anniversary of my Flight - from Torribridge) - - For this year I am going to make no special resolutions put out in - a list but at - - EVERY - - moment I shall ask myself this question: - - WHAT WOULD THE LORD DO IF HE WERE ME? - - Then I shall never do wrong, and I shall be fitted and worthy for - His service. - - So with His help I sign - - Mary Lee. - - Jan. 1st, 1862. - 10.30 (a.m.) - - -This magnificent resolve seems not to have been specific enough, alas, -for my frail endeavours; under a date but six or seven weeks later I -find this:-- - - - 1862. THIS YEAR'S RESOLVE. - (New Version) - - WHAT WOULD THE LORD DO IF HE WERE ME? - - _EVERY DAY_ - - (1) He would pray, _hiding nothing_. - - (2) He would learn a new piece of the Word, and _more_ than Aunt - Jael made Him. - - (3) He would be clean (ears, face, nails, teeth, hands, _heart_). - - (4) He would go a nice long walk (instead of "poking indoors" as - _She_ calls it) - - _AND HE WOULD NEVER_ - - (5) Have sinful thoughts like - - Spite - Vengeance - Vileness - Pride - - (6) Say sinful words, like - - ---- - ---- - - (7) Like sinful things, like - - Praise - Riches - Eating - The Pleasure I have whenever the worst part of the "For Ever" - Fear is over - Flattery - Fame - - (Signed) MARY. - Feb. 19th, 1862. - - -If this era of diaries and resolutions saw the two-persons idea for -a while less distinct, all the other mysteries of my earlier days -remained. I still, for instance, put everything I did to the test of -reason and instinct, obeying always the latter. I believed more than -ever in my private magic and was persuaded that there were special -acts, gestures and words which would enable me to perform miracles, if -only I could discover them. Dreaming away during Breaking of Bread at -the Room, I would be assailed by the desire to turn the wine in the two -glass decanters into water; Lord's Day after Lord's Day I sought the -magic gesture in vain. I knew there was a word that, if cried aloud, -just once, would enable me to soar upward to the sky and fly about -angel-like among the stars. I never found it, though a hundred times it -was on the tip of my tongue, till I was half wild with hope. Another -well-cherished notion was this: that if my mother came to me again, and -we could achieve a complete embrace, she would be able to take me away -with her to heaven for a space, till a moment when she kissed me again, -before the very face of God, and I would swiftly return to earth. - -The only magic with which I actually succeeded, or believed I did -(which is the same) was Numbers. 1, 10, 17, 437, 777 were magic: 7 -and 237 were big magic; 37 was arch-magic, the Holy Number. In every -need I called upon them. If Aunt Jael were flogging me, what I had to -do was to count a perfectly even 37, timing it to finish at the same -moment as her last stroke. I believed positively that it eased my hurt, -and I believe so still, for my attention was concentrated not on Aunt -Jael's blows but on my magic: so far, if no farther, is faith-healing -a fact. Or I would jump out of bed in the morning, and begin to count, -always evenly. If when I finished dressing, I was at a magic number -(the correct moment was when I shut the bedroom door behind me, though -for a second chance I allowed reaching the bottom stair) then the whole -day would be lucky. Or out in the street, the amount of house frontage -I could cover in thirty-seven strides I believed positively would be -the same as the frontage of the big house I should one day possess. So, -like the peasant in Count Tolstoi's tale, I strode mightily. - -A big house was one of my few material ambitions at this time, with -money to spend on grand furniture for it ("Riches," vide Resolution -of 19|2|62). Even here my need was chiefly a spiritual one. I thought -that in a vast house, utterly alone, I should have a perfect place -for practising echoes, one of the means by which I hoped to solve the -riddle of my existence. In the midst of a deathly silence I should -stand in the great marble hall and shout. - -"Mary Lee, what are you? What are you?" - -A hundred echoes would swiftly call back through the silence, and I was -on the brink of understanding---- - -A different method of solving the haunting riddle was to whisper my -own name quite suddenly in a silent room, when alone with myself. -Sometimes the physical effect was so curious that I was certain of -success. Fervent praying to the point of ecstasy, more often to the -point of exhaustion, was another way. Sometimes I was able, it seemed, -to disembody myself; my soul left my body (at which it could look -back as though it belonged to some one else) and wandered nowhere, -everywhere, becoming in some half-realized fashion a part of everything -in space, and an inhabitant of all periods of time. I remembered, in -the fleeting fashion of dreams, things I had done before I was born, -in some hitherto unremembered life. Then, again, things I had done -still earlier, in distant lives and far-away centuries; till, at last, -I remembered myself for ever and for ever in the past, and my soul -fled back into my body to hide from the new terror: Eternity behind as -well as before me, the unpitying everlastingness of the past as of the -future. - -The latter was still the unappeasable fear which hung like an evil -menace over every moment of my life. If I thought it out and lived -through the mad blinding moment of terror as my brain battered itself -against Infinity, I gained nothing; the terror flung me back. If I was -wise, and refused to think of it, I knew myself for an ostrich with my -head in the sand. If I dared not face it, it was there beholding me -just the same, unconquered, unconquerable. - -Was there no escape? The only notion I could conceive, and which I -cherished with most desperate hope, was that Love, if ever it could -possess my whole soul and being, would slay the King of Terrors once -for all. How could Love so come to me? Sometimes I thought it would -be God. I knew that my Grandmother had a joy, a serene and fearless -delight in the love of the Lord, which I did not share. I prayed -fervently for this: that I might know the peace of God, which is -perfect understanding; that I might possess this divine love, which -I could see in her but did not feel in myself; that it might free -me from the Fear which darkened my soul. And sometimes I thought it -would be Robbie. In his kind embrace, not in foolish echoes or magical -tricks, might I find a perfect happiness which would transform and -transfigure me, till I could turn a laughing face upon the Terror. Then -would I long for Eternity; an Eternity of Love. And my body and soul -would fly back to Christmas Night. Ah tender arms around me, ah dear -little boy beside me, ah tears, ah joy, ah Robbie! - - - - -CHAPTER XXI: I AM BAPTIZED IN JORDAN - - -"Do 'ee love the Lord?" my Grandmother was for ever asking. - -"Yes, Grandmother," I always replied. - -Down in my heart I knew it was not true. There was belief in me, and -awe; but of that passion for God which I envied in her, no semblance. -If it were really love I felt for Him (I put it to myself) "my heart -would warm within me whenever I think of Him, as it does when I think -of Robbie: or of Mother." When I tried to conjure Him up, all I could -ever see was a blurred bearded man on a high grey throne; and if I -peered harder for face and features, a dark mist like a rain-cloud -always filled the space where they should be. - -I knew I could never love Any One Whose face I could never see. - -"You do not love Him as you do Robbie," kept saying the accusing voice -within. It is true, and the thought horrified me. Until I could feel -this greater love, I knew I had not "got religion." - -For all my godly upbringing, for all my pious ways, I was no more -privileged than ninety-nine of a hundred mere averagely religious -grown-ups. Like theirs, my religion was but an affair of education, -habit, intellect, morality. The Rapture was withheld. I had not got -religion. - -I knew my Bible as well as any child in England, and I loved it as -well. I believed in all the doctrines of the Saints, not vaguely -either, like a normal unreflecting child: but had pondered on them, and -within my capabilities thought them out and personally accepted them. -No atheist doubts oppressed me. The Tempter had not assailed me, as he -had assailed my friend John Bunyan, with "Is Christianity no better -than other religions, just one religion among many?" and other such -wicked doubts. But I had not got religion. - -And fear beset me: fear of other people, of the Devil, of Eternity, -and, now as I grew older, of myself. The glimpses I had of the evil -natures in me affrighted me. Sometimes in brooding over some wrong -done me, my imagination ran riot in fantastic excesses of cruelty and -revenge till I drew back appalled at the horrors of which, in thought -at any rate, I was capable. I would brood over the unhappiness of my -life and the injustice meted out to me every day, till my soul was a -dark seething mass of revengefulness and hate. Not till I found myself -visualizing the very act of murder did I draw back affrighted. - -With the change in my nature that came as I grew into girlhood, a new -series of evil visions possessed me. I found myself picturing fleshly -and disgraceful things, things I had never heard of nor known to be -possible, thrown up from the wells of original sin within. Pleasurable -sensations lured me on till I drew back appalled at the sickening -deeds that I, godly little Plymouth Sister, conceived myself as doing. -Of course they were things I never _should_ really do--oh dear no! -that was foul, unimaginable!--but Conscience quoted Matthew five, -twenty-eight, and though I stuffed my fingers in my ears she kept -dinning it. _You have committed it already in your heart._ - -I had no sense of proportion, and believed myself a very monster of -vileness: a vileness, I feared, which would cling and canker till it -deformed my soul and body and face; and I saw myself, a loathsome -shape, living on for ever with increasing self-loathing through all -the pitiless eternal years. My blood froze with fear as my mind's eye -stared fascinated at the shameful shape. I screamed as madmen scream. - -Madness I often feared. In my imaginings of Eternity, let me one day go -but a single step too far, let me suffer the awful ecstasy of fear to -hold me but a second too long, and I knew my reason would be fled. So -about this time I added to my prayers: "God, save me from going mad." - -But fear, though never far away, and the sense of wickedness, -though always near the surface, were not masters of every moment. -The one thing that never left me was a feeling of unsatisfiedness, -incompleteness. The world seemed an empty place, my soul an empty -vessel. I had a melancholy sureness that something, the chief thing, -the secret of happiness, was lacking me. I believed that this secret -could only be discovered in the love of God: that there only could I -find, as my Grandmother had found, the peace and delight which pass all -understanding. That alone was religion, and I had it not. - -"Do 'ee love the Lord?" my Grandmother was for ever asking. - -To possess the love of God became the aim of all my prayers and hopes. -It alone could save me from my evil self, quell my bad desires, dispel -my fears, and fill the aching void. How could I possess it? The -conviction seized me one day, how or why I do not know, that I should -obtain it in the moment at which I was baptized; not before, and in no -other way. Once the idea had come, it would not leave me; to hasten on -my public immersion became the chief endeavour of my life. - -Grandmother was nothing loth, for it was her own dearest wish. My age, -she said, might be raised in objection: I was not yet thirteen. Had I -surely faith?--I gave her passionate proofs--then God's requirements -were fulfilled. She spoke to Aunt Jael, and both of them to Pentecost -Dodderidge, who agreed ardently. - -The Brethren do not of course practise infant baptism. However, -children of about my age could be, and very occasionally were, -baptized, provided they gave surpassing proofs of holiness. Faith, not -age, as the Bible shows, is the only test of fitness. But certain of -the Saints in our Meeting, influenced whether by "common-sense," or by -the rankling notion that none of their children ever had been or ever -would be admitted to baptism at such a tender age, began to murmur, and -spoke privily to Pentecost against the project. Brother Browning took -the bolder course of taking my Grandmother herself to task. Dark doubts -beset him, he declared, scriptural doubts; though his real motive was -jealousy for Marcus. - -"Unscriptural?" said my Grandmother in amaze. "Have you read your acts -of the Apostles, Brother Browning? Faith, not years or rank or race is -what the Scripture requires. Think of Crispus, Cornelius, the jailor of -Philippi, Lydia seller of purple! Turn to your eighth chapter: Philip -and the Ethiopian eunuch: 'See, here is water, what doth hinder us to -be baptized?' Does Philip answer 'But tell me first your age?' No, he -answers: 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.'" - -She turned to me. "Child, do you believe with all your heart?" - -"Yes, Grandmother." - -Turning in triumph to Brother Browning: "The Scripture is satisfied. -And," she added, "Mr. Pentecost approves." - -Brother Browning was confounded. Nevertheless, but for the affection in -which Grandmother was held, and Aunt Jael's prestige, both backed by -the insurmountable authority of Pentecost, I am pretty sure that some -of the Saints would have resisted further. In face of that Trinity, -they were dumb. - -So it was settled, and I began a term of "preparation." Grandmother -enjoined that I turn my mind wholly on heavenly things. She held -devotions with me at all hours, praying sometimes far into the night. -Pentecost himself came in to pray with me, while those who had raised -objections were invited specially to test my faith. Brother Browning -came,--like the Queen of Sheba, to prove me with hard questions. Like -Solomon, I emerged triumphant. - -As the time drew near, sometimes my excitement could hardly contain -itself. My visions of the Moment became more detailed, more delirious, -more intense. At the very moment of immersion the old Wicked Me would -instantly die and a New Self come into being: in a second, Eve would -be driven out and Christ implanted for ever in my soul. At one magical -stroke I should possess happiness and be freed from all fear and -wickedness and emptiness of heart. The love of God would not enter me -slowly, gradually; but would storm me like a victorious army, swallow -me like the sea. - -As part of my preparation, I was taken by Grandmother to one or two -baptisms. Ceremonies were held from time to time, according as there -were sufficient candidates. Our Meeting baptized not only for ourselves -but also for the Branch Meeting and all the villages around. The -number of persons immersed ranged from two or three to a dozen. The -ceremony took place in the Taw, following Scripture example; at a spot -just beyond the quay and the ships, a few yards from where the Town -railway-station for Ilfracombe now stands. Here the river was shallow; -you could wade nearly into mid-stream. Robing and re-robing took place -at White House, Brother Brawn's tumble-down residence near by. Now that -Pentecost was too old, Brother Brawn was our Baptist. The usual time -was Lord's Day morning; very early, to avoid a jeering crowd. - -At the second of these ceremonies that I was taken to see, a strange -incident occurred. Despite the day and hour, we were never quite -without a few scoffers, who would stand on the shore a little way away -from our company, and shout and mock at the proceedings in the water. -On this particular occasion two men who looked like labourers appeared, -not on shore, but in a small boat in mid-stream; where they remained -cat-calling and jeering while we held our preliminary service on the -river bank. Brother Brawn waded out with the convert--a fair-haired -young man whose name I do not remember--till the water was about up -to their middles. The two men in the boat rowed nearer till they were -within a few yards only; but farther out, and therefore in a deeper -place. The river was at high tide. - -"Look 'ee at the dippers, the sheep dippers!" they cried; then to -Brother Brawn, "'Tis too early yet for the dippin', master, 'tis a'most -winter still." They used foul words and sneered blasphemously, taking -God's name in vain. - -We on the shore had noticed a dog with them in the boat, a little -terrier, shaggy and brown. When Brother Brawn began the actual act of -immersion and dipped the fair-haired young Brother's head under water, -one of the men in the boat began a blasphemous imitation. He took the -dog by the scruff of the neck, held it over the edge of the boat, and -kept dipping its head under the water. After each word of Brother -Brawn's he cried out: "I baptize thee, O Brother Dog, i' the name o' -the Vather, o' the Zun--" - -We were too horrified to speak or move. I know my face was scarlet with -shame; and I prayed within: "O God, stop him, strike him low. Stop his -mouth. Punish him now." I saw Grandmother was saying a like prayer. - -God replied before our eyes. The mocking man, in a misjudged movement, -bent over too far with the dog. In a second the boat was overturned, -and men and dog were in the water together, struggling and splashing. -(Brother Brawn's back was turned; I do not think he knew what was -happening.) - -Where the boat had overturned it was clearly much deeper, as neither -of the men could stand. One managed to swim in safety to the opposite -bank. The other, the chief mocker, struggled, rose, disappeared, rose -again, and finally disappeared, gurgling and gesticulating horribly. - -Those of us on shore were purged with awe and terror. "God is not -mocked!" cried Pentecost. - -After the service, the dead body was washed ashore; I gazed in dumb -horror (thinking too of God's power) at the staring wide-open eyes, the -blue face contorted with fear, the soft white foam issuing from the -mouth. - -The dog was saved. Brother Brawn took it away with him and had it -poisoned. - -This incident served to tinge with apprehension the hopes with which -I looked forward to my own immersion, now very near. Suppose I were -drowned: in my own way I was wicked as the labourer, with better -chances and less excuse. God could drown me if He wished. The mere -physical horror of cold water was another fleck. Nor was Mrs. Cheese -behindhand with tales that troubled. She recalled the young woman -in a rapid decline who had been baptized one winter morning in the -Exe, had been dragged out unconscious, and had died within the hour. -She knew of Sisters who had fainted through nervousness or collapsed -with the cold. Then there was the Christian wife who was stripped -naked and horsewhipped by her infidel husband, a country squire over -Chittlehampton way, because she had received public baptism. He flogged -her till she was a mass of blood and wounds, till she fell to the -ground as one dead; then dragged her up again and dashed her head -against a stone wall. She died from ill-usage, a true "gauspel martyr." - -My day was fixed: our next baptism, a Sunday in April, a few weeks -after my thirteenth birthday. - -Clothes were a problem. Female candidates usually donned for the -occasion an old cast-off skirt which they could afford to let the water -ruin. Pieces of lead were sewn at intervals to the inside of the bottom -of the skirt, so that when in the water the air would not get into and -blow it upwards. - -According to Aunt Jael, the pieces of lead should weigh about four -ounces each: just sufficient to keep the skirt pendant and modest. All -very well, said my Grandmother, but what good were weights--four ounces -or forty ounces--when the skirt, like the child's, reached down to the -knees only? There was only one way out of the difficulty: "The child -must wear a long skirt for the occasion." A faded black serge of my -Grandmother's was unearthed. It fitted me--more or less--though a good -couple of inches higher in front than behind; and, helped out by an old -black blouse and cape, produced the most grotesque and unlovely Mary -the mirror had ever shewn me. - -"Changing" was at Brother Brawn's, the White House, near the quay. On -the Saturday night preceding the event Grandmother took me down there -with my ordinary Lord's Day clothes wrapped up in a paper parcel and -laid them out in the back kitchen (the immemorial after-the-event -robing room) ready for the morrow. Mistress Brawn, née Clinker, -received us with an infantile affectation of patronage: as though we -didn't know that Brother Brawn's had been the garmenting-house for -forty years and more. - -The morrow dawned fine and cold. With Grandmother on my left hand -and Aunt Jael on my right, I sallied forth down Bear Street, in full -baptismal kit of faded black. What the few early risers we met on our -way thought of me I do not know. Nor, I expect, did they. - -Though he had relinquished the office of Baptist for several years, -Pentecost Dodderidge decided to resume it for this one occasion. -It was a supreme honour for me, a high compliment to Aunt Jael and -Grandmother, and a real risk and sacrifice on his part: for he was in -frail health, and nearing his eighty-fourth year. At the riverside we -found him waiting, clad in the black surplice he had always used, his -white beard flowing free. Around him the Saints stood clustered; every -man and woman in the Meeting must have been there. - -All there, whispered the Devil, to see _you_. You the child-Saint, -you the youthful trophy of God's grace. There were other candidates, -I knew, mere everyday grown-ups; but I was the "star turn," and I -first should enter the water. The moment was very near: "Be ready," -whispered Grandmother. My heart beat wildly. The air was sharp and a -cold breeze was stirring. How much colder would the water not be! Cold -dark water, suppose it should engulph me for ever? How blue the mocking -labourer had been. But God would not treat me so: my heart was aching -to receive Him. He would come to me, not cast my body to death. How -all the Saints were staring. Vanity swelled again. I was the youngest -who had ever been baptized in Taw (I heard it whispered near me), the -youngest ever privileged to break bread! Were not all the people gazing -on me, admiring my piety, specialness, distinction? Ah, publicity, -glory! I would walk into the water in the view of all the multitude, -like an empress on her way. "Crush that vile vanity!" the Better Me -cried savagely: "Chase forth that paltry pride. Only to a clean and -humble heart can the Lord of Heaven come. Quick, away with it!" Ere the -voice had done speaking, all the pride had fled away. My heart stood -empty, sure of its emptiness, hungering for the Holy Spirit, waiting -with intense expectation and a hope almost too hard to bear. - -"Come, Lord Jesus," I whispered. - -Meanwhile around me they had sung a hymn and prayed a prayer; I hardly -knew it. Pentecost took my hand. The moment was here: should I die -of hope?--my heart was beating so. We waded out together in the cold -stream. I must have been looking eastwards for I remember the bright -morning sun was in my eyes. I can see again the green fields opposite. -I remember too how frail and tiny I felt as Mr. Pentecost's hand held -mine, and as he towered above me in the water. - -A long way out we halted: I was up to my shoulder nearly, he to his -middle. He grasped me, placing his right hand under my left armpit, -and the palm of his left hand flat in the middle of my back. He looked -to heaven, holding me still upright, and called in a loud voice: "I do -baptize thee, my sister, in the name of the Father and of the Son and -the Holy Ghost." On the last word he flung me backwards until for a -moment I was wholly under the water. - -Now the miracle took place. As I came up again the water streaming from -my face was no longer cold, but warm and luminous; not water at all, -but light itself. Light suffused me, covered me, poured into me, filled -me; a blinding, lilting joy and brightness throbbed and shone through -all my body and soul. I shut my eyes in sheer rapture; my ordinary -senses faded away; sight and hearing were of another world from this -beatific Presence. It seemed as though another person, luminous and -divine, had entered into my body. It was God. I knew everything; and -everything was well. I remembered all I had ever done, and far away -things I had done in distant centuries in other lives I had not known -until now. I seemed to remember the future too; for in that moment -Time had no meaning; that moment was all Eternity. I understood, with -a perfectness of comprehension beside which all my life before seemed -darkness that there was no beginning and no end, no time and no space, -nothing but God Who transcended them all, and who now possessed me -utterly. I thought my heart would burst. The holy exaltation was too -hard and beautiful to bear. All round and in me was light and love: the -sun and God and I, all the same soul and body, all merged together, all -within each other, all One. For that one glorious moment I _was_ God. - -A transcendent experience transcends all verbal description: even -now I cannot think of it: only feel it, _live_ it again. Nor can -explanation impart its quality to others. It is my soul's own mystery, -indescribable, incommunicable, in the most literal sense ineffable. I -rail at words that they can do so little, then at my own folly that I -should seek to describe in finite language the Infinite Mystery of God. - -The ecstasy lasted perhaps, in the world's time, a minute: though, in -reality, for ever. Then I remember, as I woke to finite experience, -a gradual ebbing sensation as the Holy Spirit departed from me. The -warmth and radiance faded; the streaming fluid of light was dripping -water only. I was conscious of Pentecost again, clasping my hand and -leading me ashore. I heard the voices of the Saints raised aloft in a -song of triumphal thanks. Then--Grandmother's welcoming arms, benignant -Saints, the White House, garment-changing, loud Salvation, dear warm -breakfast; all part of a waking dream. - - * * * * * * * - -The results of Jordan morning were chiefly four. - -First, I was left with a certainty of belief in God, a sense of -authority in my knowledge of Him, and an ever-present memory of His -nearness and reality, that faith without experience could never have -furnished. I apprehended once and for all the folly and futility of -all intellectual reasoning about God, all attempts to bolster Him up by -argument; to prove Him. Vain beatings about the bush! You do not beat -about the Burning Bush: you enter within, and there is God. - -Second, from that day onwards I could never again be sure that life -was real. After the blinding reality of my moment with God, all things -around me seemed faded and unsubstantial; they were the shadows of -a dream, of the dream that I was, alive. After a while, as my soul -travelled back to the habits of normal experience, the notion haunted -me less; but it has never completely left me. - -Third, having received the knowledge of God, I knew that it was the one -thing worth living for. I knew I must show myself worthy of possessing -Him, and fit to receive Him again. The sense of perfect holiness I had -experienced filled me with a yearning for goodness and purity that -was almost morbidly intense. I tried every moment of the day to make -myself more like the Holy Spirit, more capable of feeling within me the -holiness I had for one moment felt. Conscience was ever at hand: for a -long space I obeyed her every bidding. The fact that I was happier put -spite and revenge and morbid broodings under better control. Heredity -and habit, the taint within and the harsh surroundings without, kept me -dismal-Jenny enough: but from the day of my baptism my bouts of misery -were less frequent, less prolonged, and less cruel. I had always the -memory of that tender triumphant ineffable moment with God. - -Fourth, and most curious, I found myself farther away from my -Grandmother. We had the same religion, yet different religions; knew -the One God, yet different Gods. Or rather the difference was not in -Him, but in our two selves, in the two temperaments with which we -experienced Him. All my life I had envied my Grandmother's joy and -serenity in the Lord; I had obtained a joy as perfect, yet I knew -that it was another joy; not greater nor less, but different. Her -chief delight was in contemplating the salvation of all souls achieved -through the sacrifice on Calvary; mine was the Spirit of God filling -and irradiating the heart. Not that I ever doubted that it was through -and because of the Cross that the knowledge of the Lord had been -vouchsafed me so miraculously; but the emotional result interested -me, not the theological cause. In all my earnest strivings to be good -it was never the sacrifice of Jesus that spurred me on; but always the -memory of the Holy Spirit. I must be clean and good and holy like Him, -and worthy to welcome Him again. I have put the distinction between -Aunt Jael and Grandmother as this: Aunt Jael was an Old Testament -woman, Grandmother a New Testament one. But the real distinction -between the three of us was this. God is Triune and One: Aunt Jael -revered the First Person, Grandmother loved the Second, and I adored -the Third. - -Trouble began in this way. Unlike Grandmother, now that I had got -religion I took a strong dislike to talking of it. To her "Do 'ee -love the Lord?" I could only reply with passionate truth, "Yes, -Grandmother"; but I found that (where before my baptism it was the -sense of insincerity in my reply that had troubled me) now it was a -certain indelicacy in the question itself that offended. "If in my -heart"--this is approximately what I felt--"I have the mystery of the -love of the Lord, that is a private and sacred bond between Him and -me. Whose business is it else? What right have they to pry?" I felt a -curious shame, resembling the shame of nakedness, but more intense and -spiritual; as the soul is more sensitive than the body. - -"Do you contemplate _hourly_ the Cross of Christ?" "Is the Means of -Salvation your _only_ joy?" "Do you think _always_ of the blessed -Gospel plan?" "Is the Atonement _everything_ to 'ee, my dear?" No -worldlyhead, no scoffer could have hated these searching questions -as did I. My Grandmother perceived the distaste, and was profoundly -puzzled and pained. Her own answer to these questions would have been -"Yes," in the weeks after her baptism (she must have said to herself), -a fervent triumphant Yes. - -One day an incident showed how wide the spiritual breach was becoming, -and widened it still further. It was a Saturday morning: I was sitting -on the bottom stair of the staircase, pulling on my boots to go for a -walk. My Grandmother, coming from the little pantry at the head of the -cellar steps, stooped down as she passed, and asked in a loud whisper -of intense earnestness: "The Cross, my dear: is it giving you joy -_now_?" She bent and peered, poking her face right into mine. It was -so sudden, the irritation and distaste so powerful, that I drew back -sharply with a quick gesture of annoyance. There had been no time for -dissimulation, and the look on my face was unmistakable. So was the -look on hers--pain, and a rare and terrible thing, anger. - -"You _dare_ draw back like that? What is it? _Du my breath smell bad?_" - - * * * * * * * - -The real crisis, I saw, was yet to come. Now that I had got religion -(in my fashion, in God's fashion, for me) I knew that I was never -destined to fulfil my Grandmother's purpose: to devote my life to -preaching the Gospel in heathen lands. The first moment I thought of -this after my baptism I realized with a shivering aversion how much -more distasteful my long-decided future was than it had ever appeared -before; I realized too in the old authentic way, that it was not God's -will or purpose for me; and but for this, I was far too honest, in my -new frame of mind, to have let my own distaste count for anything. -I reflected how odd it was that through the great central act of my -dedication, I had become unable to fulfil its ultimate purpose. But so -it was. The same answer came to all my prayers, unspoken and afoot, or -cried out on bended knees: His purpose for me was no missionary one, -but my best endeavours in an ordinary life in the everyday workaday -world. The conflict to come was not with Him, but with Grandmother. - -What would she say when the day of decision came, and plans and -details of my apostolic career could no longer be evaded or postponed? -What would she say? How would she feel? And I, how should I face her -scornful accusing eyes? The more I pictured the inevitable instant, the -more I feared it. - -And the everyday workaday life, where and what would it be? I had still -the vaguest ideas on such matters, though I knew I should have to earn -money and provide myself with bread: I, the mere dependent, the Charity -Child as Aunt Jael so often described me. The question turned itself -over and over in my brain. It was from an unexpected quarter that the -answer came. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII: THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER - - -I used to visit my mother's grave. Any one not knowing my Grandmother -might have thought she would be glad. But no--"Don't 'ee do it, my -dear. Once in a way 'tis right enough may be. But don't 'ee be getting -too fond of graveyards." - -So I would gather flowers and put them on my mother's grave without -saying a word to any one. - -One Saturday morning in April, about a year after my baptism, I had -picked primroses in the lanes, two great bunches, and was on my way -back to the cemetery, which lay in Bear Road on the outskirts of the -town, not very far above the Lawn. I was absorbed in my thoughts, -talking away as usual to myself. But when I saw a horse coming up the -road towards me I stepped aside almost into the ditch that ran along -under the hedgerow, and stared as one does at whatever inspires fear. -Horses came in my mind only second to cows as objects of prowling -terror. As the horse came nearer I looked up at its rider. - -My heart beat violently. I inordinately wanted him to recognize me. -He glanced at me as he approached as any horseman might at a strange -child on the roadside; there was no recognition in the deep-set eyes. -He was sharper featured and less handsome than in my memory; but the -friendliness and aristocratic distinction of the face were as I had -retained them. Set on his horse, he looked something far above the -world I knew. Recognize me he must; I would make him. - -"Sir! Sir!" I cried eagerly, shrilly, feebly, with an awkward appealing -gesture. - -He put his hand in his pocket and threw me a shilling. So he thought -I was a beggar girl. I was filled with a burning shame of my lowly -appearance and shabby clothes, though truth to tell they were hardly as -bad as I thought them. I let the coin roll into the gutter. Now he was -passing me. My determination to make him know me became desperate: the -joy of being recognized must be mine. My heart was throbbing as I came -out into the middle of the road. I looked at him appealingly and cried -out: - -"Westward Ho! Westward Ho!" - -He stared. - -"I'm not a beggar; I'm the little girl you gave the book to in -Torribridge. Don't you remember?" - -He jumped from his horse. - -"I do." - -"Are you sure? Are you really sure?" - -"Really! How is Aunt Jael?" - -"Yes, yes, you do, you do!" - -"And is it still so very silly to say that a certain little white town -looks glorious from the hills--?" - -"Oh yes--" - -"And did Uncle Simon--" - -"Simeon," I corrected. - -"--Let you read the book after all? Now do you believe I remember, -little Miss Doubting Thomas?" - -I was radiant in the light of the kind quizzical smile. - -"Of course I do. He burned it in the fire and said it was a wicked -swearing book just when I was at the best point where they attack the -Gold Train. That was when he began to treat me crueller, till at last I -ran away and came back to Grandmother and Aunt Jael." - -"They live here--in Tawborough?" - -"In Bear Lawn, do you know it? Number Eight." - -"May I be inquisitive? What is your name, little girl?" - -"Mary Lee. May I be inquisitive, please? What is _your_ name?" - -"Ah, I don't think it would interest you if you heard it." - -"That's not fair. Names are very important, they help you to know -what people are like. I'm Mary, you can see that to look at me, I -see that myself when I look in the glass. Any one like Aunt Jael -could only be called Aunt Jael, it belongs to her just as much as -her stick. I like names, especially fine names of people and places: -like Ur of the Chaldees. Say it over slowly, in a grand way like -this--Urr--of--the--Chal--dees! Penzance is another nice one, and -Marazion: I like all places with a 'z' in them, a 'z' looks so rare -and special. People's names are better still. The man we beat in -the Armada--do you remember it was you who told me about the Armada -first, and I thought it was an animal, but I know all about it now--the -Spanish commander was called the Duke of Medina Sidonia. Roll it over -on your tongue. If there is a Duke of Medina Sidonia alive now, I -should like to marry him. Fancy being called the Duchess of Medina -Sidonia!" - -I half closed my eyes in rapture. - -"Yes," he said twitching just a little at the corners of his mouth, -"you're the same little girl." - -I liked this observation, as I was intended to. I could see he was -laughing at me, but liked me. I forgave the first for the second. - -"You have not told me your name yet. I think it must be a good one." - -"If it is _very_ good will you do the same for me as for the Duke of -Medina Sidonia?" - -"What do you mean? Oh"--colouring--"I will see. Tell me your name -first." - -"No, you must promise first." - -"Very well then, if you won't! I can't promise to marry you. I shall -never marry at all." There was a quick vision of Robbie. "At least I -don't think so, and anyway it would be some one else. Good-bye, sir, -now." We were at the cemetery gates: "Unless you would wait? These -primroses are for my mother. I come here to put them on her grave." - -"You wouldn't like me to come?" - -"Yes, you may. I want you to." - -"Why?" - -"Because I like you. That's a proper reason; and _she_ wouldn't mind." - -"Who? Your Grandmother you mean, or your aunt?" - -"No, my mother. So come, will you please? What will you do with your -horse?" - -The horse was not to be a stumbling block. "Here, hi!" he called to a -farmer's lad who was passing. "Hold the mare for a few minutes." - -I led the way through the gate and across the familiar daisied turf. We -stopped at a simple grave, kerbless, grass-grown and unpretending. On -a plain upright slab of stone was inscribed - - - RACHEL TRAIES - _These are they which came out of great tribulation._ - - -"Here we are." - -"Which one?" - -"This." I pointed. - -"But, but--Traies? You told me your name was Lee." - -"Yes, they call me Lee because my mother was called that before she was -married, and it's my Grandmother's name. Traies is my father's; people -don't use their father's name unless they live with him." - -"I suppose not." - -"What--why do you speak like that? You know him! You know my father!" - -"No." - -"You've heard of him I can see." - -"Well, perhaps." - -"How? When? What does he do? Where is he?" I waved the primroses. - -"I don't know any of the things you ask me, and I don't know him. -Honour bright. But I think I've heard of him, though of course the Mr. -Traies I've heard of is quite likely a different person altogether, for -the name is not so rare in Devonshire." - -"Is the one you've heard of a wicked man?" - -"Not a very good man, perhaps." - -"Oh, it's the same! Say wicked, it's what you mean. A vile wicked man. -He cruelly treated my mother and put her in this grave. There, I was -forgetting her. Mother dear, here are the primroses." - -I knelt down and said a prayer, half aloud, more to my mother than -to her Maker and mine. Only for a moment, and then very slightly, -was I shy of the Stranger. Nor was there anything self-conscious -and melodramatic in me, no enjoyment in performing a striking and -sentimental act in front of another person, such as would have been -experienced by most people, and by myself too a few years later. (I had -less sense of pose and acting when some one else was watching me than -if alone, for I myself was the only person I performed in front of. On -the day when I hurled "Brawling woman in a wide house" at Aunt Jael, -it was somebody else inside me looking on and listening who exulted in -Mary's wit. Not for some years yet did I begin in the more usual manner -to make life a performance before other people.) I was silent for -perhaps three minutes. As I rose I wiped my eyes. So I think did the -Stranger. - -He said: "Would you mind if I put some flowers there too--wipe your -knees, the grass is damp--Would you mind?" - -"Why? No, it would be very kind. But you haven't got any." - -"Some other time I shall bring them, when next I'm passing through -Tawborough." - -"Why?" - -"Because I like you. That's a proper reason; and--maybe--_she_ wouldn't -mind." - -"Well, you may. We must go, it is dinner-time." - -We reached the gate and he took his horse. Both of us knew we did not -accept this meeting as final, each of us was waiting for the other to -speak. I knew I could outwait him. - -"Little girl, we shall see each other again? May I write and ask your -Grandmother or Aunt to let you come and see me?" - -"Grandmother, not Aunt Jael. They might be angry though. What are -you--a Saint?" - -"A what?" - -"A Saint." - -"No, a sinner. At least I think so. Not that I know quite what you -mean. Still I shall risk it." - -"When?" - -"One day. Don't worry; not far ahead. Now good-bye." His foot was in -the stirrup. - -"Good-bye." - -He was soon away up the hill. I stared him out of sight. He turned -round once. - -I turned home, pleased and excited at the new life given to an old -player in the drama of Me. He was a kind and interesting looking -human-being, with this rare and all-important merit that he liked me. I -felt this keenly every time he looked at me. I turned over in my mind -whether I should tell Grandmother and decided not to. After all the -Stranger had said he would write to her: was it not better that she -should learn of it from him? For this letter I waited. - - -Another letter received by my Grandmother soon put all thought of the -Stranger at the back of my head. - -One day at breakfast she read us a letter from no less a person than -the sixth Lord Tawborough, lord of Woolthy Hall. The writer stated that -his love for his old governess, reinforced by the wishes of his late -revered father, induced him (now that he had come back to Devonshire -to live) to hope to make the acquaintance of her mother; the more -especially as she had been wronged by one connected by kinship with the -family and whom she had first met in his father's house--his house. -Would Mrs. Lee be courteous enough to name a day on which it would be -convenient for him to call? - -I was all attention. Now I should meet a person who had played a part -in my mother's life, the little boy who had been kind to her. There was -a debt to be paid here, as much as to any one who had been kind to my -own self. How I should pay back I could not yet decide. A lord! Mary -recompense a lord! - -As I thus reflected Aunt Jael was weighing up whether she would accord -permission to His Lordship to enter _her_ house. - -"Wull, let him come. Maybe he thinks he's honouring us. Let him know -a day on which he may call? The Lord's Day! He can come to Meeting -and learn that there's a bit of difference between his high position -before men and his wretched position before his Maker. Let him come. I -approve." - -So did my Grandmother, whom natural instinct, religion, and the -sobering experience of seventy years' sisterhood had combined to teach -that it was not worth while pointing out that it was to her that -Lord Tawborough had written, or that the house too was equally hers, -inasmuch as one seventeen-pounds-ten-shillings is quite as good as -another. - -"Very well, Lord's Day after next. I will ask him to come about ten -o'clock. If he wants to, he will make the time suit." - -He made it suit, arriving at a bare four minutes past the hour on the -Lord's Day after next. - -It was a big day to look forward to: except perhaps for my Grandmother, -with her curious indifference to persons and events worldly. Aunt -Jael pretended a scornful superiority which deceived nobody. That a -lord, and Lord Tawborough, one of the great ones of the earth (and -the county) was paying a visit to Miss Vickary--for so of course the -visit was announced--was soon all round the Meeting. On the Tuesday -preceding, the Misses Clinker discussed it all the afternoon. - -"I don't 'old wi' these lords," said Miss Salvation, "the Lord God -A'mighty is good enough for me. They 'ave pride in their sinful 'earts, -and they imparts pride to them as receives 'em." - -"_You_ jealous, ha, ha! Don't you know your place?" The old stick -thumped. - -"I du; and well enough not to go inviting under my 'umble roof folks of -another station in life." - -"In this life," corrected Glory. - -Salvation agreed. "If you was to give 'im a plain talk about 'is sowl, -maybe the Lord would forgive the sinful pride in yer 'eart and render -the visit fruitful and a blessing to 'ee both. But you won't dare. -You'll remember 'e's a lord, and fearing to offend 'im ye'll offend -yer 'eavenly Lord instead--" She was ruder than she usually dared, -fortified by the knowledge that what she said was getting home. - -"Silence, woman!" shouted Aunt Jael. "Every one of your foolish words -is false. The young man won't leave my house till he has confessed his -sin and been shown the plan of escape. I've asked 'im on a Lord's Day -so that he goes to Meeting with us, and hears the gospel. I've no doubt -for the first time in his life. He'll be there at 'Breaking of Bread.'" - -"Aw, will 'ee?" Salvation reviewed rapidly what chance she would have -on that occasion of attracting his lordship's special notice. - -"I beg your pardon, Sister Jael, I'm sure I do. Sorry I spoke in 'aste; -I was forgetting to jidge not so I be not jidged. Maybe you're asking a -few old friends up to meet him?" - -"Maybe fiddlesticks." - -Miss Salvation groaned aloud with envy and disappointment. If one -considers the disproportionate pleasure an invitation would have -given, Aunt Jael may be judged mean in her refusal. On the other hand, -poor Lord Tawborough! - -My interest in the visitor was greater than Aunt Jael's, less snobbish -and more dramatic. He would be the first of my father's relatives I -had ever met: he figured in the sacred story of my mother. I pictured -a hundred times what he would be like; young, grand and impressive. He -would wear a coronet and carry a golden pole with ribbons floating from -the top. - -At the last moment my chief attention shifted from the visitor to -myself: from considering what he would look like to what I should -look like to him. He was to arrive by carriage, he said. Aunt Jael -was to bow him into the famous front-room, swept and garnished for -the occasion, offer him a chair, a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and -hustle him off to Meeting. This was Aunt Jael's program. Mine was quite -as carefully worked out. I decided to stay upstairs in my bedroom -till he came, watching his arrival from my window, retiring so that -he could not catch a glimpse of me, and not descending till Aunt Jael -began to shout for me. Then I would go downstairs, ready dressed for -Meeting. The advantages were: first I looked best with my bonnet on, -as it concealed my scraggy and unalluring hair; second, I should have -seen him before he saw me, always a strategic advantage; third, he -would see me last, after he had had time to absorb the lesser charms of -Grandmother and Aunt Jael--even so does the leading lady fail to appear -till you have made the acquaintance of the lesser stars. - -I made one eleventh-hour alteration. As I heard carriage-wheels coming -up the Lawn path, I decided, with impulsive generosity, not to peep -at him. It would be taking an unfair advantage: I would let him burst -on me at the same moment as I on him. To avoid temptation I ran away -from the window. I was specially excited. Now for some of Aunt Jael's -snobbery. A lord! - -Grandmother was calling me, "Child, child!" - -Begloved, bonnetted, Bibled, I went downstairs. As I approached the -half-open parlour door, I heard Aunt Jael expounding my "usual" -unpunctuality (a lie). My heart beat fast. I went in to greet our -visitor. - -It was the stranger. - -"Good morning, little girl. So you got home all right that day." He -rose, smiling. The advantage was his with a vengeance: poor reward for -my self-sacrifice in allowing him a simultaneous first-sight, when I -might have peeped from my window, discovered who he was and got through -my first excitement alone. - -"You!" I gasped, "you're Lord Tawborough?" My amazement was shot -through with enjoyment of Aunt Jael's. - -"Yes, that's the grand name I told you of. I'm not a duke, you see, -only a humble lord. I'm so sorry; Tawborough hasn't got quite the swing -of Medin-a Sidon-ia, I must admit. I'm sorry, Your Grace." - -"You," I echoed, doubting if all this were not a dream. I clutched for -a moment to see if I could feel the side of my bed. - -"Come now, child, explanations are due. What's this mean? There's been -concealment here." - -"'Tis time to be off, Jael," whispered Grandmother, "twenty past." - -"You must explain on the way; your lordship is ready too?" The first -sentence was spoken with usual harshness slightly modified for the -hearing of visitors, the second with an interesting mixture of -deference and command. - -We sallied forth. Lord Tawborough on the outside, then Aunt Jael, -then Grandmother, then myself. On the way, he related briefly his -encounters with me, omitting with admirable reticence his purchase of -Westward Ho! and our visit to my mother's grave. Our entry into the -Room was stately, triumphant and restrained. In the Book of Judgment -there is a big black mark against Aunt Jael in that she did forget -she was entering the Lord's house, in her majestic obsession that she -was entering it with a lord. A biggish black mark against my name -too. Grandmother alone of the four of us has a clean white space. -For the Stranger too was proud--proud that he was not too proud to -mind entering a Brethren meeting-house with humble folk, the pride -of having no pride, the last pride of all--a huge mark his, black as -night. Marks against all the Saints' names too, even in that gathering -of devout souls I could see that there were none, excepting always my -Grandmother, who did not turn from holy thought for an odd moment now -and then to note their noble visitor: to feel a worldly interest in his -presence. More appropriately I could see them observing with regret -that he did not Break Bread (though of course he could not--it would -have been wicked if he had) and with pleasure that he was not allowed -to give to the box. Despite the glint of a gold guinea, Brother Brawn -snatched our four-mouthed monster proudly away from his outstretched -hand; we would not take gold from a sinner, albeit a peer. - -In almost all the prayers that morning sorrowful reference was made to -his lordship: it was hoped that in His own good time the Lord might -turn him to Himself. After every such reference came "Ay-men! Ay-men!", -Salvation bellowing loudest. - -I was too preoccupied pondering on the extraordinary fact that the -Stranger, my mother's little friend, and the sixth Lord Tawborough, -were one and the same person, to pay much heed to the service. One -feature, however, stands in my memory: an eloquent utterance by Brother -Briggs, who on this occasion outshone himself: shining face (remember -he was an oilman) and shining words alike. His voice roared through the -Room. - -"There's zummat we've 'eard a powerful lot about jis' lately: Princes. -Princes dyin' an' marryin' and givin' in marridge.[3] Princes this an' -Princes that." (He took a deep breath, threw back his head, puffed out -his chest, slapped it heartily again and again, beamed supernally, and -shouted like a multitude.) "I'm a prince! You stares, brethrin, you -stares in wonderment, an' I repeats it to 'ee all; I'm a royull prince. -Why vor? Reflect a minute. What _is_ a prince?--Why, 'tis a King's son, -_an' I'm the son uv a King, I'm the son uv a King, I'm the son uv a -King_!" (He slapped his breast resoundingly three times.) "Ay, an' a -son uv the King of Kings; so I'm a Prince uv Princes! Turn wi' me to -the twenty-second chapter of the Gauspel accordin' to St. Luke, and -the twenty-ninth verse: 'I appoint unto you a kingdom.' _You_: that's -you and me, brethrin, that's our title and patent, or whatever 'tis -they caals un, to be princes royal uv the kingdom uv 'Eaven. Not as we -oughtn't ter respect the princes uv this earth: I knaws ma betters, -an' I ain't got no pashence wi' they as don't. 'Owsomever, they are -but mighty for 'a little space,' while us shan't never be anythin' but -lords an' princes, all thru the rollin' glorious years uv Eternity: vur -iver, an iver, an iver! - -"An' _Who_ did it all? _'E_ did, _'E_, the same Chris' Jesus. 'E as -brought me up out uv a norribull pit, out uv the _moiry_ clay an' set -my feet upon a rock: the rock uv salvation. An' 'ere I am, a glorious -triumph an' trophy of 'eavenly Grace. An' so are all uv 'ee: triumphs -and trophies of Grace! It du my ol' eyesight good to look around this -blissid rume. My pore 'eart is nigh to bustin' this very minnit as I -speaks, wi' 'Is amazin' love fullin' ivry pore an' makin' me shout vur -joy. Praise ye the Lawr! Praise the Lawr, O My sowl! Praise 'Im in the -'eavens; praise 'Im in the 'eights! Praise 'Im on earth till us all -praises 'Im together in the sky! Bewtivul. Bewtivul. Bewtivul." - -He clumped to his seat: a common dirty little man, faint with shouting -and radiant with God. - -The moment the last prayer was over, Aunt Jael rose and stumped swiftly -for the door, our procession following: the Stranger, Grandmother, -Mary. This hint that she intended to escape without introducing "my -late niece's kinsman" to all and sundry was understood by sundry and by -all save one. Miss Salvation Clinker flew to the door and essayed to -bar our exit with ingratiating smile. - -"Good mornin', good mornin' to 'ee, Sister Jael." Looked longingly -beyond to the Stranger. - -Aunt Jael lifted her stick with threatening gesture, did not return the -greeting and gave no sign of recognition, thrusting past her through -the door. - -Miss Salvation stifled a murderous and most unsaintly look, twisted her -enormous mouth into what she conceived to be a winsome smile--lips wide -apart, tiger-teeth gleaming--pulled out her black serge skirt with both -hands in the approved fashion of a courtesy, and ducked. The Stranger -slightly bowed--triumph after all!--and we escaped. - -For dinner there was roast beef and sprouts followed by rhubarb pie. -Aunt Jael, republicanly, had decreed that there should be nothing -better than usual for dinner because a lord was coming. Nor, as far as -actual food went, was there. But there was a very special show of best -damask and our modest best silver, for no other reason (that I could -see) than that a lord was coming. Worse than this: Aunt Jael instructed -Mrs. Cheese to wait at table, as they do in grand houses. Instead of -my Great-Aunt just passing the plates along, Mrs. Cheese bore them, -laden with meat only, to our respective places, plumped them in front -of us, and then stood beside us in turn with the sprouts and potatoes. -Similarly for the pudding-course, with the cream and the sugar. -Unfortunately, when Mrs. Cheese waited at Lord Tawborough's side with -these, he was deep in converse and did not observe her. Mrs. Cheese -gave his lordship a hearty nudge. He flushed, and as flimsy covering -for his fault (in not observing her) said "No," to the sugar and cream, -thereby depriving himself, for the rhubarb was sour; and annoying Aunt -Jael, whose temper was sourer. - -As soon as we were all served, Aunt Jael set upon our visitor. Her -fists tightened round her knife and fork, her brows were in battle trim. - -"Wull, how did you like the service?" Staccato: opening shot. - -He scented battle; realized that he was to be landed in a -heart-to-heart talk on the plain issues of religion: a thing he feared, -disliked and shirked. (He was a member of the Church of England.) - -"Oh, very much, very much, thank you." A trifle evasively. - -"Wull, what particular testimony helped you most? Whose utterance did -you find of most value?" - -"Oh--er--they were all very sincere." - -"But you found no special message? For instance, Brother Briggs?" - -"Brother Briggs? Let me see, which was he?" - -"The one over to the right who spoke last." - -"Oh, that odd little man in the corner! His accent was a little -difficult in places: I've been away from Devonshire so long that I'm -afraid here and there I didn't quite follow what he said." - -There was no intention of sarcasm; he realized the dangers too well. -But a certain "superiority" of manner--half-amused, half-irritated, and -altogether natural--enraged her. - -There was a moment's dead silence. The storm broke tempestuously. She -was at the head of the table; the Stranger was sitting on her right. -She leaned across the intervening corner, banged the table with her -knife-encircling right fist, and howled into his face, with a withering -contempt it is impossible to convey, this one phrase: "_'E's got what -you ain't got!_" - -He dropped his knife with a clatter on his plate in sheer fright, -starting back as far as he could as she leered into his face. It was -a moment before he could recover sufficiently to reply in a rather -quavery un-lord-like way, "Oh, er, what is it then?" - -Thunderously: "_Eturrnal Life._" - -The Stranger kept his temper, an irritating thing to do. - -"How do you _know_, Miss Vickary, that I have no chance of eternal -life?" - -On such mild opposition anger feeds. She raised her voice to a kind of -bass shriek, dropping her aitches generously. - -"_'Ow_ do I know young man, 'ow do I know? If you 'ad eternal life, -if you _'ad_ accepted the Lord, you'd talk about 'Is grace and -goodness a little more bravely, and not look like a silly sheep when -'eavenly things are spoken of. Ugh, I know you shame-faced professin' -Christians, who blush when you 'ear the word Jesus, and never dare -to roll the 'oly word on your tongue, I know 'ee! _'Ow_ do I know?-- -If you _'ad_ eternal life you'd not be mocking at a poor lowly -Brother who 'as a 'undredfold better chances of it than you, with -yer 'oh-er-ah-excellent little fellow in the corner with a difficult -accent doncherknow.' _Ow_ do I know? If you 'ad the Lord you'd be -a bit readier to talk about Him and testify to 'Is grace. Don't -tell me!"--she poked her head into his face for a final thunderous -shout,--"_By their fruits ye shall know them!_" - -Grandmother looked troubled, seeking a chance to intervene. The -Stranger set his face like flint and determined to keep his temper, -though she should scalp him with the knife she was brandishing in his -face. He spoke very quietly. - -"Miss Vickary, one moment please, what do _you_ know of my fruits? -After all we have met for the first time today." - -His calm, his common-sense, were fuel to the fire. She thumped the -table with the butt end of her knife till it shook. - -"Silence, youth, silence! Am I not seventy-two years of age, and ye but -twenty-one? In my young days youth respected age, rank or no rank. I -tell 'ee plainly: you're a miserable sinner. Learn to mind your manners -with those who're older than yourself; learn not to mock at them of -humbler station--" - -"Miss Vickary, I--" he protested. - -"Jael," pleaded my Grandmother. - -"Oh, don't worry, Mrs. Lee. I don't mind, I don't really." - -He looked across the table in a bee-line at my Grandmother, as though -Aunt Jael did not exist: the proper punishment for people who lose -their temper, the most pleasant revenge for those who keep theirs. -"No, no, don't worry; of course I don't mind. To be sure, I didn't -come here to discuss my own life in the next world but your little -granddaughter's in this. I can never forget her mother's kindness to -me, I want you to let me do something for her." - -Aunt Jael recommenced eating, tired with shouting, beaten after all. - -He had so swiftly but irrevocably changed the subject that she could -not easily go back to Brother Briggs and Eternal Life. My opinion of -the Stranger rose every moment. As a loyal Saint I had not liked his -slight note of superiority when he spoke of Brother Briggs, but the -moment Aunt Jael attacked him I was of course of his party through -thick and thin. And I realized the every-day worldly point of view just -enough to see that a peer of England is not accustomed to being railed -and shouted at by an old woman he hardly knows, least of all when he -is paying a courtesy visit to her in her own house, and decided that -the way he kept his temper was wonderful, as well as the shrewdest for -getting equal with Aunt Jael. With every reply, modelled on my own -method, my opinion of the Stranger rose. And now that he spoke with -reverence of my mother and of "doing things" for me my admiration knew -no bounds. He was perfect. - -Grandmother was replying to him. "Thank you kindly; we need no help. -The child needs nothing but the love and mercy of the Lord." - -"Quite so, but worldly advantages--" - -"I need no worldly advantages for her, they could do nothing for her if -she had them. She is dedicated to the Lord's service in foreign parts, -and her whole life will be spent among the heathen." - -Now or never I must strike for freedom. - -"Oh, no, no, _NO_," I burst out. - -There was an amazed silence. I was amazed myself. The words came from -my heart before I knew what I was saying. - -My Grandmother's voice quavered; there was a bitter disappointment in -her face I had never seen there before. "Are you ill, child, are you?--" - -"No, Grandmother, no, I will always love and serve the Lord. But not as -a missionary among the heathen, I cannot, I cannot, I have never dared -tell you about it before, but I will now. I often prayed about it, for -I wanted to please you and please Him, and months ago now soon after -my baptism He answered No. He told me He needed me in other ways, to -go about in England like an ordinary person and testify to Him there. -Grandmother dear, don't be sorrowful; 'tis true, it isn't because I -want to get out of going to the heathen, 'tis because I know the Lord -doesn't mean me to. Oh, if you knew how certain I was--" - -She had no answer to this supreme plea. "Very well, my dear. If my -dream and your mother's is not to be fulfilled, if your dedication is -not to lead you to the fields of sacrifice I have prayed for, you can -still remain lowly and far above worldly graces and achievements. Thank -you, your lordship. Mary needs nothing." - -"Mrs. Lee, I beg you. All I want to do is whatever a little money or -influence can, to give your grand-daughter certain advantages it might -not be easy for you--forgive me--to afford. I hardly know that I intend -anything special. The child is musical, I believe. Some good music -lessons, perhaps, with a first class master? Some tuition in French -or Italian, so that she might travel or take perhaps a really good -governess-post? I'm sure you will forgive me for thinking that her -mother would have wished it. It is in her name that I plead." - -"And in the name of common-sense." To get a bit of her own back on -my Grandmother (for not having been rude to the Stranger) Aunt Jael -entered the new battle on my side. "If Lord Tawborough is good enough -to offer the child advantages we can't afford, we'd be fools not to -take them, and as for the child being a missionary, look at her! I -don't hold much with the governess idea, but she has to earn her living -somehow, and may as well take advantage of anything she can. Yes, Lord -Tawborough, _I_ accept." - -My Grandmother offered some further resistance, but at last it was -decided that I was to have lessons in riding, music and French, each -with the best instructors in the town. - -Riding! Music! French! Vistas spread before me. Imperial futures. - -"Thank you, sir," I said rather primly, though I would have clasped his -hand if I had dared. - -When we had finished dinner Aunt Jael settled down as usual for her -doze and Grandmother went upstairs to her bedroom to study the Word. At -our visitor's request I was excused Lord's Day's school and permitted -to go for a walk with him. - -We went out of the town along by the river to the woods. I was -tongue-tied, waiting for him to speak. I was proud a little, confused a -little, shy a little, yet down in my heart quite at ease. Above every -other sentiment I was happy. Partly because of the new prospects he had -opened for me, partly because of the extraordinary coincidence by which -the Stranger and my mother's little boy were one and the same person, -chiefly because I liked him, and he liked me. - -After a while he began to talk, and so did I. I was too naïvely -egotistical to see it then, but he made me talk, led me on all -unconscious to most garrulous self-expression. I grievously broke my -ancient rule of listening to other people, of absorbing things rather -than imparting them. I told him all about our life at Bear Lawn, about -Aunt Jael and Grandmother, about Uncle Simeon also and Torribridge, -with discreet omissions as to Christmas and New Year's Nights. Nor did -I tell him, for I could have told no one, a word about my own inner -life; it was too sacred, too ridiculous. - -What was his inner life? I fell to wondering. - - -In my bedroom, on the evening of this wonderful Lord's Day a long and -tearful vigil. I had just got into my nightgown, when my Grandmother -came in. She closed the door more quietly, yet more decisively, than -usual. I knew what was going to happen. She came to me, took my arm, -and looked straight into my eyes. - -"Child," she said, "you've taken away the brightest hope of my old age. -The light is gone out of my life." - -With any one else there would have been a catch in the voice. In that -moment I understood and admired and pitied her more than in all the -years before. I felt the poignancy of her sorrow, and the measure of my -own shallowness and shame. I was her child, more than her child, her -daughter's gift to be given to the service of God; my dedication to -His Service was her supreme offering to Him Whom she loved with a love -beyond my understanding. - -We knelt down together for the longest prayer that I remember.... Now -that I had forsworn my holy dedication and chosen the worldly path, -God grant that I might still walk as in His sight. I had confessed -in baptism that I had been raised with the Lord Jesus, and now I had -preferred a worldly future to the unsearchable riches of Christ. Might -the Lord in His mercy vouchsafe that my salvation might still be -secured and that she, the old pilgrim, whose call was very near--and -I, whose call might be nearer than I thought (ye know not the day -nor the hour)--and one other, called already, whom both of us loved -the best--might all three be united in tender love and everlasting -sisterhood around the throne of God.... - -I was sobbing. - -She broke short, I remember, without finishing the prayer. "Forgive me, -my dear, 'tis I who am wrong. I admonish the Lord in vain. What He has -willed He has willed. 'Tis a great sorrow. _His will be done._" - -FOOTNOTE: - -[3] Albert, Prince Consort, died December 14th, 1861: Albert Edward, -Prince of Wales, married March 10th, 1863. The allusion must have been -to these events. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII: WINE THAT MAKETH GLAD THE HEART OF WOMAN - - -The Stranger's return was a landmark. - -First of all there was a vivid addition to my stock of rehearsable -memories. Second, there was the interest of my new accomplishments. - -I went for my music lessons to one Monsieur Petrowski, a Polish -refugee, who had just fled from his native land and was settling down -in Tawborough. I made great progress with my music, and if he gave me -a goodly share of scales and studies beyond the needs of discipline -he had for plea the direct instruction of Aunt Jael. Now that her -time-honoured boast "I pay for the child's music" was crumbling about -her ears she solaced herself by instructing Monsieur Petrowski very -plainly. - -"Now not too much fine showy music." - -"Very well, Mademoiselle." - -"No infidel trash." - -"?" A slight bow, vaguely affirmative. - -"Always plenty of what she doesn't like": Aunt Jael's ideal of -education. "Make it a task, sir, make it a task. Plenty of scales, -chromatics, or whatever 'tis." - -"Very well, Mademoiselle." - -Monsieur Petrowski obeyed reasonably well, but he forgot to break my -will, and I suspect much of the music I learned of open infidelity. -My talent and taste developed, and by eighteen years of age I played -the piano better than (say) ninety-five embryo governesses out of a -hundred. I loved Chopin best. - -With French I made equal progress. Here again Aunt Jael appointed -herself the intermediary of the Stranger's bounty. She selected to -instruct me Miss le Mesurier. This lady was half French by parentage, -had lived abroad the best part of her life, and had now come back to -spend her declining old-maidhood in her native town, and keep house for -her bachelor brother Doctor le Mesurier,--the same who had attended -my mother when I was born. She became a regular member of our Meeting. -Aunt Jael's instructions were explicit. "Make the work a task, a trial, -a tribulation. Pander not to her pleasure loving tastes. No romances -for her study, no trash, no infidel works." These restrictions, gladly -acquiesced in by my teacher (who about this time followed my example -and took up her Cross in public) cut out all fiction, plays and poetry; -leaving us with the devotional writings of French Protestants, and -history; the former of an epic dullness, the latter an imperishable -fountain of excitement and romance. We read a Monsieur Michelet's -History of the Revolution. My appetite for history grew as it was fed. - -For my third accomplishment, my instructor was neither Pole nor French, -but red-faced broad-breeched Mr. Samuel Prickett of Prickett's "Mews" -(sic). In this quarter even Aunt Jael jibbed at bestowing admonitions, -nor were they needed. It was a trial and tribulation for me after her -heart. No sooner did I approach the fragrant riding-school and behold -the feats I should have to emulate than I found myself in a shocking -condition of fear, while for the first few minutes in the saddle I was -verily purged with terror--in the good (and accurate) old Bible sense -of the word. I would hunch my back, my limbs would grow rigid with -funk, and when Mr. Samuel Prickett for the first time tickled Rose -Queen into the gentlest of trots I clung with frenzy to the scanty -mane of that poor mare. The first time she galloped I screamed aloud, -rolled incontinently out of the saddle, and clung for dear life to her -neck. Every Tuesday and Friday I approached the mews with set teeth and -inward prayer for courage, with a supreme "Help me O God!" as I put my -foot into the stirrup; after a year or two of prayer and perseverance I -was a fair if never a fearless horsewoman. (Even at the beginning there -was this set-off to fear: pride.) I knew that my riding-habit became -me; if a few of the bolder spirits on the Lawn mocked and jeered, I -inwardly mocked and jeered back because I knew that really they were -impressed: their sneers were but a natural tribute to their jealousy -of me and respect for themselves. More than the costume, the fact of -riding gave me a delicious sense of importance. It may be argued that -the connection between horsemanship and aristocracy is merely the -result of distant historical origins, far-away reflection of a world -where the knight alone went horseback and the common man trudged humbly -through the centuries. All I am sure of is this: that in the country -lanes I felt myself a very fine young lady, i. e. at such moments as I -did not feel a shocking coward. In the middle of pleasant reviews as to -the lordliness of riding a horse, I would be seized with a pained and -concentrated interest in my reins, a perspiring anxiety not to lose the -stirrups, a most unaristocratic readiness to snatch the mane. (Pride -qualified by fear: man's natural state.) - -The aim of all these proceedings was to obtain, by the Stranger's help, -a governess' post in a good family. Meagre and melancholy ambition this -would seem to worldly spirits nowadays. To me the prospect was fame, -freedom, adventure, _la Vie_! - -Lord Tawborough I rarely saw. Grandmother stood out against Aunt Jael -in refusing to let me stay at Woolthy Hall. I wrote him a report of -progress every three months, a soulless jellyfish document, heavily -censored by both Grandmother and Great-Aunt. The former always said -I was not grateful enough, the latter that I was not humble enough. -The final product was an unpleasing mixture of grovelling gratitude, -hateful humility, and perfect grammar. My Grandmother persisted in her -old plan of keeping me meek and lowly by never speaking well of me to -my face, nor allowing any word of praise to escape her lips, yet I -know she was proud of such progress as I made alike in these special -pursuits and at the Misses Primps'. I read often in her eyes how deeply -she felt it that I had not chosen the Better Way, and I realized how -unselfish was her interest in my progress. - -I began to appreciate my Grandmother's unselfishness at its true worth. -In it lay all her charm, her goodness, her difference from other -people. It was through her that I first came to see that unselfishness -is the one virtue, as it was Aunt Jael who helped to teach me that -selfishness is the one vice. I would think out every evil act I could -imagine and find that at bottom it was Self. I would think out every -good deed and discover that its essence was always unselfishness. In -one of those flashes in which I saw and felt things I had before only -vaguely believed, I grasped the meaning of the Cross. I saw suddenly -how utterly selfish I was myself, full of hopes for myself, weaving -futures for myself; always self, self, self; and a voice inside me -asked: "Now what hopes has Grandmother for _herself_?" and though I -was alone I coloured at the sudden discovery of self-accused shame. -"She has nothing; the one great hope left to her was you, and you have -disappointed her." I began to understand the sorrow and loneliness of -an old woman's lot, the vacancy, the lack of hope and lookings-forward. -No doubt when Grandmother had been a little girl she too had said to -herself: "Wait, Hannah, wait till you're grown up; then things will -be happier. Wait for love, marriage; then you will be happy." Married -love faded, husband died. "There are your children." But the children -went away; Christian into a consumptive's grave, Martha unhappily wed, -Rachel slowly tortured to death. Hope still ahead: "You will find -comfort in your children's children." What comfort did they hold for -her: Albert!--and Mary who had betrayed the last great hope. What had -my Grandmother to live for? The daily round of Aunt Jael's nagging: old -age with sorrow behind and only Heaven ahead. - -Aunt Jael, I reflected, had been denied even the pleasures of sorrow, -the regret for good things gone away; neither love, nor husband, nor -children. Should I have been better in her case? Perhaps there were -excuses for Aunt Jael. - -I had to say this to myself very hard and very often in these days. As -my Great-Aunt grew older she grew noisier, more evil-tempered, more -shrewish; her evil and domineering nature was having a final bout -before the ebb tide of a maudlin dotage. As I remember her during my -sixteenth and seventeenth years she well nigh baffles description. A -hooked-nose wicked old witch, scolding, snarling, imprecating, hurling -texts and threats about her. She would sit back in her old armchair -and nag and shout from morn till eve, cursing my Grandmother for an -idle selfish ingrate if not always at her beck and call to button -or unbutton her boots, to dress or undress her, to help her up- or -downstairs. "Why shouldn't she do a bit for me, that's what I want -to know? Hannah is younger, Hannah is sprightlier, not an old woman -like me!": you would have thought the eighteen months were eighteen -centuries. Mrs. Cheese stood up to the old bully, and giving what she -got, got rather less. I came in for the most consistent cursing, and -the worst outbreaks. She would stand up with eyes blazing and howl -at me at the top of her voice (that bass shout impossible to convey -in print which I called her "yell-growl"): "Ugh, yer father's child, -every inch of 'ee; you feature him and yer character's as evil. Vicious -little slut, pert wench, vile little sinner, adulterer's daughter, -spawn of Beelzebub!" She would lash out as of old with her stick; more -than once after I had passed sixteen she flogged me till I was black -with bruises. - -By training and by character--and following my Grandmother's example -and for her sake--I could take it all with apparent meekness. But some -outlet for the Beast in me was provided by her increasing deafness. -Given Grandmother's absence from the room and a suitable modulation -of mouth and voice, I could give her all that she gave in the way of -abuse. As she sat back exhausted, with her eyes half closed in some -passing lull, I would look up from my sewing, and with lips barely -moving give her my views. "Oh, you wicked old woman; you cruel selfish -beastly hag; you shrew; you enemy of all righteousness! How I loathe -you, hate you, spit at you!" - -Often Conscience smote me. "Where is your 'do unto others'?" So I -would make allowances; she had been lonely, always unloved. She was -old, unhappy. I could not help feeling that these were not excuses so -much as explanations: she was just what an old maid who had domineered -and been deferred to all her life would naturally be. She was herself -carried to her logical conclusion. - -Her habits changed. She only went to the morning Meeting, and that not -always. On weekdays she got up late. - -Our mornings would have appeared to outsiders a roaring and improbable -farce. - -At eight o'clock Grandmother and I would sit down to the breakfast -table. No Aunt Jael. - -"Is Miss Vickary coming down this morning, do you know, Mrs. Cheese?" - -The latter grunted. - -"Please go and see, will you, so that we can have her breakfast right -for her." - -Mrs. Cheese went upstairs, leaving the dining-room door open behind -her. Just before we heard her knocking at Aunt Jael's door, we heard -a more sinister noise in the bedroom above, a spring and a thud: Aunt -Jael bounding out of bed to lock the door against her, usually managing -to turn the key in the lock just as Mrs. Cheese began knocking. - -"Lem'me in! Zich games wi' an ole body." She knocked and thumped. - -No success. The silence of death. - -"Go wi'out yer breakfast then!" A final thump or kick, and she waddled -downstairs to the dining-room. - -"No good, Mrs. Lee. 'Er's up to 'er tantrums, 'er's banged the door and -turned the key." - -Immediately the floor-thumping overhead began again. Aunt Jael was -leaning out of bed and prodding the floor with her stick. Blows rained -thunderously, monotonously; it was no good pretending they were not -there, as I sometimes could for a few moments, relying on Grandmother's -deafness. Then the noise would cease. We heard the bound and spring. -She was out of bed, had opened the door and was howling downstairs over -the banisters, "Hannah! Cheese! Child! Food, Food! I'm a-starvin', I'm -a-starvin'!" - -"Will you try once again, Mrs. Cheese, please?" said my Grandmother. -"Or I will," she would add, seeing reluctance. - -This always decided the old lady. To save Grandmother she puffed her -way once more upstairs. Aunt Jael went on screaming from the landing, -"Food, food!" till Mrs. Cheese was nearly up the stairs. Then she -scuttled into her bedroom, and swiftly locked the door again. - -"Starve away, ye old biddy, starve till ye die for all I care, an' I -'ope 'tis middlin' quick." She descended, calling in at the dining-room -door as she paused, "I've done wi' the 'ole biddy fer iver." - -In a few moments it all began again. Grandmother would have a journey, -and then I. By the time our peaceful breakfast was over Aunt Jael had -usually tired of her fun and was prepared to give in: another lengthy -process. The first great step was when she got as far as leaving -the door open. Usually if Grandmother or Mrs. Cheese took in her -breakfast-tray she refused to have it near her and declared that the -Child alone should bring her breakfast to her, the reason being that it -was time for school and that I, therefore, was the most inconvenient -person she could select. So they left the tray on the brass-nailed box -outside her door, and I went in with it. Meanwhile she would close her -eyes and moan: "I'm a-sinkin', I'm a-sinkin' for the want of food! A -poor lonely woman left to starve! A-sinkin', a-sinkin', a-sinkin'--" -her voice sank to a tragic whisper. Next, of course, the egg was -too soft or too hard boiled, according as we had been pessimists or -optimists in gauging the duration of my lady's mood that morning. - -Dressing her was the next trial. I escaped it except in the holidays. -Grandmother had to see to every button and lace and hook, and be railed -at the whole time. And so on, throughout the day, morning, afternoon, -evening, week in, week out, till life was a misery. My nerves were -on edge, and if I kept my temper it was at the expense of my soul, -which was filled with a devouring hate. There was one person, however, -whose temper would not and did not hold out, and that was Mrs. Cheese. -On that last day when my Great-Aunt sat up in bed and threw the -whole breakfast-tray at her--a notable feat--she picked up the metal -tea-pot, the only whole article in the wreckage, poured hot tea on the -aggressor's face, and within a few hours had left the house. "I've -warmed the ole biddy's nose, and this time I goes for iver." - - * * * * * * * - -Then, somewhere in the summer of 1864, came Maud. She brought no -references, this being her first place, nor in our dire need could we -insist on the usual requirements as to grace and salvation. She was not -more than seventeen or eighteen, hardly a year or so older than I was; -though with her hair up and her smart womanly attractive appearance she -looked several years my senior. I had gathered from the Bible and from -the talk at school that our sex was considered the more attractive, the -better-looking, the more sought-after for its pleasingness. Neither -the many female Saints of my acquaintance nor any member of our -humble gallery of housemaids had helped me to understand. Maud was -an explanation of much. Looking at her head of fine chestnut hair, -gay pretty mouth and sparkling eyes, I began to apprehend why so many -worthy folk--King David, King Solomon, Adam our first forefather--had -gone astray. Her capacity for hard work equalled her good looks; her -patience, good temper and self-sacrifice with Aunt Jael excelled them -both. Here was the first servant we had ever taken without certificate -of godliness; and she was the best. - -From the beginning she devoted herself to Aunt Jael, who of course -shouted at her, and told her she was a bold mincing hussy. She smiled. -She just went on cooking, dusting, laying the tea table, hooking the -blouse, or whatever it might be, always with the same patient smile. -After a while her absolute imperviousness to abuse and her excellence -as a lady's maid began to mollify my Great-Aunt, who came to treat her -quite passably to her face, and sing loud her praises as soon as she -left the room. - -"There's a good girl, if you like, something like a girl. Do something -for her, Hannah! Give her five pounds and a new suit of clothes." - -This last remark became a mania, and half a dozen times a day as the -door closed upon Maud, Aunt Jael would shout at my Grandmother, "Five -pounds, I say, five pounds, and a new suit of clothes!" Neither did she -produce, however. - -To my surprise Grandmother did not care very much for our new servant. - -"Isn't she good, Grandmother?" I asked one day. - -She nodded her head and did not reply. - -"You don't like her, Grandmother?" - -No reply. - -"Why now, because she's not a Christian?" - -"No-o, my dear, I can't tell 'ee why. I don't like her: why, I don't -even know myself; but there 'tis." - -"But she's so good with aunt, and so patient." - -"Yes--" - -"Well, why then?" - -"There 'tis, and that's all there is about it." - -I was puzzled, as Grandmother was always so generous. There must be -some mystery about Maud. Her beauty, a strange and new and troubling -thing in my imagination. Her inhuman patience, equalling even my -Grandmother's. And her carpet-slippers. She moved absolutely without -sound. - -Soon after her arrival there was a new development. Aunt Jael's -indigestion and sleeplessness and ill temper had been getting steadily -worse till at last Grandmother had called in Doctor le Mesurier. He -prescribed a stimulant: my Great-Aunt was to take a small dose of -brandy two or three times every twenty-four hours. Say a small dose at -one of her nocturnal repasts and a sip in a wine-glass after dinner. -It became one of my duties to go up to her bedroom after dinner, -obtain the bottle from the secret cupboard, and pour out the measure. -I brought it down and laid it on the corner of the table near her -fireside perch. - -After a few days, I noticed that more of the brandy seemed to -disappear each day than two or even three doses in the night could -explain. It was a tall bottle of Cognac, the dose was less than an -inch in a wine glass taken not more than twice each day, and yet in -under a week the bottle was empty. The fierce teetotalism of the -later-nineteenth-century Americanized Protestantism was unknown among -the Brethren, who followed more faithfully the old Puritan tradition -and deemed a bottle of liquor a good thing if used and not abused. But -though drink had never loomed large in my imagination, I associated it -vaguely with the snares of this world. Between Maud the worldly one -with her unfamiliar female beauty (snare of snares) and the vanishing -brandy the connection was so obvious that I need not have felt so -pleased with myself as I did when I first divined it. It was clear as -noonday. Maud was the thief. She had access to the cupboard at all -hours, she was led into temptation, and had fallen. When I stared at -her she would turn a little pale. - -Aunt Jael was not yet aware of the theft. Clearly she was in her -dotage, as the Cognac cost six shillings a bottle. Was it my duty, -my duty before the Lord, to speak out? I inclined to think so. Theft -was theft, and theft was sin, and sin should always be exposed for -righteousness' sake and the sinner's too. On the other hand, a voice -inside me told me that it would be mean and cowardly to sneak on Maud. -The feeling of pleasure that Aunt Jael was being thieved from also -urged silence. If both these notions weighed against my exposing Maud, -yet one seemed in a sense to balance the other in my conscience, for I -tried to justify my delight in seeing Aunt Jael robbed by pretending to -myself that the generous impulse of shielding Maud was my real reason -for keeping silence. As one bottle and then another disappeared with -unmistakable speed, and the inroads on Aunt Jael's purse became more -extensive and gratifying, my piece of self-deception began to wear -hollow. Conscience pricked: "_You_ know the real reason you are not -telling. You know it is to spite Aunt Jael and not to shield Maud. -_You_ know." - -One night I prayed for guidance. The answer was clear. My evil delight -in Aunt Jael being robbed was a sin which I could only atone for by -repentance and by stopping the robbery, while to avoid having Maud -exposed and dismissed (this had been in one way an argument for and not -against telling, because the inevitable dismissal of so helpful a girl -would inconvenience Aunt Jael; though here again it cut both ways, as -Grandmother and I would be inconvenienced and harried still more when -she was gone) it was my duty to speak to her privately. Thus she would -be spared, Aunt Jael protected, my sin atoned for, and justice done. I -obeyed instantly, got out of bed, lit my candle and crept up to Maud's -bedroom. I knocked timidly. There was a faint scuffling inside: she -was getting out of bed. She opened the door a few inches and her face -appeared. It was sheet white. She was trembling violently. - -"I am sorry, Maud, to wake you up, but I had to." I spoke hurriedly, a -bit shamefacedly. "If you won't do it again, I'll not tell." - -"Miss--" she gasped. - -"Don't worry," I said frightened by her frightened appearance, "I'll -promise never to say a word." - -"Thank you, Miss Mary, I'm sure," she said shakily, "but oh, oh, you -did give me a start!" - -As she spoke she came right out of the room in her nightgown, shut the -door behind her, and stood up against me on the half-landing, still -trembling. - -"Why did you shut the door like that?" I asked. Her extreme fear -puzzled me. - -She hesitated for a second. "Oh, I must see you back to bed or you'll -be getting your death of cold." - -"Good night, miss," she said. Before she blew out the candle I noticed -that her face was as white as ever. - -Somehow she had seemed _too_ frightened. - -After all, was stealing brandy so terrible? Was dismissal from Aunt -Jael's service so hideous a blow? Then there was the way she had closed -the door behind her. - -I heard her creep her way upstairs. My heart stood still as I heard -another door open quite near me; Grandmother's by the sound of it. -No doubt she had been awakened and had heard our going to and fro on -the stairs. I sat up in bed so as to hear better. I fancied she was -standing at her door as though listening. Then a voice spoke, sounding -strangely in the silence. It was my Grandmother's. - -"Child, what are you doing? Is that you, child? What are you doing?" - -I jumped out of bed and opened my door. "What is it, Grandmother? I'm -here, what is it?" - -An odd expression came into her eyes. - -"Then who was it going downstairs just now? Somebody crouched when I -called out, then seemed to wriggle their way further down; somebody in -white, like your nightgown. I thought you were sleepwalking." - -Some one in white wriggling downstairs! Was not Grandmother herself -sleepwalking? It could not be Maud, for I had heard her close her door. - -"Maud!" called my Grandmother. - -"Yes'm," replied a voice with amazing quickness. She had been -listening. But she spoke from _upstairs_. "Yes'm, did you call me, m'm?" - -At this moment the front door of the house was unmistakably opened and -then closed again. Some one had gone out. - -My Grandmother, an odd little figure in her nightcap and gown, looked -very grave. "Get to bed, Maud," she called, "and you too, child." - -After pondering a certain terrible suspicion in my mind for a few -minutes, I fell asleep. - -Next morning I shirked seeing Maud. I felt shamefaced for what I had -said to her in the night and far more for the thing I had hardly dared -to think. I got downstairs later than usual. The dining-room was dark, -the blinds had not been drawn. I went into the kitchen; there were no -signs of life, the fire had not been lit. I rushed upstairs to her -bedroom and burst in without knocking; she was not there, the drawers -of the bedroom chest were pulled out and emptied, her box had gone. She -had run away. - -Months later, I saw a well-dressed young woman in the street. The face -was familiar. She was wheeling a baby's perambulator. She looked the -other way. - -Nothing was said to Aunt Jael, who theorized on Maud's mysterious -departure, and declared that my Grandmother's cruel treatment had -forced her to flee for her life. She cursed at Maud for an ingrate, -though still fitfully maintaining that she was well worth five pounds, -not to mention a new suit of clothes. - -Maud's departure marked the beginning of a still more miserable period -at Bear Lawn. We were unable for some time to get another servant, and -though Sister Briggs came in twice a week to help, there was more than -enough work for Grandmother and me, especially as it was term-time. -I had to get up at half past five, light the kitchen fire, sweep the -rooms, and help Grandmother with the breakfast. I had to cook, sew, -dust, do my homework, and dance continual attendance on Aunt Jael. I -was wretched, but too hard driven to mope overmuch. Grandmother and -I worked early and late, earning nothing but abuse from Aunt Jael, -who now ceased to do any work whatever, even to help with the cooking -or to carve at table. Her temper became more ungovernable, her abuse -more outrageous. All her life she had had a certain dignity--harsh, -unlovely, but still dignity--an august presence, a majesty in evil. -There was little trace of majesty or dignity in the nagging old shrew -she was becoming now. If you get into a pet because the sprouts are -undercooked, hurl the vegetable-dish on the floor, tread the sprouts -into the carpet, cry "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" ("Brussels to -Brussels" would have been apter), wave the spoon with rage, and gurgle -like a stuck pig, you may be many many things, but dignified, no. This -was an almost daily experience. - -In the middle of this period came her eightieth birthday. There was no -jubilee. - -My chief Cross was my resolve of absolute evenness of temper. Evenness -rather than serenity was the word: I could never take my Grandmother's -quiet delight in sitting down under insult and injustice, as though -they were flattering temptations sent me by the Lord, tokens of -heavenly privilege. I could always turn the other cheek, but never as -though I enjoyed it. Once when I had waited on Aunt Jael hand and foot -all day; taking up her breakfast (after three or four attempts and -plenty of frolic with the door), dressing her ("no one else would do"), -making her bed and tidying her room (while she sat in a chair carping), -cooking her a special dinner and arranging it on a little table by -the armchair (she felt too ill to sit up to table), doing her sewing -("Clumsy little slut with the needle!"), and reading to her aloud from -the Word (her eyes were too tired to read herself); when after tea I -had begun and finished the last chapter of Proverbs--"Many daughters -have done virtuously but Thou excellest them all"--and she had no -further behest; I thought that at last I was free for a few moments. -I sat down at the piano and began playing my new piece: Polish Dance -in A Minor. I had not played more than a few bars when I heard her get -up from her chair. Without warning I received a violent box on the -ears, with "That for idling away without my permission on this ungodly -trash" as she snatched the music and crumpled it up into a paper ball. -The blow was dealt with such force that I fell off the stool on to the -floor, where she began belabouring me with her stick. - -Struggling to my feet, I began in my intensest manner, bitterer than -any rage: "Oh may the Lord punish you, may He visit you with pain and -illness and agony in this world--" I do not know how far I had got but -the door opened and my Grandmother came in. - -"My dear, you are beside yourself." - -"Grandmother, hear me. I have toiled for her all day long, and now when -I've sat down for a minute to practise she came behind me unawares and -gave me a blow that knocked me on to the floor and then began flogging -me with her stick." - -"Sister--" began my Grandmother. - -"None of your 'sister,' if you please!" She went up to Grandmother, -who was near the bookcase, and pushed her roughly against it. "No -interfering, d'yer see? When the child does what I don't like, I do -what I like to her. See?" She clutched Grandmother by the shoulders, -and began banging her viciously against the bookcase. - -"You brute!" I cried, and with a strength I should not have found -in self-defence tore her away from Grandmother. Loosing hold, she -turned on me; I ran for safety to the other side of my guardian-angel -table. She hesitated for a moment, remembering perhaps her ancient -dignity, and then stalked out of the room. Which was after all the most -dignified thing to do. - -The fact was, her health and self-control were failing together; but if -more of a shrew, she was less shrewd than of old. She never noticed, -for instance, how the brandy was disappearing. The odd thing about this -brandy was that after Maud's departure it had been disappearing more -quickly and mysteriously than ever. A new suspicion entered my mind. -Sister Briggs never went upstairs. It could not be Grandmother. It was -not magic. It was not me.... - -One day just before dinner, Aunt Jael had not yet appeared in the -dining room. This was surprising; on her latest and worst days she -usually descended by eleven o'clock. - -"I've heard her moving about," said Grandmother. "Dinner is ready, give -her a call." - -Before I had time to obey, however, I heard her bedroom door open. We -sat down to table. The dining-room door was open, and I fancied there -was something odd and shuffling in the way she was coming downstairs. -Then I was startled by a series of thuds; it sounded as though she had -lost her footing, and fallen down the last two or three stairs. We ran -out, for Grandmother had heard too. - -"Are you hurt, Jael?" She was lying full length on the bottom stair, -her face was dark and flushed, her eyes odd and bleary. She appeared -stunned, though it surprised me that to fall two or three stairs should -have had so serious an effect. - -She did not answer Grandmother, but began slavering and hiccoughing. - -"Give her five poundsh an' a new shuit of clothes." The sentence was -broken by hiccoughs. My nostrils caught the sudden reek of spirits. - -Aunt Jael was drunk. - -I looked at Grandmother and Grandmother looked at me. She spoke in a -low voice, and there were tears in her eyes. "'Tis hard, my dear. Your -aunt has lived a godly sober life these eighty years--and now, look! We -must take it as His will." - -Resolves are weak, and pity is stronger than hate. I had been looking -forward all my life and during the past few weeks more venomously -than ever to the day when I should see my hated Aunt the victim of -some supreme humiliation. The day was here. There she lay: drunken, -shameful, loathsome. Surely this was humiliation enough. I should have -exulted in her shame; I was indeed wicked enough to have done so, but -that some one different in me, the Other Me (at such moments of extreme -alternative between good and evil I always felt the Second Presence), -had only pity and sorrow. My cheeks burned as I thought of how I had -been looking forward to a triumph like this. I saw in a flash the -shamefulness of spite, the folly of all revenge. - -We tried to lift her up. She was too heavy, especially as she resisted, -at first dully and then with vigour. I stepped over her body on to the -second stair. When I knelt down and began pulling at her shoulder she -struck me with her fist and set up a shriek of "Murder!" The sudden -noise deterred us. With tipsy cunning she noticed this, and followed up -her success; shrieking "Murder!" again and again like a thing demented. - -In the middle of pandemonium the front door knocker sounded. -Grandmother was on the other side of Aunt Jael, and went to see who it -might be. It was the curate from the Parish Church, who had recently -come to live next door, No. 6 The Lawn. We had never spoken to him and -hardly knew his name. - -"Er--umph--Madam, I trust you will excuse me; but we--er--fancied there -was some trouble in your house. We _heard_ something, Mrs. White and I, -and I wondered if I could--er--perhaps _help_ in any way." - -"Yes, sir, you could," said my Grandmother. "Come in. My sister has had -a seizure. She's not herself at all. My grandchild and I haven't the -strength between us to lift her upstairs to bed. You'll kindly help us? -Come along the hall to the foot of the stairs. This way, will you?" - -I prayed inwardly that he would not discover the truth, but as he bent -down to take Aunt Jael's shoulder I noticed the slightest twitch of -his nostrils followed immediately by an involuntary I-thought-as-much -expression which he instantly concealed. - -It was a memorable journey upstairs. How she writhed and punched and -struck and spat and shrieked. Somehow we got her there and somehow we -laid her on the bed. - -We went downstairs to show the Reverend Mr. White out. "I shall -be discretion itself," he volunteered meaningly. I saw a shade of -annoyance on Grandmother's face; she had not noticed that he had -noticed. - -When we returned upstairs after the Reverend Mr. White had gone we -found her bedroom door locked. For no entreaty would she let us in. -Later on my Grandmother pleaded earnestly to let her take her in some -food. There was no reply. All through the night her door remained -locked; I tried it half a dozen times. Next morning we could do no -better. With the infinite resources of her cupboard she had of course -enough to eat; but--this was our anxiety--she had far too much to drink -also. There was a bottle of sherry, but as far as I remembered not more -than an inch or two of brandy in the current bottle. Still our fears -were of the darkest. - -By Tuesday dinner-time our anxiety had reached a climax. In a few -minutes the Clinkers would arrive. Grandmother had half a mind to send -me round to tell them not to come; decided that this would be likelier -to excite suspicion than letting them come in the ordinary way, and -telling them that Jael was not well enough to appear. - -At half-past one sounded the immemorial rat-tat-tat. Salvation was -first. She rushed in and flung her arms round my Grandmother's neck. - -"Oh, my pore 'Annah, what a trial! Pore dear Jael. Who'd 'a' thought -it?" Her teeth shone. She wheezed unwelcome sympathy. - -"Salvation," asked my Grandmother sternly, "who told you?" - -"Aw my dear, 'tis the talk uv th' town. Brother Obadiah Tizzard came to -see Glory this mornin' as 'e sometimes does uv a mornin' to discourse -on 'oly things, an' 'e told _us_ jis what 'is servant, ole Jenny Fippe, -'ad to'd _'im_. 'Er 'ad it from 'er young niece who's friendly like -with a young man who sings in the choir, or whatever 'tis they caals' -it, at the parish church, 'im havin' been to'd by the passon 'imself, -who lives next door to you, who say 'e were called in 'ere by most -_'orrible_ shrieks, so Brother Obadiah says Jenny says, and 'e see'd -pore dear Jael in a _turrible_ way, wavin' a bottle o' brandy in one -'and an' poundin' 'is face till 'twere all a pulp of blood with the -other. 'You've got a wrong story this time, Brother Obadiah Tizzard,' I -says, 'Jael Vickary is my oldest friend and the soberest woman in North -Devon. 'Tis all a passel O' lies, Brother Obadiah, you mark my words,' -says I, didn't I, Glory, says I? Aw my pore dear Jael, she's in bed -maybe. Take me to 'er, 'Annah." - -"No," said my Grandmother very firmly. "What you heard is very much -more than the truth, and you'll please me to keep a quiet tongue in -your head about it a bit better than the parson did. But she's not -well, and you're not to see her." - -It was a constrained gathering that afternoon; our godly discussion -halted lamely at times. We were all relieved when Grandmother went into -the kitchen rather earlier than usual to prepare tea. While she was out -of the room, I heard Aunt Jael's door open: Grandmother had left the -dining-room door open. I did not know for a moment what to do, whether -to rush upstairs to prevent Aunt Jael descending, or fly into the -kitchen to warn Grandmother, when it might be too late. I did nothing. -The three of us sat in breathless silence as she stumped downstairs, -and watched with open mouths and breathless excitement till a horrible -bird-like apparition in night-cap and gown came in. Her eyes were still -bloodshot, but she was different from yesterday; merry-maudlin, not -vicious drunk. Fortunately, as I had judged, there had been very little -more brandy, and she had had recourse to wine. She pranced up to her -visitors, chuckling idiotically. - -"Good day to 'ee Salvation, Good day to 'ee Glory!" She chucked them -under the chin, dug them slyly in the ribs, tweaked their solemn ears. -She had a look of beatific idiocy on her red beaky old face, and a -tipsy laugh broken by stalwart hiccoughs. - -"You'm thinkin'--hic--I'm tipsy. Nothin'--hic--of the kin'--'Tis a very -goo'--hic--imitashun, a very goo'--hic--imitashun." - -She seized a couple of forks from the table, which I had just finished -laying for tea, took one in each fist and began to perform a series -of dumb-bell exercises, alternating one movement up with both arms, -one forward, and one to the sides, giggling and chuckling inanely the -while. She looked like a performing parrot dressed in white. For a -few moments Glory, Salvation and I had been undecided whether to take -the performance as tragedy or farce. Suddenly we all began laughing -together, and were soon giggling as uncontrollably as Aunt Jael herself. - -She tired of the dumb-bell exercises, threw down the forks and cried -out "Come on now, letsh have a game." Before we knew where we were -the four of us were whirling round and round in the space between the -table and the fireplace, singing "Ring a ring of roses," like the four -lunatics and godly Plymouth Sisters that we were. Three of us were -eighty years old and the fourth not yet eighteen. At the high tide of -the bacchanal we became suddenly and stupidly aware that Grandmother -was at the door; sane, inexorable, watching us. We parted hands lamely. -Aunt Jael, dizzy and without support, tottered back against the -firegrate and would have fallen headlong had I not rushed forward just -in time to save her. - -"She's a good li'l girl, Hannah, after all; she's a good li'l girl. -Give her something, give her--" - -"Give her what then?" said my Grandmother, wishing to humour her. - -"Five poundsh, my dear, and a new shuit of clothes!" - - -The Aunt Jael that rose months later from her sick bed was not the -demented wretch of that tipsy summer; rather the old one I knew, but -with memory and will and voice and authority all weaker. The great -domineerer had passed into her dotage; was but the valiant wreck of an -autocrat. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV: PROSPECTS - - -I left the Misses Primps' at the end of the summer term of 1865; I was -in my eighteenth year. - -My Grandmother told me that Lord Tawborough was looking around for -"a good opening" for me. The interval of waiting was to be spent -perfecting my French and music, and I was to begin Italian with Miss -le Mesurier. Uncertainty sent my fancies and ambitions in disorderly -riot through the whole gamut of possibilities and impossibilities; -transported me to every county in turn, from Cornwall to Caithness, -to every manner of dwelling, from palaces to pagodas. Sometimes -I saw myself with a tyrant for taskmistress--Aunt Jael to the -_n_th--sometimes employed by Fairy Godmother or Lady Bountiful. - -Somewhere about New Year of 1866, Lord Tawborough wrote. He had -obtained, he thought, an excellent opening for me, and would visit us -at once to communicate it. This news brought me to a high pitch of -excitement, which culminated on the day he came. - -I was to go to France!--as companion rather than governess to a French -girl a year or two younger than myself; to perfect her English, and -talk English also with an elder sister who was about my own age. The -two girls lived with their widowed mother in a big château in Normandy, -though part of the year was spent in the family house in Paris. Lord -Tawborough and his father before him had had friendly relations with -the family, which was old, illustrious and wealthy. I should meet the -best type of French people, and have the opportunity of perfecting my -own French. I should be kept, of course, and receive a salary of four -hundred francs (sixteen pounds) a year. - -As he unfolded this gorgeous prospect I was ravished with delight. -Foreign Lands! Normandy! Châteaux! Paris! But Grandmother--why was she -looking doubtful, unmoved? - -"Papists?" she asked him, keenly. - -"They are Roman Catholics." This as though somehow a palliative. - -My heart stopped. I scented battle. Lord Tawborough counter-attacked -before the forces of objection could muster. - -"Yes, Mrs. Lee: Papists, of course, like nearly all French people. But -what an opportunity for Mary! If she could help them to a better way, -it would be achieving more than to convert a hundred heathen!" - -His tongue was in his cheek. Conscience called: Denounce his lies! -Ambition urged furiously: Keep silence! My heart was throbbing, as -the battle of selves raged within. I saw that Grandmother took his -false words in good faith: Ambition was the winning-side and stifled -Conscience utterly. - -"True," said my Grandmother, and accepted with sober gratitude. Aunt -Jael grunted warmer approval. I thanked him with tears of pleasure. - -Details were arranged. I was to go in April, a few weeks after my -eighteenth birthday. There was never any direct correspondence; -Lord Tawborough made all arrangements. Towards my expenses he gave -five pounds, which Grandmother most furiously spent in "a new shuit -of clothes." In all I had three new dresses, the finest I had ever -possessed; I had no suspicion of how dowdy they might look in my new -surroundings. Lord Tawborough, however, to whom Aunt Jael proudly -displayed them, must have had the gravest suspicions, for in spite of -resistance he sent me to the best dressmaker in the town for a white -silk "evening" dress, and to the ladies' tailor in Boutport Street for -a smart new riding-habit. For parting-present Aunt Jael gave me a set -of bone-backed hair-brushes; Glory and Salvation a pair of kid gloves -and a silk scarf; Pentecost Dodderidge a New Testament with an original -hymn inscribed in the title page; Mrs. Cheese a plain gold brooch -and green parasol, the Meeting a magnificent French Bible in limp -red morocco, which was presented to me publicly at my last Breaking -of Bread; Brother Browning a Scotch travelling rug; my Grandmother -a photograph of my mother I had often begged for and cried over and -kissed. - - * * * * * * * - -Let me put down what I was like at this moment of leaving the old life. - -I was of average height, but slight build: a frail inconspicuous -figure, with small limbs, neatly made perhaps, if too thin for -shapeliness. I looked so young for my age that when only a day or two -before my departure I first put my hair up, there was a ridiculous -contrast between the adult austere bun--Victorian fashion, at the back, -lumpy, far-protruding--and the fifteen-year-old face. Or so I thought, -laughing into the mirror. My appearance was one of the few things I was -not vain of--not yet--or I should have wept rather than laughed: ugly -straight rebellious hair; eyes between green and grey-green, weak and -often sore; a short pointed and unpleasant nose. On the other hand, a -shapely well-cut mouth, and my mother's delicate complexion. When not -tearful and sulky, my habitual expression was one of Quakerish meekness -and demureness, wholly natural and wholly unconscious: at any rate -now, and until the Serpent showed me that in this quakerishness lay a -species of attraction. - -On the whole I kept a silent tongue in my head; was voluble only -before an audience: Lord Tawborough, or the girls at school whom -I regaled with Aunt Jael, or (most important) myself, my oldest -audience. My manners were of a piece with my appearance: meek, -nervous, old-fashioned, though very "grown-up," in odd contrast with -my appearance. Here also I discovered later there lurked an asset, an -attracting quality. - -Perhaps I was clever. It was a woman's cleverness, sureness not of -intellect but of intuition, coupled with an uncanny judgment in matters -where my own emotions were at stake or in the motives and actions of -others. No. 8 Bear Lawn and No. 1 The Quay were my forcing-beds. I -was incapable of connected thought as opposed to connected emotion, -and I had no haziest notion of science or logic or business affairs. -My two possessions were an imagination so vivid that I saw, at once, -_physically_ and with a perfect clearness of outline, whatever I -thought of, and a memory so retentive, alike for facts and faces, that -I can fairly describe it as one of the two or three best I have ever -known. - -There was a good deal of knowledge in my head: a lob-sided mass. What -I knew, if usual for my age, was much less remarkable than what I did -not know. My three special acquirements were: first, an intimate -acquaintance with the Word of God that is hardly conceivable today and -was rare even fifty years ago. Second, excellent French: the new life -would give me the practice to make perfect. Third, the knowledge of -history I had picked up in my French reading. Novels, romances, poetry, -were all forbidden; except therefore for Huguenot works, devotional and -doctrinal, with which Miss le Mesurier had bravely persevered, we were -forced to fall back exclusively on history. - -I re-produced the drama of history on a gigantic stage, as wide as -Time, and cast myself for all the leading rôles. Here again the old -handicap of sex enraged me: even though it was all make-believe, -yet for me, a woman, to live again the deeds of _men_, was but -make-believe. Almost all the best parts had been taken by men; women -were slaves, nobodies; unwanted, oppressed; man's victim--or audience. -I delighted all the more to read of those few women who, at moments -throughout the centuries, had held the stage: Joan of Arc, Isabella of -Castile, Elizabeth Tudor, Elizabeth Farnese. I took a pleasure no man -could understand in reflecting that among the monarchs of England, no -less than five were queens-regnant. The most extreme delight lay in -the deeds of tyrant women. When I read of Queen Cleopatra or Empress -Catherine lording it over their subjects--_men_--dealing out sensual -cruelties and senseless barbarities to _men_--riding roughshod over -the pride and power of _men_--I exulted, breathed hard for joy. It -was an instinct stronger than will, some atavistic legacy; against -my own tastes, too, for in my experience--wide in imagination if -pitifully narrow in fact--I liked men better than women; against my -religion also. This I discovered at the Misses Primps', when we were -doing English history. I found that the great Marian burnings of -the Protestants, with whom alike as Plymouth Sister and human being -I sympathized, gave me at one and the same time a feeling of evil -exaltation, inasmuch as it was a _woman_, albeit Bloody Mary, who had -the power to send hundreds of _men_ to the stake. In the great Malagasy -persecution of my own day, my burning sympathy with the Christian -martyrs hurled over the vulture-haunted rock of Ambohipotsy was stifled -by a brutal lilting pleasure that the persecutor was a queen, a woman. -Cleopatra, Catherine, Mary Tudor, Ranavalona, all these, however bad -and cruel, had striven to redress the balance of wrong which was at all -times weighted against their sex and mine. - -The Bible, Brethren Theology, French, some history; that was the -sum-total of what I knew. What I did not know was much more remarkable. -Nothing of art, fiction, poetry, romance; never a word of Shakespeare, -Scott, Milton; nothing of contemporary books or events or persons; not -even the names of Palmerston, Bright, Disraeli, Dickens, Thackeray, -Tennyson. I did just know that the Duke of Wellington was dead, that a -war somehow concerned with negro slaves was raging across the Atlantic, -and that a new Napoleon reigned in France. I had never been to any form -of lecture, concert, or entertainment, nor into any normal household -of healthy young people. Fireside games, the ordinary interests of -girlhood, the hundred happinesses of family life were all unknown. I -had never seen a newspaper, touched a pack of cards, nor smelt tobacco. - -My character was what these twenty-three chapters should have -displayed. If it had not shown the steady development of a normal life, -still less of a novelist's creation, it was because my circumstances -and surroundings did not change or enlarge in ordinarily gradual -fashion. My life was a stringing-together of certain special events and -outstanding memories--Beetle, Benamuckee, fear that the world would -end, knowledge of how life began, the terrible epoch of Torribridge, -Baptism, Brandy--each of which had brought suddenly a new series of -emotions. Fundamentally I changed little. At eighteen I was as at -eight, only "more so"; my hates and hopes were vivider. On the whole I -was less unhappy than in my early childhood. The reason was that I had -come to visualize and daydream more in the future than in the past; to -hope more than to regret. But always I was lonely. - -The experience of divine companionship had not made me want human -love less. Self-absorbed to mania, I yet wanted nothing so much as to -merge my individuality and dissolve my self in a loved being. Loving -myself, my supreme hope was some one I could love more. The some one -was ordained unalterably, and day and night alike my thoughts were -of Robbie--my Robbie; i. e., the real Robbie up to seven years ago, -and a creation of my own fashioning since. On Christmas Nights, I -had him about as near and as physical as ever, though never near nor -real enough for my need, never the comfort of flesh and blood and of -perfect spiritual contact for which I hungered and waited. I feared the -waiting might be long. Instinct left no doubt that one day we should -meet, and mate, and marry; but forbade that I should try to force the -event or seek to discover where he might be or how I might come upon -him. Temptation overcame me during one rare visit of Aunt Martha's; -she knew, however, nothing. Yet why need I worry? As sure as heaven or -hell he would come to me. I had earned love; for all my long unhappy -motherless young life Robbie was my requital. So much did I believe -also in the complementary doctrine of an Envious Power that I was -half-frightened at the success and pleasure the new life abroad seemed -to promise. Surely I should have to pay for it, perhaps by losing -Robbie. God gets even. - -Other doubts assailed. Might it not all be a mad vision? Did Robbie -still remember me as I him, live for me as I for him? Was it he -himself--in his own bed, wherever it was--who came to me, to be with -me, on the anniversaries of our embrace; or was it my own intense -longing and imagination that created the appearance of his presence, -which might exist in my mind only and not in his? No! the experience -was too magical not to be real. He remembered me, visited me, and -one day in plain reality would come to claim me. But again--when he -came--would love be a complete and perfect thing? Was perfect love -possible? Should I be able to mingle my tired and fearful soul for ever -and utterly in his, confide in him the utmost secret of my being, lose -myself--my Self--in him; and, one soul in two bodies, affront together -the terrors of Eternity? "It is not possible," leered Doubt. "Your soul -must stand alone; no love can break down the barrier of its eternal -isolation. _You are alone for ever._" - -Then Doubt gave place to Hope, and I fell to enjoying the security -and peace of giving myself to him, all my love, my fears: one soul in -two bodies, clasped in each other's arms. Pride would second Hope. -Robbie would be great, famous, honoured: a warrior, poet, statesman--I -favoured each in turn. I would shine in his reflected glory. I felt no -discontent at this secondary rôle, and reverting to the true type of -a woman's megalomania, built not for myself but for my boy a hundred -splendid futures. - -I had other ambitions: to see the world, live in new houses, meet -wonderful people; to do well in life, become powerful, famous; somehow, -anyhow--through fame as Robbie's wife, as ambassadress perhaps or, in -madder moments, queen. Then there was the old desert-island business, -in which as a female Robinson Crewjoe I was to burst with _panache_ -of ostrich feathers and panoply of fame on an astonished world. Or I -would see myself Tzarina--Mary the Great, Empress and Autocrat of All -the Russias, Queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Finland, etc., etc., -etc.; or Queen of Spain; or Anywhere. Never, mind you, the mere idle -castle-in-the-air builder! Every detail of the steps by which I was -to scale these megalomanic heights was worked out in my mind; every -moment of agony, labour, deception, experienced in my heart. My first -gesture in success--I sometimes tried to deceive myself it was my chief -object--was to do good, succour the poor, spread the Gospel, lead poor -darkened Russia or poor heathen Spain from the false gods of Byzantium -or Rome to my own true God of Plymouth--and the Taw. A sop to God for -letting me succeed. - -If I could not change this natural bent of egotism in my imaginings, I -was able by prayer and Resolutions to curb my selfishness in the things -of daily life. My Grandmother's example helped. Whenever she did an -unselfish deed I should have thought to do myself, I flushed quickly -with shame, and was readier for the next occasion. In every written -Resolution "Do unto others" came to figure first. - -Nor did Ambition fill all my visualizings. As often as creating these -mad fantastic events that _might_ happen, I was creating the exact -shape and setting of various events that _had_ to happen. My arrival -at the Château, how Madame la Comtesse and her daughter would greet -me, my bedroom, the details of my daily work: all these were envisaged -a hundred times with a hundred variations. Aunt Jael's death; when, -how, why?--Should I be summoned from France for the funeral, if it -happened while I was abroad?--My feelings, my anticipated sentimental -looking-back as though she was dead already: "Poor Aunt Jael, she was -hard and cruel at times, _but still_--" My softening towards her for a -few days. (It is no bad plan, indeed, always to treat our fellow-beings -with the same respect living as we should give them dead.) Or -Grandmother's death: and my far-off return to England; or my own death, -and the first few moments after death. - -The three things I pictured and lived through more often than any -others were three meetings that I knew lay somewhere before me in the -path of real life. Two would be meetings-again, the other a first -encounter. - -Robbie. Uncle Simeon. My Father. - -Dramatic scenes of these three encounters I worked out a hundred times -with the fullest details of time, place and setting: the luxury of -first moments, the splendour or scorn of the respective dénouements. I -knew what I should say first. I framed every word of the conversation -that followed, experienced every phase of joy, melodrama and hate. How -far the realities resembled the anticipations; and how far Instinct was -right in telling me--against all appearance--that I was approaching -these three inevitable events by going to France, the sequel will show. - - * * * * * * * - -I have called myself worldly. It is true, except that the one reality -to which through all agonies I held was not of this world at all. At -moments when my mood could summon no happiness from the past nor hope -from the future, I had always a last refuge-place in the ineffable Love -of God, as I had felt it once and for all in one miraculous instant. I -knew it was more real than the world around me or than the fears of my -own mind; as the supernatural was more real than the natural, the thing -intuitively felt than the fact ascertained, magic than reason. I could -seek refuge from trouble in a state of magical divine consciousness, in -which, at perfect moments, I lost all sense of time and space and self, -all physical sensation, all power to think--everything but Love. I was -a soul only, the soul of all the world. I ceased to be anything. I was -everything. I was God and God was I. - -I attained this state chiefly by passionate prayer. Sometimes, however, -the trance came upon me quite involuntarily. Some notion or idea or -word threw me before I knew into a transport of delight. Chalcedony, -Jerusalem, rosemary, tribulation: the sound of these words filled me -with exquisite and supernatural sensations. I would clasp my breasts, -close my eyes, and open my heart passionately to the presence of God. - -On a lower plane were my trick-methods of attaining mystical -sensation: staring at myself or kissing myself in the mirror, crooning -an everlasting "I--I--I" or calling aloud my own name for echoes. -Different again--a superstitious offshoot of intuition--were my signs, -omens, fetishes, lucky numbers. If I could walk to Meeting in exactly a -lucky number of paces, I knew the service would be specially blessed to -me; and inevitably it was. The distance I could cover in running across -a field and counting say seventy-seven was the exact measure, thus -magically conveyed to me, of a property or estate which would one day -be mine. If a lucky number came my way of its own initiative, it was -an omen of unusual import. Thus when I learnt that the Paris house of -my French family was No. 77 Rue St. Eloy, I was certain of high times -thereat. - -In all Mrs. Cheese's superstitions, ranging from West Country -witchcraft to the happiness of horseshoes or lucklessness of ladders, -I believed without reserve. I practised Bible-opening, which was about -the only superstition of my Grandmother's. The first verse that caught -the eye--or, in my rite, the most heavily red-chalked passage, or, -failing that, a verse seven or thirty-seven--had a special God-sent -message for the moment's need. - -Having discovered the (for me) supernatural nature of the world, my -mistake was to press my discovery too far. I was in danger of believing -that I could do anything, however omnipotent or divine, if I only knew -the trick; conjure up any supreme sensation, open the door of all power -and mystery and pleasure, if I but found the Open Sesame. I sought for -the catchword which would destroy all Existence; am seeking it still. - - * * * * * * * - -Real things that happened did not approach the reality of my -supernatural experience until they had been brooded upon a while in -my heart, until my thoughts and passions had imbued them with life. -At the actual moment of great occurrences--Uncle Simeon's threats, -Aunt Jael's curses, Lord Tawborough's great proposal--I deliberately -prevented myself receiving the full emotional effect. Later, alone with -myself, I re-lived the scene, and took my fill of rage, bitterness, -pride, delight. Thus any event affected me much more after it had -happened than at the time. The instant anger with which Aunt Jael's -blow filled me was nothing to the brooding rage and revengefulness of -the next day. The pang of unavoidable shame with which Conscience smote -me when I did a mean or cowardly deed was as nothing to the agony of -self-scorn I underwent when some long-past meanness of mine returned -to my memory--as new and naked as the meanness of some one else. This -whole childhood of mine is more vivid than when I lived it. - -If past events were more real than present ones, future ones were the -most vivid of all. The past is imagination and memory working together. -The future is imagination pure. The past was Aunt Jael, floggings, -dreariness, tears; Uncle Simeon, terror, cruelty; a childhood cowering, -loveless. The future was joy, in a hundred wonderful shapes--Robbie, -somehow, some time; noble ladies, châteaux of France; visions of -history, splendour and romance; a fairy land of fame, pleasure and -glory--peopled, permeated, queened by Mary Lee. For the last few weeks -at home my soul lived at Bear Lawn no longer. Morning, noon and night, -sleeping and waking, I dwelt in the imaginary land. - - -Four days before I left I closed my diary and handed it, a -sealing-waxed parcel of exercise-books, to my Grandmother. This was the -last entry:-- - - - During the past year or two the Lord has been exceeding good to - me. Fortune has been unusual--for any one. When I started this - volume of my Diary, I was at the Misses Primps', with no prospects - at all of anything _high_; no hope. And now, I am becoming a lady - (almost); and I am going to France, la belle France! Life is - mysterious, and God is good.... In my inward life, too, I started - this book in the throes of the fiercest fear I have even known. - Terror, appallment, awe of the Lord God and His eternal years; all - these assailed me so that I thought I should never stand free. Am - happier now: slowly yet surely, the fullness of earthly life, the - new hopes springing in my heart, the final though hard acceptance - of the truth that it is useless for me (finite Mary) to measure - the length and breadth and age of God, and most of all that - precious memory of His Holy Spirit, that I can ever invoke in all - sorrowful times,--all these have brought me to be able to do what - my Grandmother does, and to _Trust in the Lord_. - - Life moves mysteriously. It is that walk near Torribridge years - ago, when I met the Stranger, that is taking me to France now. And - somehow, some time--I don't know how, but I _know_--France will - take me back to Torribridge--to R. Shall I meet him in the foreign - land? I do not know. But he is coming. All my love is poured out on - the only boy-image that has ever interested me; all my passion I - have bestowed on one shape only, on my Image, my R.--tenderness and - tears, and meeting lips and bodies; and he takes me in his arms. - How I long to see him! that I may know his identity with my Image - of him, to know for always and ever that the Robbie I live with - and live for is the real eighteen-year-old Robbie who--God make it - so!--lives for me. - - Now Bear Lawn is behind me, and all is new and wonderful ahead: - _happiness is coming_. Good bye Grandmother dear! This is the end - of my girlhood's book; one day I may find joy--and sadness--in - reading it. - - MARY LEE. - - April, 1865. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV: I SAY GOOD-BYE - - -The last day arrived, a bright showery Sunday in April. I was to leave -early next morning. Lord Tawborough would see me as far as Southampton. - -At my last Breaking of Bread many allusions were made in prayer to my -departure for foreign lands. If I was not going there avowedly in His -service, none the less let His service be my chief aim and effort. I -worshipped devoutly. This might be the last Lord's Supper of which -I should ever partake. The Lord's People in France were the merest -handful; there were not more than four Meetings in all the Empire, of -which not one, Grandmother had ascertained, was in Paris or the north -or any part I was likely to be near. And I might be abroad three or -four years without a holiday in England. - -Now that at last my hopes and ambitions were being fulfilled, sadness -and regret were uppermost. The old life I knew so well, the present -in which I had still one day to live, already seemed far behind me. I -looked back in the anticipatorily retrospective fashion of all who live -in the future; and to whom, living in the future, the present is always -already the past. - -Already Bear Lawn was the past, decked with a pathos that as the -present it had never worn. - -The last dinner was a goodly spread: a roast fowl, a hog's pudding, and -apple dumplings with clotted cream. Glory and Salvation were invited. -The latter slobbered noisily of how she would miss me; I realized with -a sudden sentimental pang that, after all, it might be true. Glory -wept till the tears streamed down her cheeks on to her untidy bodice; -I watched with a feeling of guilt for her sorrow and the increasing -shamefulness of her blouse. - -The last night was full of odd pauses and silences. Aunt Jael kept -looking at me and looking away quickly when I looked back. She tried to -keep up an appearance of stoicism and sternness, and knew that she was -failing. At the last moment she gave up all pretence. In my emotional -mood, she seemed to atone for years of hardness when she turned sharply -away from the Book of Proverbs at which her Bible opened--it was real -sacrifice--and chose for the nightly portion my 137th Psalm. I thought -of that dismal first night at Torribridge so many years ago. - -Later on, at my bedside, my Grandmother prayed a long devoted prayer. -"Oh Lord Jesus! How my old heart aches when I am sometimes tempted -to fear that she may be unworthy of that Saint who sits with Thee, -her dear dear mother. Grant that in foreign lands and the cities of -the plain she may shun the ungodly and flee from all worldliness and -evil. Grant, Oh Lord, that we three may meet together in Thine Own -everlasting arms. For Jesus' sake." - -Next morning I was up betimes. Mrs. Cheese, red-eyed and tearful, -helped me cord my box. "I daun knaw what we shall do without 'ee, my -dear. Even the ol' biddy is sorrowful, though she's not enough of a -Christian to fancy showin' it." - -The last moment came. We had finished breakfast. I was dressed for the -journey, and my brass-nailed box was ready in the hall. We awaited the -sound of Lord Tawborough's carriage. - -Aunt Jael epitomized. - -"Well, child, you're at your eighteenth year and you're doing well in -life. I'm sure I don't grudge it 'ee. Your poor mother would have been -a proud woman to see you going off like this to a good post among fine -folk; but don't think as much of folk being fine and grand as she did, -poor soul. All is vanity. Keep lowly. Don't let your head be turned -because a fine lord is seeing you on your way to a life amid foreign -lords and ladies: they're no better than humbler folk before the Lord -and not often as good. Profit all you can. Never be ashamed of those -who brought you up. Maybe 'twill be three or four years before we see -you. A long time when we're old and within sight of the grave. Maybe -you'll never see us again." - -"Oh no, Aunt Jael!" - -"Why not?" said my Grandmother, "'tis as likely as not true. Ye know -not the day nor the hour." (The door knocker sounded.) "Come kiss me -good-bye and remember I shall tell her you're following after. Love the -Lord always." - - -I hold in my mind the last vision of Bear Lawn: Aunt Jael and my -Grandmother standing at the gate of Number Eight, Mrs. Cheese behind -weeping in the doorway. I turned round in the carriage and waved my -hand. I got a last glimpse of my Grandmother and Great-Aunt and saw -them turn round and begin to walk back along the garden path. I saw -them after they had ceased to see me. That was the real instant of -parting. - -On the long journey I said little to my companion; wrapped up in -myself and my own thoughts. Some of the way I slept. When we got to -Southampton docks, and my last Good-bye in England was but a few -minutes ahead I remembered with the greater shame and vividness (that -throughout the long journey I had forgotten it) to whom it was I owed -all the bright prospects before me, how needlessly good and generous -he had always been, and how utterly unworthy of his goodness and -generosity I was. - -"Sir," I said, and my voice was shaky, "I don't know how to thank you -for all you have done for me. I've no money, no power, no anything. -But if there's anything I can make or send you to remember me by--if -there's anything at all I can do--Is there anything?" - -"Yes: Kiss me." - -He spoke in a low voice. I trembled with sudden emotion and surprise. -Then I kissed him on the cheeks, and he kissed me. - -There were two old ladies standing near by; "Brother and sister," we -overheard one of them say. - -"That's it, isn't it?" I said. - -He did not reply. - -There was one more moment before I had to go on to the boat. I noticed -with a new interest--reviewing with staring inquisition every detail -of his face--how good and clever and refined and aristocratic he was; -how more than all he seemed sad and hankering and lonely. I could not -help apprehending after what had happened--but then, no, that was too -absurd. It was but a natural thing to have asked at a parting. - -"Au revoir," he said in a last handshake, "but not Adieu." - -It was dusk as we sailed out of Southampton Water. England was a fading -piece of purple sky, lying low upon the sea; sprinkled with stars, for -the harbour lights were showing. As she faded away I knew that she too -belonged to the past. - -I went to sleep in my bunk, and awoke in the bright sunshine of France -and the future. - - - - -PART TWO - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI: CHATEAU VILLEBECQ - - -There came into view a shining white mansion, massive, square-looking, -three-storied, pierced with high windows and covered like a mosaic with -newly-painted white Venetian shutters. A dream-house, gleaming against -a background of fresh greensward and dark yew-trees. "It is not real," -I said half-aloud, and mystery banished disappointment. For I had -pictured battlements, towers, drawbridges: had thought that "château" -meant "castle." - -Nothing that day had been quite real. Perhaps it was the hot spring -weather. Or the over-wideawakeness that followed a sleepless night--ah, -Channel steamboat, stirrings of body and soul, desperate illness -creating more desperate resolves to be good, prayers of "Not _this_ -time, God, and I'll be pure, holy!" renewed with each sickening lurch. -Or the inevitable first-day mystery of the foreign land. - -I had been met at Havre quay-side by a silent crafty little man in -black, with a face like Punch and a head (when with un-English gesture -he removed his hat) as smooth and bald as an egg. - -"I am François," was all he vouchsafed. - -I addressed him in French; he did not seem to understand, shook his -head vaguely and made no reply. A ridiculous fear seized me that I did -not know French at all, that Miss le Mesurier's lessons had been one -mighty sham, false lessons in some goblin tongue. - -Or was I dreaming? All the way along the busy quay, amid clamouring -porters, gesticulating cabmen, and marionette-like crowds, through -unfamiliar streets, and in an unbelievable railway train, a sense of -dreaming had persisted. - -The carriage drew up in front of the great doorway. François, by signs, -explained that he was entrusted with my luggage. A little woman came -out on to the steps of the porch to greet me, smiling ingratiatingly. -She was a tiny, shrivelled thing, with bulgy eyes and a high receding -forehead ridged with careworn lines, the whole dominated by an -enormous nose: a human dormouse dressed in black. Despite its harassed -air, the face was kind; her age might be fifty. The housekeeper, I -surmised. She shook hands effusively. - -"Good day, Mademoiselle, so you are here." - -"Yes, Madame." - -"You are tired. Come upstairs. I will show you your room." - -My relief at finding that the French I had learnt was real after all, -was less strong than a sudden feeling of fright--religious fright, -for God speaks only English--before the blasphemous oddness of the -thing. After all, my conversations with Miss le Mesurier had only been -for conversation's sake: by way of learning the trick. But this real -talking, this conducting of life's actual business in the foreign -jargon!--(I prayed swiftly to know. "Little fool," replied God, _in -French_.) - -I followed the little old lady into a lofty hall, very cool after the -heat outside, a cold and stately place. Doors opened out of it on every -side, surmounted with antlers. On the walls I saw armour, old swords, -banners. We mounted a broad staircase with walls covered in tapestries. -A mighty staircase. Majesty filled me. - -"Here is your bedroom," said the little lady, "and this door leads -through to your study or boudoir, call it what you like. I hope you -will like them both." - -"They are beautiful!" I cried, and my heart beat faster as I surveyed -the bright bedchamber, the bed-hangings in rose-coloured chintz, the -elegant boudoir with book-case and writing-desk and walls covered with -portraits and miniatures and little racks for cups and vases--all for -me. My heart exulted in contrasts. Oh, now I was a lady! - -"You will want to wash your hands. I shall wait for you. I am so -glad you have come. Your presence--that is your arrival--it gives -me pleasure.... Now come downstairs to luncheon to be introduced to -us all. They will be so delighted to see you, dear Mademoiselle, my -daughters--" - -"Then you are--" - -"Madame de Florian." - -"The Countess! Oh a thousand pardons!" - -What an un-Brethren-like phrase. And what a bad beginning. - -She sniggered, was immensely tickled. "Ha! Ha! You thought I was a -servant." - -"Oh no! Not really--" - -"Oh yes you did. And that does not surprise me. My daughters have -always told me I look like an old family servant: this will amuse -them so. Now come along to luncheon. One thing," she whispered -confidentially as she opened the bedroom door, "before you begin with -my daughters we must have a little talk together about them both, and -what each had best read with you. Ah, they are so different, Elise and -Suzanne: one would not think them sisters. What anxiety it all gives -me!" - -And she knitted her brows and half closed her eyes in an expression of -exaggerated care I thought more comical than sad. - -The Countess led the way down the great staircase. In place of a door -the dining-room had high hanging curtains. We passed through them into -by far the largest room I had ever seen. The floor was of polished -wood; there were no rugs or carpets. In each distant corner was a -complete suit of armour; all along the walls stood massive and stately -pieces of furniture. In the middle of this huge apartment, like an -island surrounded by an ocean of bare floor, was a table at which were -seated four persons: two young ladies, a gentleman and a little old -woman. - -All four stared at me with unconcealed interest. Introductions left me -in a maze; I was too self-conscious to hear names, far too full of the -fact that I was being introduced to them to concentrate on their being -introduced to me. Then for the next few minutes I was too busy trying -to eat and drink aristocratically, acquiring slyly the new ritual of -forks and spoons, posing modestly for five pairs of eyes, to hazard -my own stare-round. Of the conversation, which was conducted almost -exclusively by the Countess and her younger daughter Suzanne, and which -concerned some peasant marriage in the district, I found after the -first few moments that I understood almost everything. The food was as -delicious as it was unfamiliar. There was an omelette with rich little -crusts in it, and a venison-stew with olives. - -Towards the end of the meal I found courage to take the offensive and -look round. With pretence of unawareness that was pitiful to see, all -immediately arranged themselves to be gazed at: except the elder girl -Elise, who faced me with equal eye. - -At the head of the table sat the Countess, full of asides to the -butler, and peering remorselessly at everybody's plate. When you took a -portion of a dish she watched anxiously, to appraise quantity. - -On her right, nearly opposite me, sat a tall dark gentleman. With his -pointed little beard, suave voice and exaggerated manners, I decided he -was a villain: a true French villain. I disliked him at once: his eyes -told me he knew it, and they reciprocated. His hard eyes (though dark -instead of blue), identical beard (though black instead of yellow), -treacly eyes and cat-like gesture, all reminded me of Uncle Simeon. -I soon learnt that his name was de Fouquier; he was a cousin of the -late Count's and steward for the family estates. Like the Count, he -had played some part in the coup d'état which had placed the reigning -Emperor on the throne. He spent most of the year at the Château, living -as one of the family. - -Next to him, and immediately opposite me was my principal charge, -Mademoiselle Suzanne: a big healthy young woman, a few months -younger than myself, but a year or two older in appearance. She was -fair-haired, big-featured and bright-eyed. A large mouth with full -red lips proclaimed her sister to Maud--and daughter to Eve. She was -lively, kind and perhaps stupid. She was always laughing. - -At the end of the table, facing the Countess and immediately on my -left, sat Mademoiselle Elise, the elder daughter. She was unhealthily -pale; her eyes were fixed-looking, with dark rims underneath, as -though she hardly slept. The oddest feature was the forehead, high and -of a marble whiteness that made the blue veins stand out. There was -something cross and soured in her expression: also something miserable -that reminded me of myself--the first condition of sympathy. - -Finally, beside me, and on the Countess' left, sat a wizened little -woman, a tinier edition of the tiny Countess, but sallower, uglier and -sharper-featured: ferret rather than dormouse. A pair of enormous blue -spectacles enabled her to observe without being observed. She was the -Countess' lady-companion. Her name, absurdly enough, was Mademoiselle -Gros. - -The plainness and ordinariness of them all was what struck me most. -I had pictured stately and distinguished persons--grand, noble, -French--and here was a company quite as ugly and plebeian as the -Meeting. No one fulfilled my notion of aristocrats! No one resembled -the Stranger. - -After luncheon, Mademoiselle Suzanne came up to my rooms to help me -unpack. She prattled ceaselessly, in English, which she spoke well, -though I found reason to correct her every few moments and thus to -begin my duties. - -"I shall like you, I know. I hated Miss Jayne: that's our governess -when we were little: she was very ugly and severe. I teased her all -I dared. Once I kicked her, but I was only nine. Mademoiselle Soyer, -who taught us last, was really French, though her mother was English, -so she doesn't count. Our other governesses were all French; but" -(quickly) "you are not a governess of course; you are to be a friend. -I am sure you will like it with us: You can do whatever you want: -ride--you do ride?--go to picnics and excursions; there are very -pretty places near here. I am so glad you are not what I feared. Your -cousin[!] Lord Tawborough told Mamma you were so clever. And some -English women, you know--you know what I mean. But we shall be friends, -real friends, I know it." - -"Do you?" thought I. "You are friendly and kind, but not at all like -that unknown thing I hoped so hard to find, a real friend of my own -age and sex, whom I could be free with, confide in--not love, for that -there is only Robbie--who could sometimes take the place of the Other -Me in my talks and visions, who could end the loneliness." - -She paused in her babyish fiddling with my possessions. "What are you -thinking about? You are not listening." - -"Oh nothing," I said, a shade guiltily, for I was taken with one of my -intuitive panics: Suppose she had guessed my thoughts? But the big eyes -were staring at me with nothing beyond vague curiosity. To make amends, -I set to and tattled in the liveliest and worldliest fashion I knew. - -"Oh how droll you are, and what good times we shall have together." - -Dinner (no Supper now: I was a lady!) found me already much more at -ease. I corrected some mistake in Mlle. Suzanne's pronunciation, and -that set the table going. While Weather is the conversational shield -and buckler of the English or of the French against themselves, against -each other it is the oddness and madness of the other's tongue. - -"Heavens!" cried Suzanne. "That makes five ways I know of to pronounce -_ough_ in English. It is mad, absurd." - -"There are seven ways at least," I boasted. - -"There's nothing like that in our language. French is so simple." - -"Oh? What about the irregular verbs?" - -"You've got them too, quite as many." - -"But they're not so irregular as yours: in fact, most of them aren't -really irregular at all!" - -"Oh, not really irregular at all! _Am_, _be_, _is_, _are_: or _go_, -_went_, _been_; aren't they irregular enough for you?" - -"And the spelling, oh dear!" put in the Countess.... - -This sort of thing is as gay and unfailing as a fountain. Thanks to -the good oddities of my mother-tongue, on my very first evening in -this strange land I was beginning to feel at home. Certainly I talked -more than at any meal in the eighteen years before. Everywhere else I -had been a child, a chattel: a thing to be bullied and silenced (Aunt -Jael), tortured (Uncle Simeon), exhorted (the Saints), prayed for -(Grandmother). The new unconstraint exhilarated me; my natural bent for -talking came into its own. Here I was listened to, expected to shine, -deferred to. I was clever: I was amusing: I was a lady! - - -Alone in my cosy bedroom, with the lamp lit, I reviewed my first -impressions. How good it all was: comfort, ease, dainty food, fine -surroundings; kindliness, deference; freedom, importance. Luxurious -liberty filled me: after eighteen years of prison I had escaped. But -would things continue as well as they had begun? Or were there new -perils ahead? Then Conscience pricked. Is it right, this life of ease, -this new atmosphere of careless liberty: is it of the Lord? What place -has religion here? Where is God? Has any one of these fine folk spoken, -or even thought, of holy things during one moment of this day? HAVE YOU? - -It was late. I opened my Bible, and turned, involuntarily, inevitably, -to the one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm. I read it through aloud. -None of the old emotion, none of the old misery returned; as I read I -tried almost to force it back. Where had fled the wretchedness of that -other first night of a new life, in the dreary chamber at Torribridge? -Where was the desperate luxurious loneliness of that time? Had the -fatal atmosphere of France, the Papist Babylon, already in an hour -magically completed a change that the easier times of the past few -years had begun? Was I deprived of my oldest privilege, my misery? Had -I become unworthy of unhappiness? I contrasted myself bitterly with -the unhappy Mary of seven years back. Ease was poisoning my soul. I -dwelt with perverse envy on the wretched little girl of that other -night, and then fell to picturing all the unhappiness that had framed -my life, from the long agony of my mother before she bore me to the -daily oppression of the years that followed. Soon I was shedding -tears of pity for my unhappy past self: weeping, if not for Zion. -(More and more, as the contrasts of my new life developed, I indulged -in this glad unhappiness of sentimental backward-looking, mimicked -and dramatized the sincerity of my old child's misery, wallowed in -retrospective self-pity, cried amid present ease: "Ah, what a sad life -_was_ mine!") That I could weep for it as past showed me how wide and -sudden was the gulf between the new life and the old. I resolved to -widen it. - -Already a new person--an empty, a surface Mary, of whose existence -within me I had sometimes had half-realized and swiftly-vanishing -notions--seemed to have sapped the fortress of my soul, to have assumed -command of "Me": a person with the same brain, the same will, the same -body, but another soul, or no soul. My brain decided to stifle for a -while the old Mary, to let this emptier, ease-fuller personality be all -myself. Then at the end of a space of time, I should know which was the -stronger, which was the realler Me. I never doubted but that I should -be free to make my choice. - -I chose my Resolutions carefully, prayed them aloud, put them on paper, -sealed them in time-honoured envelope:-- - - - (1) I will cease all visions and daydreams. - - (2) I will abandon all magic tricks, numbers and hopes. - - (3) I will play with none of my Terrors: Hell, Satan, Eternity. - - (4) I will not brood. I will fight my distrust of happiness, my - evil instinct that for every moment of pleasure the Lord will make - me pay to the uttermost farthing. - - (5) I will seek none of the ecstasies of religion; not try to - experience the Rapture, nor dwell overmuch on holy things. Resting - from a too great pleasure in God, at the end of the period I am - setting myself I may find myself nearer to Him. (A wise experiment, - whispered a Voice: perhaps God's, perhaps the Devil's.) - - (6) _Only_, I will read His Word daily, and have for every moment - the motto "What would He do?" - - (7) Except at Christmas only, I will not think of Robbie. If at the - end of the time, he is as clear and close as ever, I shall know - myself and him better, just as with God (5). - - ALL THESE THINGS, for the rest of this year 1866, eight months - and more [precisely thirty-seven weeks I noticed with a twinge of - emotion which was itself an involuntary breach of (2)], I do, with - God's help, here and now RESOLVE. - - M. L. - - -On the envelope I wrote in capitals "Very Private" in English and -"Personnel" in French, added "April 17th, 1866" and signed "M. L."--the -death-warrant of Mary I, proclamation from the throne of Mary II. And I -undressed, and slept like a lady. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII: MARY THE SECOND - - -The Countess cornered me next morning for her "little talk," conducting -me to her own particular apartment. Mademoiselle Gros was present. She -always was, I soon found: a familiar spirit rather than a companion. -She sat on a low chair knitting, and if her eyes, or rather goggles, -were never raised, I could see that her ears were drinking everything -in. The Countess, who spoke in a kind of loud whisper, seemed almost -oblivious of me, as one repeating her thoughts aloud to herself: I was -merely a good atmosphere in which to recite her woes. - -Suzanne, you know. A mere child, good-natured, impulsive--like her -father--not clever, but with a will of her own and at times a hot -temper--like her father. She gave no real trouble: yet caused her -mother many anxieties: how, was not stated. Elise; ah that was a -different matter! She was intelligent, fond of study, with a practical -head for affairs and money. But so self-centred, so secretive; and so -sharp-tongued, so undaughterly when reproved! And in her sullen way, -far more obstinate even than her sister. She could never be _made_ to -do anything: one had given up trying long ago.... - -"Ah Mademoiselle, if you but knew. It is not easy, to be an old woman -alone in the world with two young daughters. They are all I have. I -hope they will marry well, but rich husbands are not easy to find, when -the girls are poor. We are poor, you know." - -"Poor, Madame?" I cried, "with this great château?" - -"_Because_ of this great château, Mademoiselle. You cannot know how -expensive it is to keep up. Expenses are always going up, and rents -and farms are always going down. Things are not what they were. Elise -will succeed to this place, and to the little money we have. It is -not enough; the only thing is for her to find a husband rich enough -to spend money on the estate. But she is so strange, so difficult; -mocks at the idea of marrying; declares she hates all men--is it not -horrible? Says that if, by any impossible chance, she ever did marry, -it would be just whom she fancies, rich as a king or poor as a rat. -There is no other girl in France like her. It is unbelievable. For -Suzanne, too, a good marriage is important: but I fear the _dot_ I can -give her is not big enough to secure the sort of husband I want. You -see, Mademoiselle, what anxieties a mother has." - -Suddenly she woke up and seemed to become aware I was a conscious -being. "You are surprised I talk to you so freely? You are young, I -know, but so grave, so English, so wise; I feel you will influence my -children for the good. You will help me, dear young Mademoiselle, will -you not? You will be my ally?" (This word with a snigger, as though -trying to pretend she did not mean it.) "And then English is such -a sensible thing to study, so useful an accomplishment in Society. -Perhaps I will look through the books you read together--though I know -you would choose nothing unsuitable--if ever I get time. Oh dear! We -are so glad you are here. Our first impression is delightful. Remember -you are not a governess but a friend." - -"You are too kind, Madame. You are all very good to me. I always knew I -should like the French, I have always said so to myself." - -"Now really? I cannot truthfully return the compliment--promise me you -will not take offence--though I have always liked individual English -people I have met. My family have always been fighting your countrymen. -Oh dear, I am always interrupted." - -This was in response to a few suggestive throat-clearings from -Mademoiselle Gros. "Time for you to go into Caudebec for the shopping, -is it? Why, it is barely nine o'clock: don't worry me so, you have -plenty of time. No, no" (looking at her watch), "It is gone half-past, -you must hurry off at once. Why couldn't you remind me sooner? Here is -the list--don't lose it--and here are fifty francs--No, you will need -sixty. And don't go forgetting again to call at Lebrun's and pay him -his account. I will write about the other matter, so say nothing. No, -you had better just say--no, after all, say nothing. Here are the three -hundred francs; three hundred francs--it is terrible." - -"Now," as the dwarf-like creature slunk away, "where was I, dear -Mademoiselle? Oh yes: my father was in the Navy, and fought with -Villeneuve at Trafalgar, while my husband and his relatives were all -in the Army; his father, the famous Count de Florian--the girls' -grandfather--was at Waterloo, serving as a general under the great -Emperor himself. Trafalgar, Waterloo: what more would you have? But -then English is so useful, it is spoken everywhere: there is England -with all her colonies, and the Americans speak English too, don't -they? The Court Ladies all talk it, and our best families. So when the -girls were quite tiny, I got them an English governess, a Miss Jayne; -sensible, but very harsh, and not _quite_ a lady. When they were older, -I looked about for a young English lady to perfect them. Then our good -English friend, Lord Tawborough, told me of a young cousin of his, who -would suit perfectly. 'Protestant?' I asked him, for after all religion -is important, is it not? 'Yes,' he replied, 'as you know nearly all of -us are; and a devout one too. But of course she would never dream of -trying to influence your daughters!' You wouldn't, Mademoiselle, would -you?" - -"Oh, no! Madame," I replied, breaking a lifetime's vows. - -"Naturally not. You are a good Protestant, we are good Catholics. But -there is tolerance, is there not?" - -"Yes," huskily. The new philosophy affected my voice. - -"I knew you would think like that. The best way is for you never to -refer to religion at all, don't you agree?" - -"Yes, Madame," denying for the third time. And immediately in the ears -of my spirits, the cock crew. I flushed. Madame stared, wondered, and -said nothing. - -I sought to turn the subject. "How did you first meet Lord Tawborough?" -I enquired. "I should be much interested to hear." - -"Has he never told you? Well, he was introduced to us by one of my -dear husband's friends, another Englishman, a cousin of his; a much -older man, whom my husband knew through friends of the family in -Paris. So distinguished too, with a head of perfectly white hair, and -so well-groomed; the perfect type of English gentleman. He lived in -France. I think he didn't get on very well with Lord Tawborough, had -quarrelled with the latter's father or something like that. The last -time I saw Lord Tawborough, he hadn't seen him for years; I think he -still lives somewhere or other in France. So distinguished, though -pious with it: a Protestant, of course, but a perfect gentleman." - -"Which cousin, I wonder? Was he married?" - -"He had been, I believe, but his wife was dead. She had treated him -shamefully, I heard, and finally ran away. I never quite found out, you -know; these things are sometimes hard to discover, aren't they? One -day we may meet again; like all my dear husband's friends, he has a -standing invitation to the Château. Poor Monsieur Traies, I wonder what -has become of him." - -I could not hide my extreme emotion, and for a second my brain was too -numb to invent a pretext. - -"Oh Madame," I cried faintly, "I feel ill all of a sudden," and I -rushed from the room, and upstairs to my bedroom. - -_He_ was in France. I might meet him in this very house. It was not the -coincidence which affected me, but the suddenness with which an old -vision had become a near possibility. Nature and habit were stronger -than last night's Resolution, and pacing about my room I rehearsed in -hectic detail all the mad alternative ways in which the meeting would -take place, the long-planned dénouement be achieved. - -By luncheon I had calmed down and could pass the sudden sickness off as -a turn I often had when tired. - -"Fatigues of the journey," sympathized the Countess. - -Next day I began my duties. The program was an hour or two's -Conversation with Suzanne, followed by Reading with Elise. From the -first day the former was nothing more (or less) than a chat, sometimes -slanderous, mostly frivolous, always friendly: developing my golden -talent for tattle, and in the idlest and surest fashion perfecting -Suzanne's English. We became the best of companions. - -Elise began by giving me a fright. "I love your poets," she said in her -precise plaintive English, "Shakespeare best of all, though" (proudly) -"very few French people do. We will read his plays together. I have -read most of them, but you will know them far better. I should like to -begin with either Macbeth or Othello, my two favourites. Which do you -advise?" - -I had never heard of either. - -"You see me colouring," I laughed nervously. "You have guessed: I am a -bit ashamed of not knowing my Shakespeare as well as I can see you do." - -The half-lie saved me. It most intimately flattered her vanity: that -she, the French girl, should be thought to know an English poet better -than I. No variety of self-content is more delicious than that which -fills a foreigner when she can soar over the natives in knowledge of -their own land. - -"You are too modest," said Elise. "Now which of those two plays shall -we begin with?" - -I had clean forgotten one title, and was not sure of repeating the -other correctly. "Which do _you_ think? It is you who should choose," I -returned generously. At all costs she must repeat one of the names. - -"Macbeth then. I think it is the finer." - -"Yes, Macbaith," I agreed, imitating her pronunciation as closely as -I could. "Perhaps you would lend me your copy. Reading it through -would"--I recoiled from "refresh my memory"--"would be useful. I'll -read it over tonight. The Countess won't mind my reading in my room?" - -"Your room is yours to do what you like in. We all do what we like -here; I hope you'll do the same." - -So that night the bedroom of a French Château saw me make the -acquaintance of the greatest of my fellow-countrymen, of multitudinous -seas and perfumes of Araby, and of a theme new in print only: a woman's -vaulting ambition. - -Reading, in fact, by myself or with Elise, became my chief distraction. -Elise's sour face held no sour looks for me. I would watch the high -blue-veined forehead and the sad white face as we were reading -together. For the first time--with the one exception of Lord -Tawborough, in whom also intelligence and purity, in their manlier -setting, were the qualities that attracted me--I found myself admiring -some one, acknowledging frankly to myself that here was something -better than I. Her kindness, her sadness, her literary enthusiasm all -heightened the effect; and in the ardour of books and discussion sprang -up my first real friendship. It ripened slowly, for she was as proud as -I. We did not wallow in confidences, knowing that at the right moment -they could come. - -My private reading was voracious, sharpened by years of unconscious -hunger. I read novels, poetry and travel, chiefly in French: one -subject became an enthusiasm, the history of France, and one part of -that subject a mania. - -Of the glory of this world I knew nothing. It burst on me now in one -vision, one shape, one glad triumphant name: the name and shape and -vision of France. I devoured every map, every picture, every book of -geography or history the library contained. I learnt to know the living -soul and lilting name of each river and city and province, from this -Normandy of Châteaux and cider-orchards and Vikings and churches to -Provence loved of the sun and limned by the Midland Sea; from fervid -Gascony to brave Lorraine. I loved the victorious shape: that stands -firm on the straight Pyrenees, turns a proud Breton shoulder to the -wide Atlantic, and bears on the breast of old Alsace the swing and -swerve of the whole eastward Continent. Best of all I loved the story: -Gauls and Romans, Troubadours and Crusaders, Kings and Dauphins, -Huguenots and Leaguers, lilies and eagles, laughter and war. I see them -always as from some hilltop, a tented and bannered multitude spread on -a vast twilight plain beneath me, reaching to the utmost horizon of -history. - -Above them all, in the highest heaven, there shines a Star. It is -Napoleon. - -I lived every moment from the island-birth to the island death, from -Ajaccio to the Rock; knew the emotion of each time so well that -I believed I could have been Napoleon, came to feel _I had been_ -Napoleon, and could revel in retrospective megalomania with no betrayal -of Resolution: for I was weaving no futures for myself, but living -another's past. Another's, yet mine. For as I read I found that I -_remembered_ the lonely childhood, the sour school-days; the hopes of -'96, the springtide of Italy; the summertide of glory; Austerlitz, -Notre Dame, the crown of battles and the crown of gold; with God's -revenge for good days gone:--the wintertime of Russia; the defeat, the -disaster, the desertion; the giant self-pity of Longwood. Ah, those -were great days. And now I was Mary. - -For a long time I thought the Nephew ridiculous. The pictures I saw -everywhere portrayed a kind of sleepy Uncle Simeon, bloated, heavier, -stupider, but not less crafty. But I kept my thoughts to myself. For -the family were staunch adherents of the reigning Emperor. - -Then, one day, Elise gave me a book describing his younger days. Again -I found that I remembered. I was Louis-Napoleon too. _He_ was the great -Napoleon. We were all one. In the world there was only one Person. -Every one was every one else. My heart--God--once more I had nearly -reached the Mystery.... - -He was a real Napoleon, this living King, who, when as a little child -they tore him away from the Tuileries (when the uncle fell and was -abandoned), cried out aloud in rage prophetic: "I shall come back," and -through madness and mockery and passion and prison--came back. - -If books were my most personal pleasure, I settled down to enjoy every -phase of the new easeful life: fine bedroom and boudoir (I would exult -aloud that they were mine); perfect servants who spared you cleaning -your own boots, making your bed and folding your clothes; bright days -in the park with Suzanne and her chatter; rides, drives, picnics; -excursions to Jumièges, to Caudebec, to neighbouring mansions, to old -Rouen, jewelled with wonderful papist churches. A "No English after -dinner" rule of the Countess' enabled me to improve my French almost to -perfection, and this acquisition of another tongue contributed to the -change in my character: words make thoughts rather than thoughts words: -language is the lord of life. Soon this new insouciant way of treating -life, which but a few weeks earlier would have been incomprehensible, -appeared the natural one. I forgot love, and God, and misery. Mary -II had won. Bear Lawn became distant and half-real. A thin bridge of -memory, which Resolution forbade me to traverse, spanned the widening -gulf between the two lives. The very intenseness of the old days was -the reason they so soon became unreal. I had learnt to live each -instant in over-intense and concentrated fashion: I could not do it in -the present and past as well. - -None of my minor fears were realized. I had thought my humble -upbringing might make itself seen; but no, to all and sundry I was -announced as "the cousin of a Lord" (lusciously pronounced _laurrr_ by -the Countess) and taken for granted as a young English gentlewoman of -orthodox antecedents. I justified my pleasure by the reflection that it -was all literally true, though in my heart I knew that the _true_ Me -was poor middle-class go-to-Meeting Mary. All my ways were found "so -English, so quaint, so Puritan, so clever, so charming." Well-chosen -hints of the oddness and rigour of Bear Lawn excited interest, -amusement, pity, each in their turn delectable: how it pleased, -flattered, touched me! The Clinkers and Aunt Jael became victims in a -repertoire, butchered to make a Norman holiday. Nor need I have feared -for my table-manners with these French aristocrats who wiped their -plates with their bread and supped and squelched and chewed in almost -Glorian fashion; while Aunt Jael in hawkiest mood never rivalled the -mesmeric stare which Madame la Comtesse de Florian bestowed on other -people's plates. - - -The eternal visualizing was the one habit of old days which I could not -completely shake off. My Napoleonizing was one outlet; for the rest, -the intrigues and excitements that the next few months were to furnish -brusquely stemmed the tide. Stage-manager of a real drama, I had less -need to act imaginary ones. - -I had soon divined, beneath the lightness, an odd constraint around -me. At table there were unpleasant silences, when I could feel that my -companions were hostile to each other. I noticed that the Countess, -Elise and Suzanne only spoke to me on intimate or serious topics when -we were alone. Every talk worth remembering had been _à deux_; they -were not, I thought, ashamed of me but of themselves, not shy of me -but of each other. Of love as I, who had not known it, felt it should -be between mother and daughter and sister and sister, the great house -held little. Elise alone, I was beginning to discover, had a jealous -and passionate regard for her sister, inadequately returned. The -Countess' feeling for her daughters, worldly solicitude or whatever -it was, contained I believe no particle of real love; she mistrusted -them, feared them, and avoided close contact with them, especially -with Elise. In return Suzanne ignored while Elise almost despised -the mother. Monsieur de Fouquier's position puzzled me. He seemed -to be valued as a steward, honoured as a relation, and disliked as -a man. Elise mistrusted him. The Countess was frightened of him. -Suzanne--I did not know. He was excessively polite to me, but spoke -little. At table Ferret-Blue-goggles was silence itself, though alone -with the Countess I think she had a good deal to say. All the family -showed me uniform kindness, genuine and spontaneous, though after -a time I detected method in it too. I felt that each one of them -separately--Elise over books, Suzanne during our walks and talks, the -Countess in her "as one woman to another" confidences--was bidding for -the chief place in my affections; seeking me, as the Countess had put -it, as an ally. - -I was a valuable piece on the Villebecq chessboard. A hand was -stretched forth, and played the opening move. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII: LAYING-ON OF HANDS - - -We were sitting at luncheon one day about the end of the summer. - -Suddenly the Countess arose from her seat, erect, pale with fury, -pointing at Suzanne. - -"Leave the table, wretched vicious girl! Go to your room! And you, -Sir"--to Monsieur de Fouquier--"will leave my house without delay." - -There was a moment's intense silence. No one moved. All stared. - -"Madame--" began de Fouquier suavely. - -"Not a syllable! It is not required. Business can be wound up in a few -hours; and I do not doubt I shall find a successor who will serve me -_not less well_ than you. Gentlemanly conduct indeed!--handling and -embracing my daughter--" - -"Mother"--it was Elise who spoke--"are you _quite_ demented?" For one -who was not a principal she was inexplicably white and hard. - -"Quite, I think," rejoined her sister, not at all as though the chief -person concerned, but relieved to have a word to echo. - -"Wretched girl. You dare deny--?" Here Mademoiselle Gros nudged and -whispered. The Countess walked swiftly round the table to her daughter, -and snatched at her left arm. "Deny now, will you? Ha! Ha! Look at your -wrists; deny if you can." - -We all stared. The white finger-pressure of another hand was -unmistakable. - -"Deny?" cried Suzanne scornfully, "of course I do. He holding my hand -under the table! What an idiotic idea, just the sort of idea you would -have. Dear me, how horrible if he had! That's what your filthy little -spy thinks she saw through her filthy smoked glasses. The liar!" - -"Those marks, then, Mademoiselle, if you please"--her mother sneered -confidently--"Be so very kind as to explain." - -"Those marks, then, Madame, if you please! I suppose you're not my -mother, Madame, if you please, and know nothing of the little habit -I've always had of sitting with my hands in my lap, with my left wrist -clasped in my right hand, my own amorous right hand? I had finished my -dessert, and--yes, I admit it--was sitting in that wicked position. And -I will again. And, what is more, I won't have you and your accusations. -I'm not a baby in long clothes, and I won't be spied on and shrieked at -in that mad way. And I'll squeeze my wrist till it bleeds if I choose -to." - -Too confident, too explanatory. Lying was not in her line. But de -Fouquier preserved an unruffled silence. I was not sure. The Countess -too was wavering. - -Ferret whispered again. "Not true." We all heard. - -"Listen, Madame," said Elise, very hard and pale, "there is one person -who will leave this house without delay: that little spy. Order her to -go at once: _Now!_", savagely. - -"I won't," piped the Countess, "I am mistress in my own house." - -"Then I will," and turning to Mademoiselle Gros, "You have just two -minutes to leave this table of your own free will, and till tomorrow to -relieve the Château of your presence. If not, I'll drag you from the -room myself, or ring for the servants to help me." They all cowered -(except de Fouquier) before Elise. - -"Yes, go I will, my poor Countess," squeaked the creature, trying to -make valour appear the better part of discretion. "I can hear your -daughters' insults no longer." Out she skedaddled, tap-tap-tapping -across the wooden floor in the midst of a momentous silence. - -Then Elise turned sharply to her mother. "All you have to do is to -apologize humbly to Suzanne and Emile. The whole thing is a mare's -nest. Have you ever seen anything before to make you suspect anything -of the sort? No, and you know you have not. It is utterly unlike my -sister. As to Emile, I know him a good deal better than you do--" - -"Evidently"; sneering feebly. - -"There's a stupid muddle-headed sneer. You can't have it both ways. If -it is me you suspect of love-making with our cousin, say so openly and -withdraw it about Suzanne. Is it proofs you want? Oh, I can produce -authentic marks of loving pressure soon enough." She clutched savagely -at her own wrist, scratching it with her nails. "There, mother, dear, -there is a spot of blood: now you are convinced. I admit all, all. -You may shriek 'Wretched, vicious girl' at me till your voice fails -you. But one thing you may not, shall not, do. You shall not talk to -my sister like that, not if you were my mother ten times over. That -is an order. And for a piece of advice only, don't talk quite so -preposterously to Emile." - -"You are grown very fond of our cousin all of a sudden; with your -'Emile' this and your 'Emile' that. It is rather sudden." - -"Oh, no, my dear mamma: it has been a very gradual affair on the -contrary: a passion that has been eating my heart out month by month, -day by day, hour by hour. Oh Love, Love. I live in it, it is my joy, -my life! Oh God, it is cruel!" With a laugh (or sob) she ran from the -table, and hurriedly left the room. - - -Four of us were left. There was a new unpleasant pause. No sign or look -passed between Suzanne and de Fouquier. I was moved by the display of -raging hate in this peaceful family, and bewildered to know what it -might all mean. The Countess was sniffing tearfully, mopping her eyes -with a tiny cambric handkerchief. - -"No need for that," cried Suzanne sharply. "You have not yet apologized -to Emile." - -He broke his discreet silence at last, suavely, full of forgiveness. -"No, my dear cousin, pray do not talk to your mother like that. 'Tis -I who am sorry. It is not Madame's own fault; I have always felt that -Mademoiselle Gros was putting false ideas into her mind, poisoning her -outlook, playing treacherously on her maternal fears, slandering each -one of us. Now she is going, and we shall breathe a purer atmosphere." - -Madame continued to sniffle. - -"Don't-know-what-to-believe." - -Neither Suzanne nor Monsieur de Fouquier gave her any enlightenment, -though she looked furtively up first at one and then the other. Then -with an appealing "Help me" glance she turned in my direction. So, -instantly, did the others. "Remember, dear Mademoiselle, that we're -friends," was the burden of one look: "Beware, young lady, or we'll be -enemies" of the other. - -"I think it must all be an unfortunate misunderstanding, Madame," I -said. "Personally, I noticed nothing." (Judicial, judicious.) - -Here François entered; bald-headed, Punch-faced, beaky-eyed. He -looked completely incognizant of the storm that had been raging: -exactly as though he had been listening outside the whole time. The -united-front-before-servants which we hastened to display would have -failed to deceive the dullard which François certainly was not. - -Both Suzanne and her mother began eye-signalling "See you after" to me, -the more emphatically when each perceived the other. Suzanne first, I -decided: she was my friend, and with her I should get nearer the truth -of it all. But as we rose from the table, the Countess laid her hand -affectionately on my shoulder, and led me, unavoidably, to her boudoir. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX: HAPPY FAMILY - - -Here we found Mademoiselle Gros, already bonneted and shawled. I went -over to the window, where my ears drank in a little comedy of pathetic -explanation and injured silence; humiliating apology and continued -silence, generous proposal of one month's salary, hinted acceptance of -three. From the three months' minimum Ferret would not budge; in the -Countess' soul fear of a new scene fought an attacking battle against -long-entrenched parsimony; fear won--and money passed. - -"I will see you have the carriage for the station. The Havre train: you -are returning to your relatives there? Good, I will see you again at -the moment of departure." - -"Thank you, Madame la Comtesse. I will take leave now of my -_successor_." And she held out her wizened claw to me. - -"Well, I hope she will be," said the Countess. "You will, dear -Mademoiselle, will you not?" she asked, as the door closed upon the -other. - -"How, Madame? Mademoiselle Gros' successor?" - -"Oh, I don't mean as lady's companion, of course, not as her _official_ -successor." (Nervous snigger.) "For that post I must try to find some -one else. It will be difficult: they are all so exacting nowadays, so -unreliable. Oh, it will be difficult. I meant, would you succeed poor -little Gros as my friendly adviser, my confidante?" - -"But, Madame, I am so young. A young foreign girl, who knows very -little of the world! I hope always to be your friend; but a confidante, -like Mademoiselle Gros--I don't think I should like to--" - -"Mademoiselle, there are many things _I_ do not like, also. Do you -think that I like to be spoken to by my own children as I was in front -of 'a young foreign girl' this morning? I come of an ancient family: -there is still pride in France. The new generation of young girls -is terrible. I would never have dared to speak to my dear mother as -Suzanne and Elise do to theirs; I would have died first--" - -"Madame," I interrupted, "do you love your daughters?" - -"Love them? of course I do! _At the same time_--" She shrugged her -shoulders and resumed her plaint. - -"Ah, it is hard; I fly from trouble, and it comes always my way. I need -peace, and there is always strife. I am so unhappy, so worried, so -alone; I trust no one, I believe nothing they tell me. If our relatives -were to hear of this! But they shall not; not for worlds would I -confide in them. But one must confide in somebody, mustn't one? You, -Mademoiselle, you have seen now the kind of thing I have to bear--I -am only surprised that you have been so long here without seeing an -exhibition like today's. You know now how my daughters treat their -mother--" - -"Madame," I interposed, "I know nothing. The whole scene at luncheon -leaves me bewildered. What did happen?" - -"Something, I'm sure. Gros must have seen something: not that at bottom -she was reliable, but she could not have invented the whole thing -like that, could she? And I was beginning to have a kind of suspicion -myself, too. But when Suzanne explained, it _seemed_ true, didn't it? -She was never a child for falsehoods. And then I remembered how Gros -hated Monsieur de Fouquier--" - -"Why?" - -"Oh, she always hated him ever since she's been here. She was always -trying to poison my mind against him: as if she needed to! And as if -a poor creature like that was able to influence me. She hated him so -because he wanted me to part with her, and she knew it. He was always -hoping she would leave." - -"Why?" again. - -"Because she was always talking against him to me: a vicious circle is -it not? So perhaps what Gros said today was merely out of spite against -him. Still, the very idea is terrible." - -"Why--if I may--if you will forgive my asking--why is the idea of -Mademoiselle Suzanne and Monsieur de Fouquier so terrible?" - -"I will tell you in a moment. But Elise's manner? What did that mean? -She frightened me; she was so hard and bitter. I do not understand. Ah, -that would be infinitely worse: the idea of him and Elise. Fouquier -one day master of this château, ruler in my house,--ah no, no, there -are limits to what I could endure. Yet there is something with one of -the two: I feel there is something. But which?" - -"Why either, Madame? If Mademoiselle Gros' story about Suzanne is all a -lie--" - -"It might be a lie. It never does to be too hopeful; I am always -nursing false hopes." - -"Well, assume it's a lie, which after what you have told me about -Mademoiselle Gros' spite sounds likely; well, that disposes of Suzanne; -while as to Elise, except for her wild talk, which means nothing except -that she was angry, have you the tiniest reason for suspecting anything -of her?" - -"How comforting to hear you talk so! Somehow I feel there may be -nothing in it after all. But if there were, how terrible!" - -"Why, Madame?" - -"Ah, you don't know. It is de Fouquier." - -"He is a cousin--" - -"Only a second cousin." - -"Because he is poor?" - -"There is that, of course: but listen, I will tell you all." - -She looked nervously towards the door, and dropped her voice to a -melodramatic whisper. "Listen, Mademoiselle: he is an enemy. There are -other bad points, of course: for instance, he is vicious; you are an -English girl and understand what I mean. That is not important; all men -are more or less like that. Then he is a thief and a cheat. Since my -dear husband died, he has managed all my business affairs; all about -the estates, you know. He has what we call a power-of-attorney, signs -all documents to do with the property, collects all rents and dues, -sees to the leases and the farms and all investments and improvements. -Well, he is a robber. He takes commissions and bribes from the tenants -and dealers; when he invests in the funds he makes a profit for -himself; he falsifies all the documents he puts before me. Do you want -evidence, proof? The tenants all come to me on the sly and tell me of -his tricks. It was long before I discovered, and still longer before I -took my courage in both hands and braved him with his treachery. Oh, I -was prostrate with fear, but I worked myself into a temper and that -helped me, and I told him in one word--Go!" - -"And then?" - -"Then the worst thing happened, the thing that had always held me back. -He said that if I forced him to leave the château, he would publish -abroad things he knew about my husband, would hold up the family name -to ignominy and scorn, would prove to all the world that my husband -possessed neither honesty nor honour. It was all false, or nearly all; -but I was frightened lest he did know something really dishonourable. -Anyway, I knew he would pretend he did, and so carry out his threat. -Finally I gave in, though he saw the hate in my eyes, he saw that! So -he stayed on. He goes more carefully, that is, he contents himself with -stealing less. It is only because of this hold over me, through my -affection for my dear husband's memory, that he stays. I hate him, and -he hates me." - -"Will he always stay?" - -"Ah," she replied vaguely, "that's just it. I hope he will die. It is -wicked of me, and I trust that the good God will pardon me. However, -now you understand." - -"I am beginning to understand. One thing, though. Surely, Madame, if he -_were_ to marry in the family, then he could have no reason to injure -the family name--" - -"Mademoiselle, for a man who has so spoken to enter our family would be -the foulest dishonour." She drew herself up proudly; there was a touch -of real majesty in her poor heroics. Then, subsiding into the customary -worried-dormouse manner, puckering her brows, and poking forward her -anxious nose: "If there is any danger, it must be stopped now--Oh, -what a nightmare! We could easily manage Suzanne, but Elise would be -terrible. We must find out for certain. Neither of them would tell me -anything: I am only their mother! But you, that is different. They will -talk freely to you about today, I feel sure they will, Suzanne for -certain. You will tell me what they say?" - -"Oh Madame, it would be unkind to make me promise that. I could not -break their confidences any more than I could yours, could I?" (Much -less so, I realized, as I liked the girls better; knowing that in the -last resort I should be guided by preference rather than reason or even -interest.) - -"Then you'll not help me! You will leave me alone after all? Without -husband, or friend, or companion, untrusted by my children" (whimper), -"alone, alone? In the short time since you have come I have tried -to make you happy in your life with us, and you will not do me this -least service? Why even poor Gros, whom I never really liked, told me -all--all she could see." - -The last phrase turned me from pity to pertness. "Madame," I said, "I -am not Mademoiselle Gros. I am a friend, not a spy." - -"Spy," she repeated, a cold glint in her eyes; and I shrank away from -her, not so much through fear of her anger as through shame at my own -cruelty. - -"No, no, Madame," I cried, "I did not really mean that. I only meant -that I am so much friendlier with the girls than Mademoiselle Gros was, -that it will be harder for me to be fair to them as well as to you. But -I sympathize truly with all your troubles and anxieties. I do really, -dear Madame, I do not say it to be polite--and I will always try to -help you, I will help you however I can, I want to repay your many -kindnesses." - -"Ah, thank you, thank you," and she squeezed my hand affectionately, -with tears in her eyes. "Now I must see Mademoiselle Gros off." - -I followed her out, and went upstairs to my bedroom. - - -Suzanne was ensconced in my window-seat. - -"So you've escaped at last. I ask pardon for installing myself here, -but I knew it was the only place where I should have you to myself. -What has the old dear been saying?" - -"A good many things." - -"I know. Begging you to be 'on my side, dear Mademoiselle.' Oh, don't -worry, I've not been listening at the door; I've always left that to -Gros, who never got anything but earache for her pains. I know it all -by heart, though. In brief, she wound up by asking you precisely what -I am here to ask you myself: in this delightful family circle of the -aristocracy of France, will you be on _my_ side? You hesitate: did you -hesitate when she asked you?" - -"No, I said 'No' straight out. I said it wouldn't be fair to you two -for me to promise that." - -"Well, you haven't said 'No' straight out to me. Which means you like -me better." - -"You know it. But everybody has been so kind, I would rather not take a -side at all." - -"You'll have to, my poor Mademoiselle! You have seen too much. You have -already become more like one of the family in your few months here than -any outsider before. And you are too good a friend not to be worth -trying for." - -"Too useful an ally." - -"I mean that. Don't be cynical. Because I like you--and I do -enormously--it is not wrong for me to want you to help me, is it? -Suppose there were a bad quarrel between Mamma and me, and you became -mixed up in it, so that you had to choose to side with one or the other -of us, which would it be?" - -"I don't think anything like that would arise, and I don't see what I -could _do_ anyway; but my sympathies would be with you." - -"Thank you, I am so happy. I didn't want to make you promise. You would -help me, wouldn't you?" - -"Perhaps. On one condition, that you told me everything." - -"I promise that. But just for fun, I'd like you to tell me beforehand -what you have already guessed on your own: what, for instance, you -thought of the pleasant little incidents at luncheon today. Just for -fun." - -"I might say something that would offend you." - -"Say whatever you think, I shall like it better." - -"It was the suddenness of what happened that took my breath away; I -hadn't time to ask myself what I thought. Then Mademoiselle Gros seemed -so natural that I thought she must be telling the truth: I'm sorry, but -it was difficult to think otherwise, wasn't it?" - -"Go on." - -"Then you denied it; but even if true I could not understand why your -mother was so tragical. Then, when Elise became so wild and strange, I -had a new doubt--that perhaps it was Elise, and not you, who was fond -of Monsieur de Fouquier--" - -Suzanne interrupted with a shriek of laughter: "Oh, no, no, no! that is -a bit too good." - -"Why was she so strange in the way she spoke about him, then?", piqued. - -"Oh, that is just like her. I forgot of course that before today you -have never seen her as she really is. Why did she speak so wildly? -Simply and solely to shield and protect me; to muddle old Mother, and -to turn her suspicions and anger away from me. She cannot bear to see -Mamma rave at me; it gives her pain, physical pain. It is the way she -loves me. I am not worthy of her, sometimes I wish I was. I let her -kiss me and sacrifice herself for me; but I can't give her what she -wants; I like her, of course, but only as an ordinary sister does. What -happened today was a sham to save me." - -"I am glad. Now I know how much she loves you, there can never be any -danger of my going against her because of my promise just now to you. -That is the reason I hesitated--" - -"I see. There are gradations. You like Mamma, but would throw her over -for me, whom you like better. You like me, but at a pinch would throw -me over for Elise." - -"It is not like that." (It was.) "Anyway, I've done what you asked and -told you what I thought. Now you tell me. Before I can help you, the -first thing I have to know is,--well, the chief thing. Did you--was -what Mademoiselle Gros said true?" - -"Perfectly. Poor dear Mamma! It is the hundredth time Emile has held my -hand at table, though the first time we were caught. We embrace each -other whenever we have the opportunity; in his office downstairs, in -the grounds, anywhere. Listen. He loves me. I love him. That is all -that matters. Ah, he is so smart, so _chic_, so courteous, so perfect -a lover! He adores me, worships me, would do anything to please me. -Perhaps I don't love him quite as much as he does me, though that -will come: oh, soon, soon! He buys me presents, beautiful bracelets -and things. I cannot wear them, though, because of Mamma. Oh, but I -love him. The joy of meeting alone in the park, being near together, -embracing, hearing his declarations, loving each other. Oh love! There -is only love! Ah, I see you understand--" - -I flushed, chiefly in anger: that she should dare, even unwittingly, to -put de Fouquier in the same place as Robbie. - -"What is it?" she asked sharply, "there is something." ("O Lord," I -prayed, "send me a lie to tell her, send swiftly!") To gain time: -"Unless you promise, solemnly, not to be offended. I cannot tell you." - -"I promise." - -(God gracious; lie to hand.) "Well, if what I am going to say is not -nice--in comparison--for your friend, it is because it is especially -nice for you. I like you very very much, but I don't think Monsieur de -Fouquier is worthy of you." - -"Why?" with a touch of curtness which in loyalty to her promise she -strove to hide. - -"It is hard to give the reason--" - -"Yes, I know, very hard! Because Mother made you promise not to. She -has told you Emile is a thief and a cheat because rents are going down -owing to bad times, accused him of muddling accounts which she doesn't -vaguely comprehend, not any more than I should. She's been repeating to -you all the lies told her by dealers and farmers he doesn't buy carts -and ploughs and stock from, who say he has been bribed by those he does -buy them from. I know all the stories. How dare she poison your mind -with lying slanders!" - -"My reason for thinking him unworthy of you is something quite -different. Is he a _good_ man?" - -She looked puzzled. Then she gave a vague little laugh. "As good as any -one else, I suppose. What do you mean by 'good?'" - -"Clean-living. Is he a pure man?" - -Now she laughed uproariously: her voice jarred on me. "Is he a -pure man? My dear Mademoiselle, of course he's not. That's a -what-d'ye-call-it, a contradiction in terms, like saying a white -nigger. Emile is like the others: keeps mistresses, goes to actress' -dressing-rooms, sees cocottes." - -"Sees them?" I repeated the silly euphemism mechanically. - -"Sleeps with them, possesses them then, if you prefer. Why look so -wretched about it? It doesn't worry me. It is the world." Her candid -pleasure in shocking me, and the more refined delight of superior -worldly-wisdom both failed to annoy me as they should have done: I -could only think of the nightmare foulness itself. - -"You say--it doesn't worry you? You can love a man like that?" - -"Naturally. Better than any other kind, if there were another kind. The -more women he has loved, the greater is the compliment in choosing me. -If a man is a better schoolmaster the more experience he has had and -the more children he has taught, then a man is a better lover the more -experience he has had and the more women he has loved. That's logic. -Besides, I prefer the man of the world." - -"Suzanne!" I cried, calling her by her Christian name for the first -time--a twinkle in her eyes acknowledged the fact; I was too deadly -earnest for her to dare to smile--"Suzanne, is it true? You are not -exaggerating for fun, or to shock me? Do most young girls of our age -believe that? Does your mother know you think like that? Do you realize -how sick and wretched you are making me? Tell me it is not true!" - -"It is true, Mary. I suppose there is still a pretence kept up by -mothers, and curés, that young girls don't know how men live; it may -have been so once, but now, my dear, we are in the Second Empire! Maybe -Mamma fondly imagines Elise and I are still in our cradles, and daren't -look at a pair of trousers: she can imagine just what she pleases for -all I care. But I am really sorry I have made you miserable. What is -the good of worrying about it? The world is like that, you must take it -so--" - -"I refuse to." - -"You'll have to, or else become a nun. A Protestant nun, how funny! -Because all men are the same." - -"They are not!" I cried with fury, visualizing Robbie and the Stranger. -"You shall not say it." - -"Very well, then, I grant you I know one exception, priests apart, of -course. He is a cousin of ours, on Mother's side, living down in the -Gard, and a Protestant. A ridiculous creature--I don't mean because -he's a Protestant--so ugly and gauche, and overgrown and lanky, with -a pale face all covered with pimples. He blushes whenever you look at -him, and can't look a girl straight in the face. _He_ has never seen a -woman, oh dear no! Does something else though, I expect. At any rate, -all _nice_ men are the same. If it is a fault at all, it is Nature's, -not theirs. It is hardly a reason for hating Emile, that he is normal." - -"It would be with me." - -"Are you so sure? Suppose you loved a man, passionately, as _you_ -would--ah, you colour--and found out that he saw cocottes, would you -fling him over for that?" - -"It is a horrible, ridiculous supposition, so I refuse to discuss it. -Englishmen are not like that." - -"_Vraiment?_ Your men know how to amuse themselves in Paris, I fancy." - -"It is no good your insisting; I will not believe it. But it will haunt -me, I shall never be able to cleanse my mind. Stop." - -"Certainly. But as to Emile. Now then, Mary, forget the last ten -minutes' talk, and believe me when I say this: I love him. As much as -you would love a man, for all your different ideas on the other thing. -You accept that?" - -"You say so. That is enough for me. My not thinking him worthy of you -makes no difference to what you feel." - -"Good. And if a man and a girl love each other, you agree that it is -wrong for any one else to come in between them?" - -"Yes, if they truly love." - -"Well, we do; passionately. I want nobody to come in between me and -him, and I want your sympathy. I ask for nothing but to be left in -peace. For the present, till I think the right moment has come, you -must help me to keep my secret from Mamma. She will make a lot of fuss -at first, then reconcile herself quickly to the idea, and finally -approve our betrothal. That is, if no one else interferes--" - -"Who? Mademoiselle Gros is going, or is gone by now. Some relation, -perhaps, that I haven't met?" - -"No-o. There is nobody really. I only said _if_. If--Elise, you -know--she won't exactly take to the idea at first." Suddenly she was -nervous. The moment she spoke of her sister, optimism and boldness -seemed to leave her. - -"But you told me she was taking your side in the matter--" - -"Yes, because she loves me: but for that very same reason she -might--just at first--be a little jealous of my love for Emile. She -guessed it, but I don't think she was ever quite certain we were lovers -till today: that is why it was so nice of her to defend me as she did, -and that is why she was so bitter. It is funny, I know, for a sister to -be jealous of her sister's lover. At this very moment, for instance, -she is probably locked in her bedroom, lying on the bed, crying her -heart out--" - -Crying her heart out. - -"However, she will get over that. Poor Elise, my dear good sister!" - -She moved to the door. "I am so glad we have had this long talk. You -are a good friend, Mary: you see I have dropped 'Mademoiselle' too. It -will be fun at dinner tonight. Mother will have a face as long as a -pole!" - - * * * * * * * - -"Crying her heart out" was my burden all the evening. At dinner I had a -whole side of the table to myself, facing a gay over-talkative Suzanne -and an unruffled de Fouquier. The Countess wore an even more harried -expression than usual. Elise's place was empty. - -"I do not understand, Madame," reported Gabrielle, her devoted -chambermaid, "but Mademoiselle refuses to come down to dinner, refuses -food, refuses to unlock her door." François confirmed. - -From the moment Suzanne had left me I had been prompted to go and -knock at her sister's door, to comfort her if she would let me. But -I was unsure of my reception: she was proud enough to repulse me, to -wish to enjoy her misery alone. As soon as I could slip away after -dinner, I got back to my bedroom. There I tried "Not your business" -and "Meddlesome Mary" and "She doesn't want you" and "You are only -the foreign governess" and "You only want to wallow in her grief." -Conscience was not convinced; instinct triumphed over sophistry and -took me trembling to her door. Here I wavered. Pride shrank anew from a -repulse. - -"Mademoiselle," called her voice from within: I knocked, -disingenuously. "Was that you calling?" - -"It's six hours I have been waiting for you. Sit down, that settee is -the most comfortable." - -She was lying in bed, half-dressed: sore-eyed, haggard. In comparison, -Suzanne had been hilarious, the Countess merely peevish. I knew with -whom I "sided." - -"Well," she began, "I suppose they have all been at you. Has Fouquier?" - -"No." - -"The other two then. Suzanne has confided to you that she loves that -brute?" - -"But you knew it?" - -"Oh, I guessed, I guessed; but till today like a fool I hoped against -hope. Now it is over. She loves him. She cannot ever again love me, -save in a puny second place. Second place! I do not want it. I will -not have it, I despise it, I trample on it! Love is a game for two, -Mademoiselle; a tragedy for three. There is only love in the world, -and it can never ever be mine. I cannot love or be loved if there is -another." - -"But she is your sister! How can you love her as you are saying? You -cannot have the true passion of love for your sister." - -"But if I have it, and know I have it, what then? Listen: There is no -woman in the history of the world who ever loved any man more than I -love Suzanne. 'Cannot' so love her, indeed: but I _do_! Every book I -have ever read, every notion that has ever come to me from external -things tells me that love is a passion a woman should feel for a man -only; I look into my heart and find it is not so. I do not explain, -or defend, or even understand. I suppose God fashions us in different -moulds, makes some of us to love one way and some another. Why not? And -why should He, Who, as your Bible says, is Himself Love, why should He -limit this chief thing in His universe to the one narrow relationship -of man and woman? A woman can love her friend more purely, more nobly -than ever any man can; and with the bond of blood in addition, her -heart can hold a love more intimate, more tender than you will find in -all the stories of the sexes. Am I mad to talk so? It is the truth. Do -you understand? Do you see?" - -I was slowly learning to accept as true for others emotions my heart -could never feel, my mind with difficulty comprehend. - -"I think I see. But how many other sisters are there who feel as you -do? Does she?" - -"Ah no! She has never cared, never conceived how I love her. She is -careless, indifferent, does not come to me when I need her: an ordinary -sister. Sometimes the contrast between her insouciance of what I have -felt and my passionate love for her has maddened me. Yet indifference, -coldness, I could have borne for ever, but not that she should love -some one else. Ah, no, no, no! Oh, my little sister, thou art the only -creature I have ever known to love, and thou hast killed me. God made -me to be loveless. He decided this cruelty from the Beginning. I had to -lose her. I keep saying over and over to myself: it had to be, it had -to be--" - -"Had it to be _him_?" I was crying, but had to stop her somehow. - -"No," with sudden fury. "If she is to have a man, it shall be some one -less vile than he. Have you any conception, Mademoiselle, of what this -man is?" - -"No," I replied, which after hearing the Countess' version and then -Suzanne's, was near the truth. - -"First of all, he is a scoundrel, who for years has been using his -position here to rob my mother; he must have pocketed hundreds of -thousands of francs of ours. Later we will talk of my plans to get rid -of him, in which I want you to help me: for I am determined to drive -him out of this house. I have known all this, more or less, since I was -twelve, but for different reasons I have never thought it worth a storm -till now--" - -"Till he is taking Suzanne from you." - -"True. I know his thefts are not the reason, but they are my best -weapon, and at the least a sufficient excuse for his having no handling -of _my_ affairs: I am nearly twenty-one, and his power-of-attorney for -Mamma shall not hold for me. Then, he insults my father's memory and -threatens mother he will make public things to my father's discredit." - -"What kind of things?" - -"Oh, money-matters, politics; his private life too. Mother is -frightened, whimpers to herself 'I dare not.' Then I happen to know a -few details about this brute's habits, and that even for a man--even -for a man, mark you--he is foul. Not for my own sake, but for her own, -she shall not be sacrificed to this beast. I shall stop it. And you -will help me, because you are fond of Suzanne." - -"No, because I am fond of you." - -"For both of us, then. Before you came just now I had made up my mind, -crying it out alone, that if ever a man the least bit worthy should -want her, I would stifle my jealousy, sacrifice myself, and wish her -well." - -"But, Mademoiselle--you being you, and your love for your sister being -what it is--would you ever admit that any man was the least bit worthy? -I don't think you believe there is any such man in the world." - -"Nor is there." - -"That is foolishness. There are as many good men in the world as good -women; probably more." - -"The foolishness, my poor little English girl, is yours. You simply do -not know. You simply do not know what men are. They are our masters, -and we are their slaves. They gorge themselves on the pleasures of -life, and leave to us the sorrows. With the bourgeoisie and the -peasants it is the same. The girl brings her little _dot_, for him to -spend in the cafés and on gaming and vice; she brings her health for -him to ruin, her self-respect for him to steal, her body for him to -befoul. Her father will sell her to any filthy jaundiced old roué whom -he thinks a good enough 'party'--he would be a good deal more careful -in matching his mares and sows. If there is poverty to be faced or -shame to be suffered, who bears the burden? When in one of the villages -there is an unwedded peasant girl who gives birth to a baby, which of -them ought to suffer, and which does? The girl is turned away from -every honest door, trampled under: the man, who will naturally have -a poor wife of his own, laughs, pays nothing, forgets, and seduces -another. That is the law of the Empire, that is justice, that is -'the way of the world.' Once when I helped a poor drab out of my own -pocket--'Remember your position,' said dear Mamma. Bah! position. Why, -in our class it is worse: we must sit at home and simper and embroider -and maintain the great traditions of the lady of France, while Monsieur -obeys only his pleasure, squanders our wealth, gambles, haunts Paris, -and keeps his woman. We smirk and say nothing. 'Such a happy marriage,' -they say. Ah, their filthy politeness, their ducking and bowing and -fawning, picking up fans, opening doors, kissing our hands:--every -time mine is kissed, which isn't often I assure you, I feel there is a -hole burned in my flesh. Ah their beautiful woman, their adorable sex! -The moment our backs are turned, at once their voices become low and -greasy, they are all winks and leers and sniggers and bawdy tales. It -makes me vomit--" - -"Elise!" - -"Don't stop me, don't dare! No other French girls are as I am: till now -I never found any human soul whom I could tell what I feel: I must have -my way, and you must listen. Do you deny it--the injustice, the cruelty -and the foulness? Oh why is the world so cruelly made that while women -know how to love, men only know how to lust?" - -All through this tirade I was conscious of an instinct within me that -answered to its bitterness, an instinct of sex-hatred for men as men, -a savage half-sadistic hope that women would one day get even, would -triumph, would trample! But as her bitterness waxed, mine waned, and -the remembered male faces of my heart put this evil instinct to flight. - -"It is not true. I hate this wickedness with the selfsame horror as -you, but though I know nothing of the world, I know down in my own -soul--I know as I know God, I know as I know myself--that they are not -all like that. God did not make one sex all good, the other all bad. I -know there are men who love as-purely and passionately as we do. You -would believe it if there was one such who loved you. Suppose a man -_did_ love you, then what?" - -"Ah, suppose, suppose!" She savagely ripped open her blouse and vest, -caught my hands and placed them on her bare body, on a poor flat cold -bosom. "Ha, ha, ha!" She laughed like a madwoman. - -Such is the egotism of the human heart that even in that moment of -purest pity, when I would have given my right hand to help her and ease -her sorrow, even in that moment, and against my will and against a -loathing for myself and my selfishness that accompanied (but could not -stifle) the joy, there coursed through my veins a high triumphal joy -that I was not as she. In an involuntary gesture I threw back my head, -and _my_ bosom heaved with pride; a hundred half-glimpsed notions of -delight tore through my soul. - -"Ah, suppose, suppose!" she was mocking, "how I pine for that dear -supposed one.--No, dear, I had but one love, my little sister, and a -man has taken her away. She was not worthy, but I loved her. Now I have -no one, and no one will ever love me. It is cruel and all the universe -is cruel. God is cruel to let the world be so:--oh, I forgot, He is -a Man, and had no daughter, but a Son. Oh my little Suzanne that I -loved--oh no, no, I cannot hear it!" - -She broke down utterly, and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. My -arms were around her. Very long I held her, till she had sobbed some of -the misery away. - -After a long while she sprang free, dried her eyes, and said in her -calmest every-day voice: "I am hungry." - -"Shall I go downstairs and tell them, or ring?" - -"Ring; Gabrielle will come. I don't want the others. Before you ring--" - -"Yes?" - -"Kiss me." - - - - -CHAPTER XXX: CARDBOARD - - -It was odd to see normal relations resumed next day at table. -Abnormally normal indeed, for we were all a little too much at our -ease, a trifle too friendly and natural. There was a chatting and a -smiling, and a veritable phrensy of cruet-courtesy. It was "Do have -another pancake, Mamma, they are so good today:" "now finish up the -gateau, Suzanne, I don't think Louise ever made a better." - -On the Countess' part there was little dissimulation, for her anxieties -had calmed down with surprising ease. She had cornered me again, first -thing in the morning, for "just one word." - -"They have been talking to you, I know. How late you stayed with Elise! -Not for the world would I try to learn their confidences, but one thing -as their mother it is my duty and right to know. Tell me that my worst -fears are without foundation." - -"Absolutely." I looked her full in the face with a confidence-inspiring -false honesty. After all, it was the truth; her worst fears, she had -said plainly, were for Elise. - -Elise alone could not dissimulate her yesterday. Red eyes no craft, -no cosmetics, can conjure away. Suzanne was boisterously at ease; de -Fouquier suave, unchanging. Suzanne's ease did not seem artificial. -There had been a fright and a fuss yesterday, and trouble would no -doubt break out again--one of these days. Meanwhile, she would eat, -drink and be merry. How I envied her "meanwhile" temperament. - -I had a bewildering mass of new impressions to digest, all of one -day's serving. That mother and two daughters, from their different -angles, all saw menfolk in the same light was a testimony that -overbore my passionate resistance. Many men, at least, must be as -evil as they said. Frenchmen perhaps. I idealized my own men only the -more. Similarly, while the lack of all friendship between mother and -daughters sank into my mind as a fact that was probably general, I -idealized my own mother all the more. Perhaps the Fifth Commandment is -only ever perfectly obeyed by children whose parents are dead. - -Above all, I could now visualize to my heart's content without any -breach of Resolution. I melo-dramatized the intrigues and troubles of -this family, casting myself (of course) for the leading part. I had a -friend to rescue from a villain, a family to rid of its foe; secrets -and papers with which this man threatened my friends to discover and to -use for his own dramatic undoing: here was a rôle I had been destined -for from birth.... - -And here for the first time in this record I shall deviate from the -plan of absolute completeness at which I have aimed, and shall pass by -much in silence. The whirlpool of petty melodramatic intrigues into -which I was now plunged--though no doubt more violent in my imagination -than in sober fact--might yet form the subject of an exciting tale. -But it has no place in this narrative, which deals with MARY LEE. The -person who took her full share in these doings, in absorbing (or, if -need be, in worming out) still more intimate confidences from the -three Frenchwomen, in gracefully raiding M. de Fouquier's quarters -and hunting among his papers, in discovering the prattlings and -preferences of the servants, in establishing that Gabrielle was for -_us_ and that François was for _him_, in discovering that while the -villainy and vileness of Fouquier had probably been exaggerated by -two of his friends his noble passionate character had certainly been -overstated by the third, in taking a leading part in all the plans and -jealousies and intrigues, which from Countess to Kitchen filled every -person and place in this Norman mansion--this person was not the Mary -I am chiefly concerned with, but that phantom-personality with brain -and with appetites but without fears and without hopes, without love -and without God, who, foisted upon me by the real Me's foolish plan of -self-effacement, for this year or two ruled within my body, while the -real Mary, lulled by the ease and emptiness of that time, lay dormant -and almost for dead. - -Thus it is that although across forty years the Bear Lawn days are as -vivid in my heart as today's noontide, the years in France I can but -vaguely reconstruct. Only my brain's memory, the one thing that all -the Marys have shared in common, retains them; and what the brain but -not the heart remembers is lifeless bones, dimensionless phantoms, as -unreal as other people. Château Villebecq, the house, the park, the -people, stand before my eyes--now, as I strive to conjure them up--like -the cardboard scenes of a stage. When, years later, I first went to the -play, the resemblance at once assailed me. - -Hardly at all during this period, except at moments in my friendship -with Elise, and except in prayer--and then I was no longer in -France--was my soul awake. Not until the series of events in which -voices from Tawborough and my soul's native surroundings spoke to me -again. - -To be sure, some of the escapades of that other person are clearer in -my memory than others. The most foolish and fantastic is the one I -remember best. Diary, rather than my heart, supplies the silly details. - -One day I took the opportunity offered by Monsieur de Fouquier's -absence on some distant farms to inspect the little downstairs office -where he kept his records, received tenants and did business; also his -bedroom, where the one object of interest--shades of Torribridge and -keyhole-spied green box!--was the safe Elise had told me of. - -Its solid sides discouraged me. A fine rôle I had set myself, rescuer -of noble families from scheming villains. How fantastic we were, I and -my plans. - -Then, by a stroke of luck, though at first sight it seemed the very -reverse, de Fouquier fell ill. It was a kind of hay-fever which, while -not serious enough (at any rate in France) for doctor's aid, kept him -confined to his bed. The Countess meanwhile was debating a day in Rouen -for purchases and visits. - -"I ought to, you know. We may be away in Paris for months, and these -things must be done. It is all so tiresome: the train tries me so, and -I cannot travel alone. Oh, dear! And Elise and Suzanne both away, and -Gabrielle or Pelagie are worse than I am on a journey, so flurried and -silly. We have only a day or two left. I must go to Rouen tomorrow; but -alone--" - -I refused to take the laboured hint. - -"Wouldn't you like to come, dear Mademoiselle?" after a while, -pitifully. - -"I should, Madame: very much! I love Rouen. But this headache"--I -half-closed my eyes in approved shammer's fashion--"I mean I feel that -if I don't take a little rest I shall be quite unfit for the journey -to Paris: I should be a burden to you rather than a help. Of course -tomorrow I _may_ feel better--stay, is it not François who sometimes -accompanies you?" - -"At the worst he will have to do, though between ourselves I never -really trust him." - -"Though"--martyr-like resignation now that my point was won--"if you -especially want me, Madame, of course--" - -"Would not hear of it." - -Thus I killed two birds with one lie, freeing the house for a whole day -of its nosy proprietor and its chief spy. - -Next morning I waited impatiently for their departure. From my window I -watched the carriage out of sight, staring with superstitious zeal till -the last inch of the last wheel had disappeared round the turn in the -drive. Then I rang for Gabrielle. - -"Mademoiselle requires?" - -"To ask you a question. You would do anything for Mademoiselle Elise?" - -"Anything, Mademoiselle. And for Mademoiselle also." - -"Thank you, Gabrielle. In the matter I am going to talk about it is all -one: Whatever I ask, you may take it as from your mistress. She sleeps -badly, I think?" - -"I don't see--" - -"Wait. You take her up a _tisane_, a sleeping potion, sometimes at -night when she is in bed? How strong is it?" - -"As strong as Mademoiselle Elise requires. It is not well for it to -be too strong. She sleeps half-an-hour later: with me it would be two -little minutes. Once I could not sleep, and I took a little cupful: I -slept for nine hours, and could not wake next morning. I was up late -and Madame the Countess scolded. Perhaps Mademoiselle remembers?" - -"So I do. Now listen, Gabrielle. François is away today with Madame. -Who is taking Monsieur de Fouquier's meals to his bedroom?" - -"I understand! It is I, Mademoiselle. I take him a tisane too, for his -headaches. How much does Mademoiselle desire me to give?" - -"As strong and as sure as you can without his guessing or noticing any -after-effects. Ask me no questions. Let him have no suspicions. I want -you to give it him now, this morning." - -"Good, Mademoiselle. I take him a little meal between ten and eleven, -and I will give it him soon after." - -"Come and tell me the moment he has drunk it." - -About eleven she returned. "Monsieur has drunk the tisane. I said it -was good for the headache." - -"Now wait a few minutes, then go into his room again to see if he is -sleeping--you can pretend you left something--and come straight back -and tell me. On your way back make sure that none of the other servants -are about. I trust you. Mademoiselle Elise trusts you." - -Ten minutes later. "He sleeps with open mouth: as soundly as a -dormouse." - - -My heart was beating high as I slipped through his bedroom door, -thoughtfully left ajar by Gabrielle. I had been hunting some pretext -for my presence if he should wake and find me: I could invent none, and -knew it would be useless if I could. For the first moment I dared not -look at him. I stared craftily at the lower end of the bedclothes, then -at the little mound made by his feet, then, very gradually, as though -my neck (and courage) were turning on a clockwork spring, up the shape -of his body under the quilt till at last I reached the open mouth of -Gabrielle's report. He was in a deep sleep: I gave way for a moment -to the curious pleasure of possessing another human being utterly -unconscious beneath my gaze. Small clever head, black eyebrows, sensual -lips, cruel little beard: I absorbed them all with a photographic -sureness not possible before. It was the first time I had seen a man -asleep in bed, and I added the fact with zest to my collections of -first-times: first Meeting, first marketing, first omelette, first -venison; first embrace, first Rapture. - -But the quest, the keys. I had visualized all the probabilities, and -prepared my scheme of search. Dressing-table and chest-of-drawers-top -yielded nothing: I did not expect them to. I searched his clothes -next, hoping to succeed before I should reach the most dangerous -possibility: under the pillow. Coat was barren, waistcoat sterile. -Then to breeches: some wifely atavism must explain the lithe speed -with which I rummaged these, undeterred by a passing pang of modesty. -Tobacco, coins, knife, handkerchief: sorry yield. As I threw the -breeches back in disappointment on the chair, something metallic -clicked: not, I fancied, either knife or money. Was there another -pocket? Quickly I learnt a point in male sartorics, and the unsuspected -hip-pocket gave up--yes, keys! In fumbling feverish haste I tried each -one on the bunch; the safe was obdurate with all. Ill-success made -me desperate. Panic seized me. He was awake, staring at me, ready to -spring and strangle. He moved, he moved--yes, turned in his sleep, you -shivering fool! Thank God no one saw my face in that moment of beastly -fear. - -Calm again, I tried the keys elsewhere. At last, in a little pink -soap-box in the cupboard of the dressing-table, I discovered what I -knew was the Treasure. One large key and one very fine and small. -It was hard breathing as the one opened the safe, then the other a -deed-box I found at the back within. Greedy trembling hands snatched -packets neatly tied with red tape and endorsed with a description in -Italian, with which I knew he was familiar and--God bless Miss de -Mesurier and Lord Tawborough her paymaster--I also. - -Packets of letters, incriminating documents, tell-tale scrolls! It was -the trove, the triumph! What villainous secrets might they not hold? - -But when Elise and I, with a rich sense of the historic importance of -the occasion, set to, behind locked doors, to investigate our treasure, -what did we discover? Long and affectionate letters from M. de -Fouquier's mother to her well-loved son, friendly letters from his dead -sister: what a meek, pathetic, uncriminal yield! I was moved almost to -tears. It was _we_ who were the criminals. And for a while our plots -wilted.... - -I shall pass by much of this kind, as well as the whole -diary-remembered general life of the Villebecq days: the excursions, -the games, the visits, the chatterings, the mighty meals; the -comfortable daily round in which we tasted everything--except -everything, except love and God. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI: WAY OF AN EAGLE IN THE AIR - - -The one happening of that time which was able to summon the Mary of -this record from her torpor was outwardly the most vainglorious of all. -I can see now that this was natural. For if the Villebecq puppet had -a greater love of empty ease as of empty excitement, it was the first -Mary who, from the dawn of consciousness, in those Bear Lawn days when -the Holy Bible shaped her earliest consciousness, had best loved pomp: -the pomp of words, the pomp of hate, the pomp of misery, the pomp of -God. - -And here now came the pomp of rulers, the peculiar treasure of kings. - -Not indeed till later years did I fully realize what a unique event -our Imperial visit was. Whether it is that parvenu sovereigns have to -be more careful of their dignity, and cannot, like monarchs of ancient -line, honour the hospitality of their subjects' roofs; the fact is that -throughout their reign Louis-Napoleon and Eugenie seem never to have -made a sojourn in any private mansion of their realm. Very occasionally -during their progress in the provinces, some château might be used as -a halting-place for luncheon or the night in place of the customary -palace or prefecture. _Ours_ was one such case. The Countess did not -hide (at any rate from us) that she had taken the liberty of addressing -herself to the Emperor, begging him on his tour through Normandy to use -her house as a halting-place: her humble excuse to His Majesty for her -presumption was her dear father's humble share in defending the First -Empire, and her dear husband's in founding the Second. She knew she was -touching the right chord. To help and to repay those who had befriended -him or his House was with the Emperor a principle, nay a mania: if -ingratitude be the hall-mark of princes, then was Louis-Napoleon most -spurious and unprincely metal. The privilege of a day and a night at -Villebecq was graciously accorded. - -If I did not appreciate to the full the exceptional character of the -event, I none the less looked forward to it with disproportionate -excitement. On the great day I should, I knew, be the least of the -nobodies; but the idea of merely sleeping under the same roof with a -sovereign lord and lady, seeing them, hearing them, filled me with -servile delight. I rehearsed, anticipated, literally cried aloud in my -bedroom with the high joy of flunkeydom. Monarchs were sacred in my -eyes. They were the Lord's Anointed. Divinity hedged them about. It was -a sublimated snobbery that partook of both ecstasy and awe. Kings went -to my head like wine. - -The Château was all astir with preparations. The musty state-bedroom -and neighbouring apartments in the unused wing were made fit for the -visitors and their suite; rescued from moths--for moths. Workmen -arrived from the villages, decorators from Caudebec and Rouen. Stable, -kitchen and larder girded themselves for the fray. The Countess was -in parlous state between the two conflicting voices of family pride -and family thrift: desire to shine and desire to pare. "Oh dear, the -expense" trod hard on "Of course we must do this." - -In point of fact all arrangements were taken out of her hands by Elise -and de Fouquier, who, working in alliance--for the family honour Elise -would have worked in alliance with the Devil--were irresistible. -There being no gentleman in the house, nor any male relative on good -enough terms with the Countess to be imported for the occasion for -certain duties, Monsieur de Fouquier almost inevitably assumed the -rôle of master: he saw to the stables and carriages, arranged for -the disposition of the men-servants and the arrival at the station, -prepared a shoot for the Emperor. Elise's department was the Empress -and her suite, the furniture and the food. - -I, too, made my preparations: in the library. All I could pick up in -anecdotes from the Countess or Elise, and all that books could tell me -about our illustrious guests, I greedily devoured: something in the -spirit of the Baedekered tourist, who learns up his *cathedrals and -**magnificent views in advance, equipping himself to understand what he -is to enjoy. - -Wider reading made the Emperor Napoleon III dearer to me, as the -perfect type of Another Person who was precisely what I should have -been if I had been he: the Compleat Mary. He was a visionary whose most -outrageous splendours had come true, a Mary whose madness had won. - -Till now the Empress had interested me less. I began to learn that she -too was a Woman of Destiny. - ---On the day of her birth a great cataclysm burst over Granada, -lightning and thunder such as Spain had never seen or heard. - ---Above her cradle appeared that mystic sign which tells that: To be a -Queen, you need not be born a Princess. That sign, shown once in many -centuries, was earnest to the proud child that God had destined her -for a crown. Folly?--but faith is folly come true. Dreams of greatness -absorbed her. Leading lady was the one part she could play on the -world's stage: the part for which the Playwright had cast her. - ---One day, on a Spanish roadside, she gave charity and comfort to an -old blind cripple. "It is you," he cried, "you, whom God will reward -above all other women!" - -"How? Oh tell me!" - -"He will make you a Queen." - ---A woman, she came with her mother and sister to France. It befell one -day that they were invited to an official dinner at Cognac. Among the -guests was an old Abbot, skilled in reading ladies' hands (and hearts); -one who, though he honestly believed in his art, took care that it -inspired him with none but pleasing prognostications. When came the -young Eugenie's turn to hold out her hand, the old man started back, -half in amazement, half in fear. The guests who were watching started -too, since they knew him for a sophisticated worldling, immune from all -surprise. - -"What is it?" cried Eugenie. - -"Señora--I see in your hand--" - -"What then, Abbot? Quick, tell me." - -"A--crown." - -(Now the great Duke of Ossuna, Grandee of Spain, His Most Catholic -Majesty's Ambassador to the French Republic, was rumoured to have -longings, to nourish intentions.... It would be a magnificent marriage -for her, friends said.) - -"A Duchess' crown?" she cried. - -"No. One more brilliant and resplendent." - -"Oh speak, sir, speak! What crown is it you see? It cannot be a -Queen's." - -"No, señora, _an Empress's_." - ---Folly! Austria and Russia were the world's toll of Emperors: portents -were mocking her. Still, suppose Destiny were reserving her some -faery fate? Suppose--and she said "No" to the Duke of Ossuna. Suppose -this comic "Prince-President" of the new French Republic, this poor -parrot-faced Louis-Napoleon, this parody of his great uncle--suppose -he carried the parody just one act further? (One never knows.) Once -introduced to Sick Poll-Parrot through friends in Paris, she lost no -single opportunity of meeting him--especially by chance. Ambition -is no idler, and toils at all his plans. She used humility and gave -admiring glances, employed her unmatchable beauty and gave alluring -ones; listened attractively to his every word, wrote devoted letters of -support. Soon whisperings reached her: the nation too was beginning to -say Suppose? After all, should not a Bonaparte don royaller headgear -than republican top hat? (Mad hopes grew bolder.) Yet the step was -no easy one: to re-establish Empire in Republican France was still a -conspirator's dream. - -On December the Second the dream came true: multitudes acclaimed the -Third Napoleon. Not least Eugenie, for he had now that crown to bestow. -Soon she triumphed, and forced her way into his heart. He loved her. -An Emperor loved her. But love is little and marriage much. There, on -the very threshold of glory, lay a new danger. She faced it boldly. -Desperate in his amorous intent--one night that they chanced to be -spending under the same roof as Imperial host and humble guest--he made -seen his wish. - -"Señora," in a voice plaintive with passion, "which is the way to your -bedroom?" - -"Sire," she replied, "it lies through a well-lighted church." - -What vice and ambition had achieved, virtue thus completed. Her purity -won the crown, the crown won her purity. Through the bannered luminous -nave of Notre Dame de Paris he made his way to her bedchamber, and she -hers to the girl's wild dream that had come true. Together they scaled -the highest peaks of human glory. - - -The morning of the arrival our Villebecq party assembled in good time -on the little wayside platform. The Countess was fussy, full of absurd -anxieties; Suzanne in the gayest spirits, Elise calm, de Fouquier -debonair. There were guests from neighbouring houses, François with -assistants to cope with the Imperial luggage, and a crowd of peasants -outside the barrier. During a long wait we kept straining ears and -eyes for a sign of the expected train: I could not help thinking of -Tawborough on the far-off day when Satan Came. - -"Here it is!" cried Suzanne. - -The Countess had a last convulsive movement of agony: "I do pray that -nothing may go wrong." - -A stumpy little gentleman in tight-fitting clothes and an enormous -top-hat waddled awkwardly out of the carriage, and turned to help down -a showy and beautiful lady. - -Short fat legs, a long highly-tailored body; a sallow leaden complexion -with two rouged-looking spots in the middle of each cheek; an aquiline -nose, with waxen surface; a goatee of hair on the chin looking like an -artificial tuft gummed to the skin; heavy drooping eyelids, and glassy -eyes through which he stared as through a window. - -This was my Man of Destiny. This marionette in wax. The Thing had -movement but no life. - -I started when I heard the Countess saying: "This is our English -friend, Miss Lee." I bowed low, confused with self-consciousness, and -with guilt for the thoughts I had been thinking. - -"Good-day, Miss Lee," I heard him saying in slow measured English, -"you do not get such glorious weather in your country!" At the moment -of shaking hands he looked me straight in the eyes with a smile of -dumbfounding charm. The grey eyes lit up, solved the riddle, showed -that Waxworks had a human heart. Except in my Grandmother, I never saw -such infectious kindliness in a look. "No," he was saying, "I know your -London fogs." - -"I don't know London, Sir--" I was beginning, by way of exculpation. - -"Calumny!" cried the fine lady. "Why up in Scotland we used to get week -after week of glorious weather. It is all calumny, our French talk -about the English climate." - -Active, supple, fresh, full of pride and health, she was an extreme -contrast to the man. Her eyes, unlike his, were frank and honest: -unlike his, they were hard. Instead of dreamy dishonest kindness, I -saw greedy consciousness of her beauty and prestige. Her nostrils -quivered as she drank in our homage. She loved nothing save herself and -her pleasures. She was gorgeously dressed. She was bold, beautiful, -forthright, hard: the complete incarnation of our Brethren "worldly." -She possessed the Empire of France, but not the Kingdom of Heaven. - -What glory--not vicarious only--to be taking part in that informal -procession along the country roads! In the old coronetted family -coach sat the sovereigns, with the Countess and Monsieur de Fouquier; -the suite, the guests, the two girls and I followed in four other -carriages. Dinner that night was a Sardanapalan affair: gay lights -and gorgeous dresses, wealth and wine, power and pride. The menu was -imperial; my diary, always an amply dietetic diary, records it in full. -Once or twice I thought of Aunt Jael's birthday banquet, and of Jesus -Christ on Calvary, who died to save these dolls. - -When my eyes were not on my plate, they were chiefly on the Emperor. -Half the time he was lost in dreams, dead to the physical world around -him, infinities away. When the Countess or another addressed him, for -a moment the leaden eyes lit up, and a gentle, almost womanly smile -played on the slow lips; he spoke a few pointed yet diffident words, -then relapsed abruptly into his dreams. Not that the Countess noticed -this abruptness, which resembled her own. She had her own absorbing -reflections as hostess of this triumphant evening--this expensive -evening. Every new dish filled her with an exquisite conflict of -emotions. The guests were dominated by the laughing Empress; her -majestic beauty and her sparkling talk. I remember no single word of -her conversation, I only remember that it glittered. Nothing in her -really attracted me. I admired the beauty and the brilliance, but they -seemed to be separate entities, having nothing to do with her as a -woman, as a soul. Had she a soul? - -One odd thing I noticed: the Emperor's coldness towards de Fouquier. -Knowing the imperial gratitude towards all who had helped him I -marvelled accordingly, and fell to seeking a reason. Perhaps in -reality de Fouquier never had helped Napoleon's cause, perhaps his -game during the Coup d'Etat had been a double one, running with the -Bonapartist hare and hunting with the Burgrave or Republican hounds? -At a later date I discovered that my surmise was exact. And Napoleon -knew. Fouquier, noting his manner, knew that he knew, and hated him -accordingly. I fancied I saw plans of revenge forming in the smooth -obsequious face. Once again Reason, who mocked at Fancy, was in the -wrong. - -Next morning, while the gentlemen went shooting, the four of us -accompanied Eugenie and the ladies of her suite on a drive to -neighbouring scenes. - -Elise had said, "Jumièges looks best in the very early morning." - -"Good!" cried the Empress, "we will go before the dew has vanished. You -are sure it will not inconvenience you, my dear Countess?" - -A rhetorical question, and a selfish one. The whole household rose -perforce at an unearthly hour of the night. I partly forgave her for -the reward our early visit earned. In the brightening mist that follows -dawn, in the fragrant expectant silence, the majestic ruin loomed in a -mystery that noontide could never have lent. - -All day I kept as near the Empress as I could, learning that the -queenly principle is to do exactly what you like: to be haughty and -indifferent to your ladies one moment, gushing and over-familiar the -next: to demand servile trembling and unseemly giggling turn by turn: -to allow all whims to yourself and none to others. Was not her whole -career compounded of similar contrasts? Her dream of becoming an -Empress was wild romantic folly: the steps she took to make it come -true were calculating, of the earth earthy. "Such another as you," -propounded Conscience. - -Loyal smiles and humble gratitude gave godspeed to the illustrious -pair. Among the servants the gratitude varied: where Napoleon had -passed--the Countess quizzed them all--tips were imperial. The one or -two Eugenie had given were almost as small as I (not yet an Empress) -would have bestowed. - -"Five francs for Antoinette," repeated the Countess unwearyingly: "it -overcomes me. Five francs from an Empress! If it had been but ten--" - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII: PAREE! - - -Except for the cab-drives between quay and station at Southampton and -Havre, and three half-days in Rouen, I had seen no town whatsoever -outside North Devon. Par_ee_! Par_ee_! my heart kept crying. - -Now "Pariss" was a poor flat word, and "Pary" too, as the French -pronounce it; but by dropping the English S while Englishifying the -French vowel I formed a darling word which my heart could caress -and unwearyingly repeat, thus giving fullest vent to the delight it -anticipated. It was Paree! Paree! all the way in the train and on the -magical twilight drive from St. Lazare Station (gloomy hole enough) -down the great boulevards, past the looming Madeleine, along the Rue -Royale, across the great Concord Place, and over the sheeny river to -the family "hotel" in the Faubourg. Such a glorious city, such princely -streets and monuments I had never pictured, never been able to picture. -Paree! Paree! - - -There were walks and drives with Elise and Suzanne, visits to museums, -galleries, churches; though from all theatres and concerts, following -the solemn promise to my Grandmother, I was debarred. The brilliant -new boulevards were my chief interest. It was often a morbid interest: -to see the crowds, laughing or careworn, hideous deformities, vile -pockmarked faces, hunger jostling with gluttony; everywhere hurrying -gesticulating Mammon. I hated them, loathed them with a physical -loathing that held something of puritanism and patriotism combined: -I longed for England, for goodness, for the ugly unworldliness and -cleanness of the Saints. Now and then a gentle-faced little boy (for -the little girls were for the most part precocious over-dressed apers -of the women they would become) lit up my heart with a moment's -delight: I would turn round and stare as he passed, hoping he too would -turn and stare. - -Our most frequent pilgrimage was to the Great Exhibition, a faery -wilderness of gardens and fountains, of pavilions, pagodas and -pinnacles. We witnessed the Imperial distribution of the prizes -in the Great Hall. On a dais sat the Emperor--my Emperor: Man of -Destiny, Parrot-Face, Waxworks, Long-Body, the prince of the kings of -the earth--surrounded by kings, with the Sultan on his right hand, -and pride everywhere. When the little Prince Imperial advanced to -his father with the prize for workmen's dwellings, wild applause -searched the very roof of the glass palace of Industry. The Emperor -smiled, smiled dismally I thought, for the eyes were sad, wretched. -("Queretaro, Queretaro." His brain rang like a beaten bell. He had -learnt the news today, though none of his subjects yet knew. While we -saw a Sovereign adulated by the world, he saw another Sovereign--his -client king--and a Mexican court-yard, and a firing party. Did he see -also the selfsame day three years ahead: himself, and the preening -Sultan at his right hand, prisoners both in exile and disgrace?) - -Kings, everywhere Kings. For this was the year, more truly than -Talleyrand's, when your carriage could not move through the streets -of Paris because they were _blocked with Kings_. I do not think I -missed a single royal visit--except the King of the Belgians', as I was -seedy that day. The girls, even the Countess, made fun of my courtly -mania: I did not care, I studied the newspapers, and made sure of the -best view-points in each procession. Then I would stand for hours, in -patient royalism, fully rewarded by the instant's pomp and the dear -glance at the Lord's Anointed. There was the barbarous Tsar, with the -Cæsarevitch and the young Grand Duke, his brother. Old Prussia with his -big minister, one Count von Bismarck-Schoenhausen, who liked France--so -well that he visited it again. Austrian Franz-Josef and the ill-fated -Empress. Our own hearty Prince of Wales. Lesser truck: Sweden, -Wurtemberg, Portugal, Greece; with the two Louis of Bavaria, the one -that loved Lola Montes and the other that loved Wagner. - -So the quick scenes shifted, with the actors princes all: till my mind -was raced through by glittering equipages and the remembered faces of -the great. - -Greatest of all were their Hosts, Eagle and his Wife, though not too -great to remember friends, or to invite our Villebecq household (with -dependent) to a Tuileries dance. It was not a state-ball, but one of -the Empress's "Mondays," an intimate little function for some thirty or -forty guests. My orgilous delight was chilled by a swift reflection: I -could not dance. - -"Well," said the Countess, "you must learn." - -I saw Grandmother's gentle eyes, appealing, mute in horror. My Mother -came to me with a pleading No. Poor kept-in-his-place Resolution dared: -_What would Jesus do?_ I sent them packing, closed my eyes, barred up -my heart. "Yes, Madame, and at once; there is no time to lose." I spoke -so sharply that the poor lady started back in amaze. - -Not that I danced very much at the ball, or cared to; I was the guest -of an Empress, and that sufficed me. In a wide hall, the Salon of the -First Consul, we stood ranged in double row. Eugenie, in a lovely robe -of blue satin, of pure simplicity, without pattern or frill, swept -into the room, preceded by sumptuous Officers of the Household, and -followed by her ladies. Like the Emperor his soldiers, she passed us -in review. To each a few gracious words. Yet what right had she to be -so condescending? Who was she, anyway? Why should a few words from her -lips be deemed our highest earthly privilege? It was vulgar resentment -that some woman else was in a lordlier position than I; it was envy; it -was democracy. I was ashamed of my unguestly thoughts when she stopped -at me and said in beautiful English: "This is not worth Jumièges, do -you think?" - -The ball began. Most of the ladies were dressed far more gorgeously -than the Empress. I remember a tall woman (a duchess, confided the -Countess), gowned in shimmering black velvet flounced with gold -guipure; another in crimson velvet sewn with great silver daffodils; -another in white satin-tulle covered by a light overwork of golden -feathers. Everywhere lace, fans, tiaras, jewels. How plain I was beside -them! I despised their half-revealed bosoms, their selfish painted -faces, their sensual lips. The old ways and the Meeting would keep -appearing before me, and Grandmother, and the Lord: I knew that they -were right, and these things wrong. Here was I, a saved young woman, -one of the Lord's elected children--tricked out like a Jezebel, with -flowers in my hair. The old hymn I had so often repeated to Aunt Jael -forced its way into my memory, compelled me to repeat it to myself, -verse by remorseless verse: - - - Shall the Christian maiden wear - Flowers or jewels in her hair, - When the blood-stained crown of thorn - On her Saviour's brow was borne? - - -Here in this King's palace I revelled, my bosom swelling with vanity,-- - - - Shall the Christian maiden's breast - Swell beneath the broidered vest, - When the scarlet robe of shame - Girt her Saviour's tortured frame? - - -And I was dancing. The first moments showed me that our Brethren-hatred -was good hatred, and Elise's description of men a just description. -They pressed insinuatingly, their contact sickened me. O Lord, Lord, to -what fleshliness was I sinking?-- - - - Shall the Christian maiden's feet - Earth's unhallowed measures beat, - While beneath the Cross's load - Sank the suffering Son of God? - - -It was nightmare. Hatred of all this luxury and glare and godlessness -flooded me in so physical and overwhelming a fashion that I was near -to fainting. I turned from the fleshly men, the hard horrible women: -Vanity, Vanity. There was more Resolution in that night's distaste -than a thousand sealed envelopes. I pleaded headache, and refused to -dance again. Elise was no comfort: she was indifferent tonight, not -rebellious like me. "What did I tell you?" was the best she could do. - -I could watch them no longer, and suddenly left the ballroom, to wander -about the palace rooms, deliberately turning my thoughts to the old -history of this place that I might forget the present loathing. Whether -or no much reading be a weariness to the flesh, to me it was a resource -unfailing: I could take refuge from the day's trouble in reviewing the -glory of yesterday. As for the Tuileries Palace, I would wager that -no other living English girl could have told herself its tale much -more fully: summoned more surely the long procession of its grey and -glittering dead.... - -Catherine de Medici, first builder of the palace, warned by an -astrologer that it would end in tragedy and flames. Louis XIV, the Sun -King, lording it in Carrousel fêtes. Marie-Antoinette, Austrian woman, -brought here with her poor husband from Versailles, brought back again -a prisoner after Varennes. June '92, first invasion of the palace by -the mob: threats, insults and obscene shouts. September '92, when the -vile mob invaded, sent Louis and Marie to Conciergerie prison, came -here to yell, steal, sack, blaspheme, and murder, hacking to pieces the -old faithful servants of the crown, slashing with knives the dying and -the doctors attending to the dying: prostitutes ransacked the Queen's -wardrobes and wallowed, loathsomely, in her bed, kicking up their legs -in democratic glee. Revolutionaries, Girondins, Mountainists, with -Prince Robespierre--mean, savage and pure. The flat-haired Corsican -youth. From here he went forth to be crowned, from here the Pope of -Rome went forth to crown him. Here reigned the pomp and splendour of -the Empire; hither entered Josephine in triumph and hence slunk out -in disgrace; hither came Marie-Louise (Austrian woman too) in pomp -processional, hence she fled a fugitive. These walls stared at the -coming and going of the Hundred Days; at bellied Eighteenth Louis -and Charles the Tenth his brother, last king of Ancient France; at -Louis-Philippe of pear-shaped head and Brethering umbrella; at the wild -mobs of '48 (my birth year), pillaging anew. Phrensy of peoples, folly -of Kings: change and change about. Each new monarch had sagely wagged -his head: "The others, ha ha!--I know the mistakes they made--I will -profit by their example--my sojourn here is eternal--these barns are -big, but I will build greater." - -With my Emperor permanence had come at last. Him no fears could shake: -not by divine right nor mere parliaments nor yet by plebiscite alone -had he reached the palace, but by dreams, which alone come true. Here -he had entered in a state which mocked his poor predecessors; here -on the balcony he had stood, while the crowd in the gardens madly -acclaimed him, and the Marshal St. Arnaud proclaimed the Second -Empire. Here in a pomp and luxury before unknown he had reigned and -gloried. From these doors, at the Depart for Italy, he had sallied -forth; to sally forth again to Notre-Dame, for the Te-Deum for -Solferino, through roads strewn with flowers and adoration. He had made -Paris the capital of capitals, himself the King of Kings, this Palace -the centre of the universe.... - - -One morning a letter reached the Countess from Lord Tawborough. He was -at an hotel in Paris; might he take the liberty of calling? - -My heart beat fast with joyful expectation. - -He came, once and again. We went out together, sometimes with the -others, oftenmost alone--on long walks in the Paris streets or -excursions to Versailles and the environs. He was an oasis in this -city-wilderness of evil faces: the sight of this Englishman, the -clean-featured noble face, the fairy godfather to whom I owed all the -rich experiences of the past year, Rachel's little boy, gave me a -peaceful pleasure which after my hectic ambitions and intrigues was -like dew after rain. The interest of his conversation, the sense of -worth and superiority (to me) he imparted cleared my foolish brain and -cooled my insane pride. "You'd call this gush if it were Suzanne who -thought it!" whispered Satan. "Yes Sir," I replied, "but Tawborough -is not Fouquier"--Everywoman's reply. Intellect, character, kindness, -purity, race--it was a banquet of pure delight. - -I tried to analyse for myself the reasons for the exhilaration -which filled me in his presence, and in no other presence; not in -Grandmother's, though I had loved her always: not in Elise's, though I -loved her now. I could unravel no reasons, only ponder on the facts: -(1) that his was the only face I knew which gave me a positive, -physical joy, which filled me with tenderness and wonder. I would have -fed on his face unceasingly if I had dared; (2) that in his presence -alone the consciousness of self, of omnipresent Mary, left me, and I -felt free, unconscious, unburdened, happy: if when he was at hand I -stopped suddenly and asked myself "And Eternity?" I could laugh, and -flout the bogey; (3) I apprehended that these emotions were reciprocal, -and this was the chief delight of all. - -Yet, I argued, this was not Love. Love was Robbie. Love was -Christmas-Night, one day to be renewed. Still, what lesser word than -love could describe the admiration, the gratitude, the fluttering -tenderness, the pure exultant affection I felt? So in my diary I called -it love (with a small l) and kept the capital for Robbie. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII: I BECOME AN HEIRESS - - -Soon after our return to Normandy I found on my breakfast-plate an -envelope in my Grandmother's handwriting. As a rule her letters came -in small square envelopes of the ordinary English shape and size. This -one was long, plastered with extra stamps, notable-looking, parchmenty. -Perhaps a consignment of tracts. - -I found inside a heavy parchment document, covered with impressive -copper-plate, together with a letter from my Grandmother, written not -on her usual cream-coloured note-paper, but on whiter sheets with a -thick black edging. - -Could it be Aunt Jael? The first line reassured (?) me. It was -Great-Uncle John, so rarely heard of, though known to me for ever as my -Mother's "dear Uncle" and good man. It did not need my special greed -and cunning to surmise rightly why his Will was sent to me. Inordinate -hope--changing, as I rushed through my Grandmother's letter, into -radiant certainty--stifled regret. (Regret would have been affectation, -whispered Satan.) Without reading through the letter I stuffed the -papers into the envelope and devoured my breakfast; preventing myself -thinking till it should be over. - -Suzanne had been watching me. "You have had good news I think?" - -"Yes," I replied, unawares. - -"I'm glad, because I noticed a black-rimmed envelope, and thought -perhaps it might be bad." - - -In my boudoir I settled down at my leisure, luxuriously to learn the -best. Grandmother's letter was one of the longest I ever had from her. -As I read she came near me, became suddenly a part of the present. -For an instant I saw her face, _in the flesh_. But the self that saw -her was another Mary--Mary of Bear Lawn, full of fear and floggings, -surrounded by God and Aunt Jael; not that Villebecq puppet. I could -feel the selves changing place within me--and changing back.... - -All the old prayers, the immemorial pleadings. Love the Lord only, and -His service. Dedicate this wealth to Him. Lay it not up where moth and -rust do corrupt. His love is the only true riches. There is only His -love, my dearie.... - -Grandmother dear! Noblest of all the Saints, now high among the Saints -in Heaven. _How much?_ I wondered. - -I found a little summary made by the lawyer on half a sheet of -notepaper, which spared my wading through the uncommaed intricacies of -the Will itself. - -Briefly: there was £400 for Grandmother, £200 for Aunt Jael, £100 each -for Aunt Martha, Albert, and certain charities. All the rest--some -£10,000, or about £500 a year--was left to me: me, Mary. - -At first I could only think in exultant exclamation marks. Ten thousand -Pounds! Five-hun-dred-pounds-a-year! (Sonorously mouthed.) Wealth, -freedom, power! - -I was my own mistress now. I could do any defiance, yet have my bread. -Aunt Jael, urged the feeble voice of some-far-away Self. "Who is Aunt -Jael?" asked Villebecq Mary: "Ah yes, to be sure, I remember." "I pay -for the Child's music"--cry that two years ago could have rallied me -to any revenge--"I" now stifled with a bland _Pourquoi_? How silly it -seemed, how silly Revenge always is. - -No, I would buy a house of my own--the ambition which life in the -Château, and other dreamings, had made my chief one now--and I would -live there with Robbie for ever. The hunger, the longing possessed me -more mournfully, more passionately than for long months. I flung myself -on the bed and covered the pillow with kisses.... - -I would help the Saints, play Lady Bountiful to the Lord, send much -money for the heathen, succour more than one needy labourer in the -Lord's vineyard abroad. "Sops," sneered Conscience. "Go and work in the -Lord's vineyard yourself. All that thou hast--" - -How furious Uncle Simeon would be, I reflected pleasurably. The -Will provided that if I died all my share was to go (after use by -Grandmother during the remainder of her lifetime) to Aunt Martha and -Albert. So my life, which he loathed, was all that stood between Simeon -Greeber and the money that he so much loved. Unkindest cut: I had -plentiful cuts to repay. And for him alone, of Child Mary's enemies my -present self nourished hatred: for I knew he was an enemy still. - -Could he _do_ anything? - -Next morning's post brought the only letter he ever wrote me:-- - - - No. 1, The Quay, - TORRIBRIDGE, N. DEVON. - November 7th, 1867 A. D. - - Dear Young Niece,-- - - Often though one asks for your news--seeks to learn of your - material and spiritual state--it has never before been one's sad - pleasure to address you a letter in person. Two reasons have - guided me today, after much prayer, to take this step. One is to - express our sympathy--Martha's and one's own--with you in the loss - of your Great-Uncle, who, though you never saw him in the flesh, - must yet have been very near to you because of your knowledge of - his goodness to your poor suffering Mother, now a saint in Heaven! - Martha would have written herself, but she is not too well just - now: the Lord is visiting her with bodily affliction. The other - reason is to give oneself the opportunity of saying how glad one - is to learn of the worldly good fortune poor dear Mr. Vickary's - death has brought you. May you use it to _His_ glory! If--one will - be frank--one had any pangs of husbandly and fatherly jealousy at - the _lesser_ good fortune of one's dear wife and son, they were - quickly o'ercome. Prayer has won one's heart from worship of the - Golden Calf, and made one able to be with you in spirit in this new - privilege and _duty_ the Lord has conferred upon you. May you live - long to use it in His Service is one's humble prayer! - - One hears of you often thro' Martha and your dear Grandmother. One - rejoices to know that, in that Papist land, you still find the - reading of His Word the chief of all your joys. One hears that - you appreciate most that "_Book_ of the heart, and _heart_ of the - book," viz, the Psalms. Yes, one can find there words of succour - for any circumstances, any frame of mind. The Psalms are prophetic - of _His_ sufferings and glory, notably the 22nd, opening with His - cup of agony when abandoned for _our_ sins; like Isaiah 53 they - point only to Christ (how one loves verses 5 and 6 for the peace - they have brought one)--Christ revealed by His Word and Spirit! - - Poor dear Mr. Vickary, how quickly gone! One knew him not at all, - but one felt it keenly. One believes he was naturally a good and - lovable character--but how one longed to know something much more - than that! One's own little son is giving one great hope and - comfort. Though cursed with many faults, alas, of both character - and temper; and humble as intellectually he may be; yet he reads - the Word continually, and speaks to one freely on the subject, so - that one can form a fair opinion of his spiritual state. - - Dear Martha and Albert send their love, in which one is glad, with - prayerful sincerity, to join. One has been dwelling much lately on - Philippians iv, 8. - - Accept one's best Wishes, - - SIMEON GREEBER. - - P.S. LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES UPON EARTH. (St. Matt. vi, - 19.) - - -I was uneasy, but what could he _do_? - -The family learned my good news, hoped only it did not mean my leaving -them. To do so had indeed never crossed my mind; for my plans, -house-dreamings and the rest were, as always, watertight: in the -compartment of daydreams, and having no connection with my immediate -doings. Even had I wanted to go away, I was as penniless as before -until my twenty-first birthday should arrive. - -The first two or three days after the Windfall I gave only these -surface-thinkings a hearing. All the time--even from the very second -the news entered my brain--Other Self was murmuring, though for a -foolish day or two I fought her down. Then, one silent night, she -broke loose, crashed through the silly web of pride, greed, and -heathen-helping, and rained at Snob-Mary (whom "I" loathed this night -till I could have spat in my loathing) the hard questions that only the -fools who dare not face them say are not worth facing. - -Are you not commoner, meaner, lower, since this money? - -Is not the Safety you now possess utterly undeserved, selfish, fatal to -your soul? - -You have your wealth: how will God get even? - -£500 is a goodly treasure: but what will it serve you 500 years from -now? - -Will gold protect you from Eternity? - -Are you happier, any happier at all? - - -Life was a search for the happiness that is the secret of the world. -The key was not of Gold. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV: I BECOME A DAUGHTER - - -We had arranged to spend a certain day in Rouen, but when the day came -I did not feel well: I was tired and inclined to be feverish. The -first sign of a coming illness, to which bad dreams and bad conscience -(Money) were each contributing. I asked to be left at home. The -Countess and the two girls went away by the early train; de Fouquier -also was to be absent for a whole day, visiting some distant farms. I -was alone. - -I was restless, and could not settle down to read or even to think. A -ride might cheer me up, I decided, so I went down to the stables and -ordered the horse I always rode. Then I went upstairs and put on my -riding-habit. By the time I was downstairs again, I felt tired and -disinclined. I sent the horse away, and threw myself down in a chair in -the great dining-room, without changing back into my ordinary clothes. -I still had the whip in my hand. - -I cannot have been more than half awake, for though I had a dim -notion of Gabrielle retreating through the curtains and depositing a -gentleman in the room, I remember nothing in the way of announcement or -explanation. Some one was there: who or how or why I did not know. I -took in that he was tall, dressed like a gentleman, and silver-haired; -but at his face, for some vaguely-felt reason of half-awakeness or -self-consciousness or fear, I could not look. - -"Good day, Sir," I said, shunning his eyes, "pray won't you sit down." -Naturally I spoke in French. - -"Thank you, perhaps I will," he replied in languid and exquisite -English, utterly ignoring the fact that I had spoken in French. "I am -happy to meet a fellow-countrywoman in this Papist land." - -The ancient familiar jargon flung at me so unexpectedly, and in a voice -that matched it so ill, roused me to immediate hostility. And was my -French so bad that he must needs assume I was English? Or did he know? -But it was my own annoyance at his Christian phrasing that annoyed me -most. Though, to be sure, the voice was not a Christian's. Who could he -be? - -I looked more boldly, though still avoiding his eyes. It was impossible -to guess his age. The fresh skin and beardless chin were a boy's, -the carriage suggested a man in the prime of life, the headful -of silvery-white denoted venerable age. The features were small, -patrician, womanish; the mouth especially being too small for a man's, -while full of pride and authority and race. A lordly and effeminate -_grand seigneur_. - -The eyes, I knew, were the key to the mysterious face, and at these I -dared not look. - -All these impressions must have been gathered in a second of time, for -he seemed to be still in the same sentence. - -"--Yes, I am happy to meet you, for I feel you are the Lord's." The -languid voice fashioned such a mockery of our Brethren speech that for -a moment I could have railed at him for Antichrist. Then I felt quickly -that I was foolish, and let him go on. "Assure me that you are His, -Mademoiselle, pray assure me." - -"I may be," I said sharply, "but plain 'Miss' is good enough for me, -s'il vous plait, _monsieur_." - -"May-be, may-be!" he sneered, for I had roused his spite. "'May-be' is -the cry of souls in torment, the watchword of the damned. Beware, young -woman, of your woman's filthy pride. It is the snare of men, the source -of all wickedness. Woman, subtle of heart and impudent of face, who -hath cast down many wounded, whose house is the way to Hell--" - -It was a madman. He had forgotten me, he had forgotten himself. He -was hypnotizing himself with his own words; his eyes were wild and -unseeing. I looked into them now. God, they were not his eyes, but _my -own_, just as I saw them when I stared in a mirror. I was bewitched, -and could only go on staring, staring. The mystical excitement seized -me, the sense of physical existence departed, more surely than ever -before the imminent immanent moment was upon me, I had discovered the -World, I was kissing the eyes, my soul moved forward to reach him--. I -found myself stumbling up from my chair in his direction, and with my -ordinary eyes saw him still standing there, still intoning away, still -almost unconscious of everything--but not completely, for he knew his -power over me. - -Suddenly, in the middle of a phrase, he stopped. I broke in quickly, in -sanest worldliest fashion. - -"I should be glad to know, Sir," I said coldly, "why in an ordinary -sensible house, which is neither yours nor mine, you are favouring me -with these extraordinary speeches. You have not the advantage of my -acquaintance, nor I of yours. Is it Madame the Countess de Florian you -called to see?" - -"Ah true, true!"--there was no change of voice or manner, but a change -(I felt) of person inside him--"Yes: I am an old friend of the family; -I came over from Rouen, through which I was passing, and learn from the -servant that by a piece of ill-fortune the family are in Rouen today. -Here is my card." - -I took it, without looking at it. - -"I am an English friend who lives here," I said, "a kind of companion -to the girls." - -"Indeed, indeed! As I was saying"--and impatient of the length of this -irrelevant interruption of his ravings, he half-closed his eyes again -and resumed the tirade of piety and denunciation and woman-hating and -hell-fire. He was mad. He was not mad. All the world was mad. _It was -not happening._ - -I was working myself up to face again the experience of his eyes, when -my glance lighted accidentally on the visiting card in my hand. - -The news entered my soul before my brain. It was not news; I had known -it all the time. I stared at the printed letters one by one, not able -to understand them, understanding them all too well. They stood up from -the card, assumed hideous shapes. It was a nightmare. It was not true. -I clutched at the side of the bed--no, it was the dining-room table -against which I was leaning. There were the chair, the sideboards, the -armour; there was _he_. - -In my visions of this meeting I had always taken him unawares and now -it was I who had been surprised. The second part of my dreams at any -rate should not fail. I gripped the whip more tightly. - -In crowding tumult every word of my Grandmother's old narration filled -my heart and brain. I was ten years old again. She called me upstairs -to her bedroom, pulled out the brown tin box from under the bed, drew -forth the packet. Each phrase of each pitiful letter was marshalled by -my inhuman memory before my eyes. Bitch, Bitch, he called her Bitch. As -I looked at the white halo-crowned vile beautiful face before me, as -he raved away, I did not listen: one by one I went over the ill-deeds -and the cruel words I had to his account, feverishly I visualized my -mother's suffering and sorrow till I was at the white heat for avenging -them. The hardest part was to keep calm, sane: to keep my will in -control of my emotions, which were bursting through all the ancient -bonds of self-restraint, urging me tempestuously to await no perfectly -planned moment, but to wound him _now_. - -Somehow I kept my voice steady. I interrupted; and, following my plan, -veered him back into his maniacal misogyny. - -"You have a poor opinion of our sex indeed. What, Sir, if you have a -daughter of your own?" - -"I busy myself not with my children of the flesh, but only with my -children of the spirit." - -He was impossibly real, impossibly like Grandmother's story. He meant -what he said; there was no hypocrisy. I was proud of the handsome face, -had a lunatic longing for the eyes. - -I could kiss him, kill him. - -"I had a child once, they tell me--at least her mother said it was -mine--" - -_Now!_ cried Melodrama, _Now!_ cried the Plan, and the Mary I had -always visualized for this moment achieved herself as--suddenly, -savagely--I cut him across the face with my whip. - -He was an old man now, and fell to the ground helplessly. I lashed at -him in a blind fury of revenge and righteousness, shouting horrible -words of which I hardly knew the meaning. He tried to rise, but I -struck him down again. "Bitch, Bitch, you called her Bitch. You swine, -God is paying you back." - -I knelt down suddenly beside him: "Father, will you kiss me?" - -I have a distant notion of de Fouquier somewhere near me, of fading -away into a world vaguer and colder than dreams.... - - -There is a door that leads to happiness. Revenge cannot force the lock. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV: WAY OF A SERPENT UPON A ROCK - - -Everywhere there was a cold and mistlike darkness. Shapes emerged. -Billows of whiter mist loomed nearer through the darkness, came from -every corner of utmost space. The dark heaven departed as a scroll -when it is rolled together; the white billows poured in on every side, -engulphed me, choked me with icy fumes. Was I dead, and awake in cold -Eternity? - -The mists turned into molten suns who scorched my body till only the -soul was left, naked against the burning heat. - -I died again, to wake once more in a new causeless Eternity of terror. -Always there was a menace, everywhere a fear. I knew I was dreaming, -in a dream within a dream; this gave me no ease, as I knew that dreams -were true. Rather were the pain, the terror, the pursuit, more real, -more awful, than waking ills. My agony of soul was unsearchable; there -was no God even to cry to, for soon I was God, in His loneliness -without help or escape, without beginning and without end. - -Human shapes, with a horror and a power to do me evil far beyond their -real stature in my past, pursued, reached, assailed, slew me. Always I -died, and always I woke to a new universe of more sickening fear. Aunt -Jael, Benamuckee--every evil face and evil fact from the old days of -the life I had once dreamt on the earth, invested now with infinite -power and unimaginable horror--menaced me, dogged my piteous flight -along the unending pathway of Eternity. Uncle Simeon was there. The -most horrible fear of my childhood, he was the most horrible now: an -Evil more ghastly than human memory or imagination. "Twelve years ago, -twelve years ago!" I whispered. He saw, rushed to the door, while I -rushed madlier across the roof-room to my attic. This time he would -outrun me. No, I was in time. I tore through the aperture and just had -time, shivering in fright, to huddle down upon the floor before the key -turned and he was in upon me, over me, peering at me with unpitying -cruelty and hate, I lay numbly staring at the yellow-pale face, the -savage blue eyes, the wet thin lips, the honey-coloured beard--now -tinged with grey--just as it would be now in "real" life, I had enough -reason in my dream to be able (in a frightening lapse from feeling to -thought) to reflect. The face came nearer, gleamed physically its hate, -seemed to breathe at me. - -"Oh, God!" I prayed wildly, "Where am I? Tell me, oh tell me! If a -dream, of thy pity awaken me: if life after death, slay me for ever!" - -Now he was Simeon Greeber the poisoner; he was pouring something into a -phial, he took a tiny white tablet--fear made my dream-eyes keen--and -dissolved it in the liquid. Some one was propping me up, his eyes were -gleaming with hope, he lifted the glass to my lips-- - -"Poisoner!" I shrieked and dashed the glass away. I put my hands -swiftly to my eyes, and they were _open_. My bed, the Château Villebecq -bedroom, half-drawn blinds, a hundred impressions instantaneously -reached me. I was awake again, and in this world; my chin and neck were -wet with the spilled liquid, and he was there, the this-world Uncle -Simeon, hastily picking up bits of glass. He was real, and I knew it; -he looked up and knew that I knew. - -Could I sham him into doubting it? My senses had not properly returned, -and flog my brain as I would, in a frantic second of endeavour, she -could not tell me how or why I was here in bed, how or why Uncle Simeon -was here beside me. - -I smiled, assumed my frankest stare, and shammed that I was dreaming -again. (Unless it was, after all, a dream unnameably real, a dream -within a dream.) Staring at him fixedly as though I did not see -him--and for a half-moment I saw doubt in his eyes--"_Madam_," I cried, -"some one has tried to poison me. Find him, find him!" - -Deceived or no, he was not losing his chance. "One will find him soon, -one will find him," he whispered soothingly, the while preparing -another potion below the level of the bed: "Meanwhile, dearie, drink -something to make you better." Swiftly he seized me, grasped my neck as -in a vice, and forced the glass against my lips. - -Somehow I got my mouth away, somehow I managed to shriek, to shriek -till I seemed to be losing my senses again. In dream-fashion shapes -crowded round me once more: Elise and Suzanne--and the Stranger. -Whether real shapes or not, they were Friends. I was saved. All would -be well. And I fell into a dreamless sleep. - - -To this day I do not know with absolute sureness whether these moments -were dream or waking life. Little is the difference, for is not the one -as real, or as unreal, as the other? - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI: THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES - - -I awoke to find Lord Tawborough by my bedside, with Elise for chaperone. - -The latter soon pieced things together for me. Gabrielle had found me -in a feverish half-unconscious state on the dining-room floor. She -had got me upstairs, and hastily sent to Caudebec for the doctor, who -pronounced me to be in a dangerous fever. Nobody seemed to connect my -illness in any way with Monsieur Traies' visit. In the anxiety and -fuss upon the family's return, Gabrielle had indeed forgotten even to -mention it--till next morning, when his crumpled visiting card was -found on the dining-room floor. Nor had any one seen him leave the -house or grounds. (Mauled and aching, his hands before his scarred -and kissed and bleeding face; crawling, slinking away.) My illness -had soon become dangerous; it was doubted whether I could live, and -Elise had sent urgent word to England. My Grandmother had written that -she was, alas, too frail and old to come, but that she was sending -her son-in-law, my Uncle, instead; she prayed the Lord in His mercy -to spare me. Monsieur Greeber had arrived--an odd little man, very -grateful for his reception--and had sat with me devotedly, all day -and half the night, through the worst days, days when I was racked by -the wildest fever, torn by ravings and prayers, nightmare cries and -supplications, and had indeed been with me alone, in a brief period -when the doctor and nurse were absent, at the moment in which I reached -the turning-point and for the first time recovered consciousness. I had -railed at Monsieur Greeber like a madwoman, suddenly become conscious, -and then as suddenly fallen into a calm unfevered sleep. He had hoped -to have stayed to see me well on the road to recovery, but word -reaching him the very same day that his own son in England was taken -ill, he had left hurriedly. The same critical day Lord Tawborough had -reached the house, summoned by the news Elise had urgently sent him. - -Meanwhile, in Cardboard-World, big events had ripened. Elise talked -feverishly. I listened with mild interest. Who was Fouquier, anyway, -and what did it all matter? - -I learnt how the Countess had had a mighty quarrel with him, and how -at last, after so many years, she had screwed up her courage to the -point of deciding to dispense with him, though not yet to the point of -telling him of her decision. - -"And Suzanne?" I asked. "If she loves him as she did before, she may -take it ill." - -"I don't know. For months I have seen nothing to make me think so. -Anyway, so far we have told her nothing. She knows nothing." - -"And when the thunderbolt descends?" - -"I am hopeful. The honour of the family...." - - -The days of my convalescence held a pleasure that banished the -nightmare past. Almost the whole day the Stranger was at my bedside. -Hour after hour I lay gazing at the dear distinguished face. I soon -found that they all thought me less wide-awake and nimble-minded than -I was, so I stared with impunity, imparting a touch of vacancy to my -stare: a shield-and-buckler vacancy. I lay bathed in a new delicious -sentimentality, worshipping him, drinking him in, idealizing him. He -was my Mother's little boy; he had loved her; he had given me the first -novel I had ever read, had shaped my first apprehension of nature's -beauty. To him I owed my education, my social raising, my life of -splendour here. For England he had kissed me Good-bye in the moment I -had left her. It was a tender exultant joy to watch his face. He was -hardly older than the Stranger of the Torribridge hillside morning -ten years ago; though his hair was turning grey, a proud and princely -grey. There was the same beloved countenance, manly yet gentle, clean, -clear-cut, slightly sharp-featured; the same eyes, quizzical-whimsical, -yet holding the kindness of all the world; the same intelligence, -culture, race; the same maddening purity and nobleness; the same Call -to Worship. With something added, not in him, but in me who regarded -him: a knowledge that he was a man, that he was dear and desirable -beyond other men, that nearness would be very beautiful. Sometimes, -swiftly, sentimentality would flood and transfigure my normal -consciousness. My heart would pass through the last Gate of Tenderness, -approach the portals of Love. Then in a crowding mystical moment the -Vision changed, and it was Robbie: Robbie and I, we were kissing -each other, radiantly; Christmas Night of long ago had become the -present once again. The Vision would fade, and leave me staring at the -Stranger, liking him, needing him, yet with my heart too full of the -Vision to be able to wonder what _loving_ him might mean. - -Love, in its only and ultimate meaning, in the sense of the mystery of -this world, of Jordan morning, of the Holy Ghost, could only reach me, -I saw once again, through one human being on earth, Robbie of Christmas -Night. Who, where, how, what was he now? - -My spirit would flag a little, and sink from the uttermost heights. -Once below the level of that very highest heaven of all, Love the -Madness passed, and the saner, warmer adoration for the Stranger -returned. - -What were his feelings? I was not sure. The kindness of his eyes, -what was it? A kindness like that must be for every one, must hold a -universal message. No, must be for one person alone, could be lighted -only by the human soul he loved. Who? Had _he_ his Robbie-girl? There -were moments when I knew he loved me. More often and more surely, I -felt there was a sentiment and a sympathy akin to my own, but quieter, -nearer earth, less likely to stray up the steep Robbie-closed path to -LOVE. - -Yet I would play with fire, and, on the level where Robbie was not -remembered, visualize myself loved by, wooed by, married by the -Stranger. Swiftly I was on a lower level still, where Snob-Mary could -wallow. To become a Peeress! "Not so very absurd," others might -think. "After all, they were cousins, his mother and her father were -first cousins, you know--though she was, of course, brought up rather -differently, with some Nonconformist (sic) relations on her mother's -side. However, blood will tell!" I knew better, knew that common Bear -Lawn Mary was the real Me. Or was it? Except for the kinship of memory, -how was she me at all? She was but a poor remembered Mary: what the I -of today would be to the person inhabiting this body ten years ahead. -There was no such thing as permanence of personality, there was no such -thing as anybody. Ever-different souls inhabit the same body; memory -alone connects them with their predecessors, instinct alone makes them -work for their successors. I must work for mine. I must try to deserve -well of the coming Marys, seek to marry them well. Lady Tawborough! - -His talk, far beyond Elise's even, was a high delight. He spoke of -life, books, travels; of the South, which he knew the best, of the -seven cities of Italy, the seven hills of Rome. Of his plans and hopes: -how he would soon end his wandering and go back to Devonshire for good. -Of his schemes for his estates, the work he hoped to do in the country, -the book he might write, the position he might win for himself in the -House of Lords. Always there was something he did not say, seemed -to shrink from saying. Was it that he thought I was fond of him and -did not like to wound me by telling me there was some one else: his -girl-Robbie? Or was it--? - -Those convalescent weeks rank among the gentlest memories of my life. -My French friends were kind to me beyond deserts or hopes. I was -restored to health in the daily companionship of a Vision of goodness -and delight. My chief Revenge had been achieved. The nightmare life was -away beyond the nightmare illness. Hate was now for ever behind me. I -was a tenderer Mary. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII: WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA - - -Villebecq Mademoiselle, who would play melodrama, was achieving much -less in her chosen way of business than still slumbering Bear Lawn -Mary, who had played at life. And now, in these last days (as they were -to prove) of the Villebecq existence as I had known it, she was to shew -herself quite unequal to a rôle of garish prominence she was suddenly -called upon to play. She quitted the stage, unaccompanied by plaudits -or pity, and died of an empty heart. - -The circumstances were these. - -The first day or so after I left my bedroom I spent in writing up my -Diary: making the notes on which the last three chapters are based. - -The Countess' arrangements as to de Fouquier's successor were -completed; the gentleman in question, a Monsieur de Beaurepaire, was -ready to take up his duties in three days' time. De Fouquier knew -nothing. - -The day before the morning fixed upon for his dismissal I was sitting -alone in the library, writing in my Diary. The door opened, I drew the -blotting-paper protectively over the page. It was Monsieur de Fouquier, -and he knew: knew everything. There was a look in his eyes--a look -I have only seen once besides, many years later, on the face of a -Russian nobleman, the night before he shot himself in the bedroom of a -St. Petersburgh hotel--of wolfish desperation; desperate and wolfish -as only the eyes of a selfish luxurious well-fed man can become. His -voice, however, was still suave, unpleasantly suave. - -"Ah, good day, Mademoiselle. I have come to say Good-bye. I am glad to -have had the pleasure of knowing you so well." - -"I am sorry," I replied (I think sincerely), "though, despite the long -time I have been here, I could hardly agree with you that we have known -each other well. We have so little to do with each other." - -"_Directly_, perhaps," he said meaningly. "_De vive voix_, it is true, -you have given me but sparingly of your thoughts and views. I have been -able to learn to appreciate them, nevertheless, thanks to an occasional -perusal of that charming book before you now. Oh, I read your language -if I do not speak it. _Vot vud Jesus do? Vot vud Jesus do?_"--in -mocking horrible English. - -Shame flooded me, and hate. This monster, who for months had been -peering into the secret places of my soul! - -"Vat vud Jesus do?" he was repeating, with a sneer again and again. - -"Stop!" I cried. "I will not listen to blasphemy." - -"You will listen awhile to me," and he stood against the door, barring -possible egress. "You have had a large share in the filthy campaign -of lies and intrigues which has at last succeeded in turning me out -of this house. I shall at least make sure that you are bundled out -yourself. Before I go, this very day, I am going to supply this amiable -and grateful family with a brief account of yourself and who you -really are,--your dirty little shopkeeper relations in England, your -common sailor of a grandfather, your vulgar canting old grandmother, -your boozing aunt. Then a few words about your dear father, and your -frankness with Madame la Comtesse on the subject of his recent visit: -how odd that he did not live with your mother, how odd the little hints -Monsieur Greeber was so good as to give me as to whether he was your -dear father at all, how odd the charm of bastardy--" - -"Monsieur," I broke in, "if ever I have a husband, he shall exact full -payment for this. Go on insulting me, however. It will achieve nothing, -it leaves me cold." - -"A husband, ah yes--dear 'R'! How tender your many references to him. -Strange though it should seem, this world is small, and suppose so -seemingly irrelevant an event as my forced departure from this house in -France should have some effect on dear 'R' in England? There is my dear -friend Monsieur Greeber. Don't alarm yourself, there's a brave girl--" - -"Get out!" I cried. - -"When I have done. There are still other results of your handiwork -to consider. The family's name, for instance? It will benefit, you -think, from my departure? Monsieur le Comte--his honourable doings. -Mademoiselle Elise--her passion for her sister--so pure, so natural, so -sisterly--" - -"Ten seconds, and if you're not gone, I shall shriek for help." I rose, -pale with anger. - -He came forward, seized me, glued his mouth to mine. - -It was no stage-play now. In a strange flooding moment Mary the lover -of Robbie reconquered the fortress of my soul. Thirty years later I can -summon the odd physical-spiritual sensation as the selves did battle -within me. Mine eyes beheld love, and this nightmare moment was its -negation. - -I only record the moment, shutting the spirit's memory as I write; -think of it I will not, cannot. I struggled, for a second or two, -without avail, wild with a nameless sickening fear; prayed in shame and -desperation "Lord, deliver me: Robbie, forgive!" Then with a desperate -movement I freed my face from the foul impact, and gave as heartrending -a shriek as was ever achieved by virgin in distress. - -He made swiftly to free himself, but now I held him tight, clipped him -to me with such a new savagery and strength that although he knee'd -and wriggled brutally he could not struggle free. Footsteps were -approaching--I knew whose--and I managed, during one more second of -supreme endeavour and complex anticipatory delight, to hold on. - -Lord Tawborough entered, took him by the scruff of the neck, wrenched -him away from me, and flung him out of the room. - -I liked Lord Tawborough. - -"_Les hommes!_" commented Elise. "So that's the end of friend Fouquier." - -It was. That same day he disappeared from the Château for ever. - -It seemed as though the house had been cleansed of a foul atmosphere. -The Countess, though already worrying about troubles and dangers ahead, -seemed for the first time mistress in her own house. - -"Let him do his worst," said Elise, "it isn't very much." - -Only Suzanne was nowhere about, seen by none of us. At dinner that -night she was not present. Her bedroom door was locked, and she would -reply to no one, admit no one. Next day we burst open the door, found -the room empty. - -Suzanne had fled. - - * * * * * * * - -It was the end. - -It was the end of the Château Villebecq I had known, the end of the -easeful days of bright comfort shot through with gay melodrama, the end -of the Interlude. For two other women, mother and sister, it was the -end for ever of this world's happiness; for the other herself too, as I -learned long afterwards. - -Madame de Florian crumpled up under the blow. All she had lived -for--the honour of her name, the worldly success of her daughters--was -lost. All her employment--the day-to-day strivings towards these two -ends--was gone. In one night she seemed to shrivel up; to become at -a stroke five times more wizened, more futile, more plaintive than -before. Life, perhaps, had never had much to give her; now it held -nothing. Her days were divided between regrets and self-reproachings, -complaints, servant-scoldings and tears. - -To me alone she confided her woe. I was the one kind soul she had ever -known; Heaven had meant me to be her daughter! I gave her nothing from -my soul--except pity, poor pity, and even this soon lost its first -spontaneity; became conscious, conscientious--yet always I could see -she was getting what I did not give: a sense of boundless sympathy and -affection. In every mood and every mope she came to me for comfort, -and--though I knew full well in my actress-heart that I was giving her -nothing at all, no real love, no healing sympathy, only the shams and -simulacra of these, served up with pity, luxurious self-comforting -pity--always I saw that my shadow was her substance. She returned -me a boundless gratitude; pathetic, delicious to my palate, cruelly -undeserved. - -"Ah Mademoiselle, there are not many like you! My life is over. I -am a poor old woman alone. Only you understand. Stay with me, dear -Mademoiselle." - - -And I did. - -Elise took to her room, asked no comfort, refused what I proffered, -railed at me for being the real cause of her losing her dear one, spent -long days alone in her bedroom weeping, and would not be comforted. -After a few weeks, when no news came of Suzanne, she took really ill. -When sufficiently recovered to travel, she went for a long stay in the -South of France, Gabrielle accompanying her. At leaving she refused to -see me, even to say Good-bye. - -The new steward did not live in the house, now a deserted place, damp -and cold in the long winter that followed, inhabited by memories, -haunted by fugitive joys. Through the long days and nights, echoes -of happiness would ring aloud through the emptiness, and sometimes I -heard Suzanne's laugh on the staircase or the quick feet of friendly -approaches in the corridor. Now that joy had taken flight, the great -house became, like Bear Lawn of old, an atmosphere I understood and -responded to. It is thus that I have chiefly remembered it ever since, -it is thus that I remember it now. - -I had no plans except--vaguely "soon"--to go back to Devonshire for -good. When I mooted this to the Countess, her pleadings were so -pitiful, so flattering, that I registered then and there the vow that I -would stay as long as she wanted me. It was the one return I could give -for the kindness I had received, the one way I could display loyalty to -the good past of yesterday: quite a good way also, maybe, of laying up -for myself treasure in Heaven. - -So for many long and lonely months I stayed. Except the Countess I saw -no one. I was as lonely as in the far-away days of my childhood, and -soon it was to my childhood that I returned. Imperceptibly, just as a -year or two back the Bear Lawn life had vanished, the present glory of -Villebecq taking its place, so now it was Villebecq (though my body -remained there) that vanished, and Bear Lawn again that took its place. -In bed at night, if my soul was thinking of Mary, the old dining-room -or the cold blue attic formed the physical setting in which, as a -person detached, I always saw her. In the darkness my bed would always -revert to the Bear Lawn position, with the wall facing me as I lay -on my right side, although in reality in the Villebecq room it was -behind me. Even awake and in the day-time, the articles of furniture -in my boudoir often changed as I watched them to the furniture of the -old dining-room, the sense came over me that Villebecq was but a -dream I had dreamt one night at Tawborough, a dream from which I was -at this moment waking up, a dream that already I could not properly -remember.... But--Bear Lawn too was a dream--I had only dreamt that I -was Mary. Who was I? Was I any one? Oh, terror, was I God Himself? With -a cry I fell on to my knees.... The fear passed, it was the Villebecq -boudoir, I was rising awkwardly to my feet. (Had anybody seen?) - -Even in normal and placid moods, the first two years of my life in -France soon appeared as a faded memory, the remembrance of something -I had been told rather than something I had lived myself. The whole -mosaic of new glittering impressions, storm and stage-play, ease and -luxury and chatter and intrigue, seemed something insubstantial and -unlived: something very distant, too, for--by a puzzling experience -not usual in the young--I could only see clearly the days that lay -farther away. The Villebecq life had been a thin shadow of life, the -Villebecq drama a puppet drama, the Villebecq Me a pale and partial -Me. There was a slow battle spread over weeks in which Bear-Lawn Mary -fought her way back to chief place within me. I remember the odd -physical moment--sitting on my bed at three o'clock one morning, still -undressed--in which she won the victory and in which Mary the gossiper, -Mary the worldling, Mary the Fouquier-fighter faded like a wraith into -the tomb of my sub-conscious self. - -The older habits of mind returned. Now that there was no one to talk -to, I talked, as of old, to myself. There was no present to occupy -me, so I returned to my pasts and my futures. There were differences, -of course, and developments: I was older, a little farther away -from madness (which is sanity), a little nearer the world, a little -farther from the Lord. My past was seen in worldlier, if not truer, -perspective; my ambitions were more concrete. The old habits were -fainter, and the old fears. Hope had gained appreciably on Despair. At -ten I had dwelt morbidly on my few happinesses, knowing that they would -be paid for: God gets even. Now, at twenty, happier days had tilted the -balance; I dwelt cheerfully on the manifold unhappinesses of my life, -feeling sure they would all be recompensed me: Christ gets even. - -Not but what Gloom made a good fight for his old supremacy. After all, -_Eternity was on his side_. - -And the Rapture never returned. I would pray sometimes for hours, beg -for one instant's flowing through my heart of Taw-water and the Holy -Ghost. HE did not come. - -There was a reason. I knew the reason, though for a long time I dared -not formulate it, even in prayer, even alone with myself, or more -utterly alone--with God. - -Coming from the innermost place of my being, gaining at last my -conscious brain and soul, and soon possessing them utterly, was the -knowledge that my only way to ultimate happiness lay not through -religion, but through ROBBIE. - -For many days and nights the agonized struggle fought itself out within -me: God's love revealing Itself directly, God Immanent, versus God's -Love revealing itself in human shape, God-in-Robbie: memories of Jordan -Morning, my honeymoon with God, versus hopes of earthly ecstacy, my -honeymoon with _him_. - -I have never wished, even if I were able, to fit in this story of my -life with wise men's theories of human conduct and development. But the -psychologist or the modern novelist would I think label this struggle -in my soul as the turning-battle between Environment and Heredity, in -which the massed beliefs of my holy upbringing contended against the -call of my woman's blood and the needs of my woman's heart. - -At last--when I had given God His last chance, telling Him in an agony -of passionate prayer that if He would send me but once again the -perfect miracle-moment of Jordan it would quench for ever within me all -need of human love--and when no answer came--I knew that the battle was -over. Robbie had won. - -Had won in my heart. But what were the chances that I should taste the -fruits of his victory, that the love I had declared for would, in this -actual physical world, one day be mine? - -I faced the whole question, "dispassionately." - -What were the facts? Years ago, a sentimental and unhappy child had, -in a moment of crude (though not contemptible) romantic fervour, grown -morbidly fond of another child, and he of her. They had vowed together -to seek to perpetuate their experience when away from each other by -mutual self-suggestion, especially on that particular night of every -year when the childish emotion had culminated. It was all very pretty, -quite pathetic too in its way, but what else? - -What else? Everything. These were the cowardly picturings of -Common-Sense: Heart put them swiftly to flight. The only realities -are the realities of the spirit, and Robbie in the visions I now had, -not only every Christmas, but every day--near every hour--was a warm -divine reality in my soul. He was with me, kissing my face. Where the -human body of the living twenty-one-year-old Robbie might be I did not -know--though I constructed for myself a hundred different stories as to -his whereabouts and doings--but that his spirit was with me whenever -mine was with him I knew in the authentic uttermost way, beyond all -knowledge and reason, in which I had once known God. Sometimes the -whole night through his Presence enveloped me, his face was mirrored -in my soul. Yet always the ultimate Rapture evaded me; I would reach -the mystical moment when the lips of the vision-Robbie upon mine were -changing into the dear desired lips of the real-life Robbie, when -vision-reality and this-world-reality were merging magically into -one--then always, on the threshold of realization, the Vision faded, -and I was left empty and desolate and cold. - -The mere physical longing, though less intense than the spiritual, was -newer and more baffling: for I understood my body much less well than -my soul. Oh for him to put his arms around me, crush me tenderly to -him, while I should clasp him to my breast and pour out my heart upon -him! I would kiss the miserable pillow (and say it was his throat) and -clasp it and cover it with tears. When bearing-point was passed, I -would burst into half-hysterical prayer: Send him now, oh Lord Jesus, -or banish the tormenting vision from my eyes!--the while I would -savagely stop the eyes and ears of my spirit, until God's answer came, -and for a space the hunger passed away. - -Doubt trod hard upon Desire. Fool-Mary as always! You loved the little -boy then, and he you. It was a child's moment, gracious for the child's -sorrow that it eased, but over at once and for ever. Love comes not -back again. All the rest, all these fantastic years of mystical -repeatal are but the wraiths of your own disordered imagination. The -Presence is a phantom presence of your own creating. - -"It is no phantom," I replied. "If anything in God's universe is real, -that is real." - -"Real to him? For if not, the presence is not real at all." - -"It is real to him." - -"Are you so sure? You are quite, quite certain: that at the same moment -in which you possess his Presence, he is possessing yours?" - -"Yes, I know it. God tells me so." - -"But where is real Robbie? Why does he not come to you?" - -"He is coming soon." - -And with valiant words I chased Doubt away, knowing him for the -destroyer of everything that he encompasses, who can make things that -are true untrue, just as Faith, his enemy, can make of things that are -not things that are. Faith makes facts, not facts faith. If you believe -that Robbie is with you, he is with you. If you doubt his presence, you -destroy it. - - - If the Sun and Moon should doubt - They'd immediately go out. - - -Balked of his actual physical presence in one way I would seek it in -another. Memory would essay where Visualization had at the ultimate -instant always failed, and would guide me moment by moment through the -whole of the old Torribridge time, from the first glimpse, and Uncle -Simeon's introduction, through egg-day and fight-day to the supreme -midnight hour; at last I found I could reconstruct our happiness -together so vividly that _it was actually happening again_. Eternity -had turned backwards, the past had become the living present, I was -sore from the cruel flogging, I was twelve-year-old Mary again, and -Robbie's arms were around me. Then Memory in his turn failed me; -in a swift physical way I felt inside me the years scuttling back -into their place: it was the old eternal present, and the ideal -unconsummated, and the loneliness. - -Then doubt and fear and need would all together assail me, pressing in -unison the chief question. When he is real to you, are you as real to -him? The answer was always Yes, and the answer was always No. In either -case I fell to sorrowing for him: if he wanted me, because of his need; -if he did not know he wanted me, because of his need also. And I would -forget myself altogether, and think only of his need of love. How -could I give him most, give myself to him most? How could I discover -and lay at his feet the wild unimagined sacrifices for which my heart -was aching? I knew I could give him everything, live for him only, -destroy my own happiness for him, give him my heart, my life, my hope -of everlasting death. Ah, for his sake I would take God's nameless gift -of immortality, if He would but set Robbie free, grant him the eternal -sleep. I would do the far greater thing than die for him; for him I -would live for ever. - -Ah, no, no, no!--Robbie asleep for ever, and me for ever alive. Ah, no, -oh loving Heavenly Father, that alone I could not bear. - - -In two months I filled three large new volumes of Diary: all with -Robbie. - -Much of it was in the form of a series of letters between us. The -first letter was addressed from me to him: a tremulous self-conscious -composition, asking him to excuse my taking the liberty of writing, -feeling certain that he would doubtless remember who I was, recalling -that we had been rather good friends, _n'est-ce-pas_?, in that short -period when we had been together as children, etc., etc. I tortured -myself for a whole fortnight awaiting, in fear and delicious hope, -his reply. This I composed--as I wanted to compose it: friendly, -enthusiastically reminiscent, but not (being his first letter) so -affectionate as to damage my scheme of a long _crescendo_ of ever more -affectionate letters to come. Then my reply, and his reply, till soon -the floodgates were opened. - - - "Oh, Robbie (at last I wrote), Tell me you are the same Robbie; - that now, as a man, you are not some strange man I should not know, - but that you have the same loving heart, only more passionate - and tender than before; the same loving arms, only manlier and - even more ready to embrace me; the same loving boy's face, only - transfigured, developed, ennobled by the long lonely years of the - love you have given me. Tell me that in body as well as spirit you - are coming soon, to love me for ever as I do you." - - -He replied: - - - "Post haste I write, because I must speak back to you. I got your - letter this morning, and ever since then have been full of it, - and full of joy. Never in all the letters you have written me - have I felt so much of you in it, never have I felt you so near, - so completely in sympathy and understanding, so exquisitely, so - utterly in love. (I cannot restrain myself from uttering this.) As - I read and re-read your letter, I feel, at this very moment as I - write, that we are alone, alone and together; I can hear you crying - out and I send back the echo; but it is no echo now, for we are so - near: only distances echo, my Mary dear. Tonight I am fuller than - I have ever been before, full because of your inspiration, of your - influence; but not this alone, because I am my own influence, and - it is this which sways me now. The outer world is a great silence, - a mere waste of towns and cities, empty and desolate as a city of - the dead, a place of graves. All the people around me are shadows, - are only for themselves, but we are for each other, and all all - else is dead. - - "The Christmas promise has come true for ever. Now it is a great - joy to live, and not to live has no terrors. Everything is at the - highest point of its change; all is changed by this thing we know, - this secret we have discovered, and I am glad. We alone are its - guardian, but it needs no guardian, because Mary and Robbie before - discovered it, and have guarded it ever since. - - "I shall come very soon now. But do not fret: this long absence in - form has meant a more palpable presence in spirit. For the soul - needs space: it flies, like a kite, and you hold the line; the line - is of interminable distance, the kite of immeasurable power. It - flies happy, among the life-giving, high breezes; and it makes you - happy, a child at the other end, a child with a kite--the child - whom I loved that night long ago and who loved me, the dear Mary - whom I will love and who will love me for ever. She is the child - who has not changed--it is the same face, though a woman's now, and - it is with me by day and by night...." - - - "Robin," I answered, "your letter is the goodliest yet: it has - given me a day and a waking night of celestial happiness--for I had - it yesterday only, and like you I reply 'post-haste.' You bring - me to the house of happiness, and your banner over me is Love: - but when will your left hand be under my head and your right hand - embrace me? My letters bring you happiness too: but when will you - read them with the eyes of the flesh as well as the eyes of the - spirit? You say you will come to me 'very soon:' but you will come - before the ink on these pages has faded? (If it can ever fade, for - it is the blood of my aching heart.) - - "Now dear, I kiss your brow, your dear eyes, your mouth; I place my - lips upon your dear glorious little heart. All the love that was in - the beginning of the world, that is in the universe now, that will - people Paradise through all the everlasting years, is in me now; I - assemble and concentrate it into this moment, into the kiss that - I am giving you at this moment as I write. From face to feet, my - heart's beloved, Good-night!" - - -At last, after two or three months of these imaginary letters, I wrote -the real one which was the necessary condition of their ever becoming -real: I wrote to Aunt Martha. I always wrote to her on her birthday: -it was near birthday-time, so no other pretext was needed. I made -my letter rather longer than usual, introducing the one thing that -mattered with appropriately naïve and casual abruptness. "By-the-way," -I asked, as careful after-thought, "do you ever hear anything now of -Robert Grove. He was a nice boy, and I have often wondered what became -of him?" And I made a Special Temporary Resolution to shut the door of -my spirit as far as possible (weak proviso) till Aunt Martha should -have given me some news. - - -It was only a day or two after writing this letter that a letter I -received--from Lord Tawborough, now back in England--ushered in a new -phase of spiritual trouble. Robbie had vanquished Almighty God: was -he to be vanquished now by a mere peer of England? Very vividly the -Stranger re-entered my imagination. He had thought it discreet and -kinder to leave the Château almost immediately after the Fouquier -crisis and Suzanne's flight, and in the turmoil of those days and of -Elise's bitterness and then in the long loneliness and the following -period of return to religion and to Robbie, he had been very little -in my thoughts. This letter brought him gladly, warmly back. My heart -brightened as I mused upon the well-loved features, the manifold -gentleness, the secret sympathy, the goodness he had shown me, -the delight I knew he found when near me. And this was no kindly -benefactor's letter, no tenderest of distant cousin's letter, no -7th of the Title's letter. It was but a Best Friend's letter. For a -moment my heart recoiled from immediate irrepressible "Is it a Lover's -letter?" Some one said "No": it was the Mary who wrote the mad missives -to Robbie and the mad missives from Robbie to herself. Some one else -said "Yes": it was the this-world Mary whom every one (save Mary) knew. - -At that instant of time, I think, more surely and more strangely than -at any other time in my life, I knew and in spiritual-physical fashion -felt and understood that there was no such thing as "I": that there -were many living and disparate beings inside me. As I mused pleasurably -and lovingly on Tawborough (Quick! What was his Christian name?--I -had never heard it, I must learn it, or invent it, find swiftly some -endearing name to give him in my thoughts), not only Robbie, but the -Mary who loved him beyond all heaven and earth, was some one far away, -some one I had been, should be yet again, but was not now; some one -else whom the present-moment "I" could contemplate from the outside, -but from the inside not at all. - -Thus there was no sense of conflict or contradiction. Simple souls say: -You cannot love two people at once. Shrewder souls add: Not in the -same way. Both miss the point, ignore the real mystery: that _you_ is -two folks and not one, a divine self and a human self: with two loves -accordingly, a human love and a divine love. At the selfsame moment of -time the two selves cannot both be in possession, and the two loves -cannot be felt together. There is no clash and no conflict. - -I reasoned out my hope. That the real Robbie, when I met him, would -conquer utterly the human me, win all my liking, answer all my needs. -Real Robbie and Dream Robbie would become one: real Mary and dream Mary -would become one. Love would be everywhere, the two selves would mingle -and make at last one Mary, the world would be revealed--God was in me, -around me--I am the Universe--. There are no words.... - -But if chance--I dared not say Death--decreed that in this world I -should never see Robbie? Then the human liking and earthly possibility -could never merge into the divine romance. The quest my soul was -created for would be over: Eternity would not be Love. Yet, I was a -woman--and I loved the word "marry"--and the Stranger was my chief -human liking and earthly possibility--and this world's happiness was -worth possessing even though emptiness lay beyond. - -So if Robbie is not given to you, said Reason, the Stranger will be -a glorious second-best. "Glorious Second-Best." dinned Reason in my -heart, and a whole crowd took up the echo: snobbery and sanity, and -pride and probability, and intellectual sympathy and physical delight. - -But first I would search the world for Robbie. - - * * * * * * * - -Suddenly my heart learned that Robbie, wherever he was, knew that I -was musing thus: knew that I was toying with notions of Tawborough, -and over _his_ deathbed was meditating eventual treason. Suddenly my -heart understood how his own was aching. The magnitude of my vileness -sickened me. I could find no sleep, nor heart to sleep. All night I -heard him crying out, saw his dear face wistful with doubt. I told him -it was not true, that I loved him and him only. He did not hear me; I -could not make him hear me; I knew that his heart was still aching. - -I got out of bed, wrapped my dressing-gown around me, went through -into the boudoir, and wrote in my Diary this following letter. (The -inkpot was empty, and even if I had had the courage to take my candle -and to go through the long dark corridor and down the stairs in search -of ink, I should not have gone. For time was precious. I knew that, -magically, each word as I wrote it would bring ease and comfort to -Robbie somewhere far away, and my heart could not abide that his own -should suffer for one moment longer. So I snatched a pencil, glad for -Robbie's sake to mar the neat inky well-beloved uniformity of my eight -years' diaries, and scrawled feverishly at the frantic dictation of my -passionate heart. Today, as I copy, the pencil is faded, and the page -the hardest to decipher in all the record): - - - _To Robert Grove_, - - _Wheresoever You Are, my Dear!_-- - - How sorrowful you are tonight, how evil am I since I am the cause! - But I write post-haste to send you tidings of comfort, to tell you - there is no other in my heart but you, to send you my everlasting - love. You came to me Christmas Night, and you came for ever. There - has been no other, nor ever can. _What can the man do that cometh - after the king?_ - - My friend who is causing you such grief, you know who he is--tho' - 'tis nine years now since the moment I knew you--tho' you have - never seen him nor (in earthly way) even heard his name--I know - that you know. He is Lord Tawborough, my cousin and my benefactor, - and my very dear friend, tho' much older and cleverer than I. But - do understand, dear Robbie, that the respect and affection in which - I hold him are _only_ the reflection of his generosity and loving - kindness to me. It is he who gave me my education, gave me my good - fortune, who has always been far, far too kind to me. And now that, - here in this land, I have met with him again, I like him better - than ever. How could I not? - - There is "like" for him and for you my whole girl's aching LOVE. - Even when I am looking at my kind friend's face, suddenly I will - stop the working of my mind and will turn to look for you, trying - to grope out where in this world at the exact moment you are; and - God always helps me to make a picture which I know is near reality. - At this moment I can see you--vaguely--dreamily--in a bright city - whose name I do not know, but where often I have sojourned in - dreams. I cannot actually _touch_ you now: for our meeting-place - is not in cities or houses or streets or fields; rather we go to - meet each other in the skies and oh! Robbie! my spirit! my soul! - what a meeting we have, how happy, how jubilant, how full of the - glory which is not of the earth, unutterable, something I cannot - speak, or say, or write; something only which tears my heart into - a thousand particles of agony, which is the divinest, wildest, - fiercest, holiest, sweetest joy of all. The agony of love, Robbie, - how it wounds! The moments when, in vision, I cannot invoke your - face, how cruelly long they seem! Then betimes your dear face - forms among the mists of all my wildness and restlessness and - smiles upon me in a peace that is infinite, and passeth all men's - understanding. Now, Robbie, know that this is no earthly thing I - have, you have, but a thing entirely of the soul, a gift entirely - of God. It should leave us tolerant and truthful, ever knowing that - no other friends (however dear) can ever endanger it, even conceive - of its meaning; and ever waiting for its supreme fulfilment. - - Can I have this for any but you? Can any but you have this for me? - Why, my Robbie, can you ask? - - I stretch out my arms through the unknown to reach you. I would - comfort you, cover you with eternal kisses. Stretch your dear arms - out too, put them around me, crush me against your breast. - - Come to me now, and come to me soon for the time that will be for - ever. - - Mary of Christmas Night. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII: DEATHBED - - -For over a year I was alone in the great empty château with my dreams. - -I ate and slept, and took walks in the park and the country-lanes; I -comforted the ever-shrivelling Countess; I read incessantly. But I did -not live. The life of my soul was sometimes in the past, chiefly in -the future, in the present not at all. By deliberate endeavour I made -the present even less than it would have been, by encouraging myself -to experience no emotion except in my dreamings, to take no interest -in the small daily happenings (they were very small) of my Villebecq -daily life, to remember that for me Life would begin at the moment when -Vision and Reality became one. Till then the years were wasting. Time -marked time. (Perhaps the real horror of Eternity--Time marking time -for ever, with no Love beyond?) - -In her reply to my birthday-letter Aunt Martha had omitted any -reference to Robbie. It was a cruel disappointment. Probably she knew -nothing, or had ignored or forgotten my query, thinking the postscript -merely the casual after-thought it pretended to be, hardly calling -for answer? Or perhaps, in a moment of intuition, such as might come -even to Aunt Martha once in a way, she had divined the truth, and had -deliberately omitted to reply? - -After a while, the longing to get on the track of Robbie's this-world -whereabouts--to hasten his Second Coming--became unbearable, and on -Christmas Day 1869, being the Tenth Anniversary, I wrote to Aunt Martha -again. I made the most of "A Happy New Year," and of the anxiety which -I had for some months been beginning to feel as to my Grandmother's -health and as to whether I ought not soon to be coming back to -Devonshire once for all. Again, with beating heart, I penned the -carefully thought-out afterthought. "By-the-way, I fancy I asked you -once before, tho' can't remember your telling me anything on the point. -Do you ever have news of Robert Grove who lived with you ten years -ago, when I did? I sometimes think about him--he was a nice boy--and -sometimes wonder where he is or what he may be doing?" - -Was it by malice or accident that she consigned her barren response to -the cry of my aching heart to a P.S. also? "You ask about Robert Grove: -I have heard nothing of him for years. He must be a young man of 21 -now." - -Wretched woman! Well, I could wait no longer, I would go home and find -him for myself. The main news in Aunt Martha's letter urged me to a -like resolve:--"Mother and Aunt," she said, "are both ageing. Although -Mother would never let you know it herself; also for fear of bringing -to an end your life abroad, which she knows has been abundantly blessed -to you--yet I know she would like you back." - -I made up my mind at once--need for Robbie made the duty-call to my -Grandmother's side clear and insistent--and told the weeping Countess -within the hour. - - -Though her health was no better, Elise de Florian had at last decided -to come home. When I wrote and told her I was returning to England, she -replied that she would forward her plans and come back to Normandy at -once. For the first few months after her departure she had ignored my -existence except for formal courtesies in her infrequent letters to her -mother. Then, suddenly, she had begun to write, and soon the letters -were as friendly, as unhappy, and as passionate as the long talks in -the old days together. I forgave her before I was half-way through the -first letter, and had for some time been doing battle with Pride as to -whether I should tell her how much I wanted to see her again. - -She returned with Gabrielle one bitter January morning. I kissed her -blue-pale forehead, and, as I gazed at the drawn ever-unloved face, -felt for a moment bitterly ashamed of Love's triumphant futures that I -hoped to garner in my own heart. That night I prayed God in His mercy -to send her what her heart cried out for, knowing all the while that -somehow God Himself could not grant my petition. I knew--understood -physically--that Elise was a woman damned into the world to excite no -supreme love in any heart; knew that if I were a man I could not love -her, knew that God had given her life without power to win the one good -this life can give. - -Next morning she was too frail to rise. At first we were hopeful, -and put everything down to the fatigues of the long journey. As day -succeeded day, however, and she was each day wearier, neither we nor -she could elude the truth the doctor was whispering: that Mademoiselle -was in the last and rapid stages of a decline. - -One night I was lying in bed reading by candle-light. The door softly -opened. My heart stopped. She stood there in a long white night-gown, -trembling in the cold air, bare-footed, ghastly pale. There was -something in the eyes that awed me. - -"I am dying now," she said. Her voice was low, melodious, and as though -from far-away; from another place, another body, another soul. "Some -one must kiss me once--love me once, properly, before I go. Will you, -Mary?" - -I had jumped out of bed. I wrapped my dressing-gown round her, and -supporting her cold and tottering body led her back to her own room, -and comforting her all the while got her back into bed, and slipped -down gently beside her. - -I pressed her tenderly to me and told her a dozen foolish times that -she would soon be better. - -"No"--she spoke in English as I did--"it is over. I wish it had been -over long ago. I had a heart that could have loved the world, but no -one loved me in return. I shall die a good Catholic, but religion has -never given me comfort--never what it has given you. I loved my little -sister: but it was all one-sided, and that is not Love at all. Love is -when the getting and the giving are equal, when the two bodies change -souls. There is only love. Poor little Suzanne, she could not help it. -I could never have seen in her eyes what I longed for her to see in -mine. Oh, the need for some one to love me; sometimes my poor heart -could have burst. I was not wanted in the world. I was--not--wanted." - -The sentences came oddly, disjointedly, further and further apart. - -For some moments she had not spoken. Then, suddenly, her arms tightened -round me in supreme yearning; she placed her lips hard upon mine in an -embrace of ultimate passionate sadness; her body trembled violently, -and then, in a swift second, was still. - -The lips were cold. My arms were round a corpse. I freed myself, got -up, lit a candle. - -The old misery had for ever left her eyes, which were happy, and full -of love. I closed them reverently, kissed each lid as I closed it, and -went out to awaken the household. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIX: END OF THREE VISIONS: THE STRANGER'S - - -Immediately after the funeral, I left the desolate Château, the -desolate Countess, the country of France soon to be made desolate, and, -after nearly four years' absence, returned to my native land. - -On Southampton Quay Lord Tawborough awaited me. - -I saw him from the boat before I landed, and he saw me. I braved -myself for the greeting: I would be pleasant, natural, would look him -frankly in the eyes. I came down the little landing-bridge, we shook -hands, for one half-instant of time I looked into his eyes; then -self-consciousness and joy rolled through me like a tide, my heart beat -unreasonably, I forgot who or where I was. When I got over the worst -of it, I was conscious of how foolish I had been, and I flushed to -think what he might be thinking. I still dared not look. He was busying -himself with my luggage. We got into a cab, into a train.... - -If it was not love that filled me, what was it? If it was not love -that I had seen for that swift second in his eyes, what was its name? -Or was I once more judging others by my romantic self-conscious self, -lending them looks and emotions they had never sought to borrow? Yet -had he made this journey to Southampton for cousinship's sake, or -through courtesy to my Grandmother, or for my mother's sake--or for -any sake but mine? I knew that he had not. Then I must tell him I was -"another's." How--without absurdity, immodesty? For I did not know, by -any solid sign or certain token, that he loved me at all. He sat in -the corner of the carriage reading his newspaper. I sat in my corner -reading mine--the first English newspaper I had ever touched. - -It was the last stage of our journey; we had changed at Exeter on to -the North Devon line. He suddenly threw his newspaper aside and looked -me bravely in the face, though he could not completely master his -trembling eyes. - -"Well, Miss Traies" (my name since my twenty-first birthday, when the -lawyers had slain Miss Lee), "what are your plans? What are you going -to do with your life? What is the program?" Would-be banteringly. - -"You know," I replied. "I am coming home to help and look after my -Grandmother and my Great-Aunt." - -"They are old." - -"So will you be one day." - -"Perhaps I am old already. Do not mock at my poor grey hairs! But I -wonder if I want to wait until I am as old as your Great-Aunt for some -one to look after me. Young men want looking after, Miss Traies, as -well as old women. Old age is lonely, but youth is lonelier. Perhaps -there are younger folk than your good Grandmother and Great-Aunt whom -you could help. There are men in the world too." - -"I know," I said, realizing that in speaking aloud of my love of Robbie -for the first time in all the years I should be doing the kindest thing -to my dear friend the Stranger, and should at the same time be bringing -that love magically nearer reality. For if I spoke of him, he was real: -to utter his name to another human being made him suddenly part of this -visible world. From this uttering of his name to meeting him was but a -matter of hours--days. Devon was a little place: green fields and red -loam flashed quickly past: as I spoke of him I saw him coming nearer. -"I know--maybe there _is_ a man in the world I shall help--help him for -all his life." - -I could not look. - -"Do I know him?" he asked. His voice was odd, toneless: steadied by -supernatural effort: nearest despair, though still caressing hope. - -"No," I replied shortly. - -In the silence that followed I could see nothing, think nothing; hear -nothing but my own negation ringing in my ears, harsher and more brutal -as each second passed. - -My cruelty filled me with exquisite pity: the insolent eternal offering -from the soul that is not suffering to the soul that is. Poor heart, -it could not be! My eyes were my chief difficulty: but the carriage -window held resources. He went back to his _Times_. - - -Odd, crowding sensations overcame me as the train drew up in Tawborough -station, the same to which, once upon a time, Satan Had Come--and -the North Devon odour (western, immemorial, unmistakable: the smell -of broad tidal rivers that are the sea, yet not the sea) filled -my nostrils. We drove across the bridge: for the first moment the -bright town spread out before me across the river wore the cardboard -strangeness of a foreign land. There was an almost imperceptible -instant of confusion, while my senses adjusted themselves to the -changed physical world, and then the buildings around me--we had -crossed the bridge by now--seemed normal, inevitable; and France was a -dream I had to struggle to remember. - -The same odd moment of physically-felt spiritual adjustment was -repeated at the house, where my Grandmother stood at the gate of Number -Eight to greet me. It was not so much that she was frailer, thinner, -older, it was that she was a different person, or rather that the I -who now beheld her was a different person from the I who had known her -before, and to the new me she was a new creature. As I kissed her the -years rolled back, my own self changed, and she was Grandmother of old. - -Inside the house the strangeness and the same return were again -repeated, this time less perceptibly. On the morrow I went very slowly -over the whole house, remaining for some time in each room and staring -at every corner and every article of furniture, while I summoned back -to me all the ancient happenings that connected me with each. Here was -Aunt Jael's front parlour, a little yellower, a little darker, a little -dingier than of old. There on the floor by the window was the row of -dismal etiolated plants, each in its earth-begrimed saucer. There was -her bluebeard cupboard; I opened it, and a smell of decayed fruits and -stale sweetmeats escaped; probably no one had been near it for months. -There was a jar of ginger, and a French-plum jar. I got as far as -handling the lids, but no further: what new flaming letters might not -be writ within? Besides, the plums were probably bad, while I never -_really_ cared for ginger. There too was the door that once had opened, -through which a face of nameless horror once had peeped. There was Lord -Benamuckee. - -Here was the dining-room, with horsehair furniture and Axminster -carpet perhaps shabbier than I remembered them, this room which all -through my childhood, even too through my year in France, and in all -my life since, has always,--in those moments when I behold myself from -outside, when my soul flies away from my body and looks down upon it -from afar--been the visual setting and earthly ambience of Mary. Here -was the kitchen where Mrs. Cheese had lived, where Robinson Crewjoe -had stealthily been born, where my love for scrubbing floors had for -ever died. Here was the blue attic, cold, barren, airless; heavy with -memories--of misery and cruelty and tears. - -After a few nights' dreams in my old bedroom--confused visions of the -Château and Fouquier and Elise and Napoleon--the four years of France -became literally no more than a dream in my memory. I remembered them -rather from the morning's impressions of these nightly visions than -from the actual happenings themselves. If indeed they were actual -happenings. For frequently I could not be sure, and would fancy that -all the complex visions of the life in France had come to me in sleep: -until Calendar and Common-Sense convinced me. - -Aunt Jael seemed to share my illusions. She would ask me sometimes -where I had been, and rail at me for "stopping out" so long, treating -my absence as one of hours rather than years. Never, at any rate after -the first day or two, did she treat me as though my life at Bear Lawn -had been anything but continuous. I treated her likewise, swiftly -forgetting the first moment of contact when (as with my Grandmother) -she had seemed to me so much smaller, swarthier, dryer, older than in -my memory: a stranger who immediately, imperceptibly, became familiar -once again. She rarely got out of bed now, and her voice was huskier -and less authoritative than of old. But she cursed and railed and -threatened almost as bravely as ever. I alone had really changed, and -wondered sometimes at the earlier Mary who had taken this bad old -woman's imprecations so bitterly to heart. My new heart was too full of -the hopes of love to feed on the broodings of hate. Moreover, though -the faithful thorned stick lay on the coverlet ready to hand for use -it never struck out at me now, and the poor villainous veteran saw no -service reminiscent of his ancient glory save floor-thumpings to summon -meals--or Mary. I neither feared her nor hated her. I pitied her. - -Some weeks before, Mrs. Cheese had been taken ill and had gone back to -her friends in the country. About the same time Aunt Jael had taken -permanently to her bed, and my Grandmother, who was herself rapidly -failing, had had to attend to her sister and do the household work. -Sister Briggs came to help in the kitchen in the mornings, and Simeon -Greeber charitably allowed Aunt Martha to come over for the day on one -or two occasions; but the two old women--the two dying old women--were -virtually alone in the big house, with my Grandmother, probably the -weaker of the two, struggling against pain, and against the fatigue -which marks the journey's end, to keep on her feet for her sister's -sake. I realized how selfish I had been not to have come sooner: except -that in France another old woman had needed me almost as much. - -"I'm glad 'eo've come, my dearie," said my Grandmother on the night -of my return. "God has dealt very lovingly with me; but I am full of -years, and 'tis time for me to go. I have finished the work He gave -me to do. I was waiting for 'ee to come back, my dearie: now I can go -Home." - -I was sobbing. - -"Don't 'ee," she reproved gently. "There is no place for sorrow. Heaven -is near, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding." - -One strange day I remember: the last valiant effort of Aunt Jael to -revive the splendour of her stark imperial days. Glory and Salvation -were old and frail now, especially Glory, and for a year and more, the -Empress' famous Tuesdays had been abandoned. - -"There'll be a last one," declared Aunt Jael, and one Tuesday morning -when she felt stronger than usual, decreed a Final Feast. After dinner, -which in the regular way I had taken to her in her bed, I helped her -to dress, and got her down into the old armchair. Then, as bidden, -I sallied forth, hired a cab, drove to Brother Brawn's (robing-house -for Jordan) upon the Quay, and after infinite delay, while Glory made -minutest traditional preparations with goat's milk, rusks and bags, -haled those two mad old Christian women to Number Eight. - -"Our last foregathering on earth," chuckled my Great-Aunt brightly -throughout the afternoon. - -Death was discussed till tea-time: with dogmatic satisfaction by Aunt -Jael, with vulgar self-assurance by Salvation, with mystical hope by -Glory, with reverent delight by my Grandmother. - -"Though Death, mind 'ee, is a pain," said Salvation; wagging her head -sagely. - -"Nay, 'tis a portal," corrected Glory. - -"Yes," said my Grandmother, "a portal to the Life Everlasting." - -The Life Everlasting. _Yet I looked and saw joy in the four old faces._ - -Glory was absolved her corner penitence for this Last Tea, and the five -of us sat down when I had laid the table and got the meal ready. - -Immediately a row began. Now saying grace was a strictly regulated -detail of the Tuesday ritual. Decades of dispute had not enabled Aunt -Jael to oust my Grandmother from an equal share in this privilege in -our ordinary daily life alone, and a compromise had obtained through -all the years I remember whereby Aunt Jael asked the blessing before -breakfast and dinner, and Grandmother before tea and supper. But on -Tuesdays, with two guests to be reckoned with, both of whom were as -eager in pre-prandial "testimony" as their hostesses, the position was -more complicated. Though sometimes challenged, the rule of taking turns -Tuesday by Tuesday in saying grace, had gradually become established: a -childish and democratic arrangement which can have been little to Aunt -Jael's taste, but which, despite occasional bickerings, was accepted as -early as I can remember. - -It was for the privilege of asking the blessing at this Last Tea, this -ultimate spread, that the dispute now arose. Grandmother and Glory -took no part, but Aunt Jael and Salvation each swore it was her turn. - -"We'll all ask a blessing," finally proposed my Grandmother. The -suggestion was accepted, and in turn the Four Graces were solemnly -declaimed. - -Aunt Jael (stentorian, staccato): - -"Oh Lord. Thou hast promised grace and glory to Thy Saints. Oh Lord. -Change these husks to the fruitful meats of the spirit before our -eyes. Support our footsteps to the Table of Thy bounties spread in the -wilderness; where true believers may feast among the bones of those who -sought Thee to their own destruction. Aymen." - -My Grandmother (in a whisper, soft, sibilant): - -"Behold us, O Lord of seedtime and harvest, set free from earthly -care for a season that we may dwell on the bounties which Thy hand -has provided. Thou preparest a table before us in the presence of our -enemies (sic). Thy dear mercies now spread before us are many: sanctify -them, we beg Thee, to our use, and us to Thy service. Make us ever -grateful, and nourish us with the meat of Thy Word. For Jee-sus' sake." - -Salvation (noisily; with sticky report, sound of spoon in treacle-jar -sharply withdrawn): - -"For what us are about to receive, may the Laur make we trewly -thankful." - -Glory (gauntly): - -"Bless er-er-er these er-er-er meats!" - -And we set to. - - -Grandmother prayed with me continually. She was too old to kneel. -Propped up on her pillows, she would take my head upon her heart as -I half-lay half-leant upon her bed. My vanity, my worldliness, my -imperilled soul were the unvarying theme. - -One night she stopped sharply in the middle of her prayer. - -"Your soul, my dear, is not praying with me. The Lord tells me that -at this moment your mind is on fleshly things. Look at the eyes of -'ee! You're hankering after earthly glory, after high station in this -worldly life." - -Then, after a moment's pause, shrewdly: "Has any one ever proposed to -'ee to give 'ee another station in life?" - -"No. What do you mean, Grandmother? Who?" - -"Nothing. Maybe no one." And she resumed her prayer. - -I was more careful in pretending to listen, but ceased to listen at -all. I was trying--with the conscientious, artificially lashed-up -desperation of the egotistical soul that sees for a moment its own -nakedness--to visualize what the Stranger's misery and hunger must be -like if by some wild chance ("It is so," God shouted in my heart) he -loved me, not as I loved him, but as I loved Robbie. Ah no, it could -not be. There is never a love like our own. - -" ... Send her _Thy_ love. For _Jee_-sus' sake. Aymen." - - - - -CHAPTER XL: END OF THREE VISIONS: NAPOLEON'S - - -Soon Grandmother followed Aunt Jael, and took to her bed permanently. -One Lord's Day evening I helped her upstairs for the last time. - -My life was now spent in the two bedrooms where my Great-Aunt and -Grandmother lay, and in crossing the corridor from one to the other as -Aunt Jael's voice or my own sense of Grandmother's need alternatively -summoned me. In the one room I was chiefly cursed at, in the other -principally prayed for. - -Sister Briggs came in most days to give me help in the kitchen; even so -I found it a heavy task to do the whole work of the big house and to -feed and mind and minister to two bedridden old women. But I preferred -it to the heavy idleness of Villebecq: found waiting upon others more -natural, more agreeable, more self-righteously satisfactory, than being -waited upon. There was the pride of humility, the unctuous flattery of -fatigue. - -I never went out of doors except to Market and (for Breaking of Bread -only) to Meeting. I had the lonely livelong day in which to work and -to think of Robbie. Here I was back in Devon, the Devon where I had -met him, the Devon where he lived: was I any whit the nearer finding -him? My brain revolved in a futile circle of planlessness and hope: as -usual, my imperial imagination failed cravenly when face to face with -need for practical endeavour. The only plan I could decide upon was to -broach the subject to Aunt Martha next time she should come over from -Torribridge, to ask her brazenly for the address of the family in South -Devon and the surname of Uncle Vivian, and then to write direct for -news of my Beloved. It was high time Aunt Martha came over again--she -had not been near her mother's bedside for a fortnight and more. When -would she come? - -My only other interest during these days was in the tremendous drama -being enacted in the country I had just left. Unknown to my Grandmother -I took in the _Times_ newspaper daily, and had French ones specially -sent to me. I followed every stage of the war and the political story -with a passion that seemed sometimes incongruous in this bare Christian -English house. What had Bear Lawn to do with this war?--or any other -war? (I forgot that it had been built for barracks in the other -Napoleon's day; that maybe redcoats who had seen and smashed Boney had -slept and sworn in each familiar room.) - -"Shall I tell you anything about the war?" I asked my Grandmother one -evening. "There is only one war," she replied, "God's war with evil." - -I was so infinitely more interested in persons than things, in the -players than in the play, that never at any stage of these events -across the Channel did I much reflect on their mighty political -significance: how the Ruler of Europe who, through centuries, had -lived in Paris, would live from this time onwards in Berlin; or how, -together with the sword the last French Emperor handed to the first -German Emperor at Sedan, he was handing also the secular leadership -of civilization. I could only think of the hunch-shouldered suffering -wretch who proffered the sword. - -His lady, too, was an object-lesson for would-be empresses. Though if -her fate was unambiguous, as the Lord's lessons are, the fashion in -which she faced it was more doubtful, as History is. Some accounts -spoke of her bravery: how calm and queenly she was while the savage -mob in the Tuileries garden shrieked "Dethronement!" and would have -torn her limb from limb--others of her cowardice: how cravenly she -scuttled away at the first approach of realities, where a Maria Theresa -would have driven hardily through the streets and by courage effected -a revulsion of the people's feeling. Her Good-bye, how touching!--the -last sad glance at the well-loved rooms in which for seventeen imperial -years she had reigned, the thought for others, the dignified tears, -the bitter "In France no one has the right to be unfortunate!" wrung -from her anguished soul--_or_--the stealthy selfish escape under the -protection of foreigners, the abandonment of others, the skulking -anxiety for her own skin only, the well-filled purse. The candid -selfishness: "Do not think of me, think only of France"--_or_--the -uneasy self-righteousness: "Have I not done my duty to the end?" -"Yes, Madam": "I am on your arm" (to the Italian Ambassador): "Am I -trembling?" "No, Madam, you are not trembling." "What more could I have -done?": "Nothing, Madam." - -How loving a wife she had been in the dark preceding weeks! In an agony -of fear for her beloved husband's life if he should return to Paris, -how she had sent him hourly telegrams, messages of aching anxiety and -forethought and tenderness, to dissuade him from the project,--_or_--to -keep him away from the Capital at all costs, since his return would -put an end to her power, her Regency, the wreaking of her spites and -vendettas, her even darker ambitions. How many hours of unrecorded -prayer had she not spent with God!--praying for the sweet Emperor's -safety--_or_--for the stray bullet that would achieve her ends. - -France was ungrateful, France who had paid for her food and her -follies for seventeen squandering years. And the journals were -indiscriminating, to print such varying tales. And events were unkind, -to give the poor later historian so embarrassing a choice between black -and white and every colour between. But Fate was just, to turn his -wheel abruptly against this over-fortunate woman; or unjust, maybe, to -visit with spite so calamitous one who was no eviller or vainer than -almost any other woman of us would have been in her place--no worse -than _you_, Mary Lee. - -No worse than me: granted. But in what way different from me, then, to -have deserved those incomparable years? Ah, well, she would pay for -them now: God gets even. - -The place of pity is where Fate turns upon a nobler soul. I suffered -with this gentle unscrupulous Man who had woo'd Ambition through the -last dismal stages on the road where Ambition ends. A Bonaparte at -the back of his armies, slinking from defeat to defeat. Bodily pain -so monstrous that it could only be borne with the help of morphia -injected every few hours by the sombre-faced young doctor who did duty -for glittering aide-de-camp. A rudderless wretch, dragged at the heels -of "his" army like so much tawdry baggage, a crowned camp-follower, a -commander without a command; flaunted by his officers, mocked by his -soldiers, cajoled, disowned and threatened by his wife; not daring -to return to his capital, not daring to show himself to his troops: -shrinking back in the gorgeous Imperial carriage from the hisses of the -townspeople in the cities of France he was abandoning to the foe, and -the lewd and horrible insults of the troops. A hunchback haggard doll. - -For Sedan he rouged himself. Why not? The play had lasted for eighteen -years, and the hollow cheeks needed new cosmetics for the final scene. -He quitted the stage with excruciating agony of soul and body, with -painted dignity, with eternal inseparable calm. Nothing in his reign -became him like the leaving it. - -Vanity seeks ambition, and the end of ambition is Vanity. There is only -love. - - - - -CHAPTER XLI: END OF THREE VISIONS: MINE - - -Before writing to Aunt Martha I waited for the moment in my aged -kinswomen's increasing weakness when Conscience told me it was for -their sakes only I was summoning her, and not for my own. - -It was the second night after she had come. The hour was late, as -Grandmother and Aunt Jael had been long in getting to sleep. Aunt -Martha and I were sitting down to a bite of supper in the lamp-lit -dining-room. All day I had been praying for boldness of heart and -steadiness of voice that I might ask her my question. I stared now -at her listless faded face. I was already moistening my lips for my -introductory "I say, Aunt Martha--" or "By the way--." - -Telepathy is true, or Coincidence longer-armed than Fate. I had not -spoken the words; she took them out of my mouth. - -"Oh, young Robert Grove: I forgot. Simeon heard he was dead--died nine -years ago, I believe. Poor young fellow, how soon gone! How one longs -to know that all was well with him before he died--." - -I sat, staring. - -For moments maybe. For Eternity perhaps. I do not know. - -My heart was cold, my brain numb. My body and mind were gripped as in -a vice; I could not move my head to one side or the other, I could not -remove my unseeing eyes from a fixed point in emptiness straight before -me; my brain could not work, could seek no details of where or when -or why, could not move from one cramped corner of agony, in which it -must listen ceaselessly to a far-away voice repeating "Robbie is dead. -Robbie is dead. Robbie is dead." - -I was nearly unconscious: there was no me left to be conscious. As -in a dream I remember Aunt Martha being kind, being fussy, pleading, -advising, exhorting, appealing. I would not, could not move. I sat -in the same chair, in the same posture, staring, staring at nothing; -speaking, speaking to no one. "Robbie is dead. Robbie is dead." - -After a while Aunt Martha seemed to have gone. The lamp was still -burning. Very slowly, through the hours of that eternal night, the -meaning of what had happened entered my heart; broke my heart. - -Grey morning light was entering the room. I got up from the chair, -stiff and cramped after my long unmoving vigil, went up to my bedroom, -discovered my diary in its secret haunt, brought the _Times_-wrapped -exercise-book downstairs again with me, blew out the lamp, and in the -dim light of the autumn dawn, sat down amid the uncleared supper things -to pen my last entry:-- - - - "I am writing this at five o'clock on Lord's Day morning at the - most miserable moment of my life. I have been up all night. I - have not slept. I don't know how it happened: unless God, in His - cruelty, heard the unspoken question in my heart and answered - it through Aunt Martha's witless mouth. 'Oh, young Robert' she - began--my heart stopped beating--'I forgot'! I could not have - guessed what was coming, have guessed that his presence all these - years was a lie, a vanity of my own creating. _Dead._ It was - so terrible that I could not feel it soon, did not understand - for a long time what it meant. My heart was broken; but did not - understand. It is here, alone in the long night, that I have found - out what it is. I can hardly see to write for my tears. What I - feel, I cannot write. It is the cruellest thing (save creating me) - that God has done to me; God who damned me into the world, hated, - loveless. I have lived a life such as few girls--cowering, haunted, - passionate; utterly unloving, unloved utterly. Then I loved this - dark-haired boy on that Christmas Night when--more surely even than - on Thy Jordan morning with me, O Lord God!--in tears and happiness - I was BORN AGAIN. And ever since, in endless vision, with my soul - and brain and body, I have been faint with loving him, and memory - has kindled hope and hope excelled memory, and I have thanked the - Lord God even for His nameless gift of immortality,--for it would - be immortality with Robbie. God, I thought, had paid me for the - unhappiness in which He had created me: He had given me Robbie. - Year after year his heart was with me. I was gladder and more - radiant than the ordinary happy woman could be. My heart sang aloud - with my love. - - "And now it is gone. It burns my heart as salt tears are burning my - lashes. I understand. Love was never meant for me. I was conceived - in hate. I shall die in hate. God gave me the wildest-loving soul - He could fashion, and I kept it for my dear one only. And now my - beloved is gone, gone to his long home, and the light is gone out - of my life. For him there is no immortality: immortality is only - for the damned. Sorrow is older than laughter, and sorrow alone - lives. My lovely boy is dead for ever; I thank God only for this, - that he has spared him Eternity. And I, who loved him, must - live on for ever alone: alone through all the merciless eternal - years--oh, Christ Jesus on the Cross, strike me dead now, abolish - the universe, abolish Thyself--ah Robbie, Robbie, come back. - - "No, it is no good. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to - mourn, and a time to dance. For me it shall be weeping-time and - mourning-time for ever. Joy and laughter are for other folk. I - shall go, as I knew I must, the way of all my people, the way of - bitterness and loneliness, the way of my Mother. (Mother dear, will - God strive to keep us apart in Eternity?) I shall find no happiness - under the sun; nor in heaven--nor hell--afterwards. The visions of - the past can comfort me no more; for they were but phantoms of my - own creating. This past year when night after night he has come to - my body and soul, it was not he who came at all--his bright body - was rotting in the grave (where? since when?)--but a cruel sham - of Christ's, a silly clockwork presence born of my own love and - hunger, a cowardly trick God played upon me. - - "My beloved, there is Eternity and the grave between us. I cannot, - dare not, conjure up your vision. In memory only, I will go back - once, for the last time, to Christmas of long ago, feel your gentle - dead arms around me, and kiss you Good-night and Good-bye. - - MARY LEE." - - - - -CHAPTER XLII: TWIN DEATHBEDS - - -Grandmother and Aunt Jael were failing every hour. On the afternoon of -the morrow of my misery old Doctor le Mesurier took me aside--I was the -mistress now--and told me that for both of them it was only a matter of -days. - -"Which will be the first?" I asked him, between tears. - -"I should not like to say." - -"'Tis a close race, my dearie," was the way my Grandmother put it when, -a few minutes later, I went upstairs to cry my heart out by her side: -"a close race to glory, and the odds are even." - -She smiled, with a tender frivolity that was new to me. New too was -this form and manner of speech. - -Both she and Aunt Jael knew that the end was near. I got a nurse the -same evening, who took turns with me throughout the night, crossing -from one bedroom to the other. I could not forget my own grief, but -had little time to remember it. I was so dead-tired when I got to my -bed that, almost for the first time in my life, there was no long -waking-time: the breeding-time of misery and fear. - -Aunt Jael developed jaundice, also a bronchial cough. She was soon too -weak and suffering to be her own unpleasant self. The Devil, however, -as late as four days before the end, made a last desperate struggle -for the soul that had so long been His. It was one evening; I had -brought the last beef-tea for the night, changed the hot-water jar, -straightened her pillows and put everything right. Suddenly, without -warning, she dashed the cup, full of the steaming liquid, into my face, -which it cut and scalded; screaming the while like a mad thing. She was -a vile, a repulsive sight. With her toothless hairy face distorted with -rage, foul also with the dark-yellowish taint of the jaundice; with -her beady black eyes gleaming savagely, her immense nose, her crested -nightcap, she looked like some obscene monster, half-bird, half-witch. -She clutched the ancient stick, slashed out at me savagely-feebly; -her failure to hurt me bringing her to the last livid agony of rage. -She screamed, grimaced, dribbled: "Ingrate, minx, harlot--oh, I'll -kill 'ee, you and yer wicked idle Grandmother. I'll--." She was cut -short by a fit of violent coughing. She lay back sweating with pain, -almost unconscious with hate, her face too loathsome to behold. She was -possessed of the Devil. - -Drawn by the noise, the nurse came hurriedly from my Grandmother's -room. But already Satan was cast out; now she was sobbing, grunting, -wailing, in a maudlin pitiful way. For a moment our eyes met. I saw -shame there, and my heart quickened towards her. "Never mind, Aunt. You -had a nightmare. It is over now." - -In the opposite bedroom, the end drew gentlier near. In her less -painful hours, my Grandmother was livelier than I had ever known her. -With the scent of Death's nostrils in the room, she grew skittish, gay, -worldly. She gave me droll winks and knowing smiles, as she recounted -pranks of eighty years ago: mighty jam-stealing forays, ginger -_battues_, historic bell-ringing expeditions; tremendous truantries, -twelve-year-old amours. - -"Grandmother," I said gravely (I was the godly parent now and she -the child) "you've waited a long time to tell me this!" For a moment -genuine priggery, and sour remembrance of the blows meted out for my -own lean escapades, hindered my joining in her brazen glee. Then we -laughed together till we cried. - -"Ah, they were happy days," she said, wiping her eyes. "My unsaved -days," she added, the holy familiar tone coming into her voice, "the -days before I found the Lord." - -Then she fell to talking of the Faith, and for the first and last time -in her life spoke critically of the ways of the Lord's People. - -"They do too much for them that are saved already, and too little -to bring in them that are lost. 'Tain't the Lord's precept at all. -'Remember the ninety-and-nine.'" - -As in everything, my Grandmother was right. Apart from the Foreign -Field, our people make small stir to rescue the perishing. That, they -feel, is not the business of religion: which is not so much to reclaim -sinners as to edify saints, not to fight the Devil but to worship God. -Thus they are in sharpest contrast with the later nineteenth-century -evangelism, with its hordes of professional missioners--mountebanks, -gipsies, Jews--its Transatlantic sensationalism and sentimentalism, -its hysterical appeals to the spiritual egotism of the individual, its -sinner hunts, its spectacular war with Satan. - -Though they are not always free from the danger of spiritual pride, -it may at least be said of our people that they worship the Lord in -a quieter holier way, that they practise the fast-vanishing art of -personal religion. Yet my Grandmother was right: "It is the sinners -that Christ came to save. 'Remember the ninety-and-nine!'" - - -One morning I found Aunt Jael greatly changed. Her eyes were gentler -than ever before, her face more peaceful. - -I could see she had been waiting for me. - -"Child," she said quickly, "is your Grandmother awake?" Her voice was -soft. - -"I haven't been in yet. I always come to you first. The nurse is with -her." - -"Go and see. I must speak to her." - -"Speak to her, Aunt? You mean you want me to give her a message." - -"No, Child. I must speak to her with my own voice. Go first and find -whether she is awake." - -"Yes," I reported. - -"Now then. Open the door wide. Yes--now put that chair against it, -so it can't swing to. Now go and do likewise with your Grandmother's -door. First move me right to the edge of the bed--thank 'ee! There!" I -propped her up amid her pillows. - -Then with Grandmother and her door I did the same. (The nurse was -downstairs.) - -Though the two old women could not see each other, despite the width of -the passage their faces cannot have been more than seven yards apart. -Grandmother's deafness had increased with her years, but today, helped -out now and then with a word from me, she heard everything. I stood -just inside Grandmother's room, watching her face, and listening to -Aunt Jael, whose voice was calm and clear. - -"Can you hear me, Hannah?" - -"Yes, Jael." - -"Well, sister, I haven't many hours to go. The Lord is calling, but -I've this to say to 'ee first. These eighty years we've been together -I've been a hard sister to 'ee. These eighty years I've been a sinner. -'Ee 've been a loving forgiving woman, and I've been a bad and selfish -one: full o' pride and wickedness. Before I go, I want to hear 'ee with -your own lips say as 'ee forgive me, as maybe the Lord in His mercy -will too--" - -A fit of coughing cut her short. Her pride she had torn into shreds. -Grandmother was sobbing with joy. - -"Don't 'ee talk so, my dear! I've nothing to forgive 'ee." - -"Hannah woman, 'tis not so. Come, oh say 'ee forgive me." The old woman -was eager, desperate: pleading against time, against Eternity. - -"I forgive 'ee," said my Grandmother. - -The same evening Aunt Jael died in her sleep. The face was not ugly in -death; the mouth was still hard and proud, but the eyes were serene. - -She won the glory-race by just seven days. After this brief space of -time--the same span as between my birth and my mother's death--my -Grandmother followed. - -It was the day after Aunt Jael's funeral. Towards the end she called -me Rachel. At the very last she sat up in bed, gazed at me with a -tenderness already radiant with the glory of the City of Heaven. - -"I'm journeying away, Rachel,--up yonder. Mary is there. Can't 'ee see -her, Rachel? What is the veil between 'ee?--I can see 'ee both. Look! -There is New Jerusalem. The King in His Glory. Her words. Come--" - -She fell back. I caught her in my arms. My soul could not follow. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIII: ONE LONG PRERCESSION O' DEATHBEDS - - -About this time, indeed, persons in the play of Mary Lee were dying -Hamletwise. One after another, swiftly, bodies were being trundled off -the stage. - - -Aunt Jael's leadership of the Seven Old Maids of Tawborough was -maintained in death. It was edifying to note that just as sixty years -ago they had briskly emulated her Conversion, now with equal alacrity -they followed her to her Home above. - -Within three months Miss Glory Clinker departed. One February morning -she went away; wide-eyed, stuttering, triumphant. I heard her last -words. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand--er-er-er." Her eyes -lit up; a beatific happiness brightened the kind foolish old face. -"Er-er-er--." She was stammering before the Throne. - -Of the Seven, Salvation alone survived for long: till her one hundred -and fourth year, a few years only before the time at which I write, -almost into the new century that is at hand. Her last words were -incoherent. I could not catch them, though I tried to. - - -Pentecost Dodderidge outlived his most famous convert by seven months -only. He was in his one hundredth year. A stroke of paralysis came -suddenly, followed by a restless ten days, in which he suffered intense -pain and displayed eternal patience, and which he filled with edifying -epigrams and godly saws and instances, all reverently collected by the -faithful ones around his bed and embodied in his _Choice Sayings_. -(The volume is before me as I write.) As the last saved soul to whom -he had stood Baptist, and as the grand-niece and grandchild of "those -two eminent bright jewels in our Saviour's crown," I was specially in -request at the old man's bedside. His last words, spoken clearly and -solemnly, with all the actor-like sincerity of his greatest days, were -these, each utterance coming a clear moment or two after the other: - -"Peace within and rest." - -"I have peace with God." - -"The Peace of God which passeth all understanding--" - -This, his last utterance, was given at about a quarter past eight. Some -forty minutes later he passed away: voyaging peacefully to Heaven. - - -Of another death I knew only by hearsay. It was a Bonapartist intriguer -who, just before the dynasty's disaster, had ratted to the Republicans, -and in the struggle with the Red Commune of Paris became a spy for -the Versaillais. I first saw the name and the bare fact in the French -newspapers, but a fuller story reached me in another way. Of the Grand -Rouquette, Red gaolers, a cage. A name on a list. One word at the -foot: Condemned. A yard, a high wall covered with vines and creepers. -A May morning, six priests who died like heroes, filthy insults, -levelled rifles. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. _Fire!_ an explosion. A -curled-up corpse upon the ground. - - -His former employer lived a few years longer, keeping Death at bay -by sheer fussiness. Her last gesture, Gabrielle wrote me, was a -deprecatory shrug of the shoulder; her last (recorded) utterance -"Enfin--" - - -In another, an uglier death than any, the human creature gave way to -the passion of extreme sickening fear, to fawning appeals for God's -mercy, to every last licence--except the use of the first person -singular. I stood outside; Aunt Martha would not let me enter the room -for very shame, though I peeped in once and saw the pale face livid -with fear, streaming with sweat, contorted with agony of body and soul. - -"Forgive, Lord, forgive!" he was whining, "all has been done for Thy -sake. One sees one's filthy sinfulness, one sees the error of one's -ways--" - - -Not in such cowardly supplication, but in arrogant prayer, prayer as -to an equal, prayer to his young friend God, died a braver, wickeder -old man. They found him kneeling against his bed: heart-failure, said -the doctor. His face was insolent, beautiful, serene. His soul had -strolled disdainfully into Heaven, as a gentleman's should. Among his -papers were found two worn photographs; one of my mother, the only one -she had ever had taken, showing her in all the innocent beauty of her -maidenhood, the other of myself, taken in France, which, against my -will Grandmother had managed to convey to him. On the back of each of -them was written, in his hand-writing:--"I have kissed this picture to -shreds. They do not know. God knows." - -For me, those are his Last Words. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIV: CHRISTMAS NIGHT - - -In the slow weeks that followed my Grandmother's death I never came -face to face with my own sorrow. My brain told me the sorrow was there, -but my will, reinforced by a numbness that possessed my spirit, forbade -my facing or feeling it. Never did I dare to summon the vision. It was -mockery. It had been a mockery all through. - -But the soul lives on, leaves death behind, is the same for ever: can -we not be together still, Robbie on the other side of death, Mary on -this? The notion came fearfully at first, then boldlier. Dare I try to -discover? Does God permit us to love across the grave?--Even so, in my -innermost heart, I knew that a love which could bridge the gulf would -still be a love not quite completed, since not completed and perfected -between us both together here on earth.--Could I then bring him back to -life? Instinct intimated and Prayer confirmed. On Christmas Night, now -two or three weeks ahead, I would seek him just as before. Till then I -must possess my soul in emptiness. - -The literal loneliness of the dead house helped to hush my spirit. -There were still some years of the lease of Number Eight to run; I -decided for the present to live on there, absolutely alone. With -Grandmother's and Aunt Jael's income--all of which save a small -legacy to Aunt Martha from the former came to me--added to the little -fortune that Great-Uncle John had left me, I was now a young woman of -independent means. How different was realization from anticipation. -Money could buy me everything, save the only thing in heaven or earth -I wanted. Independence liberated me to roam throughout the world, and -I remained desolate in this mournful forbidding house, the slave of my -sick heart's memories and desires. Sister Briggs continued to come in -for the mornings, to help me with the housework and in the kitchen. I -had no plans, and, if Christmas failed me, no hopes. I was in a kind of -spiritual stupor; I was but half alive. I had nothing to live for, and -no hope to seek from death. Death, and then some other existence: but -always life--always a Me. - -There was, however, at moments, a certain mystical freedom of spirit in -this cloistral utter loneliness. After about half-past one, when she -had washed up the dinner things, I knew that I was rid of Sister Briggs -until the morrow, and I could fill the desolate house with myself. I -would wander from empty room to empty room, sit for half-an-hour here, -half-an-hour there, pray, read, talk to myself, meditate, most often do -nothing at all. - -Aunt Jael's front parlour I still shunned, except when the blinds were -up and in the broadest daylight, for Benamuckee's eyes could still -move, his face still leer. A heathen image, which men in savage forests -have worshipped and sacrificed to, can never be quite inanimate wood or -stone. The Devil is alive in his likenesses on earth. - -The sound of my own voice in the silent echoing rooms brought me time -after time to the verge of the old Expectation. I would shout, cry -aloud; till the mystery of self was almost discovered, and I ceased -praying to God. He was too near. - -One day the noise of shouts and supplications brought the next-door -neighbour--that same clergyman who that far-off vinous day had been -drawn by Aunt Jael's agonies--knocking at the door. - -"Er--excuse me. Is any one ill? I fancied I heard cries--" - -"Thank you. I am not ill. I am crying to God. Thank you all the same. -Good-morning." - -The healing power of the Church of England as by law established stops -short at saner souls than mine. He skedaddled with Pilate gesture down -the garden path. He had flushed when I used the word God. - -Thus in prayer and madness and reading of the Word I panned out the -weeks till Christmas. Once or twice I sought to recover the ancient -Rapture of the Lord's Presence. But at the approaching moment a voice -always intervened: The Great Happiness is coming back to you, but _in -some other way_. He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is Love. -No man hath seen God at any time. But when perfect love for another -human soul shall be perfected in you, then God, more rapturously than -at Jordan, will enter your soul, and dwell within you for ever. - -What other way? It could only be Christmas. - - -Christmas came, announced by the calendar but by no other outward sign, -unless it was that Sister Briggs left before instead of after dinner. -The silence was stranger, more complete than ever. Through all the -afternoon and evening I read, to prevent myself hoping. As I turned -over pages of print, staring uncomprehendingly, one question absorbed -all my being: I did not consciously think of it, for it was myself, -all of myself, and the brain cannot think of the soul: _Can love then -bridge the grave?_ - -Suddenly, late in the afternoon, as dusk was turning to darkness, an -insane notion stormed my brain, which woke at once to feverish activity. - -I had only Aunt Martha's word for it. Her information came certainly -from Uncle Simeon, Uncle Simeon was a liar, a cur, a cruel scoundrel. -He had invented that Robbie was dead, had lied to Aunt Martha, knowing -that she would convey the lie to me, knowing how it would afflict me. -Robbie was alive, alive! Why had it not struck me before? My heart -fainted with hope. I prayed God that he would make me unconscious till -midnight, for I did not know how I could live through those waiting -hours. - -Live somehow I did. There was even time for Doubt to raise his -unwearying head. He was dead after all: what reason had Uncle Simeon -had to lie, who could never have really divined what Robbie was to me? -And if he were dead, Oh Christ, was it possible he could come to me? - -After supper I went upstairs to bed. There was a bright moon. I pulled -the curtains wide from the window that the room might be filled with -moonlight as the Torribridge room eleven years before. - -I sat up in bed and prayed God passionately to be merciful, to deal -with me lovingly: to send me Robbie, whether from this world or the -next. - -Imperceptibly, in the luminous silence, the spiritual sluggishness of -the latter days disappeared; physical being fell from me like a cloak; -my mind became clear and radiant, my heart breathless with hope. Faith -possessed me, and as I prayed, I waited. - -There was a soft tread in the room: I knew whose, should know it at -the end of Eternity. There was no terror in me this time, no dreadful -thought that it might be Uncle Simeon. Nor was there any soul's -illusion, as in the hundred other times the need of my heart and the -power of my imagination had created his presence. For the little white -nightgowned figure standing at the door was there, _in plain reality_, -as he had been at the Torribridge door eleven years before. - -And now, in this moment when the actual physical presence I had for -ever prayed and longed for was achieved, the whole structure of my love -collapsed. A disappointment too sudden, too infinite to bear, filled my -heart, from which the life seemed to be ebbing away. I understood the -difference between the child I had loved on the Torribridge night, and -the vision I had built with my love. One was dead and returned to earth -for a moment, the other had never lived except in my heart. I was a -woman, this was a little boy. - -At the supernatural fact of his resurrection for this night I never -stopped to marvel: only at my own folly in not having paused to think -that the physical shape of Robbie returning to earth must needs be -the physical shape in which he had left it. I was a woman, this was a -little boy. - -The vision had been real, but it was not Robbie. My heart still loved -the darling of its dreams, but my darling was not Robbie. - -"I cannot come nearer, Mary," he said softly, and at the sound of his -remembered voice my pulse beat faster, and life flowed back into my -heart, and my child's love in its first simplicity, without the added -passion of the years, came back to me again. "I have returned for a -moment only. Do not grieve because God did not let me grow to be a man -on earth below. I loved you that happy once, and I love you still. Do -not think, dear, that because I had gone to Heaven, all the times you -have called for me since, and when I have come to you, have not been -true. Each time you have called I have answered you in Heaven. Each -time my spirit has been with you. But God never meant me for this -world: He never meant me to be His this-world's love for you. Your -happiness is coming." - -"When, Robbie? How?" - -"Very soon. You will see. You will be very happy." - -"Come nearer, and kiss me Good-bye." - -"No, Mary; you are a living woman, and I am a little boy whose life was -long ago. _He_ will kiss you." - -I watched the white form dissolve in the moonlight. I knew the room was -empty. The crystal clearness of my heart was suddenly dimmed. The cloak -of physical existence once more enveloped my soul. I was back in the -world. - - - - -CHAPTER XLV: WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID - - -At my Grandmother's funeral Lord Tawborough had said: "Miss Traies, -if ever you need any advice or service of any kind, write and let me -know, will you? It is the only kindness I would presume to ask." On the -morrow of Christmas Night I thought often--only--of these words. I did -not write. Something told me that I had no need to. - -The whole of that wintry morrow I was alone in the cold house. Even for -Sister Briggs it was Boxing-Day: I had told her to take advantage of a -day that even for oilmen (and Christians) should be a holiday, and to -stay at home with her husband, as I could very well fend for myself. - -I waited. It was foolish, impossible, one more Maryish notion of magic, -madness, moonshine. It was possible, probable, inevitable, immediate. - -The bell rang; with clamant heart and hurrying feet I sped to the door. - -There were preliminary embarrassments and explanations. Trivial -matters, to which we both gave grateful over-measure of zeal and zest, -filled the awkwardest first moments, tided them capably over. "The snow -on your coat: I must dry it"--"May the coachman come in and wait? The -weather is bad"--"Certainly, there is the kitchen fire: for coat and -coachman too"--"Thank you"--"I will get you a cup of tea." - -We did not look at each other. In the dining-room we continued to speak -of trifles, pouncing with eager dexterity and emulous speed upon any -sudden silence that showed its head. Covertly once or twice I dared to -look at the well-remembered face: fed swiftly on the manliness, the -gentleness; the proud grey hair, the noble forehead, the charitable -eyes; the mouth. My heart beat tempestuously. - -Then God, in His Goodness, performed a miracle within me. - -The mystical delight seized me. As on Jordan morning, I knew I should -reach the Rapture. All love was one, and the Stranger was my Robbie. -His face was the face of my visions, the face I had called Robbie's, -that was not Robbie's. I knew that all the torrential affection which -in dream and diary I had poured forth upon my vision, had been for my -Love who stood before me now. The magical moment for which I had been -born was at last upon me--oh, hope too hard to bear--but he must speak -the word. He alone could complete the miracle, fulfil the hope, carry -love's banners to their ultimate victory in my heart. - - -The silences grew longer and more shameless. My heart throbbed, my -body trembled, my spirit was faint with expectation. He got up from -his chair and began pacing up and down the room, talking of something, -talking of nothing, moistening his parched lips, seeking through -moments of unbearable longing for the words that would not come. - -At this moment of time, which is present in my heart more clearly -than any other of the memorable moments I have tried to describe in -this record of twenty-two years, I was sitting on the old horsehair -Chesterfield couch against the window; around me were the familiar -objects of this chiefly familiar room--Aunt Jael's traditional chair, -and my Grandmother's; the faded rosewood piano, the ancient chiffonièr, -the odour of my childhood, the taste of religion and many meals, the -all-pervading gloom. God was everywhere around me, the God of my -childhood, the God of Beatings. - -He stopped in his pacing up and down. I knew that his heart had -stopped. His voice was husky, faint with passion and hope and fear. - -"Miss Traies, may I ask you a question?" - -I could not look up. My heart was near breaking point. I could not -speak. Perhaps I nodded. - -"Will you--promise me this? That if the answer to the question is 'No,' -you will forgive me for having asked it, and like and respect me not -less well than now?" - -This longer sentence came a little more easily: words gave courage to -each other. The first question had been harder; though the hardest was -yet to come. - -"What-is-the-question?" I still looked downwards. My voice was as husky -as his, my heart as hungry. - -"You know it." - -"What-is-the-question?" repeated obstinately, mechanically, and -because--for one-millionth part--I was not sure. I knew the question, -my heart had answered it already; but I was a woman, and my mouth could -not speak for my heart till the man had achieved his task--found _his_ -mouth courage to speak for his heart. I knew, my heart knew; but my -brain waited for the serene absolute certainty which his words alone -could give. To complete the miracle this word was needed. - -"What-is-the-question?" I repeated mechanically. - -His heart stopped again for the last effort, the ultimate moment -of life. "Will you--once--one time only--before you go abroad -again--before I am old--one single time--" (how fondly each poor broken -conciliatory qualification seemed to ease his task, break his amorous -fall, make easier my way to the answer his soul sought)--"_kiss me?_" - -A spasm of spiritual joy went through me from head to foot. His -soul was mine, and mine was his: we were one soul, one double-soul -inhabiting each body. - -The winter was past, the rain was over and gone. - -"Yes," I whispered. My voice was unsure, my eyes were filled with tears -of happiness, my heart was fondling the two flawless words with which -he had transformed me. - -More bravely, easily, surely: "When?" - -"Soon." - -"Very soon?" - -"Now." - -He came swiftly to me, his arms were round me, our mouths were together -in a tender infinite embrace. My soul and body were singing. Love, -garlanded with lilies, marched with God's paradisal banner of Perfect -Happiness through all my heart. - -He was kneeling by my side. His head was against my breast. I was -kissing his hair, brushing my lips across his eyes. - - -After a very long while I spoke. My voice fell strangely and softly -upon my own ears. My new heart had fashioned me a new voice worthy to -do its bidding. - -"Oh my dear, unhappiness is gone for ever. Now I am full of joy. You -are near, you are completely in understanding. Look me in the eyes, -dear; tell me it is not a dream." - -"Mary, it is a dream. Today I have passed out of a land of unreality -into one of wonderful dreams. Now I am part of another, my soul is part -of hers, and can never be torn away. Time cannot do it, and what is -more powerful than time?" - -"Eternity," I said. - -And I found as I uttered that word, that for the first time it held no -terror. - - - - -+-------------------------------------------------+ -|Transcriber's note: | -| | -|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | -| | -+-------------------------------------------------+ - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY LEE*** - - -******* This file should be named 62295-8.txt or 62295-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/2/9/62295 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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