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 atEVERYmoment 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 signMary Lee.Jan. 1st, 1862.10.30 (a.m.)
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, andmorethan 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" asShecalls it)
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, andmorethan 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" asShecalls it)
AND HE WOULD NEVER
(5) Have sinful thoughts like
SpiteVengeanceVilenessPride
SpiteVengeanceVilenessPride
(6) Say sinful words, like
————
————
(7) Like sinful things, like
PraiseRichesEatingThe Pleasure I have whenever the worst part of the "For Ever" Fear is overFlatteryFame(Signed)Mary.Feb. 19th, 1862.
PraiseRichesEatingThe Pleasure I have whenever the worst part of the "For Ever" Fear is overFlatteryFame
(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 waspersuaded 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 freeme 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!
"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. Sometimesin 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 nevershouldreally 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 Ifind, 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 Pentecostwas 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 insafety 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—whenthe 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 seeyou. 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 wouldnot 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 fromthis 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 IwasGod.
A transcendent experience transcends all verbal description: even now I cannot think of it: only feel it,liveit 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 allthe 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 somiraculously; 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 contemplatehourlythe Cross of Christ?" "Is the Means of Salvation youronlyjoy?" "Do you thinkalwaysof the blessed Gospel plan?" "Is the Atonementeverythingto '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 joynow?" 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.
"Youdaredraw 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.
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 wasthrobbing 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 isyourname?"
"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 isverygood 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; andshewouldn'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-grownand unpretending. On a plain upright slab of stone was inscribed
RACHEL TRAIESThese 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—shewouldn'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 shouldtell 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 enterherhouse.
"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."
"Youjealous, 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 aninvitation 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 fromholy 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. Whatisa 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'Whodid it all?'Edid,'E, the same Chris' Jesus. 'E as brought me up out uv a norribull pit, out uv themoiryclay 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 byrhubarb 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 solong 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 youknow, 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.
"'Owdo I know young man, 'ow do I know? If you 'ad eternal life, if you'adaccepted 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!'Owdo I know?— If you'adeternal 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.'Owdo 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 doyouknow 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 spokewith 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 orItalian, 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,Iaccept."
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, withdiscreet 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.