So in the question of healing; when one realises that the only Healer is Christ, it becomes a mere matter of detail whether He chooses to use as His instrument the skill of a physician, the self-conquest of the patient, or the power of a natural healer: just as in old times it was a mere matter of detail whether He anointed with clay the eyes of the blind, or laid His hand on the sick person, or spake the word only. It was not the hem of the garment that healed, it was Christ Himself. The hem was only the chosen channel of His Divine Power.
I knelt down beside Willie Jackson's sofa, and laid my hands upon him as I had laid them on Fay, at the same time lifting up my soul in prayer that the boy's pain might cease and his injury be cured. Again I felt the Blessed Presence in the room, and the wonderful Power rushing through me, and when at last I rose from my knees, Willie exclaimed that the pain had gone.
And so it had for that day, but I had to lay my hands upon him in prayer twice again before it disappeared altogether, and the doctor pronounced him perfectly cured. Why this was I cannot explain, and have never attempted to explain. It was enough for me—and quite enough for Willie—that in three days' time he was absolutely well. We left explanations to those less simple souls who worship the Law rather than the Law-Giver.
But my healing experiences did not end here. Ponty, who was a martyr to rheumatism, asked me to treat her as I had treated Willie Jackson, which I did, with marked success. Her pain disappeared, and her limbs grew much more supple. Gradually it became quite a custom in the village for any one in pain or sickness to send for me, and I helped them as far as I was able. Sometimes my ministrations were absolutely successful, sometimes only partially so; but I do not think they ever failed to bring a certain amount of relief to the sufferers. Again I do not attempt an explanation: I only know that it was so.
People often ask me whether I consider this gift of healing a natural or a spiritual gift. My answer is that there is no fundamental difference between the two, since "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." But of this I am sure, that it is not a gift bestowed upon every one alike, and those who have it not should not therefore conclude that they are farther from the Kingdom of Heaven than are those who have it. We are expressly told that there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, and it is not for us to choose which gift shall be ours.
I remember discussing this one day with Blathwayte when we were walking home together from rabbit shooting.
"Although I agree with you, Reggie," he said, "that it saves a good deal of needless confusion when once we realise that what we call the natural and the supernatural are in reality one, and that the distinction between them is purely artificial, that does not explain why you are more successful at some times than at others. Christ's Power is always the same."
"No, Arthur, it isn't, because He has chosen to limit His Power by our faith. Remember 'He could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief.' When I fail, it may be that either I or my patient is lacking in faith at the time."
Arthur nodded. "That may be so. Faith is always the one condition that He imposes."
"And there may be another reason," I said slowly, "though it is one which I find rather difficult to put into words. I think that we human beings are very apt to confuse two things which in God's eyes are essentially different: I mean Prayer and Magic. They are both mysterious connections with the Unseen Powers through the mediums of a form of words, by which we induce those Powers to act in accordance with our own desires. I think I may say without injustice that most people who believe in either or both of them regard them as a spiritual form of wirepulling."
Arthur smiled. "I fancy you are not far out there, old man."
"I am not an authority on these matters," I continued; "I am only airing my own perhaps worthless opinions; but I do honestly believe that there is such a thing as Magic, and that the earlier races of mankind knew far more about it than we do; and by Magic I mean the power to move or control by some mysterious ritual the great forces of Nature."
"You believe that this really can be done?"
"I do. Whether it is right to do it is another matter, and one on which I do not feel competent to express an opinion. But that it can be done—and has been done—I have no doubt whatsoever. If Man was made in the image of God, then surely some of the power of God is inherent in him, even if he does not know how to wield it properly. My only doubt is whether it is safe for him to try to wield it, as long as his ignorance of it is as great as it is in the present stage of human history."
"They knew more about it in ancient Egypt," Arthur said.
"And in earlier civilisations even than that," I added. "I believe that in those far-away days men practised the rites and the mysteries which brought them into contact with, and by which they controlled to some extent, the Principalities and Powers of the vast universe which for want of a better word we call Nature. Then Man—as is unfortunately his habit—fell away from his first estate, and began to worship the Principalities and the Powers instead of the God who made him and them, and then God drew a veil between Man and the Great Powers, so that Man should not be tempted by knowing them to worship them. And that is where we are at present. But even now the veil sometimes wears thin in places, and some stray mortal peeps through and catches faint glimpses of the glories and the grandeurs on the other side."
"Then you do not believe that Pan is dead?" said Arthur.
"No more dead than anybody else is dead," I answered, "only separated from us, like all the other so-called dead people, until we are sufficiently advanced in our spiritual life to meet them again. That is really all that death amounts to, when you look it in the face."
"That is so," said Blathwayte in that quiet voice so right.
"I love to think of those early days," I went on, waxing garrulous and tiresome, as I always do when I get on to this subject, "when Man was conversant with the great forces of Nature; when he saw white presences among the hills, and heard the message of the whirlwind and the fire, and took his part in the chantings of the morning stars. It was only when he began to worship these that the evil came. They were but the choirs and the servers and the acolytes in the vast temple of his God, and he did evil when he fell down and worshipped them. It was then that the veil of the temple was let down between them and him."
"And will it soon be lifted again, I wonder?"
"It will be rent in twain when Man is once more in absolute harmony with the Infinite. Don't you remember that in St. John's vision of the Throne, in addition to the Spirits and the Elders, there were four Beasts full of eyes, each with six wings? I believe that these six-winged Beasts—which Isaiah speaks of as Seraphim—are the great forces of Nature, the Powers of wind and water and earth and fire: those Powers which the ancients set up as gods and worshipped."
"Then you believe in the old gods?"
I shook my head. "Not as gods, but as great forces; Man's initial error lay in treating them as gods."
"And you believe that these strange Beings—these Principalities and Powers—are not of evil?" asked Arthur.
"On the contrary, they are wholly of good when put in their proper places, and regarded not as Man's masters, but as Man's fellow-worshippers of the Most High. They rest not day or night, crying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy'; but Man is at present so stupid that he hasn't ears to hear theirSanctus."
Arthur was silent for a moment, then he said: "I like these ideas of yours, Reggie; they blow through one's dusty, stereotyped notions like a strong wind from the mountains. That is a fine conception of yours of a temple where the choristers are the constellations, and the acolytes the powers of the air. It makes one feel that the universe is so big and wide. But I don't quite see how all this explains your original proposition that Magic must not be confounded with Prayer."
"I'm sorry," I said; "I fear I am generally more or less of a wandering sheep where conversation is concerned. But what I mean—to put it tersely—is that Magic is more or less of a command, while Prayer altogether is a supplication. Both involve a mystical communion with an unseen Power; but while we may command the lesser Powers, we can do nothing but abase ourselves before the Highest Power of all."
"I see your point," said Arthur. "Since Magic is, so to speak, more or less mechanical, certain results must necessarily follow certain rituals; but with Prayer the final result lies with the Power to whom the request is made, and is therefore what one might call optional."
"Exactly. And I believe the reason why Prayer is not invariably answered at once—and not always in the way we expect—is to teach us that we are not controlling a spiritual force but are supplicating a living Person; therefore the final decision lies with Him and not with us, and we must be content to leave it there. If, by uttering certain words and performing certain ceremonies, I was invariably able to heal a patient, I should be healing by Magic, a thing, mind you, which has been done—and possibly still is done—in the history of the world; but if I lay what natural and spiritual gifts I may possess at the patient's service, and leave the result in Christ's hands, then Christ does what He thinks fit in His love and His own way. In dealing with a Person one must allow for the Personal Equation, even though that Person be our Lord Himself."
"I am glad to hear you say this," said Blathwayte as we parted, "as I was afraid that the idea of Magic—in conjunction with the healing powers which you undoubtedly possess—might get hold of a man of your peculiar temperament. But you seem to look at it as simply and naturally as Henderson does."
A few days after this conversation with Arthur, Annabel startled me by suddenly coming into the library, and saying without any preamble, as she stood beside my chair at the writing-table: "Where do you think I had better take a house, Reggie? somewhere near here or in London?"
"Take a house? What on earth do you mean?" I asked in amazement.
"Well, I must live somewhere, and I can't stay on very well here after you are married."
"But why not? You simplymuststay on with us, and manage the house as you have always done; I couldn't bear the Manor without you."
"It is very nice of you, Reggie, to want me to go on living here; but I am sure Fay would not like it."
I was simply aghast at this revelation of the utterly absurd and untrue ideas which even the nicest women get about each other. "My dear Annabel, what utter nonsense! And most unjust to Fay, too! Why, there is nothing that Fay would like so much as for you to live on here with her and me after we are married: I know her well enough to answer for that."
Annabel looked doubtful. "Are you sure, Reggie?"
"Absolutely certain. Not only for the unselfish reason that such an arrangement would be the only really happy one for you and me, but also for the selfish one—if anything that Fay did or thought could by any possibility be selfish—that you would take all the bother of managing this large household off her hands. Why, my dear Annabel, you yourself have said that she is far too young to take on such a job as this."
Annabel looked thoughtful. "That is quite true. I'm afraid you wouldn't be very comfortable with only Fay to look after things."
"I'm not thinking of myself," I replied, rather huffily; "I'm really not such a selfish brute as you make out. I'm thinking of what a cruel thing it would be to put such a lot of care and responsibility on the shoulders of a child like Fay, for she is but a child as yet, though she has all the depth and the charm of a woman."
Annabel was still doubtful. "She would learn."
"And why should she be bothered to learn, if you are willing to take all the trouble off her hands? Let the darling be young as long as she can! In spite of you and Arthur, I still have scruples as to whether it is right to let her share such a dull, middle-aged lot as mine; but at any rate I will strive my utmost to shield her from the cares and burdens of married life, and to make her life as free and joyous as possible. Therefore, Annabel, I beseech you to stay on here, and to take all household and social duties off Fay's shoulders."
"Well, Reggie, if you put it like that——"
"I do put it like that, and that closes the matter. I will go and tell Fay how good you are in consenting to stay, as I know how relieved and happy it will make her."
I straightway went in search of my darling, and found her curled up with a book on one of the settees by the hall fire.
"I have got such a glorious piece of news for you, sweetheart," I said, sitting down beside her and taking one of her dear hands in mine. "Annabel has consented to live with us after we are married, and to take all the trouble of managing the house off your hands. So that my little darling will have no housekeeping or servants to worry her, but will have nothing to do but enjoy herself and make love to her devoted husband."
Now one of Fay's most compelling charms was her infinite variety: she was a creature of a thousand moods—sometimes talkative, sometimes silent, sometimes sad, and sometimes merry—but never the same two hours together, and always utterly adorable. Her changes of mood had nothing to do with outer circumstances: they were the outcome of her own sweet variableness and versatility.
This morning she was evidently in a silent mood, for all she said was, "Oh!"
I expatiated upon the advantages of Annabel's permanent support. "You see, darling, it would have been an awful bother for you to have to do all the tiresome old things that Annabel does. She is so used to them that they are easy to her, but I couldn't have borne to see the burden of them laid on your dear shoulders."
"I dare say I could have learnt to do them all right." How like my darling not to spare herself in her readiness to serve me.
"So Annabel said, but I would not hear of it! Do you think that I am marrying you, you lovely wild elfin thing, in order to turn you into a staid housekeeper? It would be sacrilege to put so exquisite a creature to such ignoble uses!"
Fay did not reply, so I continued: "And it will be so nice for you too, dear heart, always to have a woman at hand to turn to in any trouble or difficulty."
"I shall have you, and that is all I want."
"But I am only a stupid man, and could never understand and help you as another woman could. I don't believe that any man is sufficiently fine and subtle properly to understand a woman: especially when there is such a difference between them in age, as there is, alas! between you and me."
"There is more difference between Annabel and me: five years more."
"But she is a woman, and women can always understand each other."
"I see. Because there is too much difference between forty-two and eighteen, you are trying to make forty-two plus forty-seven equal to eighteen. You always had a wonderful head for sums, Reggie!" And with a laugh Fay whisked herself off the settee, and went out of the hall.
I could not understand her present mood, and the fact that I could not understand it filled me with an agony that after all I was too old and dull and stupid ever to make her happy. Then, with a blessed sense of relief, I remembered that I should not be alone in my sacred task of perfecting and beautifying the young life that I had dared to take into my keeping; Annabel would be always at hand to assist my clumsy masculine attempts, and to correct my stupid masculine blunders. And I thought that between us we could succeed in making my darling happy; at any rate, we would try our best.
But a fresh feminine surprise awaited me. Surely women are the most incomprehensible creatures, and on the time-honoured principle of "set a thief to catch a thief," it is only a woman who can be expected to fathom a woman. To my amazement Ponty—whom I expected to be lifted into the seventh heaven of delight by the news that Annabel would stay on at the Manor—raised strong objections to this admirable arrangement. I really couldn't have believed such a thing of the faithful Ponty, if I hadn't heard her with my own ears.
"I hear it is settled for Miss Annabel to go on living here after your marriage, Master Reggie," she said to me on one of my frequent visits to the old nursery—a room which had suddenly acquired a new and wonderful sanctity in my eyes.
"Of course," I replied. "The Manor wouldn't be the Manor without Miss Annabel. I could never think of allowing her to leave it. I should have thought you would have been the first to rejoice at the news that she was staying on."
"Well, then, I'm not, Master Reggie: neither the first nor the last nor any of the rejoicing sort at all. When folks are married, they'd best have their home to themselves, or else trouble'll come of it."
"No trouble possibly could come of Miss Annabel's being anywhere. She could never bring anything but peace and comfort, and that you know as well as I do." I felt that I did well to be angry with Ponty just then.
But she didn't mind my anger in the least: she never had done. "I remember a man at Poppenhall," she went on, urging her unwise saws by means of fictitious instances, "who married as suitable as never was, and all went as merry as a marriage-bell till his wife's sister came to live with them. Then the two sisters took to quarrelling so awful that one of them had to go: and it was the wife as went and her sister as stayed."
"But, my good Ponty, the cases are not parallel," I said, with much truth; "in your story it was the wife's sister and not the husband's, which makes all the difference."
"It doesn't matter on which side the sister was: it is the principle of having relations to live with newly-married people that I don't approve of. Married folks are best left to themselves till the children come."
"But our marriage is an exceptional one," I urged.
"All marriages are exceptional to the bride and bridegroom," replied Ponty, "just as all children are exceptional to their own parents. No, Master Reggie, mark my words, when a man and a woman join hands at the altar, they don't reckon to be starting a game of 'Oranges and Lemons,' with their relations hanging on to them behind and pulling them apart. And that's what married life comes to, if the relations on either side live with the parties concerned."
"You are talking about things you don't in the least understand."
But Ponty took as little notice of me as she used to take when I was a child of six. It was never very wise of me to be dignified with Ponty. "I understand that it's a big job anyway for a husband and wife to shake down together when first they are married, Master Reggie, and it makes the job ten times bigger when their relations begin helping them. It's a thing they can only do when they are left to their own two selves."
I still tried to be patient, though I was fully alive to my old nurse's narrowness and ignorance. How little she grasped the true relationship between Fay and Annabel! "Your plan may be all very well when a man and his wife are about the same age, Ponty; there is a freemasonry in youth which unaided must bring them a complete understanding of each other. But what you call the shaking down becomes much more difficult when there is nearly a quarter of a century between the two."
"Then the more difficult it is, Master Reggie, the less they'll want anybody to help them. You may take my word for that. And if you follow my advice you won't allow Miss Annabel—nor Mr. Wildacre neither, one side being as bad as the other—to help you and Miss Fay to shake down together. You'll do the shaking down yourselves or else remain unshook. I remember there was a man in Poppenhall who used to say as there was nobody as fermented a quarrel like the peacemakers, and the same holds good with relatives in the case of marriage."
I did not want to lose my temper with my old nurse, so I went out of the room. But I was dreadfully disappointed in Ponty. I thought she would have known better.
Fay and I were married early in the year, which always appears to me the proper time for marrying and giving in marriage. It seems so appropriate for the new heaven and the new earth to begin at the same time. We went first to the Italian lakes and then back to Switzerland, so that spring met us in Italy, accompanied us through the Swiss mountains, and arrived at Restham Manor about the same time as we did. Thus our path was literally strewn with flowers all the way.
It would be both undignified and impossible, to describe what a heavenly time that honeymoon was to me. I had never imagined that such bliss was attainable in this work-a-day world: I thought it only existed in fairy-tales. And indeed my life was a fairy-tale just then, with Fay for the leading fairy.
I think that it was a very happy time for her, too; though I could not expect her to feel the absorbing delight in my society that I felt in hers. How could she, considering how dull and stupid I was, and how vivid and radiant was she? But she seemed contented with me, and delighted with the lakes and the mountains and the wealth of flowers: and she grew lovelier and more lovable every day. Her intoxicating society renewed my youth, and we walked and rode and boated together like a pair of happy and careless children, till I believed that she had spoken truth when she said that Love had indeed accomplished the impossible as far as I was concerned, and had set the shadow on the dial ten degrees backward.
The arrangements for our honeymoon had been highly approved of by Annabel, as they prevented that meeting between the east wind and me, which she spent her life in trying to avert, so that by the time we reached home at the end of April, the east wind was chained up again in his kennel with the keenest of his teeth extracted. At least so Annabel preached, and so she believed; for my part I had met him rushing loose about the fields on a May morning, with a tooth as keen as any ingratitude of man's.
We arrived at home on a lovely afternoon—one of those blue and golden afternoons of late spring—and found Annabel waiting in the hall to welcome us. How good it was to see her there! I should hardly have felt it was a real home-coming without Annabel, and nice as it was for me, I felt it was still nicer for Fay to have a woman to come home to—a woman who could comprehend and comfort and cherish her as no man, however devoted, could possibly do, and who could, to a certain extent, take the place of the mother whom—to her lifelong impoverishment—she had lost.
"Come and have some tea, my dear," said Annabel, after we had duly embraced her and greeted the entire household, who were likewise waiting in the hall to receive us.
The household melted away as if we had read the Riot Act over it, and we three drew near to the gate-legged tea-table.
"You had better pour out, Fay," said Annabel, "and take your place in your own house from the beginning."
Fay was looking so tired that I answered for her. "No, Annabel, you do it. Fay is really too tired to pour out for us two able-bodied beings. She ought not to wait upon other people, but to let other people wait upon her." She certainly did seem a fragile, fairy-like little thing beside Annabel and me.
"Shall I, Fay?" asked Annabel.
"Just as Reggie likes," replied my darling, with her lovely smile.
"Sweetheart, you are too tired to lift that heavy teapot. Let Annabel do it for you." The vessel in question was part of an extremely solid tea-service which had been presented to my father by an admiring constituency on the auspicious occasion of his marriage, and which resembled a flotilla of silver Dreadnoughts.
Fay laughed. "I think, as Reggie says, I had better not tackle the big teapot till it gets used to me: it might begin to buck or jib, and I'm sure I shouldn't have strength to hold it in if it did."
"It couldn't very well do that," said Annabel, taking her accustomed seat at the table, while Fay sat on the other side of me; "but it might overflow and trickle down the spout, as it is by no means a good pourer, and Jeavons always fills it too full." (Jeavons was our butler.) "I can't think why servants always make as much tea for three people as for half-a-dozen."
"I hate teapots that dribble down their chins," remarked Fay: "they are so messy."
Annabel gently corrected her. "I said spout, my dear, not chin. Teapots don't have chins. And now, you two, tell me all your adventures since I saw you last." Whereupon she characteristically proceeded to tell us all hers, and we neither of us could get a word in edgeways.
"And the garden is looking perfectly lovely," she concluded, after an exhaustive recital of the recent happenings of Restham. "I have had my own way with the forget-me-nots this year, and they are going to be a great success. Even Cutler now owns that he was wrong and I was right." Whereby I perceived that Cutler knew on which side of his bread the butter lay.
"Of course they are not in their full perfection yet," continued Annabel; "but they will be a sight when they are. You see, I was away when they were planted last year, and he didn't put them in nearly closely enough; but this year I superintended them myself."
"Then it is sure to be all right," I said.
"It is," replied Annabel, unconscious of irony. "If only people would always do what they are told, what a great deal of trouble would be saved! The moment I saw them last year I told Cutler they weren't nearly thick enough, but he wouldn't believe me, and said they would spread."
"And didn't they?" I asked, loyalty to my own sex drawing me over to Cutler's side.
"Not as much as he said they would, so last spring was practically wasted as far as the forget-me-nots were concerned. But it taught him once for all that I knew better than he."
"A spring is never wasted in which one learns wisdom," I remarked.
"I do love forget-me-nots," exclaimed Fay. "Forget-me-not beds are like adorable blue pools, and I never see one without longing to jump into it and bathe."
"That you must never do, my dear," replied Annabel; "if you did, you would entirely spoil the appearance of the beds for that season. They would never close up again properly, but would always look straggling and untidy."
I caught Fay's eyes; but to our lasting credit we were both able to postpone our laughter. It is one of the most delightful things in the world to be with somebody who laughs at the same things as one laughs at oneself: it creates a bond that nothing can ever break: a bond devoid of all sentimentality, but none the less powerful on that account. In looking back on as much of life's road as we have already travelled, and recalling thoughts of our fellow-travellers therein, I am not sure that the memories of the friends who shared our jokes are not tenderer than the memories of the friends who shared our sorrows, and they are certainly much pleasanter. I do not, however, pretend that a similarity of taste in jokes is a sufficient basis for matrimony, though a very firm foundation for friendship; but since friendship forms a not inconsiderable part of an ideal marriage, this sympathy in matters humorous is an important consideration in matrimony also. And I am thankful to say that this sympathy existed in full measure between myself and Fay.
It existed also between myself and Frank, had I given it full run; but there were certain things—such as Annabel, for instance—over which I could not allow myself to laugh too much with Frank. But there was nothing—not even Annabel—over which it would be disloyal to laugh with Fay, since husband and wife are one, and many and many a time did she and I have together a merry time over the quaint humours which help considerably to make this present world as delightful a dwelling-place as it is.
But though Fay and I often laughed together at my sister's ways—which were certainly very laughter-provoking just then—our laughter was the laughter of love, and I never lost the opportunity of pointing out to Fay the sterling goodness which underlay Annabel's peculiarities. But I advisedly admitted the peculiarities, as there is nothing which so successfully sets one person against another as an assumption of the latter's flawlessness. The people whose geese are all swans are responsible for many an epidemic of cygnophobia.
But of course I never laughed with Annabel over Fay's little ways; they, and everything else connected with my darling, were then and always sacrosanct to me. It annoyed me even when Frank laughed at her—as he very frequently did—which I admit was inconsistent on my part, since if I had the right to laugh at my sister, he had certainly the right to laugh at his. But though Frank's jokes at Fay's expense might be lawful, to me they were highly inexpedient.
It was the first Sunday after our return home. In the morning Fay, Annabel and I attended Divine Service in Restham Church, and "sat under" Arthur, Annabel in her usual place at the top of the Manor pew, and Fay close to me at the bottom, so that during the lessons and the sermon, and such unoccupied times, we could slip our respective hands into one another's without any one perceiving it. As I knelt in the church where I had worshipped from my childhood, and realised that to me had been given my heart's desire, I felt as one who came home with joy, bringing his sheaves with him, and I gave God thanks.
After the service was over we walked round the Manor House garden accompanied by Arthur, which was as much a part of the morning's ritual as the Litany or the prayer for the King. I believe Annabel would have thought it almost wicked to omit this sabbatic peregrination, if the weather permitted it. Certainly I could not remember a time when we had not walked round the garden every Sunday after service, remarking how the vegetable kingdom had either advanced or receded (according to the season of the year) since the preceding Sunday.
But if my sister would have included an omission of that Sunday morning's walk round the garden among those things left undone which she ought to have done, she certainly would have considered the taking of any further exercise on a Sunday as among the things which she ought not to have done; therefore Fay and I started off for a long walk that Sunday afternoon, unhampered by the encompassing presence of Annabel. A nap between lunch and tea was one of the most sacred rites of Annabel's strict sabbatic ritual.
"Now isn't it lovely to set out for a walk together and to feel that we've got the rest of our lives to finish it in, and that there's nothing to hurry home for?" exclaimed Fay, as we walked across the garden.
"There's nothing to hurry home for because we are home," I replied, as we went through the little gate which separated the lawn from the park: "wherever you are is home to me."
"Same here," retorted Fay; "like snails, we carry our home on our backs, which is very delightful and picnicky when you come to think of it."
"That's where we are so superior to snails," I pointed out; "they carry their own, while we carry each other's: a far finer type, if you'll permit me to say so."
"I remember once when I was a little girl, Mother corrected me for being vain, and said it was horrid of me to think I was pretty. I thought it over, and then I came back to her and explained that I didn't think I was pretty—I only thought I was better looking than a frog, and I asked her if it was 'vainness' to think I was better looking than a frog, and she agreed it wasn't. In the same way I don't think it is a 'vainness' of us to think we are finer characters than snails, do you?"
"By no means. And I go farther: I don't even think it is 'vainness' on your part to think you are pretty."
Fay laughed. "I'm glad it isn't, for I do."
"You darling!"
"And I'm not selfish in my 'vainness' either," she went on, "or narrow. I think you are very good looking too;muchbetter looking than a frog, Reggie,much!"
"You silly child, what nonsense you are talking! You'll really make me horribly vain if you go on like this!" I said reprovingly. But I liked it, nevertheless.
"And a jolly good thing if I did! You aren't vain enough; it's the one flaw in your otherwise admirable character."
"It's much too soon for you to begin to find out your husband's faults, Fay; you oughtn't to have discovered one for at least six months. You'll make a terrible wife if you go on like this!"
"I'm not finding out my husband's faults: I'm only regretting that he doesn't possess one."
"He is all fault that hath no fault at all," I quoted.
"Oh, I didn't mean that you don't possess a fault at all, far from it; I mean you don't possess one particular fault, namely, vanity, and that it would be a jolly sight better for you if you did. You don't think half well enough of yourself, Reggie, you don't really, and it is such a pity. You've no idea how perfectly good and clever and altogether splendid you are."
"Then you ought to commend me for my humility instead of scolding me like this," I urged in self-defence.
Fay shook her curly head. "Humility is a thing which can very soon be overdone—especially in a case like yours."
"For instance?"
"Well, you aren't properly proud of the things you ought to be proud of, and you've got such lots of them," explained Fay, with some lack of lucidity.
"Anyhow I'm jolly proud of the one thing I've a right to be proud of, and that is my wife," I replied.
"That's you all over, wrapping other people up in the mantle of your own virtues, and then admiring the other people for being so awfully well dressed. It's really you that makes us such a tremendously attractive couple. People like me because I'm your wife, and yet you'll always believe they like you because you're my husband. It really is stupid to put the cart before the horse in that way, Reggie."
I put my arm through Fay's, drawing her nearer to me. "Then what on earth do you want me to do, carry a pocket-mirror about with me, and keep taking it out and admiring myself, like Narcissus, or else thrust the sanguinary hand of my recent baronetcy into every stranger's face?"
"Oh, Reggie, what an idiot you are! Of course, I think it is perfectly sweet of you not to have a swelled head because you are rich and landed and a baronet and all that, and not to have a swelled head because it is such an extremely good-looking one, with such regular features; I thoroughly approve of that sort of humility, as I'm the last person in the world to encourage swank; but what I do mean is that you have so little confidence in yourself and your own powers that you stand on one side and let other people do the things that you'd do a million times better than they can. You are like that old Emperor who thought he couldn't govern Europe, and so began to wind up the clock instead."
I smiled. "You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick this time, milady; it was because Charles the Fifth was sick of the weight of empire that he retired to a monastery and made clocks: and it was considered a most swaggery thing at the time, and was tremendously applauded by an admiring Europe, because he was just as good at clockmaking as he was at ruling the world."
"What you might call a good all-round man."
"Precisely. Now I am the contrary of that. The experience of life has taught me that I am equally inefficient in government and in clockmaking—in short, that I am a thoroughgoing failure, and that therefore my truest wisdom lies in getting other and superior people to rule my empire and make my clocks."
I regret to record that at this point of the conversation Lady Kingsnorth stood stock still in the middle of the road, and protruded from between her scarlet lips the point of a little pink tongue, and then remarked in terse if inelegant language: "You silly ass!"
I laughed. "Your ladyship ought to be ashamed of yourself," I said.
"On the contrary, my ladyship is ashamed of you! I wouldn't be as great a goose as you are, Reggie, for ten thousand a year."
"It is about what I get for it," I murmured.
There was a pause whilst I opened a gate for our passing, and shut it again, and then I said: "By the way, my own, it is your birthday this week. What shall I get you for a present?"
Fay tripped beside me on the grass. She was very like a child in her movements. "I've had such lovely wedding presents from you that I really don't seem to have room for any more."
"Well, you must make room somehow. It would be against all my principles to let so great an occasion as your birthday pass unwept, unhonoured and unsung."
"I really couldn't make room for any more jewellery. I'm plastered over with it already, like a rough-cast house." I had had all my mother's diamonds reset for Fay, and had given her a string of pearls on my own account.
"Well then, a set of furs ready for the winter," I suggested. "It is a good time now for buying furs."
Fay shook her head. "Too expensive after all those lovely wedding presents."
"What nonsense, my darling! Nothing is too expensive for you."
"I'll tell you what I really do want," said Fay, taking my arm and dancing beside me like a little girl: "I want a nice, small Prayer Book to use every Sunday in church. And I should like it bound in green, my favourite colour."
"Whatever do you want another Prayer Book for, sweetheart?" I asked, surprised at this strange request. "Our pew is simply paved and panelled with them."
"But I don't like huge things with crests and coats-of-arms on the outside: I can't pray properly out of them. It's like sending one's prayers to heaven in a Lord Mayor's coach instead of on angels' wings. I want a little green Prayer Book of my very own, with a 'Hymns Ancient and Modern' at the end of it: one of those semi-detached sort of affairs, don't you know!—in the same case, but with separate entrances. And I want you to give it me and write my name in it, so that my love for you and my prayers and praises will all be bound up together."
"But it seems such a poor present for me to give you, darling," I objected.
"But it's what I want. Those crested and coat-of-armed Prayer Books in the pew are several sizes too large and too grand for me. And they are so public and general, too: nothing private and personal about them. I don't care for a Prayer Book with the family coat-of-arms on it. And, besides, I don't think coats-of-arms and Prayer Books are in the same dimension, somehow."
"How do you mean, sweetheart?" Fay's ideas—ideas which Annabel would have dismissed as "funny"—were always of absorbing interest to me.
"Crests and coats-of-arms belong to the temporal things, such as carriages and motors and notepaper and silver-plate, and so are suitable ornaments for all these objects; but names and Prayer Books belong to the eternal things, and so are on a different plane altogether. When a baby is baptised a Christian it isn't given a new crest, but a new name: it isn't crested, so to speak, it is christened. And I always love that text in the Bible about him that overcometh being given a white stone with a new name written on it; but you couldn't imagine God giving anybody a white stone with a new crest engraved on it! It would sound absurd. And that is because your name is part of yourself and meansyou; while a crest is only the sign of your family and signifies your social position and your rank, and all those material, worthless sort of things which the world thinks so much of, but which God really couldn't be bothered with."
Fay stopped for breath, she was chattering so fast, and skipping at the same time. She was so full of life and spirits that she never could walk soberly along like other people. And then she began talking again, and so did I, and we continued the enchantingsolitude à deux, which is the especial prerogative of marriage, until it was time to return home to tea and Annabel.
The next morning, when Fay was out of the room, Annabel said to me: "Reggie, I want to ask your advice?"
"Such as it is it is always at your service," I replied; "though I admit I cannot just now recall any occasion when you have availed yourself of it, your own, as a rule, proving adequate for your needs."
"I want to know what to give Fay for a birthday present," continued my sister. "Just after a wedding and all the presents, it is so difficult to find anything that anybody wants, and it seems a waste of money to buy what is useless."
A brilliant idea occurred to me, one which I thought would prove of assistance in my lifework of bringing Fay and Annabel nearer together. Annabel should give Fay the Prayer Book, and so become identified with what Fay called her prayers and praises, and therefore draw nearer to my darling's inmost heart. It was the dream of my life that Annabel should be as dear to Fay as she was to me, and what better way of securing this than by associating her with Fay's moments of religious emotion? It appeared to me a capital plan.
"I know what you can give her," I replied, "a combined Prayer Book and Hymn Book beautifully bound: it happens to be just what she wants."
Annabel looked scornful. "What a ridiculous suggestion! How can she want a Prayer Book when our pew is positively packed with them? They fit so tight in the book-ledge that there isn't room for even a pair of gloves or a pocket-handkerchief between."
"She finds them too big: she wants a smaller one of her own." I knew my Annabel, and therefore did not enter into any vain attempt to explain to her Fay's actual feelings on the subject.
"I can understand her wanting a small one if she had to carry it to church and back. But, as she hasn't, I should have thought the larger the better because of the big print. Though of course at Fay's age the size of the print doesn't matter as it does to you and me." Annabel never tried to cover over the discrepancy in age between my wife and me: not from any disagreeableness; it was not in Annabel to be intentionally disagreeable; but the discrepancy was a fact, and it was not her custom to blink facts.
"The size of the print makes no difference to me," I replied, somewhat nettled. "I can see small print as well as large."
"That is because you are so short-sighted. Short-sighted people always keep their sight till they are quite old. But if you were normal you'd have to begin spectacles at your age. I did—at least, for fine sewing and small print."
"Well, I've told you what Fay wants, and you can get it or not, as you like," I said, collecting my letters and preparing to leave the room. "If you decide on it; I'll select it for you in town, where I am going to-morrow; and if you decide on something else, I'll get Fay the Prayer Book myself."
After further cogitation and argument, Annabel finally agreed to accept my suggestion; so on the following day I went up to London and selected a really exquisite little "semi-detached" Prayer Book and Hymn Book, bound in the loveliest grass-green calf and richly tooled with gold, for Annabel to give to Fay; and for my own present to my darling I bought the finest set of sables I could find, which even "at summer prices" ran well into three figures. And my heart leaped with joy to think how beautiful she would look in them and how pleased she would be, for my child-wife dearly loved a bit of finery.
And—remembering what Fay had said—I specially instructed Annabel to write my darling's name in the little green Prayer Book before giving it to her.
On the morning of Fay's birthday I was as excited as a child. I could not help knowing that both the furs and the Prayer Book were things of beauty, and I rejoiced at the thought of my darling's pleasure in them. I think there are few things more delightful than the giving of a really handsome present to a person who is able to appreciate it. I had tried my utmost to procure for Fay things which I knew were perfect of their kind, and I flattered myself that I had succeeded.
Fay was radiant when she awoke on her birthday morning, and I hurried over my toilet so as to be downstairs first in order to put her presents by her place at the breakfast-table.
"They really are lovely furs, Reggie," said Annabel, as I laid them out. "I never saw sables of such a beautiful colour. And after all is said and done, there is no fur that looks as handsome as sable."
"I'm glad you like them," I replied; "I really think they are rather nice."
"But I wish you hadn't induced me to buy that absurd Prayer Book. It seems a most unsuitable present for a bright young creature like Fay."
"Oh, that'll be all right," said I, smiling in my superior knowledge of my darling's wishes.
Then Fay came into the room, and her face lit up at the sight of her presents.
"Oh, Reggie, how lovely!" she exclaimed, rushing to the breakfast-table to examine them more closely. First she picked up the Prayer Book, and at once turned to the fly-leaf where her dear name was written. Then a puzzled expression clouded her face. "Frances Kingsnorth, from her affectionate sister-in-law Annabel," she read aloud. "I don't quite understand," she added, looking to me for explanation. "I thought you were going to give me the Prayer Book."
"So I was, darling," I replied; "but then it occurred to me what a good thing it would be for Annabel to give you that, and for me to give you the set of furs I had originally intended. Annabel was so anxious to give you something that you really wanted, and I knew you wanted that."
"It is lovely," said Fay, turning over the leaves with her slim fingers, and glancing at the illuminations inside the book. "Thank you so much, dear Annabel." And she came round to Annabel's place and kissed her.
"I am glad you like it, my dear," said Annabel. "I wanted to get you something to wear—something more suitable for a young girl than a Prayer Book, but Reggie insisted."
"It was so dear of you to want to get me exactly what you thought I wanted," Fay replied; "and I think it is the most exquisite Prayer Book that I've ever seen" (which I really believe it was).
"And now you must look at my present, sweetheart," I said, spreading out the furs.
"They are beautiful; much too handsome for me."
"Nothing is too handsome for you, Fay: cloth-of-gold wouldn't be, if I could get it. Won't you try them on?"
"Not now, I think. Thank you very much for them, Reggie, but it really is too hot a morning for trying on furs."
"So it is, my dear," Annabel chimed in. "I wonder at Reggie's being so stupid as to suggest it; and before you've had your breakfast, too," she added, as if breakfast were a cooling ceremony.
And then we all sat down to breakfast. Fay was absolutely different from what she had been upstairs; but that was just her way; she was as changeable and charming as an April day, and with as little reason for it.
Two or three weeks after this, Annabel said to me: "You were wrong after all about that absurd Prayer Book, Reggie. I know it was a ridiculous present for a young girl. I'd much better have given Fay a new sunshade, or something pretty to wear."
"It was what she said she wanted," I urged in self-defence.
"You must have misunderstood her. You are rather stupid, you know, at misunderstanding people: it comes from being so dreamy and thinking of other things. And she couldn't really have wanted it, for I notice that she never takes it to Church."
I had noticed this also, but had carefully refrained from remarking upon it. I endeavoured never to remark upon Fay's doings for fear she should imagine I wanted to control them: my one desire was that she should feel as free as air.
"It doesn't really matter," continued Annabel; "but the next time I shall select Fay's birthday present myself. I never thought you'd understand a young girl's thoughts and wishes, and I don't see how it is to be expected that you should, at your age and with no experience of them. But in future I shall use my own judgment."
Whereupon Annabel, intent upon her household duties, left me with the crushing conviction that I was a failure as a husband, as I had been in everything else.
Even with Fay—who was dearer to me than life itself—I seemed to do the wrong thing.
And yet this time I could not see where I had blundered. She certainly said that she wanted a green Prayer Book with her name written in it.
Frank came home from Oxford early in June—nominally to read with Blathwayte during the Long; and then we had indeed a merry time at Restham, the maddest, merriest time I ever had in my life, before or since. In fact, the whole of the summer was as a midsummer night's dream to me. I suggested that although Frank had to work at the Rectory for such part of the day as he deigned to waste upon study, there was no reason why he should not render his home at the Manor. I thought that, this arrangement would make the house more cheerful for Fay; for—though she was far too sweet and unselfish ever to betray such a feeling—I could not help being conscious that the society of two such middle-aged fogies as Annabel and myself was but poor company for a girl of nineteen. Of course Fay was delighted at this suggestion of mine, and Annabel not much less so. If my sister had a soft place in her heart, except the one reserved for me, that place was most certainly occupied by Frank Wildacre.
To my surprise the only person who did not approve of this arrangement was Ponty.
"So I hear Mr. Wildacre is coming to live here now," she said to me one morning, in her most ungracious manner; "the Manor will soon be as full of couples as Noah's Ark."
"But I thought you were fond of Mr. Wildacre," I feebly urged.
"So I am, Sir Reginald—in his proper place: just as I am of Miss Annabel. But things out of their own place are worse than useless, as the woman said when she found the cat in the tea-kettle." Ponty never addressed me as "Sir Reginald" unless I was in dire disgrace with her.
"And he will be such nice company for her ladyship," I went on, ashamed of my own cowardice, yet persisting in it. My passion for peace at any price has always been one of my most unworthy characteristics. I envy those people who can annoy their fellows without turning a hair.
"Of course, Sir Reginald, you are master in your own house—at least, you ought to be," said Ponty darkly; "and if you are set on spending your married life in playing 'Oranges and Lemons,' nobody can stop you. Everybody's got the right to spoil their own lives in their own way, more's the pity! I remember a married couple at Poppenhall who would have the wife's brother to live with them, and he fell into the fire and was burnt to death, through having epileptic fits."
"But he'd have fallen into the fire just the same if he hadn't lived with them," I argued, with a culpable lack of dignity; "and then they would always have blamed themselves for having neglected him."
"That is as may be, Sir Reginald: he might or he might not. But as it was, they did blame themselves, I can tell you, and the husband took to drink in consequence, he blamed himself so much."
"Well, I don't think he need have gone to such lengths as that by way of expiating his mistake," I said cheerfully. "And besides, that has no bearing upon the present case, as Mr. Wildacre doesn't suffer from fits."
Ponty sighed the heavy sigh of disapproval. "There are other things besides fits, Sir Reginald."
I remarked that fortunately there were, and then left the nursery. I should have been irritated with Ponty, but her unbounded admiration of Fay made me freely forgive her anything and everything. Still I wondered at her attitude, though I was fast learning not to be surprised at any vagary of the feminine mind, but just to accept it as one of the unfathomable mysteries.
Frank's presence at the Manor made a wonderful difference to Fay. He stimulated what I called the elfin side of her nature, and brought out those qualities which she possessed in common with him. I have frequently noticed that when members of the same family are together, all the family traits rise to the surface, while individual characteristics fall into abeyance for the time being. The unit is, so to speak, merged in the tribe.
I remarked upon this one day at breakfast.
"I know what you mean," said Frank. (The Wildacres were always very quick to catch an idea.) "The Joneses become all Jones, and the Smiths become all Smith at their Christmas family dinner, and the separate Johns and Roberts and Marias, with their individual characteristics, are swallowed up in the great Nirvana of Jonesism and Smithism."
"And Jonesism and Smithism are consequently tremendously intensified," Fay chimed in; "it is only at such family gatherings that one realises the hugeness of the Jones nose, or the bitterness of the Smith temper. I expect when all the Hapsburgs are together the size of their historical under lip becomes something stupendous."
"I do not quite see how a Christmas party can lengthen anybody's nose or swell their under lip," remarked Annabel, full of patient endeavour to discover a grain of sense in all the chaff of our nonsense.
"Unless it ended in a fight," suggested Frank.
"Oh, of course, in that case it might; but I thought you were talking of friendly family gatherings."
"So we were, Annabel," I explained; "Fay and Frank were only speaking figuratively." I was always so dreadfully afraid that my sister would consider Fay foolish.
Fay went on with the conversation. It was a matter of absolute indifference to her whether Annabel considered her foolish or not, and this grieved me, as I was so anxious for Annabel to do my darling justice, and I could see that Fay herself sometimes rendered this difficult. "But when members of a family marry," she said, "and go to houses of their own, their respective personalities develop, and what Frank calls the Jones-and-Smith Nirvana is broken up. Then we see that what we imagined to be a complete tea-set was really a collection of separate pieces of different kinds of china."
"But throw them together at their Christmas party," added Frank, "and they will at once grow into each other's likeness, and your tribal tea-set will be complete once more."
"You children talk so fast that I really cannot follow you," said Annabel good-naturedly from behind the coffee-urn. "I don't see how noses and under lips can turn into tea-sets."
"They can't," I agreed. "All we were saying is that when members of the same family are together, they bring out the family characteristics in each other."
But Annabel was not grateful for my efforts on her behalf. "You said that some time ago, Reggie; of course I understood that, though I don't altogether agree with it. But it is the things that the children have said since that slightly confused me."
I wished Annabel would not always speak of Frank and Fay as "the children." It seemed so to emphasise the gulf between Fay and myself. But Annabel had got into the habit of thus speaking of them before my marriage; and Annabel and a habit, when once formed, were inseparable.
"I know why you said it, Reggie," said Fay, who could always read me like a book. I often wished that I could as easily read her! "You were thinking that when Frank is here I am much more of a Wildacre than when he isn't: just as when you are with Annabel you are much more of a Kingsnorth than when you are alone with me."
That was exactly what I had been thinking—at least, the former part of it; I did not at all agree with Fay that I was more of a Kingsnorth when I was with Annabel, but it was rather a shock to hear it thus crudely put into words. That is what strikes me about the young people of to-day: they are so much more outspoken than we were at their age. Our parents veiled Truth—we clothed her—but the present generation treats her as the Earl of Mercia treated Godiva. And this treatment is slightly upsetting to us who were brought up so differently.
Annabel answered for me. "That is only natural, my dear, considering that Frank and you are the same age, and Reggie and I are so much older. It is nice for the young to be with the young, it keeps them bright and cheerful, and it is depressing for them to be constantly with persons old enough to be their parents."
Fay's grey eyes flashed. "I never find it depressing to be with Reggie," she retorted, somewhat hotly. "He always bucks me up."
But Annabel's temper remained impregnable. It was only Cutler who had the power to shake that fortress. "I never said you did, my dear. You are far too loyal a little wife ever to think of such a thing. But it is natural for youth to cling to youth; it would be abnormal of it if it didn't."
Fay still looked angry. "I don't care a twopenny dam if I am abnormal or not. I never want to cling to anybody but Reggie."
I felt it was time to step in. I didn't want Fay to say anything to offend Annabel. "Of course you don't, darling, and I am only too delighted to be clung to to any extent; it is most warming and comforting to me. But I fear Annabel is right in regarding me as the old oak tree to which the ivy clings."
Fay slipped her hand into mine, under cover of the breakfast-table. "You aren't a bit old, Reggie!" she said indignantly. "Is he, Frank?"
"I've known older," replied Frank guardedly.
At this we all laughed—especially Annabel. Frank's jokes usually appealed to her, though Fay's didn't, which was strange, as the twins resembled each other mentally almost as much as they did physically: it was only in the deeper places of the spirit that the resemblance ended.
"Reggie is not old and he is not young," said Annabel; "I never can understand why people make such a fuss about their ages. I am forty-eight and Reggie is forty-three this year, and I make no bones about it, and it would be no good if I did, as it's inBurkeandDebrettfor all the world to read. And I really don't think, my dear Fay, that 'a twopenny dam' is at all a nice expression for a young lady to use: I cannot bear to hear women swear."
"It isn't swearing, Miss Kingsnorth," cried Frank, who was always ready to stick up for his sister; "it's a foreign coin which was much used by the great Duke of Wellington."
"So I've heard," replied Annabel, with doubt in her tone. "But all I can say is that if it isn't swearing, it sounds uncommonly like it, and I'm sure that any ordinary person hearing it would do Fay an injustice, and imagine that she was given to bad language."
I felt it was time to read the Riot Act and disperse the company; so I rose from the table and took my pipe out of my pocket, saying: "Come on, little girl, and watch me smoking in the garden. It will be a soothing, soporific sight."
Fay jumped up and followed me, as I knew she would. One of her most fascinating tricks was a habit she had of trotting about the house and garden after me like a little child. And yet in some things she was so much of a woman!
"I say, sweetheart," I said as soon as we were out of earshot of the house, "I wouldn't use strong language before Annabel, if I were you. She doesn't understand it, and it gives her false ideas of you."
Fay's scarlet lips pouted. "It wasn't strong language. Frank told you it wasn't."
It always annoyed me when Fay quoted Frank, and especially when she did so in order to confute me. "I know, my darling; but Annabel thought it was."
"I can't help Annabel's thoughts. She thought you were old!"
I laughed, and patted the soft, white cheek so near to my own as we sat down side by side on a garden-seat. "No, she didn't, little one."
"Well, anyway she said so."
"No, she didn't. She said I was forty-three—which I am, and forty-three seems quite young to Annabel, though old to you."
Fay still looked angry. "Indeed it doesn't. It seems quite young to me. And whatever it seems, I don't see the good of harping on it and rubbing it in, as Annabel is always doing. If she says 'forty-three' again, I shall say 'twopenny dam.'"
I laughed outright. Fay was so delicious when she was annoyed, like a brilliant little bird with ruffled plumage. Then I said softly, as I put my arms round her slender waist: "No you won't, sweetheart, you'll never say it again, if it vexes Annabel. I want you and Annabel to love each other more than I want anything in the world."
"More than you want you and me to love each other?"
"That wish has been already fulfilled—by the greatest miracle that ever happened."
Fay nestled closer to me. "It isn't very polite of you to say that your loving me is anything in the miracle line."
"I didn't. It is in your loving me that the miracle comes in. I didn't set the dial ten degrees forward: you set it ten degrees backward."
My wife looked up at me with laughter in her wonderful eyes. "And you want me to do the trick again with Annabel? Really, Reggie, that is a little bit too thick! And besides, she wouldn't like it. The dial of Annabel is quite a different make from the dial of Ahaz. It is one of those that can't be put back even five minutes without upsetting all the machinery and making the strikes go wrong, like our dining-room clock. And I wouldn't upset Annabel's machinery for worlds! I should feel like Cutler if I did."
"And even Cutler didn't upset it this year, if I remember rightly."
Fay shook her head. "No, the forget-me-not bed this last spring was the last word in forget-me-not beds. It was a thing of beauty and a joy for the end of April and quite the whole of May. I wanted to bathe in it, if you remember, but Annabel thought I might get drowned or something, and so I refrained."
"Annabel has her funny little ways, I admit," I said, feeling that this was the moment for a word in season on my sister's behalf; "but she is the best and kindest woman in the world, and she is really devoted to you, my darling, though she doesn't always understand you."
"She does not like me anything like as much as she likes Frank."
"She really does—underneath her quiet manner; but she has always been a most undemonstrative woman," I persisted, feeling bound to defend my sister against an accusation of such arrant folly.
Fay smiled. "What a darling old ostrich it is!" she said, stroking my hand. "Does it like to keep its dear head in the sand, and go on pretending to itself that rocks are palm-trees and dry streams wells of water? Then it shall, if it likes. But all the same, my Reggie, it's rather stupid of you always to pretend that things are what you want them to be; because they aren't, and you'll have a tremendous waking up some fine morning."
"I'm not pretending," I said stoutly.
"Yes, you are. You are always pretending to yourself that Annabel is devoted to me, and she really isn't one little bit. Frank says she isn't, and if he can see it I'm sure you ought to, Reggie. There is no harm in her not admiring me: it would be very strange if she did, considering how much older she is and how different we are; and she really is awfully nice to me, considering everything. Frank admits that. But when you go on pretending that she spends her life in sighing like a furnace for me, and writing odes to my eyebrows—why, then, I get so impatient of it all that I find it difficult to see how nice she really is."
"All that would be quite right, sweetheart, if I really were pretending. But I'm not. I know Annabel a jolly sight better than you do, and I know she is absolutely devoted to you."
And at that I left it and made love to my wife instead, a much more agreeable occupation, in spite of that jealousy of Frank seething at the back of my mind.
As I had said to Fay, I was absolutely convinced of Annabel's devotion to her. And what wonder in that? Who could live with my child-wife, as Annabel and I lived with her, and see all her charms of person and beauties of character without loving her with all one's heart? She was made for love, my brilliant, beautiful darling, and she had it showered upon her in full measure. But I was not equally sure of Fay's affection for Annabel. I knew all my sister's virtues—none better; but I could see they were not exactly the brand of virtues most calculated to appeal to the young. Annabel was prim and fussy and masterful; there was no denying it, and these characteristics—one could hardly call them faults—were just the qualities to blind the eyes of a girl to any corresponding virtues. Therefore I felt it was for me, who really knew and understood my sister, to show both her superior points and screen her inferior ones when they were alike exposed to the piercing gaze of youthful eyes. Though Fay's youthful eyes were kind enough, Frank's were quite the reverse, and I was becoming increasingly afraid of the influence of Frank's clear-sighted callousness upon my wife. To him I was—I must inevitably be—an old fogey; but I did not like the idea of his sharing that impression of my fogeydom with Fay.
As Fay and I were sitting hand-in-hand upon the garden-seat that blissful June morning, a shadow fell upon the grass, and we saw Jeavons approaching us with a message from the house.
"If you please, Sir Reginald," he began, coming as close to us before he spoke as if we had been deaf, after the manner of well-trained servants, "Mrs. Parkins out of the village has called to ask if you will kindly go and see her father-in-law, him being in terrible pain this morning with his sciatica, and asking for you all the time."
Jeavons never used such words as "pray" or "heal" when he brought me messages from the village people begging for my ministrations. He reserved such expressions for what he considered their proper place—namely, the church and the doctor's surgery respectively. Though they knew their own places—and kept to them—Jeavons and Annabel had much in common: the same absolute devotion to the conventional and the commonplace—the same horror of the emotional and the unusual.
I rose from my seat. "Tell Mrs. Parkins that I will come at once," I said. "Fay, will you come with me?"
"Of course I will," she replied, and we crossed the lawn and went through the heavy garden-door, hatless as we were, into the village, and past the old inn to Parkins's cottage.
I often took my wife with me when I went to visit the sick, because I believed that "two or three gathered together" literally meant two or three gathered together, and that therefore, when Fay's supplications were added to mine, my prayer was all the more efficacious.
I have found life so much simpler and easier since I learned to take the Bible literally, and not to be always reading between the lines to find out spiritual meanings which might or might not be there. I remember an enlightened and eminent modern Dean once explaining to me that when Christ said, "The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the lepers are cleansed," He meant that those hitherto blind to spiritual visions were enlightened, those hitherto deaf to sacred truths were made to hear them, those who had aforetime stumbled were able to walk in the paths of righteousness, and those steeped in sin were washed clean. "Mr. Dean," I replied, "you, as a dignitary of the Church, probably know better than I what Christmeant; a mere layman such as myself can only deal with what Hesaid: and He didn't say anything at all like that."
I hate "reading between the lines," even in ordinary human correspondence. At least a third of the troubles of this life have their origin in their pernicious habit; for people read a great deal of unintentional enmity—and, still worse, a great deal of imaginary love—into pages actually virgin of either of these extremes. And when they read between the lines of Holy Scripture, they read in all their own prejudices and fads and fancies, until Divine Truth is distorted and perverted.
I can stand many things, but I cannot stand a Bowdlerised Bible.
Fay and I entered the cottage, whither Mrs. Parkins had preceded us.
"It be good of you to come, Sir Reginald, and her ladyship too, but the poor old man be sufferin' something fearful, and all twisted up with the pain in his back and his legs. But he says if only you'll lay your hands on him and say a prayer like as you did before, the pain'll be bound to go."
"Then we'll go up to him at once," I said; and Mrs. Parkins straightway preceded us up one of those steep and dark and narrow cottage-staircases which never fail to arouse in me an undying wonder that the poor ever keep their necks intact. I feel sure that guardian angels are as thick on cottage-staircases as they ever were on Jacob's ladder.