'Thou hast made us for Thyself,And our hearts are restlesstill they rest in Thee.—St. Augustine.
Some weeks passed. The girls were perfectly satisfied with their quiet country life. Elfie brightened the whole house with her music and high spirits. Agatha soon found her way to the nearest cottages, and was friends with all the farm labourers who passed by the house, and Gwen tried to manage everything and everybody. Clare shook off her low spirits, but was uncertain-tempered, and would never settle at any occupation for long at a time. Still, she delighted in the country round, and would return from her rambles with her arms full of Nature's treasures, making the little house beautiful with her lovely flowers and greenery.
Miss Miller fussed in and out, and was very glad of Agatha's help in parish matters; even unbending so far as to give Elfie permission to play on the organ in church, which, of course, delighted her. Agatha was informed that she could visit as freely as she liked, but that no relief was to be given, except through the vicarage.
'I look after everybody myself. I know the deserving and the undeserving, and they know me! I won't have anything given to my parishioners without my knowledge. My brother leaves it all in my hands.'
One afternoon Miss Villars called, and found only Clare at home. She was a sweet-looking, attractive woman, and Clare, with her usual impulsiveness, lost her heart to her at once. She confided to her the history of her engagement, and parting with Captain Knox; and the visit lengthened into nearly an hour before Miss Villars took her leave.
Clare went into raptures about her, when talking to her sisters afterwards.
'She is not a bit goody or eccentric, as Hugh hinted. She talked and laughed as naturally as any one; and she has such a lovely face. Dresses very quietly, but with good taste; and is such a graceful woman! She is quite the nicest person I have met for a long time. I am dying to see her in her own home. I am sure it must be a charming one. She drove over in an open carriage with a handsome pair of horses; and has offered to take us for drives whenever we like.'
'We really must afford ourselves a small trap,' said Gwen. 'We cannot do without it in the country. If we had a donkey, it would be better than nothing!'
'Iwouldn't go in a donkey-cart,' said Clare, with disdain.
'Then you could stay at home. Agatha, what do you say? We have a stable. How much will it cost, do you think?'
When once Gwen took a matter in hand, she generally carried it through; and very shortly after, the sisters were the proud possessors of a little two-wheeled trap, and a small rough pony. This was a great convenience as well as pleasure to them, and when Clare had a fit of the blues, she would go off to Brambleton and do some shopping, and return quite interested and eager to tell all she had seen and heard. She met Miss Villars on one of her expeditions, and she asked her to go and have a cup of tea with her before she returned home. This Clare willingly did. She had not been to the house before, though Agatha and Gwen had; but she found it quite answered her expectations. It was an ideal old-fashioned country house, and Miss Villars was a perfect hostess. She introduced Clare to a delicate-looking girl staying with her: 'This is Miss Audrey Foster, who enjoys the country quite as much as you do.'
'It is paradise to me,' said the girl enthusiastically. 'I am a Londoner, and have never stayed in the country before.'
Clare looked at her, and noted that her shabby serge dress and pale pinched face seemed strangely incongruous with her surroundings. But when she had left the room shortly afterwards, Miss Villars said: 'Miss Foster is the eldest daughter of an East End vicar. She has not had a holiday or any change from home since her school-days; and she is mother and governess to five younger brothers and sisters. I hope to send her back a different creature. It is a great pleasure to give pleasure to other people, is it not?'
'I don't think I ever have,' said Clare frankly.
'Ah, well, my circumstances have made it easy for me to do so. My house is too big to live alone in it, and so I have relays of young visitors who need a little brightness in their lives. It is so sad to think of some young lives being cramped and dwarfed by their surroundings; and some natures utterly sink beneath the burden of household cares and anxieties, that ought not to touch them at all in youth.'
'You are very good, Miss Villars, are you not?'
Miss Villars laughed brightly. 'Not at all, my dear child. I wish I were.'
'I wish I were too,' said Clare, with sudden impulse. 'You look so happy—I wish I knew your secret.'
'"Happy is that people whose God is the Lord,"' said Miss Villars softly.
Clare sighed. 'I never have found religion make me happy, Miss Villars.'
'No more have I. It is only the Lord Himself who can do that. Do you know Him as your Friend and Saviour?'
Clare had never had such a question put to her before. 'I don't know Him at all,' she said earnestly; 'God seems such a long way off.'
'You know how you can get near Him?'
'By being very religious, I suppose.'
'The Bible doesn't say so. It says this: "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Think that verse over, dear, and look it up in your own Bible.'
'But,' said Clare, hesitating a little, 'I don't think I want to be brought nearer to God. That has no attraction for me.'
'Then you will never know real happiness. Any soul away from its Creator knows no peace.'
Clare was silent, and then Miss Foster entered the room again, and the subject was changed; but Clare had plenty of food for reflection as she drove home.
It was a lovely afternoon in June—so warm that for once the four sisters were together in the shady verandah outside the drawing-room windows, taking their ease and waiting for their afternoon tea. Agatha was the only one who was doing anything, and she was stitching away at some small garment for one of the farm carter's children. It was a still, drowsy afternoon; the very bees seemed too lazy to hum, and were settling sleepily on the rose bushes close to their hives.
'This is the most sleepy time in the day,' observed Gwen, leaning back in her low wicker chair, her head resting on her arms behind it, 'I could go to sleep in five minutes if I chose; there is not a creature moving for miles round us, I expect.'
'I love the stillness,' said Clare. 'Every one in the country has time to rest. How different it is in London!'
'I think we're all living very lazy lives,' said Elfie, as she picked a climbing rose beside her and placed it in her belt; 'I feel as if every day here is one long holiday!'
'Well, we are not at school,' returned Clare; 'and I beg to state I have not been idle to-day. Attending to the flowers in the house every morning is no joke! I was nearly two hours over them; then I wrote letters and took them to the post before luncheon, and I have been mending a dress, and tidying my cupboards since.'
Gwen laughed a little derisively. 'You will never die of hard work, Clare.'
'I think it is harder work doing what I have done, than sitting still in the same chair from ten o'clock to one, and simply reading and writing!'
'Ted was asking for directions in the garden,' said Agatha, looking up; 'but when I peeped inside the study, Gwen, and saw you had one of your writing crazes on, I knew it was no good coming to you.'
'No, he has plenty of work, and I shall be occupied in the morning for some time now.'
'Why have you taken such a fit of it?' asked Clare. 'You're writing as if for your life.'
'I want money,' was the brief reply.
'What for?'
'That I shall not tell you at present. I want it so much, that I am even condescending to write silly stories, which I despise myself for doing.'
'Oh! that will be delightful,' exclaimed Elfie. 'Couldn't you read us one now, to pass the time?'
'I will read you a kind of conundrum I have dashed off this morning to amuse some sentimental goose like Clare!'
'Thank you,' said Clare imperturbably; and when Gwen sauntered into the house to get her manuscript, she said, 'Gwen is preparing some surprise for her family. You mark my words; before long she will unfold a startling plan of action!'
Gwen reappeared very soon, and settling herself in her easy chair, began to read in a lazy and slightly mocking tone as follows:—
'The princess walks in her garden alone. Her face is sad, and her steps are slow. She reaches a low moss-covered wall, and leaning upon it gazes dreamily and wistfully upon the busy crowded city below. Sounds of toil and labour meet her ears. The busy multitudes are all engaged in the various occupations of their spheres. And whilst the ringing laughter, the joyous mirth, of some is borne upwards by the breeze, it is mingled with the sobs and bitter weeping of the neglected and oppressed. Stretching out her soft white hands, she clasps them in piteous yearning.
'"My soul craves for it," she cries. "Since first I became conscious of its absence I am longing to find it. If I could devote a lifetime to it, and obtain it at last, I should die content!"
'She stands in the deepest recess of a lonely forest. Far away from the city, no human habitation is near. Her feet are on the moss-covered ground, soft as velvet to the touch. Above is a canopy of green, through which the pure blue heavens appear, and the rays of the setting sun are giving the stately elms and rugged oaks a golden beauty of its own. She is leaning against a copper beech, and her soft brown hair is kissing the shining bark. Her blue eyes are turned upwards, full of expectancy and hope. She stands like a beautiful statue. A squirrel darts up a tree close by, and rabbits sport amongst the fallen leaves. The birds are carolling forth their evening hymns of praise, and Nature seems to be parading its loveliness. But her face is sorrowful still, and she shakes her head dejectedly. "It is of no avail," she murmurs; "even here in such a scene I cannot obtain my heart's desire! I yearn more for it day by day, and yet with the crushing longing within my breast I seem further away than ever from it!"
'She turns, and retraces her steps to the home of her forefathers.
'A luxuriously furnished apartment; cool and refreshing after the glare of the sun outside. The Venetian shutters are closed. Sweet-scented flowers are filling the room with their perfume. The sound of children's happy voices, as they roam through the meadows and play in the new-mown hay, the humming of bees, sipping their honey from the full-blown flowers, come in at the open windows. Upon a couch in the darkest corner of the room lies our princess. She is not asleep; her hands are folded listlessly across her breast, her lips are moving. Now burying her face in the cushions, she exclaims:—
'"No, I have it not. Methought I might find it even here. No happiness for me until I experience it All the gold I possess would I gladly give to have the exquisite pleasure of obtaining and realizing it!"
It is night-time. She stands upon the summit of a hill alone, and her figure looks weird and ghostly in the silver moonlight. Her head is thrown back, her lips parted breathlessly; her whole attitude bespeaks eager and intense expectation. She is waiting and watching for the desire of her heart.
'She overlooks the city, now wrapped in slumber. Green plains stretch away in the dim distance, and the moon throws its light upon her upturned face, making fantastic shadows around her. Hark! From yonder tree the nightingale trills out her midnight song. She listens and does not move, but hears it to the end. It ceases, and the wind rushes through the long grass at her feet, and shakes the leaves above, even venturing with its lawless impudence to buffet her fair brow, and scatter her brown locks across her eyes. A deep sigh escapes from her heaving breast. "It is hopeless. I am well-nigh despairing. Whither shall I go? I will not be conquered. I must find, and will find it soon!"
'Again we see her. In a grotto, deep in the heart of the earth. She is seated on a rock, and all is darkness save a faint ray of light that creeps through a small crevice overhead.
'No one is near. No living creature but herself, and she is still seeking and waiting for what she has not found. Water is trickling drop by drop from the moist roof above; the atmosphere is damp and close, yet little she heeds the discomfort of her surroundings, and heavy sighs come from her lips. She looks up at last, then wends her way still further into the innermost recess of the cavern. She stands beneath a deep vaulted roof, in deeper darkness, but in drier atmosphere, and here she pauses, a light coming into her sad blue eyes, and for the first time a smile hovering about her lips. A quiver of excitement, a thrill of suppressed awe vibrates through her nervously strung frame. "At last," she murmurs; "if nowhere else, I shall find it here."
'Her heart throbs violently, and in vain she places her hand upon it to still its beating. Moments pass in anxious hope, then suddenly she sinks to the ground in a passion of sobs and bitter weeping.
'"No, no, poor weak fool that I have been," she breaks forth, in disdainful self-contempt; "never in this life shall I obtain it, for outward circumstances influence it little. How vainly deluded I have been hitherto! Little did I imagine that the very longing and craving of my heart for it, would thereby prevent my possessing it!"
'She leaves the cavern, and returns to her home a wiser woman.'
Gwen folded her manuscript up quietly, adding indifferently, 'Now what was it she wanted?'
'I should say, "Work,"' remarked Agatha in her matter-of-fact way. 'She seems to have been a most idle young person.'
'Rest and contentment,' murmured Clare, looking at Gwen with dreamy, thoughtful eyes.
'Sleep, perhaps,' suggested Elfie.
'You're all wrong.'
'Tell us then.'
'She wanted silence.'
And humming an air, Gwen walked into the house without another word.
Elfie began to laugh. 'What a queer subject! Gwen never does write like other people. There is no moral at all.'
Neither of the others spoke for a little. Then Agatha said, folding up her work, 'It may take in certain magazines, but I think she writes far better when she keeps to facts, not fancies.'
'It has a moral,' said Clare, looking away over the meadows.
'What is it?' asked Elfie, regarding her curiously.
'Failure is in self, not circumstances!'
After which slow denunciation, Clare also moved into the house, and when she reached her bedroom she murmured to herself, 'And I know all my unrest and discontent come from within me. It is not my surroundings. Miss Villars must be right.'
'In all thingsMindful not ofherself, but bearingthe burden of others.'—Longfellow.
It was Sunday evening. Agatha sat by the drawing-room window, her Bible on her lap, and her thoughts far away from things of earth. All the rest of the household were at church, and she was enjoying the stillness around her. The sun was setting just behind the pine trees in the distance, and shedding a rosy glow upon their slender stems; the hush of night seemed to be falling on all Nature, and Agatha was so wrapped up in her thoughts, that she did not notice the figure of a man quietly and swiftly approaching the house. She was the more startled when a voice broke upon the stillness; and she looked up to see a man standing close outside the window.
'Pardon me, madam, but will you kindly allow me to enter? I wish to have a few words with you.'
Visions of housebreakers, robbing, and perhaps murdering, if their wishes were denied them, flitted through Agatha's perturbed mind. She knew she was alone in the house, and beyond the reach of any help; she also realized that all the three French windows leading out to the verandah were open; but, nevertheless, she showed a brave front. Without rising from her seat, she looked the intruder straight in the face.
'Perhaps, if you will make known your errand, I will comply with your request. You are at present a perfect stranger to me.'
Her visitor smiled. He was an elderly man, with a stoop in his shoulders, and a rather shabby great-coat buttoned tight up under his chin.
'My errand might startle you,' he said; 'I wish to get at something in the study cupboard.'
Poor Agatha's heart beat loudly. 'That you cannot do without the owner's consent,' she replied sternly, 'and he is at present abroad.'
Then with a little old-fashioned bow the stranger took off his hat.
'No, madam, he is not abroad. He is before you!'
Agatha stared at him. She saw rather kindly-looking blue eyes peering at her through thick shaggy eyebrows; a care-worn, smooth-shaven face, with a very broad intellectual brow, and a smile that somehow or other disarmed her suspicions.
'Are you—are you sure?' she faltered stupidly.
'Sure that my name is Thomas Lester, and that instead of being a tramp or burglar molesting a lonely woman, I am now respectfully soliciting admission into my own house? Yes, madam, I assure you on the honour of a gentleman that I am no impostor!'
Agatha rose at once. 'Then please come in, and forgive my suspicions. I never heard of your return.'
'No,' he said, stepping inside and quietly taking a seat; 'I came back hurriedly, and did not wish my visit here to be known. That is why I chose to come down from London to-day, for I knew my respected brother would be safely and piously conducting his devotions in church. Have you made his acquaintance, Miss Dane?'
'No, he has not called upon us.'
'And you have seen nothing of my son? Do you know my story? I see by the book that you are reading that you must be a good woman. I know you are a brave one by my reception. May I confide in you a little?'
Agatha looked up sympathetically.
'We do know something about you,' she said; 'quite enough to make us feel very sorry for you.'
Mr. Lester then told her again much of what she had already heard, with additions, which drew out her sympathy still more for him. He told her that when he reached the farm where his son had been working, he found he had left it, saying he was going to track out his cousin, and would never come back till he had found him.
'My journey was fruitless, and then, after making many useless inquiries, I fancied he might have returned home, as my last letter to him had urged him to be home again without fail before this summer would be over. So I came back, and find from my agents in London that he must be still abroad. My journey out there was a failure; both lads are swallowed up in the Australian bush, but I don't believe they are dead, and I am convinced that Alick will never come back without tidings of his cousin. Their affection for each other was absurd, preposterous, and utterly out of place.'
He paused, and Agatha asked anxiously:—-
'Are you going back to Australia again?'
'I don't know.'
'Perhaps you wish to return here?'
'Not at all. I never will, until things are on a different footing between myself and my brother. He has insulted me openly in this neighbourhood; even daring to hint that I have plotted to get rid of his son! No, I came to get something I want out of my locked cupboard. I conclude you will have no objection to my doing this?'
'Certainly not'; and Agatha rose and led him to the study. She left him there, but as she turned away she heard him quietly lock the door behind her; and again she felt a nervous thrill run through her, as she wondered if he were an impostor after all.
Half an hour later he came back to her in the drawing-room.
'I am going to do a foolish thing,' he said; 'I cannot tell what impels me to do it, but the very thing I was going to take away I am deliberately going to leave here with you.'
'I would rather you took it away, whatever it is,' Agatha said hastily.
'It will not be in your way. I see you are careful tenants, and as long as you keep my wishes respected about that locked cupboard, it will be safe; far safer than if I carried it about with me, as I thought of doing. If you wish to correspond with me at any time, my agents in London will forward anything to me. I will give you their card. One thing I am going to leave with you, and this shows the confidence I place in you. It is the secret of opening that cupboard. I have sealed the directions up in this envelope; and I want you to give me your solemn promise that you will keep it as I give it to you, in trust for my son. When he returns, he will be sure to find his way down here. Be kind to him, and give him the envelope. I have never confided to him the secret of the cupboard, and I wish him to open it as soon as he arrives. It is most important he should.
'You may wonder at my trusting a comparative stranger with such a charge, but I am a good reader of faces, and I do not think you will fail me. Promise me you will keep this envelope from the knowledge of any one, even from your sisters; and promise me you will do what I desire about it!'
But,' objected Agatha, 'we may not live here always. If we leave before your son returns——'
'My son is bound to come back before the end of this year, if he is alive.'
'Then will he wish to come and live here?'
'No. Neither my son nor I will ever live here again, I fancy.'
'Then where will you be when your son returns?'
'I do not know. In my grave, perhaps. I have told you my agents' address.'
So, after a little hesitation and a great deal of wonder, Agatha gave him her promise to act as he wished. Seeing he looked tired and worn, she asked him if he would have any refreshment, but he refused.
'You need not make my visit known throughout the neighbourhood,' he said, standing up and buttoning up his coat; then glancing at her Bible, which lay open on the table by her side, he added rather sarcastically:
'If you want a Bible study, Miss Dane, discover the answer to a proposition made in the Book of Jeremiah. I believe it's in the first verse of the twelfth chapter. You see I know my Bible well.'
'And so do I,' said Agatha, smiling, 'though not so well as I ought. And I can tell you that the same proposition troubled David; but he solved it in the sanctuary.'
'Is that a hint to me?' said Mr. Lester, a little taken aback by her quick reply.
'No; though don't you think it a pity to hold aloof from God's worship on the day set apart for it? Even the heathen are more respectful to their false gods.'
'I did not expect to receive a sermon here,' he responded, with a little dry smile.
'No, and I would not presume to give it,' said Agatha, smiling in her turn. 'And don't be surprised that I knew your verse in Jeremiah so well. I came across it the other day, and thought it fitted in well with a favourite Psalm of ours, the thirty-seventh. We have had an experience something like yours, and it would make one bitter sometimes, if one did not remember that our circumstances are being shaped by God Himself.'
Mr. Lester said nothing, but held out his hand, and Agatha took it, feeling strangely drawn to him. They shook hands, and then, as Mr. Lester stepped out into the verandah, he turned.
'Remember your promise, and offer a prayer sometimes for a disappointed old man who fears he won't live to see his hopes fulfilled.'
He disappeared in the fast-falling twilight, and Agatha sat in her chair, gazing before her as if in a dream. Her sisters found her strangely preoccupied when they returned; but when they were enjoying a cold supper together, and the maids were out of the room, she told them of her strange visitor, begging them to say nothing of it to any one, and purposely omitting to tell them of the envelope entrusted to her.
'Are you perfectly certain he was genuine?' said Gwen anxiously. 'It was a very risky thing to let him have sole possession of the study! Why did you not offer to stay in the room with him?'
'How could I? He locked himself in!'
'Worse and worse! He might have been taking impressions of the locks, and will break into the house another night by the study window!'
Agatha shook her head with a confident smile. 'He was a gentleman, and had a true face; I am not at all afraid of him.'
'It is quite an adventure,' said Clare, flushing up with excitement. 'Now, what do you think he wanted to get at in the cupboard? Is it a treasure store, or does it hide some ghastly secret? I really think I should have peeped through the key-hole, and seen how he opened it. It would have been such an opportunity.'
'Did you dismiss him with a tract?' asked Gwen mockingly.
'No, I had not one by me,' said Agatha simply. 'I feel very sorry for him. He is in great trouble about his son.'
'And you are sure he does not want to come back and turn us out? It would be very awkward if he did.'
'He seemed quite certain on that point.'
Gwen heaved a sigh of relief. 'I think I will tell you what I purpose doing, she said rather solemnly; 'or shall I put it off till to-morrow?'
'"'Tis the Sabbath,"' quoted Elfie, mimicking old Deb Howitt's tones.
'If it is anything startling, I would rather you kept it till to-morrow,' said Agatha; 'I have had quite enough to startle me already.'
'Oh, very well,' responded Gwen unconcernedly; 'my news will keep.'
But she was disappointed that no one seemed curious enough to press her for more information, and the next day, after working hard all the morning in the garden, went off to see the Howitts in the afternoon.
Gwen had taken a real liking to the sisters, and would often drop in upon Patty, and have a cup of tea with her when her sister was away.
It was a warm day, and she was glad to reach the cottage, with its shady orchard round it, after the blazing meadows she had crossed.
Under an old apple-tree, on a low stool, she found Patty sitting, knitting furiously away at a grey worsted stocking, and muttering to herself as she did so.
'What is the matter?' Gwen asked gaily, as she took a seat on the grass by her side; 'you look quite agitated!'
''Tis one of our bad days,' said Patty, looking up and shaking her head dolefully. ''Tis generally the wash-tub that does it, and Monday is our washing day. I did mean to be careful that my lips didn't offend, but 'tis no good when she's of an argumentative turn! Yes, miss, she's locked me out, and I hope she's enjoyin' herself, for on Mondays I always bakes a cake for tea. Deb never did have a light hand for such things, and she's a-messin' in there with my flour bin, and pilin' tons of coal on the fire, for I've been watchin' the smoke, and I can tell, and if I'm kept out here till dark, I'll maintain a promised wife comes before a sister!'
'Is that the discussion?' asked Gwen, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
'Now let me put it to you, miss, and she'd no business to begin it over the wash-tub, for it wants a cool head and a quiet mind to tackle such things. She was tellin' me of a case that was told her up at Thornicroft Manor, which is three mile the other side of Brambleton; and the housekeeper knew the parties concerned, being first cousin once removed to the young man. He was engaged to be married to an orphan girl, a-tryin' to earn her livin' by dressmakin', but makin' a very poor thing out of it. And they had kept company for six years, and then his mother died and left his only sister on his hands. But mind you, miss, they were a-goin' to be married, and had fixed the day before his mother took ill, and then what does the young fellow do but break it all off with his girl, sayin' he was only able to keep one woman, and that would have to be his sister! Now what do you think, miss? I say it was a cryin' shame of him, and Deb, she will have he did right, for his sister was delicate, and flesh and blood come first, she says. We argued it up and down, and she cried him up, and I cried him down, and we gets hotter and hotter. We couldn't keep off it after we left the wash-tubs and was a-havin' a bit of dinner; but I sticks to it that a promised wife comes first, and then, with a shove, I found myself out of doors, and the key locked behind me!'
Gwen laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. Old Patty's intense interest in the unknown young couple, and her warm partisanship for the little dressmaker, together with her tragic tone and injured demeanour, were too much for her gravity.
'You are two foolish old women,' she said at last. 'I suppose it is love of your own opinions, and not the fate of these strangers, that makes you so combative. Which of you has the stronger will?'
'Ay, we're wonderful alike in temper, more's the pity, but I consider myself a fitter judge of right and wrong than Deb, who goes about and hears so much that it's all hearin' and no meditatin', whiles I sit here, and has the time and opportoonity to weigh the matters in and out, without the clack of many tongues to confuse my brain and make me say a man is a saint when he is a fool, not to say a sinner!'
Nothing that Gwen could say would calm the old woman, and when she went up to the cottage door, Deb remained conveniently deaf to all her knocks. She came home, and gave a graphic description of the quarrel to her sisters; but when their obstinacy was being condemned, Agatha said in her quiet way:
'Well, Gwen, you ought to have sympathy with them, for if any one ever goes against you, I am sure you feel as they do.'
'You mean I am fond of my own way and opinions, and won't bear contradiction! Oh, Agatha, how you love to preach to us all! I won't say you are mistaken, for I am not going to get up an argument, and I want you all to be especially agreeable while I lay a plan of mine before you.'
'Now for it,' murmured Clare; and both Agatha and Elfie leant back in their chairs, the one in anxious, the other in amused anticipation of what might follow.
'How little thou canst tellHow much in thee is ill or well!Nor for thy neighbour, nor for thee,Be sure!'—Clough.
Gwen cleared her throat. She sat in a low wicker chair by the open window of the drawing room, and for a minute her eye wandered out into the back garden, which looked in perfect order, and hardly needed the incessant hoeing and weeding of a lanky youth, who was now resting on his hoe and leaning against the wall in a sleepy attitude.
'We have now been here three months, and after the satisfactory evening we had with our accounts, Agatha, last week, we have come to the conclusion that we can live here well within our income. This being the case, and all anxiety for the future——'
'You're talking like a book,' interrupted Elfie saucily; 'don't purse up your mouth so, and look so superior, and like Cousin James.'
'Very well, then, I will come to the point at once. I mean to go out to California and pay Walter a visit, and I want to sail before the end of this month.'
There was a dead silence. Then Agatha said a little drily, 'And you will want your 100 pounds to do that, of course?'
'No, I don't.' Gwen's tone was a little sharp. 'I have some in hand from my writing. I can see from your faces that you don't approve, but I've had it in my mind for a long time, only I have waited to see how things would go. Cousin Jacob's treachery was a bitter blow, as I was afraid you would want me at home to look after you all——'
'We're not the poor fools you think us,' put in Clare indignantly.
Gwen went on as if she had not heard her: 'And now I have got the garden into such excellent condition, and you are all shaking down and finding friends and occupations for yourselves—Agatha, the vicar and the villagers; Clare, her sweet Miss Villars; and Elfie, divided between the church organ and her music at home—I shall not be needed or missed. I don't mean to be away for years, but I am sure from Walter's letters that he is not doing as well as he should. He wants shaking up, perhaps starting in a new groove; and, honestly, I want to see life in the Colonies. It will do me good, and I hope I shall do him good. I may be back in six months' time. That is my idea—to pay him a visit, and then come back to you here.'
'I suppose we should all like to visit him,' said Clare crossly. 'Why shouldn't one of us go, and you stay at home? I am sure a winter here will finish me.'
Walter seems such a stranger to us,' said Elfie, 'that I wonder if he will like it. He was always at a boarding-school, and we only saw him for the holidays, and then he went abroad directly he left school. I hardly know anything about him. Has he any idea you are going, Gwen?
'I will write by the next mail and tell him. I know him a little better than you do, Elfie, for you were but a child when he left England. He has often said how he would like one of us out there to keep house for him. Of course, he will be delighted.'
'I am sorry you want to go,' Agatha said slowly.
'Why? Is there any good reason why I should stay at home?'
Agatha was silent, and though the younger girls plied Gwen with innumerable questions, and were full of excitement about it, she said nothing, and presently walked out of the room.
Gwen looked after her with a mixture of doubtful perplexity and annoyance. She and Agatha had always been much together, and she valued her opinion, though determined not to be swayed by it. She felt this silence meant disapproval, and was by turns uneasy and indignant at it. It was not till after Clare and Elfie had retired to bed that night that Agatha referred to the matter. And Gwen little knew that she had been kneeling at her bedside praying for guidance in offering her advice, for more than an hour that evening.
'Well,' said Gwen, with a little laugh, as she reclined in her favourite wicker chair, and looked up at her sister's grave face, as she turned from her writing-table to speak, 'what does Madam Prudence say to my scheme?'
'I think it is too important a step to take hastily,' said Agatha.
'My dear, I have been thinking of it for months; there has been no haste in the matter. Removal of objection number one! Now for number two!'
'I think,' said Agatha slowly, 'that you are quite as likely to unsettle Walter as to settle him. He is not doing very grandly, but he keeps out of debt; and it seems to me that it is only by steady perseverance that fortunes are made nowadays. Then you may seriously inconvenience him by giving him such short notice of your intentions. A man living by himself on a small farm is not prepared to receive ladies at a day's notice. He may be away from home when you arrive. Oh yes, I know you are not going to be influenced by what I say, but I do ask you to look upon it as a serious matter. And, Gwen, you know I don't often "preach," as you term it, but I do wish you would practise the verse old Nannie gave you just before we left London. It is an important step. Do commit it unto the Lord.'
'I am not religious,' said Gwen, a little lightly.
'Do you never mean to be?'
'I don't know. Every one has a different nature. It is natural for you to be good. It is natural for you to trust and lean upon religion, because you have such a humble opinion of your own judgment and powers. Now I feel—I can't help feeling—a confidence in myself. It may be conceit, but it is natural for me to trust in my own judgment, and plan my own course of life, and until disaster attends my attempts I shall continue to act for myself. Of this I am certain!'
'Ah, don't say that!' exclaimed Agatha; 'it would be sad if disaster were to follow this step of yours. I hoped, from your advocating a country life, that you would be content to settle down here quietly. If it is the dulness of the place that is driving you abroad, I am sorry we ever came here.'
'I am never dull anywhere,' Gwen said quickly; 'I have too many resources. It is not that at all. I have wanted to go out to Walter for a long time, and now I have made enough money to do it, nothing will stop me.'
'You are so sure of yourself,' said Agatha, sighing.
'Yes, and I am not ashamed of it. We can't be all alike, and self-confidence is a great blessing sometimes. It saves one from an infinite amount of care and worry.'
Agatha was silent. As is often the case with sisters, there was great reserve between them on matters that lay closely to their hearts, and though Agatha longed to warn Gwen of her besetting fault, she hesitated.
Gwen continued with alacrity: 'I have made inquiries about steamers, and hope to sail the week after next. I have very little preparation to make, for I am not given to much luggage.'
'And you mean to go out quite by yourself?'
'Why not? In these days chaperons are unnecessary. There are always some nice people on board who befriend single women. I am not a young girl.'
'You are not very old,' said Agatha, scanning the bright, handsome face with its wilful mouth and determined chin; 'and as I know vanity is not a failing of yours, I may say that you are too good-looking to be going about the world alone.'
Gwen laughed. 'Oh, you poor old thing! Why will you try to mother us all, when you cannot manage it! You may be perfectly certain I can take care of myself. Now shall we go to bed, or have you any more objections to make?'
'I wish you would pray over it,' were Agatha's parting words; and when Gwen got to her room that night she pondered over them.
She was not actually irreligious. She read her Bible occasionally, and went through a form of prayer by her bedside every night; but religion had never touched her heart. It was but an empty name to her, and she was too secure in her self-confidence and pride to ever feel her need of anything outside herself.
She drew her Bible towards her now, and turned to the 37th Psalm. She first glanced at the verse Nannie gave her, then read the psalm through carefully and steadily.
'It exactly describes Cousin James,' was her inward thought. 'I wish we could always see the good righted in this life, and the wicked cut off. I am afraid I could not follow out these precepts in my life. It is all waiting and trusting and doing nothing oneself, but letting God do it all for one. It is a psalm that must bring wonderful comfort to Agatha. Of course, I shall be able to pray that my visit to Walter may be for good, but I am sure it will. It is not as if I am meditating some very wrong course of action. If they really wanted me here, I would not think of leaving them. I am going out for Walter's good. Oh dear! how often I wish I had been the man in our family!'
With such thoughts as these she presently bent her head, and asked a blessing on her undertaking, and then turned into bed, feeling very virtuous at having done so.
There was a great deal of talk between the sisters about Gwen's proposal, but not one of them now thought to dissuade her, and the only unpleasant criticism she had to bear was from Miss Miller.
Elfie and Gwen met her in the village, and she stopped them at once.
'What is this I hear?' she demanded, tapping Gwen on the shoulder with her stick. 'Are you going off to find a husband abroad, because you haven't been able to pick one up here? I thought you young ladies would be disappointed when you came to know our neighbourhood.'
'Our friends and acquaintances are not limited to this small corner, Miss Miller,' retorted Gwen, holding her head proudly; 'we should be in a poor plight if they were. And if we felt dull, London is not out of reach. I am going out to my brother.'
'So I have been told. You are going to live amongst bushrangers and savages. It shows a refined and modest taste to go where you will be the only woman. But I am surprised at nothing in these days, when everything is topsy-turvy, and society at its worst. Women vie with one another in being conspicuous, and girls go about the world in men's clothes!'
Elfie began to laugh, but Gwen said haughtily,—
'Since it does not surprise you, Miss Miller, I wonder you mention it at all.'
'Husband-hunting!' growled Miss Miller; and she hurried past them without another word.
'She is an impertinent woman!' said Gwen wrathfully.
'I think she is an old dear,' said Elfie merrily. 'You never hear people speak out their thoughts as she does! I always wonder what she is going to say next. The other day I was leaving a message for Agatha at the vicarage, when she came out with Lady Buttonshaw, who had been calling there. She said good-bye to her, and then added with great severity: "It is a good thing for you to be without your maid for a little. I shall not hurry Emma Gray to go to you. A woman might as well turn into a fashion-block as allow her maid to clothe and unclothe her as your maid does you! Bestir yourself, my dear. Find out on which side the buttons on your boots are, and how many hairpins are necessary for the erection of your pretty hair!" Lady Buttonshaw only laughed as she walked away. I suppose everybody knows that her bark is worse than her bite!'
Gwen had a different criticism pronounced upon her departure by old Deb and Patty. She went to wish them good-bye, and their surprise was great when she told them where she was going.
'Is it among the wild beasts and heathens? Well, you're a brave young lady to venture out all alone. But I should be terribly afeared of losin' my way. Are there signposts all the way?'
'There, Patty, you ain't showin' off your knowledge to talk so! Miss Gwen will go all the way in a steamer, and her brother will be meetin' her when she comes to land. It's the steamers are so tryin' to flesh and blood. Mr. Giles told me all about it when he went to America with his master. You have to sleep on shelves up the wall, and there be no washin' your clothes for the whole time you're on the sea, which to a clean, decent body must be dreadful! And the food is shaken out of you as fast as you gets it down, and 'tis a marvel that a body gets to the other side o' the world alive!'
'It's wonderful good of you, miss, to go to take care of your brother!' said Patty, regarding Gwen with an awe-struck face; 'but you gentlefolk seem to be hardier to such things than us should be. And then you'll be able to speak them foreign langwidges. But it's to be hoped the cannibals won't get hold on you. I've only seen one person come back from foreign parts alive, and that was Tom Clark, and he was a sailor. But I reckon there are a few beside him that live to come back!'
'You'll not be marryin' an Indian prince out there, miss?' put in Deb anxiously.
'Miss Gwen is a Christian,' Patty said solemnly. 'She wouldn't be marryin' a heathen who keeps wives by the score, and eats them up by turns!'
And Gwen laughingly assured them that she meant to return as she went—a single woman.
The days slipped by; Gwen, with her usual energy and determination, arranged for her journey in every detail, and when the time came, took leave of her sisters with cheerful equanimity.
'It is not for very long,' she said; 'and if you want me back sooner, you have only to wire and tell me so. I shall be back, I hope, before Christmas.'
But Christmas seemed to Agatha a long way off, and she perhaps of all the sisters felt most depressed at Gwen's departure.