The news of his sister Nellie's death came upon Jim Adams with the suddenness of a thunderclap. The weeks had gone by since she wrote to ask him to take Harry, with no further news of her, and after watching every post for a few days in the expectation of a black-edged envelope, he had begun to think that it was only a scare, and that she was not going to die at all, and it was really a pity that he had had all that bother with Jane!
Yet, in spite of this feeling, the incident had done him good in more ways than one.
He had fought for duty instead of running away from it. He had been reminded of things which he had hardly wanted to remember. He had been strengthened for the right by the mere fact that somebody never dreamed but that he would do right.
Also he had taken Tom's advice, and had had what Jane deridingly called "a teetotal spell," the result of which was a respectable banking account which perfectly astonished him. He had no idea small sums could total up so.
The idea of saving a little money had come to him from one of Jane's harangues, in which she informed him that when "that brat" came, she did not intend to spend any of her housekeeping money upon him; Jim would have to give her more. She was quite short enough as it was, especially with a great romping baby of her own, and she supposed that Jim would be sorry to seehimgetting thin and pale and perhaps dying altogether, because somebody else's child ate the food that ought to have been in his mouth. And then the funeral! Funerals cost a lot!
With this interesting climax Jane went to get the supper beer—out of the housekeeping—and Jim made his cocoa, and thought things over.
Not that he discussed Harry's coming with her. He had never mentioned the subject since that first night. He disliked words, and he found Jane tired of rating more quickly without an answer, though sometimes he could not resist giving one, but he always wished afterwards he had held his tongue.
He determined, as he sipped his cocoa, that he would accept some over-time work, which he had happily not mentioned to Jane, and save up what he earned and add it to his beer-money in the bank. Who could tell when it might be wanted?
So the telegram telling of Nellie's death found him unprepared in one way—prepared in another.
He proposed to go down and attend the funeral and bring Harry back, but Jane was furious. He had promised to take her and the baby down to her mother's for the Easter, and she did not mean to go by herself, as if she had no husband, and if Jim spent the money on train fares to Whitecliff and board and lodging as well, where was the money for going home to come from? Besides, what good would it do? Nellie was dead, and the brat could come up with the guard. Anyhow, Jim had no black clothes!
That last argument was unanswerable. So Jim wrote to Nellie's friends and said he could not come to the funeral, and asked them to arrange for Harry to come up with the guard and to let him know the day and the train, and he would meet him.
Then with a rather heavy heart, he shouldered Jane's parcel and his big baby, and took the Easter excursion train into Suffolk.
It was very late on the Saturday night when they reached their destination, for the train was two hours behind time, but the welcome they received in the tiny cottage had suffered nothing from its delay.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Green's delight over their first grandchild was quite astonishing, and they admired him from the curl on the top of his round head to the sole of his little fat foot.
And there, in the chimney corner, looking thin and worn, sat Tom.
Jim grasped his hand warmly.
"Well! Iamglad you're here," said he, "it will be a bit of company." He glanced back at the group round the baby and Tom nodded comprehendingly.
"I had nothing to keep me," he said quietly.
It was a long, long time since Jim had been to church, but he found that on this Easter Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Green expected nothing else. Jane elected to remain at home and mind the baby and cook the dinner, and the old couple, with their stalwart son-in-law on one side and Tom on the other, found themselves places in the old village church.
It was all very quiet and nice, Jim thought.
His heart was sore for his little sister Nellie and he felt alone in the world, cut off from all his childhood, all that they two had shared together.
It had never occurred to Jane to offer him any sympathy in his loss. She had hardly realised the loss, only the coming of a burden. And in not going to the funeral, Jim had an odd feeling of neglecting Nellie, though his common sense told him it could make no difference to her.
The Easter hymns comforted him strangely. His mind seemed to pass from the earthly grave to the heavenly Resurrection with a thrill of hope that matched with the sunshine, the bursting of green leaves, the twitter of the birds and the blue sky above.
On that happy Easter morning,All the graves their dead restore,Father, sister, child, and motherMeet once more.
And so he came to another thought. Washegoing to meet Nellie?
He glanced across at Tom. The quiet patience of his face touched him. Tom had lost something too. Something more hopeless, more irremediable than even the death of a sister, and yet there was a strength in his look which seemed to Jim not to be of earth, but from above. Tom and Nellie were on one side, and he, Jim, was on another.
The two young men went for a walk together in the afternoon, and it was like Tom to be the first to touch on Jim's sorrow.
"You're wearing a black tie, Jim," he said.
So Jim told him all about Nellie, his pretty little gentle sister Nellie, and then of her child and of how he had promised to take him, and look after him, but he did not mention Jane. After all, Jane was Tom's sister.
Tom listened gravely. There was sympathy in the very way he listened, and Jim felt it. He longed to ask Tom if he approved of his taking Harry, but some of the strength which had grown in him since his decision, kept him silent. Hehaddecided and what was the use of courting disapproval. But Tom was not one to withhold commendation, of which there is so little in this world's intercourse, and he gave his verdict unasked.
"I'm glad you did," he said heartily, "poor little chap, what else could you do? It's quite right. Mind you, Jim, any time if you are pushed with him, there's always a bed and meal with me. I've more than enough for myself."
That was Jim's opportunity, and he took it.
"You're a good sort, Tom," he said, "I'll not forget. How—how—" he hesitated. "Have you seen Pattie since?"
"Yes," said Tom sadly, "I've seen her."
There was a finality in his answer that Jim did not like to break, and they walked on in silence till Tom spoke again.
"I saw her," he said, "when she didn't see me, and I thought she looked tired-like. She was with some girl, a loud-voiced, gay-looking sort of girl, who must have known me, though I don't know her; and when she saw me, she whispered to Pattie and laughed, and Pattie tossed her head and laughed out loud, as I never heard her laugh before, and she went red, but she never turned her head nor looked, not even when she got to the corner, for I stood and watched. I couldn't turn my back and leave her. Ihadto look while she was in sight."
"Is there—is there any——?" Jim stopped.
"Is there anybody else?" said Tom in a strangled kind of voice. "They say so. The butcher's man, in that big shop by the Station Hotel. He looks smart and dresses like any gentleman on a Sunday, but he's always popping in and out of the hotel, and if you could hear his language—"
"I shouldn't be too sure of what 'they say'," said Jim, "and as for her laughing and all that—p'r'aps it was just put on because you were looking. It made her feel awkward-like. If she hadn't cared a bit, she'd have gone on without turning a hair."
Tom sighed.
"I'd wait a bit and take no heed of what folks say about her," went on Jim, "and then if you find you keep on caring, just up and ask her again. You've as much right as any other man. When she gets to know this fellow better, she'll know what she's missed."
Tom smiled faintly and the shadow in his eyes lightened a little at Jim's hopefulness.
"If Jane was to meet her and have words, I don't know what I should do," he said. "It would be best not to remind her of Pattie at all."
"Not me!" answered Jim emphatically.
There was no need to remind Jane of the offending Pattie in words. Tom's face had done that already, and she was meditating vengeance. She and Jim and the baby reached their own home at midnight on Easter Monday, and by nine o'clock on the Tuesday morning she was at the weekly washtub which she superintended in Old Keston, her arms immersed in soap suds, her eyes on the garden fence which cut her off from Pattie's premises.
If she could only catch sight of Pattie hanging out washing, and have a few words with her!
Pattie, however, was not at the wash-tub this week. In Denys's and Gertrude's absence all the washing had been sent out, to leave Pattie more time to help Mrs. Brougham, and at that minute Pattie was busily running round the house tidying up after the holiday, and looking forward to taking little Maud out in the afternoon, a treat which she was beginning to appreciate very highly.
As Tom had said, she looked tired, even though it was so early in the day; but she would not have allowed for an instant that she had anything to trouble her. Why should she have, when she had only to let Sam Willard, the butcher's assistant, know when she would be out for an hour in the evening, and there he would be at the corner waiting for her, with his fine air and his curled moustache and his hair in a curl on his forehead. And he had no end of money, he was always chinking a pocketful, and talking of what he should buy. Only on Saturday he had taken her round to look at the shops, and they had lingered a long time outside a jeweller's, and Sam had pointed out the ring he meant to give his sweetheart some day. Pattie had quite held her breath as she imagined her hand with that ring on it!
Now as she swept up the bedrooms she glanced at her hands and frowned. She was not very clever at keeping her hands nice, but she always excused herself with the plea that grates and wash-tubs and saucepans were to blame.
The hands that wore that ring would not be used for brooms and black-lead brushes! She wondered what furniture would be bought to match that ring!
And then, involuntarily, she thought of another Saturday evening when Tom had taken her to look at the shops, and they had lingered outside, not a jeweller's, but a furniture shop, and Tom had pointed out a tall Windsor arm-chair and said they would have two of those in their home, and she had pictured herself in one of those chairs by a bright fireside in a cosy kitchen with Tom opposite to her, reading his paper, while she had a bit of dainty white needlework in her lap, such as she had seen her last mistress, who was newly married, busy with. She remembered how, as she pictured that happy little fireside, she had made up her mind to keep her hands better, not for the wearing of jewelled rings, but for the accomplishment of that same dainty needlework.
As she thought of all this, Tom's face came back to her memory. She wished, oh, how she wished that she had looked round at him when her friend had whispered that he was on the other side of the road!
What had he looked like? Why should her friend look upon his face and she not see it?
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" she whispered to herself and a sudden hate towards that jewelled ring sprang up in her.
When the afternoon came and she wheeled little Maud out in her mail cart, she turned towards the shops. She felt as if to see that Windsor arm-chair again would be next best to seeing Tom.
But the Windsor arm-chair was gone. Gone, like the dream of the happy little home; gone, as Tom had gone, out of her life.
Its place was filled by an inexpensive plush-covered parlour suite, suitable to the little villa where the wearer of that jewelled ring should take up her abode, but Pattie turned from it petulantly.
"Cheap and nasty!" she said.
Now it so happened that on this afternoon, when Jane Adams came to hang out the last of her washing, she found herself short of pegs. At another time she would have managed with pins or hung the clothes in bunches, but all day the craving for beer had been growing upon her, and she determined to go out and buy pegs and have a drink.
Through force of circumstances she had not tasted a drop since Saturday at dinner-time. Three whole days without a glass of beer! There had been none at her father's home, of course. The old people had been abstainers since she and Tom were babies, and she had not cared to acknowledge to them that she "took a drop now and again." It had been too late when she and Jim reached home last night to fetch any, and she had hurried to her work this morning, and, indeed, had not thought of getting a glass on her way, so full was her mind of Pattie.
But now she meant to have a glass, and pegs shemusthave!
So having told her lady—about the pegs—she put on her bonnet and hurried out.
She soon found a grocer's and bought her pegs, and then she turned in to the nearest public-house.
Not one glass, nor two, nor three, were sufficient to allay her longing, and the housekeeping money went without a thought; it was only the remembrance of the fleeting time which stayed her. She did not wish her lady to wonder where she was.
When she pushed open the public-house door and emerged into the street again, she was not completely mistress of herself, but just in the state when she would be very affable or very quarrelsome, as circumstances should seem to point.
And as she put her foot upon the threshold, Pattie, wheeling little Maud, and with her heart full of Tom, came along the pavement.
Now Pattie was a staunch little abstainer; all the more staunch because of her childhood's memories. Memories of nights when, piteous and shivering, she had waited outside a public-house door, to lead home her poor sorrowful mother, bound indeed by Satan these many years, by the chain of strong drink. Memories of days when on bended knee she had pleaded with that mother to give up the drink, and had been answered by a shake of the head, and a murmured, "I can't, child, I can't! I would if I could."
And Pattie had known of no remedy, no saving power, till she knew Tom, and Tom had said, "Pray for her, my girl. Christ can save her!"
So Pattie had prayed, not understanding how help could come, but because Tom believed in it, and, strange answer as it seemed, an illness had fallen upon her mother and she had been taken away to the Workhouse Infirmary.
Pattie remembered to this day the very saucepan she was washing when she realized thatthiswas the answer to her prayer, that her poor mother had been saved from herself, and taken to a place where she would be cared for, and kept from the terrible snare of drink.
"And now," Tom had said when she told him, "we must teach her about the love of Jesus."
So month after month since then, Tom had gone regularly to the Infirmary and read the gospel's message to Pattie's mother, for she was still there and never likely to come out, and the poor woman had come to look for him and to love him as her own son. Pattie wondered sometimes whether he still went, but on the one occasion that she had seen her mother since she gave Tom up, she had been too proud to ask.
Pattie never saw a woman come out of a public-house without an involuntary shiver at her heart, and now here, before her very eyes, came Tom's own sister, Jim Adams's wife!
Pattie recognised her in an instant, and she recognised Pattie, and though Pattie would only too willingly have passed on, Jane stood in her path and barred the way.
"Well! Pattie Paul," said she insolently. "I want to know what you mean by it."
"I don't know whatyoumean," said Pattie, trying to pass her, but Jane dodged her.
"Oh don't you?" she cried. "What do you mean by using my brother like you have, letting him dangle after you, and pretending you was going to marry him, and getting presents out of him?"
Pattie's face flamed.
"It's not true!" she said hotly. "I never got presents out of him, and I always meant to marry him——"
Jane sneered.
"Very likely!" she said, "he did well enough to play with, till a richer chap came along, and then you remembered Tom was poor! You're a mean thing, Pattie Paul!"
"Let me pass!" cried Pattie vehemently, "you've no right to say such things!"
"No right!" flared Jane, "and me seeing my own brother going thin and a-fretting for a worthless girl like you! No right!"
But Pattie stayed to hear no more. With a sudden turn of the mail-cart, she was past her enemy, and running swiftly down the pavement towards St. Olave's, while little Maud laughed and clapped her hands with delight; she thought the run was all to amuse her.
And Tom was going thin and fretting!
In the midst of her pride, anger and humiliation, that thought came back to Pattie over and over again.
But the anger and the pride predominated, and swept away all tenderer feelings, and she met Sam Willard in the evening with a laugh and a toss of the head, and wished that Jane were there to see.
When Gertrude made up her mind to seek out a marriage-portion for herself, whose chief ingredient should be money, with love as a secondary consideration, she set herself with her usual cool forethought to consider the matter of Reggie Alston.
Reggie was a friend, and a friend only he must remain, and to this end the regular correspondence which he and she had kept up since Reggie left school, must become irregular and fitful. If only he would take his summer holiday in the school holidays, Gertrude thought she could manage somehow to be away when he was at home, and that would break the continuity of other summer holidays when they two had spent much time together, cycling and playing tennis. It was a pity for the boy to set his heart on what could not be. Reggie ought to look out for a girl with money, or at any rate for a girl who—who—liked being poor.
The result of these cogitations was that many a time when Reggie confidently looked for a letter, none came, and when the dulness of a week's work did happen to be enlivened by one of Gertrude's epistles, somehow the letters were short and unsatisfactory and spoke only of the most casual on-the-top-of-things topics. Reggie wondered over it in silence. He hated writing scolding letters, and like Tom Green, he felt that no amount of talking or writing could bring love, and at first he only felt the miss of the regular correspondence, without seeking for a reason other than the excuse that Gertrude must be extra busy at school, or that she had fresh duties laid upon her since Denys's engagement, of which he had heard a full account before Gertrude had thought of reducing her correspondence.
He little dreamed that Gertrude herself missed the writing of those old confidential letters far more than she had expected. She had always saved up all the little experiences and jokes of school and home to tell Reggie, and now it was very dull to be always pulling herself up to remember to make her letters short and few and casual.
But when Easter Monday and his birthday arrived together, without bringing any birthday remembrance other than a letter from his old chum, Charlie Henchman, Reggie's heart went down to a depth for which he had no idea there was room in his mechanism.
He had come down to breakfast in his dull little parlour, confidently expecting to see Gertrude's handwriting on his table, and it was not there.
He sat down mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on his heart as it had never done before.
The small horsehair sofa where he sometimes tried to find a resting-place and failed; the tiny chiffonnier, unenlightened by a looking-glass or any ornament save a vase, which had been one of Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with its coarse cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, home with Gertrude.
The half loaf of bread and the pat of butter which always tasted of the chiffonnier-cupboard, but had to be kept there because when a piece went out to the larder, none ever returned, filled him with loathing this morning.
Why was there no letter from Gertrude? His landlady bustled in with his tea and a rasher of bacon and a slice of toast, the last item, as she remarked, being for a birthday treat, and he roused himself from his disappointment to thank her for the little attention, and when she was gone he slowly opened Charlie's letter.
It was just a newsy, chatty letter, telling of the pleasures of his holiday at Whitecliff and especially of the pleasure of being with Denys for a whole week, but when he came to one sentence, written only with the thought of giving pleasure to Reggie, Reggie stopped and frowned.
"Gertrude looks awfully well and seems enjoying herself tremendously," wrote Charlie. "She and Audrey are quite friends, which is convenient, and Denys and I don't feel selfish if we walk behind and let Gertrude, Audrey, and Cecil make the pace in front."
So Gertrude was at Whitecliff, and she had never thought it worth while to tell him she was going to have such a nice change!
She was enjoying herself tremendously! Hitherto she had always made him a sharer in her pleasures by her vivacious descriptions of them. Who was Cecil?
He looked across the narrow Scotch street, on to the row of small houses opposite him. The morning sunshine was flooding them, while his room lay in shadow. That was like his life. He was in the shadow and other people were in the sunshine—especially this Cecil.
He ate up his breakfast at last and made a good meal of it too, for he was a healthy fellow, and even stale bread and tasty butter go down when you are hungry, and then he got out his cycle and polished it up, for there was a club run on and he was going to ride part of the way out with them, returning early to attend a wedding in the afternoon.
He decided, as he rubbed away at his machine, that he would not be married on a Bank holiday, when his turn came. He would not like his guests to feel bored at losing one of their precious few-and-far-between holidays. Saturday was a much more sensible day for a wedding.
Bored or not bored, the wedding party was large and cheerful, and being mostly made up of the chief townsfolk and local gentry who banked at the one and only Bank, Reggie knew most of the guests, and was himself, partly owing to his merry, boyish ways, and partly owing to his modesty and readiness to serve anybody in the smallest things, quite a popular person. He enjoyed the first part of the proceedings very much.
It was a lovely day, with brilliant sunshine and a warm air that seemed as if summer had come to surprise the Spring, and directly the bride had cut the cake there was a general exodus to the garden, where camp chairs and rout seats stood invitingly on the lawn, and arbours and sheltered paths waited for visitors to rest or walk beneath their budding loveliness.
And behind the groups of gay dresses, set off by black coats and light trousers, came white aproned waitresses with cakes and champagne. In vain Reggie, who had missed getting a cup of tea indoors, watched for a tray of tea cups. Champagne and ices, cakes and champagne, champagne and sandwiches. There appeared to be nothing else, and everybody seemed to be drinking champagne like so much water. Everybody, that is, but Reggie and the Scotch minister and his wife.
Except for the desire for a beverage that was not champagne, Reggie did not think a great deal about what he supposed was usual at weddings, till he caught a whisper between two girls whom he was piloting to see some ducklings on the pond at the bottom of the garden.
"Howard can't walk straight already," whispered one with a giggle.
"Isn't it horrid!" answered the other, "Leslie Johns took me round the garden just now, and he told me he had had far more champagne than Howard had, but Howard has a weak head. Howard wanted me to go to the conservatories with him. I'm glad I didn't; I should have been positively ashamed to be seen with him. Why can't such fellows let champagne alone?"
"They might at least know when to stop," sneered the first speaker.
Reggie, leading the way a few paces in front, between close rows of gooseberry bushes, heard every word, and he set his teeth.
The subtle distinction between the man who had taken a quantity of champagne and shewed no effects, and the man who had only had a little and showed it, did not appeal to him. He felt a vast pity for Howard, though he had not the slightest idea who Howard might be.
He got rid of his charges sooner than he had hoped, for a hint that the bride would soon be down from changing her dress, reached the girls and made them hurry back to the house, and Reggie, suddenly sick at heart with combined remembrances that he and everybody else must probably, in the general gathering of guests to one place, see poor Howard's faltering footsteps, and the thought of Gertrude enjoying herself so much that she could not write for his birthday, made his way slowly and by a circuitous route back to the main party.
He was nearing the house when a turn in the path brought him face to face with a young and handsomely-dressed woman, his own Bank Manager's wife, Mrs. Gray.
"Oh, Reggie!" she said with a sort of gasp, "oh, Reggie, whatever shall I do? Look!"
Reggie looked in the direction indicated. Down a vista of pink and white apple blossom that seemed in its pure loveliness to emphasize the miserableness and shame of sin, came two men, stumbling and laughing and stumbling again and holding each other up. One was Mr. Gray, the Bank Manager, the other, as Reggie guessed in a moment, was Howard Bushman, of whom he had just heard.
One glance was enough for Reggie, and his eyes came back to his companion. She was white and shivering.
"Oh Reggie!" she said again, "help him, do help him, it will ruin him."
Just behind her was a small summer-house. It came to Reggie all in a moment what to do.
"Go and sit down in there," he said gently, "and when Mr. Gray comes, keep him with you till I get back."
Then he went swiftly to meet that stumbling, laughing pair, and he spoke as gently as he had done to the poor wife.
"Mrs. Gray is sitting down in that summer-house," he said, "I think she wants you. Will you stay with her while I run to the house for something?"
The Bank Manager laughed foolishly.
"He! He! Reggie! Looking after the ladies, as usual! Bring some champagne, my lad, and we'll have a nice little spree on the quiet."
But Reggie had not waited for directions.
He walked swiftly towards the house, but he did not wish to appear hurried or to be on any secret errand, and as he went his thoughts flew hither and thither bewilderingly.
For this man was his master. This man whom he had been asked to help, had much of the making or marring of Reggie's prospects in his hand, and to interfere, especially in such a delicate matter, was almost certainly to incur more anger, more abiding, unredeemable displeasure, than for any other misdemeanour.
And yet, for four months Reggie had been praying for this very man!
Three years before, when Charlie Henchman had come to the engineering college in the town, he had sought out the loneliest fellow that he knew and for Christ's sake had endeavoured to cheer and uplift and help him by just being companionable to him. And the loneliest fellow that Charlie knew was Reggie Alston, and after they had been companions for quite a long time they found out that they both knew the Brougham family, a link which drew them to be more than companions,—to be friends.
Now Charlie was gone, and Reggie had promised him to seek out some lonely fellow too, and try to help him and cheer him and lead him nearer to Christ. He had prayed to be shown the right fellow, but among all his acquaintances there was no one lonely; one name, and one name only, seemed laid upon his heart, the name of Mr. Gray, his own Manager and master!
But as yet Reggie had done nothing more than to pray for him earnestly and regularly, for there seemed nothing else possible. For how could a junior Bank clerk seek out the companionship of his superior and invite him to supper or to cycle or to go with him to church?
He had been asked to help him now, and if those ways in which he had wished to help some fellow had seemed impossible, in this case how much more impossible were these circumstances? For to help in this way could only bring the downfall of all Reggie's hopes of promotion, and put off that day when he could tell Gertrude that his home was ready for her.
Yet with all these thoughts surging through his brain, Reggie felt that the call of duty had come to him, and to refuse would be to refuse to take up his Cross and follow Christ. As he took four cups of strong black coffee back to the summer-house, he realised that the Cross is the place of suffering and of death.
He had scarcely been five minutes on his errand and the little party in the summer-house had neither been added to nor diminished, and hope had brought a little colour back to Mrs. Gray's woe-begone face.
A simple straightforwardness was one of Reggie's characteristics. He put a cup of coffee into the manager's hand.
"You'd better drink it, Mr. Gray," he said quietly, "it's—it's refreshing, and then if you'd just take Mrs. Gray home—I'm sure she would feel better at home, and the bride has gone, so we can all slip away together. People are beginning to go now."
Mrs. Gray hated black coffee, but she drank her cup bravely, and looked all the better for it too.
"That stuff is refreshing," said Howard, suddenly, with a nod towards the empty cups, as the four left the summer-house, to make their farewells. "I felt rotten, but I feel as right as a trivet now."
Mr. Gray said nothing. He knew perfectly well that he was being helped, and his pride fiercely resented it, but Reggie's three years of quiet faithful work had had its influence, and the clinging touch of Mrs. Gray's hand on his arm softened him, and he said to himself that Reggie had an unbounded cheek, but there was really nothing to wait for any longer, now that the bride had gone.
But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. The bride's mother, shaking hands and saying pleasant nothings to the first of her departing guests, looked at Mr. Gray reproachfully.
"Mr. Gray! you are never going to desert us already! We want our brightest stars to help illumine our darkness. Mrs. Gray feeling ill? Surely, my dear Elaine, you do not needthreegentlemen to take you home!"
The colour flamed into Mrs. Gray's cheeks.
"My husband is taking me home," she said proudly, "Mr. Alston and Mr. Bushman happen to be leaving at the same time."
"Itisrather early," admitted Mr. Gray. He had caught sight of a fresh tray of glasses going the round of a circle of his acquaintances, and he decided not to be managed any longer, but to do as he chose.
"Look here, Elaine!" he said in a low tone, "you let Reggie take you home. I won't be a few minutes, but I must speak to Thornton. I've been looking for him all the afternoon, and it's really important."
"I'm sureyouare not in a hurry, Howard," said the hostess.
So Reggie and Mrs. Gray found themselves outside the gate alone.
"I'll never go inside that gate again," cried Mrs. Gray, angrily. Then she added piteously, "Oh, Reggie, I thought we had got him safe."
"So did I," said Reggie, ruefully.
"WhatcanI do?" she moaned, "I've seen it coming on little by little, and now he's beginning not to care so much if—if people guess. I'm glad you know, Reggie; it's a comfort to have somebody to speak to. I used to think I should be perfectly happy if I had plenty of money—we girls at home used to be poor till Aunt died and left us her property, just before I was engaged, and now, often, I think I would so willingly have just John's income—and it's only a small income for so responsible a position—or work hard myself, if I could be sure of—of him. But there it is," she added sadly. "Tell me what I can do, Reggie."
"You can pray for him," said Reggie, earnestly, "Goddoeshear and answer prayer and He can save to the uttermost." He hesitated and then added in a lower tone,
"Mrs. Gray, are you an abstainer yourself?"
"Well, not quite," said she, "but I hardly take anything."
Reggie nodded.
"Yes, but you take as much as you care to, and he takes as much ashecares to. That is how Mr. Gray would look at it, and the way God looks at it is this, 'Judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak.'"
They had reached the Bank and she held out her hand with a sigh.
"Thank you," she said, "well, I'll think about it."
Reggie walked on to the corner of his own road and stood looking down it distastefully.
Here he was in the middle of Bank holiday afternoon, in his best clothes, with nowhere to go and no one to speak to, feeling as if his life and himself and everything else were an utter failure. If he had only had on his cycling suit, he might have contemplated a ride, but the thought of turning into his dull lodgings, even to change, was unbearable, and the writing of a letter to Gertrude, with which he had beguiled many a lonely hour before, was not possible to-day.
He turned at the sound of quick footsteps behind him, and heard his name called.
"Why! Mr. Alston!" said the cheerful voice of the Scotch minister's little wife, "you look as if you belonged to nobody, and nowhere!"
Then, seeing instantly that her words had hit too near the mark, she added quickly,
"I wish, if you aren't engaged, you would come home to supper with us. I always feel as if I wanted to be entertained after a wedding, as if it were very dull to go home to just an ordinary tea, and its being a Bank holiday seems to emphasise the feeling. Mr. Mackenzie and I were just saying so, weren't we, Will?"
"That is so," assented Mr. Mackenzie, with his grave smile, "I hear, Mr. Alston, that you are musical and might have played our organ for the marriage had we but known it. I have the organ keys, if you would care to try the instrument. It was unfortunate that our organist was away. I like a little singing at a wedding."
Reggie's face beamed.
"I'd like to come, awfully," he said, "what time shall I turn up?"
"Why, now!" said Mrs. Mackenzie, "we'll have tea at once and then the garden-boy shall blow for you, and we'll be audience, and then we can have supper and talk."
"That's the chief item in the programme, isn't it?" said her husband, with a twinkle.
Reggie tried to smother a laugh but did not succeed. This unexpected treat had wonderfully cheered his drooping spirits, and he laughed and chatted merrily as they walked to the Manse; but beneath the outward pleasure that the invitation gave him, there was running an undercurrent of deep happiness, for he knew that in the moment of the most intense loneliness, the most utter hopelessness that he had ever known, God had sent His angel and delivered him.
And Mrs. Mackenzie talked on in her usual cheerful, lighthearted way and never dreamed that she had been God's angel to any one that afternoon. Reggie was too shy to tell her, and she had not the key to the thoughts of the young organist who first woke the echoes of the church for her, with the strains of,
But the Lord is mindful of His own,He remembers His children.
That was for to-day and for to-morrow too, in Reggie's mind. As the evening wore on, the dread of the to-morrow morning, when at nine o'clock he must meet Mr. Gray, grew upon him. That his interference had been resented, even while it was accepted, Reggie had seen quite plainly, and to-morrow was coming nearer with each tick of the clock.
When Reggie entered the Bank just before nine o'clock on the following morning, his heart was going pit-a-pat, for he knew his chief well enough to be certain that it was impossible to count upon how he would look at yesterday's happenings. He might never think of the occurrence again, or he might refer to it with an easy laugh at Reggie's stricter principles, or he might be riding the high horse and resent the interference to an extent which Reggie knew would be long enduring, if it ever ceased at all.
I Wish."'I wish, if you aren't engaged, you would come home to supper with us.'"—Page 118.
So much depended on how Mrs. Gray had dealt with the matter, and on how long her husband had remained with his convivial friends, and on these two points Reggie had no knowledge. Yet much of the success which attended his efforts for Mr. Gray this morning, had their beginning in the fact that Mrs. Gray had received her husband late the night before, with no word of reproach, but had treated him with unusual gentleness and affection, and he had come down to his work this morning softened by love, and not hardened by bitter words or arguments. Reggie chided himself for thinking so much of the harm he might have done his own future, but with another morning's post in, and no birthday letter from Gertrude, he felt more sore and more uneasy. If his prospects at the Bank became gloomy, what would be his chances of securing Gertrude?
But when he went into Mr. Gray's private room, nothing was written so plainly on the Manager's face as headache and dejection; and a great wave of pity and desire, swept away from Reggie all thought of himself and of his own happiness.
What could he do to help this man who was slipping down into the bondage of strong drink?
WhathadMrs. Gray said and done, he wondered, as he listened to the dull, listless voice in which Mr. Gray bade him take the omnibus at once, and proceed to the house of a wealthy client who lived three miles out of the town, and who had been taken ill and wished to transact some business.
There was no opportunity now to think of anything but the matters to be arranged with the wealthy client, which were important and urgent, and the minutes before the omnibus started were few, so the moment Reggie was sure he understood his errand he took his hat, relocked his desk and stepped out from the Bank, well pleased to be leaving the town for a country outing, on such a lovely April morning.
But as he glanced down the long, sunny street, he saw something which suddenly arrested his footsteps.
Only a gentleman crossing the road and coming towards him, but a gentleman whose identity was unmistakable even at this distance, by reason of a very peculiar lameness. A gentleman who was one of the largest shareholders, and had much influence in the Bank—a man who was so stern a teetotaller that he could forgive any sin sooner than intemperance.
In one instant Reggie was back in the Bank, Mr. Gray's hat was in his hand, and he was standing beside the astonished Manager. "Quick!" he said breathlessly. "You go down to Muirend House instead of me—here's your hat! Don't ask any questions, and when you get outside, turn to the left and don't look behind you on any account. Never mind the omnibus; it will do you good to walk! Quick—or you'll be too late."
"What?" demanded Mr. Gray, "are you going wrong in the head, Reggie?"
Reggie repeated his request, still breathlessly, and there was something so insistent in his manner, so beseeching in his eyes, and his three years of patient faithful work, so rose up to help his influence, that the Manager actually stood up, laid down his pen and took his hat.
"I suppose you know what you are playing at," said he, a little coldly. "What is it I am to do? Turn to the left and not look behind me!"
"Yes! that's it," said Reggie eagerly; "oh, be quick, or it will be too late."
"And I'm to walk, though it's three miles," said the Manager. "Well! take care of the Bank; it appears to me that it has a new Manager!"
He passed out through the swing doors, and a couple of minutes went by and he did not return, and Reggie began to breathe freely, till the fear struck him that after all, his efforts had been of no use if Mr. Bowles, the lame gentleman, had just caught Mr. Gray on the pavement outside, but even as the thought darted into his mind, the doors swung open again, and the lame gentleman entered and looked round. "Mr. Gray?" said he, interrogatively, as Reggie came forward.
"Mr. Gray has just gone down to Muirend to see Mr. Collins, who is very ill."
"It is very inconvenient of him," said Mr. Bowles irritably, "I wrote so that he should get the letter by the first post this morning."
Reggie glanced down at the pile of letters he had just brought from Mr. Gray's room to open.
"It will be here, I expect," he said politely, "can I take your instructions?"
Mr. Bowles grunted and scowled, but nevertheless he followed Reggie into the Manager's room and ran through what he had come to say, and watched Reggie's careful noting down of the points.
"So Lily Jarrold got married yesterday," he said abruptly, as Reggie finished. "I suppose champagne ran like rivers, and half you fellows got drunk, and the girls did not know what they were laughing at, eh? Wereyouthere?"
"I was there," answered Reggie, a trifle stiffly, "it was a very pretty wedding, and she looked awfully happy."
"Humph!" said the old gentleman, "but wasn't it as I said, afterwards?"
"I did not stay late—and I am an abstainer," said Reggie, wishing his visitor would depart. He glanced at the pile of unopened letters he had brought back with him, and Mr. Bowles intercepted the glance.
"Well! well!" said he, "that's a good hearing, my boy, and I see you are wishing I'd be off and let you get at your work. Industry is of the utmost importance, my lad, and you'll rise to be Manager, one day! Tell Mr. Gray I need not see him till next week as he left such a capable second. Good morning."
That was over. Reggie saw him out, opened the letters, and went through the usual routine of his morning work, and welcomed back his fellow clerk who had been away for the Easter. The clock ticked peacefully on, till it was past noon, and then at last the swing doors opened once more to admit the Manager.
He passed straight through to his room, closing the door behind him. A moment later he opened it again.
"Mr. Alston!" he said.
"Now for it," thought Reggie.
Mr. Gray was seated at his table and he motioned Reggie to the seat usually assigned to clients, and there was a pause. Reggie felt all his courage oozing out at the toes of his boots. All that he had thought it possible hemightsay to Mr. Gray on this question, all his arguments, all his reasons, his pleas, seemed to melt away into thin air, and he wondered however he had dared to interfere in another man's life, and that man his master, even to the degree of wishing to help him and praying for him, much more in openly offering him coffee, and sending him out of the sight of condemning eyes!
But with the remembrance of that four months of daily prayer for this man, came the remembrance of words spoken long ago to faint-hearted men. "The battle is not yours, but God's." That made all the difference.
Then Mr. Gray spoke, coldly, hardly.
"And now, Mr. Alston, what is the meaning of all this?"
Reggie leant forward eagerly.
"Mr. Gray, don't be angry, it was just Mr. Bowles coming along. I saw him as I got outside and—and—you know what he is, and—I thought—you could do the Muirend business—and—oh, Iwishyou would give up this strong drink, it is going to ruin you, body and soul!"
It was out. The bitter truth had been put into words; the young clerk had told his Manager that he knew his sin and degradation. The words had been spoken, and never again could things be as they had been before they were spoken, and Reggie knew it, and he knew that the man who sat before him with his face shaded with his hand, was a proud, proud man.
The clock ticked on loudly and evenly. There seemed nothing more for Reggie to say, and Mr. Gray did not break the silence. He was filling in the details of Reggie's broken words and he knew Mr. Bowles well enough to do it very accurately. He had reason to believe that Mr. Bowles had made a special visit on this special morning with intent. He knew, ah, far more truly than Reggie did, that this temptation was ruining his worldly position. Reggie had saved his reputation for this time and he could not but thank him, and yet—and yet—how hard it was to humble himself to say so; and there stretched before his weary eyes those times, coming oftener and oftener, when his reputation would not be saved, and he would sink lower in men's estimation, and that would come to be openly said, which was already a whisper, that the Bank Managerdrank.
His thoughts came back to Reggie with a start. Reggie had asked him to give up strong drink!
"Reggie!" he said hoarsely, passing by all else that had been said, "you don't know what you are asking!"
"Yes, I do!" said Reggie firmly, "and you'll want outside help."
"Ah!" said the manager sadly, "I have thought sometimes, that if we'd had a child, Elaine and I, it would have made it easier. I might have done it for the child's sake."
"Suppose that God did not dare to risk the child in your hands," said Reggie solemnly, "suppose, if He sent a child, then you had not the strength to give up the drink?"
And as the words fell from Reggie's lips there came a sound from the outer office that made both the men start.
"Father!" said a little treble voice which rang through the Bank. "Father! father! let me do it."
The manager raised himself so that he could see over the frosted glass in the door which gave on to the front premises, but Reggie had no need to look. He recognised the clear child's voice. He seemed to see little Cyril Mackenzie's round, rosy face lifted confidingly to his father's as he had seen it only last night. And Mr. Gray saw the bright little lad, and he sat down again in his seat with a groan, and hid his face in his hands.
"Suppose—" he said, "suppose I haven't the strength to give it upnow."
"It was the help of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, that I meant. He will give you the strength if you will let Him, and I will help you all I can, if you will let me," answered Reggie earnestly.