"Did you hear that funny story," retorted Exham, "about Wyndham"s life being insured?"
"No, what?--Most men insure their lives when they marry."
"Yes, but this is quite out of the common. At four offices, and heavily. It filtered to me through one of the clerks at the office. He said it was all Paget"s doing."
"What a villain that clerk must be to let out family secrets,"
responded Power. "I don"t believe there"s anything in it, Exham. Ah, here comes the young ladies. Yes, Mrs. Johnstone, I should like to go for a drive very much."
CHAPTER XII.
Some people concern themselves vey much with the mysteries of life, others take what good things fall into their way without question or wonder. These latter folk are not of a speculating or strongly reasoning turn; if sorrow arrives they accept it as wise, painful, inevitable--if joy visits them they rejoice, but with simplicity. They are the people who are naturally endowed with faith--faith first of all in a guiding providence, which as a rule is accompanied by a faith in their fellow men. The world is kind to such individuals, for the world is very fond of giving what is expected of it--to one hate and distrust, to another open-handed benevolence and cordiality. People so endowed are usually fortunate, and of them it may be said, that it was good for them to be born.
All people are not so const.i.tuted--there is such a thing as a n.o.ble discontent, and the souls that in the end often attain to the highest, have nearly suffered shipwreck, have spent with St. Paul a day and a night in the deep--being saved in the end with a great deliverance--they have often on the road been all but lost. Such people often sin very deeply--temptation a.s.sails them in the most subtle forms, many of them go down really into the deep, and are never in this life heard of again--they are spoken of as "lost," utterly lost, and their names are held up to others as terrible warnings, as examples to be shunned, as reprobates to be spoken of with bated breath.
It may be that some of these so-called lost souls will appear as victors in another state; having gone into the lowest depths of all they may also attain to the highest heights; this, however, is a mystery which no one can fathom.
Gerald Wyndham was one of the men of whom no one could quite say it was good for him to have been born. His nature was not very easily read, and even his favorite sister Lilias did not quite know him. From his earliest days he was so far unfortunate as never to be able to take things easily; even in his childhood this characteristic marked him.
Sorrows with Gerald were never trivial; when he was six years old he became seriously ill because a pet canary died. He would not talk of his trouble, nor wail for his pet like an ordinary child, but sat apart, and refused to eat, and only his mother at last could draw him away from his grief, and show him it was unmanly to be rebellious.
His joys were as intense as his woes--he was an intense child in every sense of the word; eager, enthusiastic, with many n.o.ble impulses. All might have gone well with him but for a rather strange accompaniment to his special character; he was as reserved as most such boys would be open. It was only by the changing expression of his eyes that on many occasions people knew whether a certain proposition would plunge him in the depths of woe or raise him to the heights of joy. He was innately very unselfish, and this characteristic must have been most strongly marked in him, for his father and his mother and his seven sisters did their utmost to make him the reverse. Lilias said afterwards that they failed ign.o.bly. Gerald would never see it, she would say. Talk of easy-chairs--he would stand all the evening rather than take one until every other soul in the room was comfortably provided. Talk of the best in anything,--you might give it to Gerald, but in five minutes he would have given it away to the person who wanted it least. It was aggravating beyond words, Lilias Wyndham often exclaimed, but before you could even attempt to make old Gerry decently comfortable you had to attend to the wants of even the cats and dogs.
Wyndham carrying all his peculiarities with him went to school and then to Cambridge. He was liked in both places, and was clever enough to win distinction, but for the same characteristic which often caused him at the last moment to fail, because he thought another man should win the honor, or another schoolboy the prize.
His mother wished him to take holy orders, and although he had no very strong leaning in that direction he expressed himself satisfied with her choice, and decided for the first few years of his life as deacon and priest to help his father at the dear old parish of Jewsbury-on-the-Wold.
Then came his meeting with Valentine Paget, the complete upheaval of every idea, the revolution which shook his nature to its depths. His hour had come, and he took the malady of young love--first, earnest, pa.s.sionate love--as anyone who knew him thoroughly, and scarcely anyone did know the real Wyndham, might have expected.
One pair of eyes, however, looked at this speaking face, and one keen mental vision pierced down into the depths of an earnest and chivalrous soul. Mortimer Paget had been long looking for a man like Wyndham. It was not a very difficult matter to make such a lad his victim, hence his story became one of the most sorrowful that could be written, as far as this life is concerned. Had his mother, who was now in her grave for over seven years, known what fate lay before this bright beautiful boy of hers, she would have cursed the day of his birth. Fortunately for mothers, and sisters too, the future lies in darkness, for knowledge in such cases would make daily life unendurable.
Valentine and her husband extended their wedding tour considerably over the original month. They often wrote home, and nothing could exceed the cheerfulness of the letters which Mr. Paget read with anxiety and absorbing interest--the rectory folks with all the interest minus the anxiety. Valentine frankly declared that she had never been so happy in her life, and it was at last, at her father"s express request, almost command, that the young couple consented to take up their abode in Queen"s Gate early in the November which followed their wedding. They spent a fortnight first at the old rectory, where Valentine appeared in an altogether new character, and commenced her career by swearing an eternal friendship with Augusta. She was in almost wild spirits, and they played pranks together, and went everywhere arm-in-arm, accompanied by the entire bevy of little sisters.
Lilias and Marjory began by being rather scandalized, but ended by thoroughly appreciating the arrangement, as it left them free to monopolize Gerald, who on this occasion seemed to have quite recovered his normal spirits. He was neither depressed nor particularly exultant, he did not talk a great deal either about himself or his wife, but was full of the most delighted interest in his father"s and sisters"
concerns. The new curate, Mr. Carr, was now in full force, and Gerald and he found a great deal to say to one another. The days were those delicious ones of late autumn, when nature quiet and exhausted, as she is after her time of flower and fruit, is in her most soothing mood.
The family at the rectory were never indoors until the shades of night drove them into the long, low, picturesque, untidy drawing-room.
Then Gerald sang with his sisters--they had all sweet voices, and his was a pure and very sympathetic tenor. Valentine"s songs were not the same as those culled from old volumes of ballads, and selected from the musical mothers" and grandmothers" store, which the rectory folk delighted in. Hers were drawing-room melodies of the present day, fashionable, but short-lived.
The first night the young bride was silent, for even Augusta had left her to join the singers round the piano. Gerald was playing an accompaniment for his sisters, and the rector, standing in the back ground, joined the swell of harmony with his rich ba.s.s notes. Valentine and Carr, who was also in the room, were the silent and only listeners.
Valentine wore a soft white dress, her bright wavy locks of golden hair were a little roughened, and her starry eyes were fixed on her husband.
Carr, who looked almost monastic in his clerical dress, was gazing at her--her lips were partly open, she kept gentle time to the music with her little hand. A very spirited glee was in full tide, when there came a horrid discordant crash on the piano--everyone stopped singing, and Gerald, very white, went up to Val, and took her arm.
"Come over here and join us," he said almost roughly.
"But I don"t know any of that music, Gerald, and it is so delicious to listen."
"Folly," responded her husband. "It looks absurd to see two people gaping at one. I beg your pardon, Carr--I am positively sensitive, abnormally so, on the subject of being stared at. Girls, shall we have a round game? I will teach Val some of Bishop"s melodies to-morrow morning."
"I am going home," said Carr, quietly. "I did not know that anyone was looking at you except your wife. Wyndham. Good-night?"
It was an uncomfortable little scene, and even the innocent, unsophisticated rectory girls felt embarra.s.sed without knowing why.
Marjory almost blamed Gerald afterwards, and would have done so roundly, but Lilias would not listen to her.
At the next night"s concert, Valentine sang almost as sweetly as the others, but Carr did not come back to the rectory for a couple of days.
"I evidently acted like a brute, and must have appeared one," said Gerald to himself. "But G.o.d alone knows what all this means to me."
It was a small jar, the only one in that happy fortnight, when the girls seemed to have quite got their brother back, and to have found a new sister in pretty, bright Valentine.
It was the second of November when the bride and bridegroom appeared at a big dinner party made in their honor at the house in Queen"s Gate.
All her friends congratulated Valentine on her improved looks, and told Wyndham frankly that matrimony had made a new man of him. He was certainly bright and pleasant, and took his part quite naturally as the son of the house. No one could detect the shadow of a care on his face, and as to Val, she sat almost in her father"s pocket, scarcely turning her bright eyes away from his face.
"I always thought that dear Mr. Paget the best and n.o.blest and most Christian of men," remarked a certain Lady Valery to her daughter as they drove home that evening. "I am now more convinced of the truth of my views than ever."
"Why so, mother?" asked her daughter.
"My dear, can you not see for yourself? He gave that girl of his--that beautiful girl, with all her fortune--to a young man with neither position nor money, simply and entirely because she fell in love with him. Was there ever anything more disinterested? Yes, my dear, talk to me of every Christian virtue embodied, and I shall invariably mention my old friend, Mortimer Paget."
CHAPTER XIII.
"Valentine," said her husband, as they stood together by the fire in their bedroom that night, "I have a great favor to ask of you."
"Yes, Gerald--a favor! I like to grant favors. Is it that I must wear that soft white dress you like so much to-morrow evening? Or that I must sing no songs but the rectory songs for father"s visitors in the drawing-room. How solemn you look, Gerald. What is the favor?"
Gerald"s face did look careworn. The easy light-hearted expression which had characterized it downstairs had left him. When Valentine laid her hand lovingly on his shoulder, he slipped his arm round her waist, however, and drew her fondly to his side.
"Val, the favor is this," he said. "You can do anything you like with your father. I want you to persuade him to let us live in a little house of our own for a time, until, say next summer."
Valentine sprang away from Gerald"s encircling arm.
"I won"t ask that favor," she said, her eyes flashing. "It is mean of you, Gerald. I married you on condition that I should live with my father."
"Very well, dear, if you feel it like that, we won"t say anything more about it. It is not of real consequence."
Gerald took a letter out of his pocket, and opening the envelope began leisurely to read its contents. Valentine still, however, felt ruffled and annoyed.
"It is so queer of you to make such a request," she said. "I wonder what father would say. He would think I had taken leave of my senses, and just now too when I have been away from him for months. And when it is such a joy, such a deep, deep joy, to be with him again."
"It is of no consequence, darling. I am sorry I mentioned it. See, Valentine, this letter is from a great friend of mine, a Mrs.
Price--she wants to call on you; she is coming to-morrow. You will be at home in the afternoon, will you not?"