"I am so sorry. I do wish I were neat and tidy like Ada, who never left anything in the wrong place in her life."
"It is never too late to mend," said Mrs. Atherton with a smile. "I have not seen you for a week, except in church. I have been so busy; and every week and every day we get nearer to Christmas, the pressure grows greater. I wanted to ask you if you would come over to the vicarage and help me with some work."
"I work so badly," Salome said, "but I will do all I can."
"It is very easy, humble sort of work," Mrs. Atherton said,--"sewing strings on skirts, and b.u.t.tons on ap.r.o.ns and pinafores, for Christmas presents in the parish, you know. Will you come in to-morrow afternoon for an hour or two?"
Salome promised; and then conversation seemed to flag, as it always does when something is on the mind of one of those who are trying to keep it up without alluding to that "something."
At last Mrs. Atherton rose to go away, when, taking Salome"s hand in hers, she held it for a moment, and said,--
"My dear child, I have not seen you since we met you on the Whitelands Road. It was very late for you to be out alone, and with a stranger."
Salome"s colour rushed to her face, and was of course misunderstood.
"You are so young, my dear," Mrs. Atherton said; "and I daresay, living in the country, you have often been out late in your own grounds and village. But here it is different. And you were talking and walking with a gentleman. Was he an old friend?"
"No," said Salome, "oh no; I had never seen him before. Oh, please do not ask me any more questions."
The look of distress on Salome"s face touched Mrs. Atherton.
"My dear child," she said tenderly, "if you were my own daughter, I should say what I now say. Do not think that I interfere unduly, but let me earnestly advise you not to place yourself in the same position again. Will you promise?"
Salome was silent. How could she promise, when once more she must meet Philip Percival and tell him if she had succeeded in getting the money or not? Perhaps she might write to him, but somehow she felt it would be better to see him.
Mrs. Atherton waited, as if for an answer; and as none came, she dropped Salome"s hand, and turned away.
"Do kiss me again," Salome said. "And do trust me. I thought, and I still think, I was doing right that evening."
"Well, my dear child," said Mrs. Atherton, kissing her affectionately, "I hope it will prove so. Give my love to your mother. I will come in again very soon."
Salome ran upstairs with Ada"s letter, and hastily putting it on the table by her mother"s side, went down again to read her own letter. It was from Bardsley and Carrow. Her hands trembled with excitement as she tore open the envelope and read:--
"DEAR MADAM,--We return the ma.n.u.script of "Under the Cedars,"
with thanks for allowing us to peruse it. We regret that it is not suited for publication in our series of stories for the young.--We remain your obedient servants,
"J. A. BARDSLEY AND CARROW."
"Everything is a disappointment! Everything fails!" exclaimed Salome.
"It is no use trying to do anything. Mrs. Atherton suspects me of I don"t know what; and I was only trying to save mother from pain. But Raymond may go his own way now. I can do nothing for him. Why should my life be so different to other girls? Ada is happy at Cannes, having all she can wish for. Then there are the girls at Edinburgh Crescent going out to-night to a fancy-dress dance, and to-morrow to some other party, and next week to the school concert; and here am I, trying to be of use, and yet I cannot even succeed in that, and everything is so wretched and miserable. I saw Mrs. Atherton looking round on this untidy room. The children are really the greatest bother;" and Salome s.n.a.t.c.hed up the tail of the kite, newspapers and all, with no gentle hand; and by so doing, the string, which was twisted in one of the corners of her old writing-folio, brought the whole down--cloth, work-basket, and all.
"What a horrid fire! and _what_ a mess! Really this isn"t very inviting," said Reginald, as he came in from football, and, covered with mud and scratches, threw himself into the chair Mrs. Atherton had occupied.
"Where"s mother?" he asked. "Is her cold worse? I say, Salome, I was chosen to play in the second fifteen instead of a fellow who is ill. I have had a glorious run for once. Sal, what"s the matter?"
Salome was fairly crying now.
"It is all so miserable and uncomfortable, Reg; and look here."
She handed him the letter as she spoke.
"What a jolly hand!" Reginald exclaimed. "Who is it from?"
"It"s about my story. Of course it is returned."
"Oh, well, try somebody else. There"s heaps of other publishers; or, if that doesn"t do, write another tale."
"It"s very easy to talk like that, Reg. You don"t seem to care."
"Yes; I do care very much. Where"s the ma.n.u.script?"
Then it flashed across Salome for the first time that the ma.n.u.script had not arrived with the letter.
"Why, the ma.n.u.script is not come after all. Perhaps it is lost. I daresay it is lost. It does not matter."
The entrance of Stevens settled this matter. "The postman came back with this parcel, Miss Salome. He forgot to deliver it. What is it?"
"Oh, it is mine. It is all right. Give it to me, Stevens."
"What a state the room is in! Well, for your own comfort"s sake, I think you might keep it tidier, Miss Salome. You would be ever so much more comfortable.--O Master Reg, what boots! Well, I don"t know how the mud is to be got off. You must remember there"s no one but me to do everything, except the old lady, who is not one to put herself out of the way to help anybody--not she."
"Well, I"ll clean my own boots, if that"s all," said Reginald. "I don"t care what I do. I"ll clean the knives too, and learn to make you a gown, if it will please you, Stevie." And Reginald sprang up, took Stevens round the waist, made her pirouette round the table with him, and then, having left dabs of clay and mud off his boots all over Mrs. Pryor"s red drugget, vanished.
Stevens straightened her cap, and pulled down her white ap.r.o.n, and said breathlessly,--
"What a boy it is! But I would sooner, fifty times over, have a bright happy nature like his, than one that can only mope and look miserable."
"I _am_ miserable," said poor Salome, "so I can"t help looking miserable."
"Well, there"s many that are worse off than you, my dear. Ruth Pryor has been telling me of a family of little children left without father or mother. The Pryors supply them with bread; and this morning, when Frank went with the loaves, he found the eldest child, scarce twelve years old, with the little ones all crying round her, and her mother only buried a month ago; and now the father was taken in a fit, and went off before the doctor could get to him."
It was the reverse of the picture to that over which Salome had been brooding,--her cousins" gaieties; Ada"s happiness amongst flowers, and music, and sunshine; the lives of her old neighbours at Maplestone--the De Brettes, and the Fergusons, and many others--riding, dancing, and enjoying themselves. Stevens"s words were of use. The old message seemed to be whispered to her soul: "Let patience have her perfect work."
"Trust in the Lord, and be doing good ... verily thou shalt be fed."
It is not the perfect work of patience when trials are fretted at, and, as it were, _resented_; not the perfect work of patience when we tell ourselves we have borne a great deal, and are wonderfully brave, and that no one half appreciates us or all we do and endure. Ah no! The stuff of which the hidden saints of G.o.d are made is different to this.
Theirs is the patience of Christ"s faithful ones who can smile under the smart, and be tender and gentle to others even while the sword is piercing their own souls.
The child of whom I write was very young, and no wonder that she failed at times. The burden laid on her was heavy; and I cannot be surprised that Mrs. Atherton"s misapprehension was hard to bear, and that the honest and pure desire to save her mother and her brother should be the cause of her kind friend thinking less highly of her than before made it doubly bitter. Then the story, on which she had built so many hopes, copied so carefully, kept free from blot or stain,--it was hard to see it again, the familiar words looking up at her as she scanned them with tear-dimmed eyes; the headings to the chapters, the little bits of verse or hymn, so carefully chosen. All in vain all her trouble, all her pains. And if no one took her story, and paid her for it, how should she be able to satisfy Philip Percival at Christmas?
The tangle of her life looked more bewildering than ever, and the child-heart within her was sick and sore with disappointment--a form of trial which the young find harder to meet than the old, because they have not the experience of past disappointments to guide them, and do not know how the sting is often taken away, as we live to say and to feel, "It was far better as it was, though I could not see it at the time."
Mrs. Wilton"s cold proved a severe one, and she had to keep her bed for several days, and Salome did not find time to go over to the vicarage.
Mrs. Wilton needed a great deal of attention, and Dr. Wilton came every day to see her.
The holidays began. It was getting near Christmas, and there was an ever-increasing dread in Salome"s mind about the money. It seemed strange to her that Raymond did not appear to concern himself about it.
He was in excellent spirits, and altogether more agreeable than before the revelation about his debts. They hung like a fetter round his sister. And there was no news of "Under the Cedars," which had gone forth again to try its fate--this time with far different feelings, and with very little hope of success, instead of a great deal.
"Something must be said to Mr. Percival, Raymond, about the money. He said he would wait till Christmas, but not longer. Shall I write to him?"