"I hope I have; I have tried."
"I am sure of that," he said, with sudden earnestness, then added more slowly, "I have not wound any wool; I have only enjoyed myself."
"Perhaps," said Ruth, turning her clear, frank gaze upon him, "that may have been the harder work of the two; it sometimes is."
His light, restless eyes, with the searching look in them which she had seen before, met hers, and then wandered away again to the level meadows and the woods and the faint sky.
"I think it was," he said at last; and both were silent. He reflected that his conversations with Ruth had a way of beginning in fun, becoming more serious, and ending in silence.
The bells rang out suddenly.
Charles thought they were full early.
"Mr. Alwynn will wake up now," said Ruth; "I will tell him you are here."
But before she had time to do more than rise from her chair, Mr. Alwynn came slowly round the yew hedge, and stopped suddenly in front of the chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell on Ruth.
Charles explained in a few words the purport of his visit, which had already explained itself quite sufficiently to Mr. Alwynn; and mentioning that he had waited in the hope of presently finding Mr.
Alwynn "disengaged" (at this Mr. Alwynn blushed a little), asked leave to walk as far as the church with him to consult him on a small matter, etc. It was a neat sentence, but it did not sound quite so well the third time. It had lost by the heathenish and vain repet.i.tions to which it had been subjected.
"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Alwynn, mollified, but still discomposed. "You should have waked me, Ruth;" turning reproachfully to his niece, whose conduct had never, in his eyes, fallen short of perfection till this moment. "Little nap after luncheon. Hardly asleep.
You should have waked me."
"There was Aunt f.a.n.n.y," said Ruth, feeling as if she had committed some grave sin.
"Ah-h!" said Mr. Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his wife"s return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going,"
as the chime ceased. "Are you coming to church this afternoon?"
Ruth replied that she was not, and Mr. Alwynn and Charles departed together, Charles ruefully remembering that he had still to ask advice on a subject the triviality of which would hardly allow of two opinions.
Ruth watched them walk away together, and then went back noiselessly into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Alwynn was sitting bolt upright, her feet upon the floor, her gown upon the sofa. Her astonished eyes were fixed upon the dwindling figures of Mr. Alwynn and Charles.
"Goodness, Ruth!" she exclaimed, "who is that white waistcoat walking with your uncle?"
Ruth explained.
"Dear me! And as likely as not he came to see the new screen. I know Mrs. Thursby tells everybody about it. And his own house so full of beautiful things too. Was ever anything so annoying! We should have had so much in common, for I hear his taste is quite--well, really quite out of the way. How contrary things are, Ruth! You awake and me asleep, when it might just as well have been the other way; but it is Sunday, my dear, so we must not complain. And now, as we have missed church, I will lie down again, and you shall read me that nice sermon, which I always like to hear when I can"t go to church; the one in the green book about Nabob"s vineyard."
CHAPTER XV.
Great philosophers and profound metaphysicians should by rights have lived at Slumberleigh. Those whose lines have fallen to them "ten miles from a lemon," have time to think, if so inclined.
Only elementary natures complain of their surroundings; and though at first Ruth had been impatient and depressed, after a time she found that, better than to live in an atmosphere of thought, was to be thrown entirely on her own resources, and to do her thinking for herself.
Some minds, of course, sink into inanition if an outward supply of nutriment is withheld. Others get up and begin to forage for themselves.
Happy are these--when the transition period is over--when, after a time, the first and worst mistakes have been made and suffered for, and the only teaching that profits anything at all, the bitter teaching of experience, has been laid to heart.
Such a nature was Ruth"s, upright, self-reliant, without the impetuosity and impulsiveness that so often accompanies an independent nature, but accustomed to look at everything through her own eyes, and to think, but not till now to act for herself.
She had been brought up by her grandmother to believe that before all things _n.o.blesse oblige_; to despise a dishonorable action, to have her feelings entirely under control, to be intimate with few, to be courteous to all. But to help others, to give up anything for them, to love an unfashionable or middle-cla.s.s neighbor, or to feel a personal interest in religion, except as a subject of conversation, had never found a place in Lady Deyncourt"s code, or consequently in Ruth"s, though, as was natural with a generous nature, the girl did many little kindnesses to those about her, and was personally unselfish, as those who live with self-centred people are bound to be if there is to be any semblance of peace in the house.
But now, new thoughts were stirring within her, were leavening her whole mind. All through these monotonous months she had watched the quiet routine of patient effort that went to make up the sum of Mr. Alwynn"s life. He was a shy man. He seldom spoke of religion out of the pulpit; but all through these long months he preached it without words to Ruth, as she had never heard it preached before, by
"The best portion of a good man"s life-- His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love."
It was the first time that she had come into close contact with a life spent for others, and its beauty appealed to her with a new force, and gradually but surely changed the current of her thoughts, until, as "we needs must love the highest when we see it," she unconsciously fell in love with self-sacrifice.
The opinions of most young persons, however loudly and injudiciously proclaimed, rarely do the possessors much harm, because they are not, as a rule, acted upon; but with some few people a change of views means a change of life. Ruth was on the edge of a greater change than she knew.
At first she had often regretted the chapter of her life that had been closed by Lady Deyncourt"s death. Now, she felt she could not go back to it, and find it all-sufficient as of old. It would need an added element, without which she began to see that any sort or condition of life is but a stony, dusty concern after all--an element which made even Mr. Alwynn"s colorless existence a contented and happy one.
Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her sister"s plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close.
"I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been very dull for you here. No little gayeties or enjoyments such as it is right young people should have. I wish we had had a picnic, or a garden-party, or something. Mabel Thursby cannot be happy without these things, and it is natural at your age that you should wish for them.
Your aunt and I lead very quiet lives. It suits us, but it is different for young people."
"Does it suit you?" asked Ruth, with sudden earnestness. "Do you really like it, or do you sometimes get tired of it?"
Mr. Alwynn looked a little alarmed and disconcerted. He never cared to talk about himself.
"I used to get tired," he said at last, with reluctance, "when I was younger. There were times when I foolishly expected more from life than--than, in fact, I quite got, my dear; and the result was, I fear I had a very discontented spirit--an unthankful, discontented spirit," he repeated, with sad retrospection.
Something in his tone touched Ruth to the quick.
"And now?"
"I am content now."
"Uncle John, tell me. How did you grow to feel content?"
He saw there were tears in her eyes.
"It took a long time," he said. "Anything that is worth knowing, Ruth, takes a long time to learn. I think I found in the end, my dear, that the only way was to put my whole heart into what I was doing," (Mr.
Alwynn"s voice was simple and earnest, as if he were imparting to Ruth a great discovery). "I had tried before, from time to time, of course, but never quite as hard as I might have done. That was where I failed. When I put myself on one side, and really settled down to do what I could for others, life became much simpler and happier."
He turned his grave, patient eyes to Ruth"s again. Was something troubling her?
"I have often thought since then," he went on, speaking more to himself than to her, "that we should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if we find ourselves refusing to put the whole of it into our work. When at last one does start, one feels it is such a pity one did not do it earlier in life. When I look at all the young faces growing up around me, I often hope, Ruth, they won"t waste as much time as I did."
How simple it seemed while she listened to him; how easy, how natural, this life for others!
She could not answer. One sentence of Mr. Alwynn"s was knocking at the door of her heart for admission; was drowning with its loud beating the sound of all the rest: