"Miss Elisabeth"s mourning is handsome, I don"t deny," said Mrs. Hankey, reverting to a more interesting subject than false judgments in the abstract; "but she don"t look well in it--those pale folks never do justice to good mourning, in my opinion. It seems almost a pity to waste it on them."
"Oh! I don"t hold with you there. I think I never saw anybody look more genteel than Miss Elisabeth does now, bless her! And the jet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on her Sunday frock is something beautiful."
"Eh! there"s nothing like a bit of jet for setting off c.r.a.pe and bringing the full meaning out of it, as you may say," replied Mrs.
Hankey, in mollified tones. "I don"t think as you can do full justice to c.r.a.pe till you put some jet again" it. It"s wonderful how a bit of good mourning helps folks to bear their sorrows; and for sure they want it in a world so full of care as this."
"They do; there"s no doubt about that. But I can"t help wishing as Miss Elisabeth had got some bugles on that best dress of hers; there"s nothing quite comes up to bugles, to my mind."
"There ain"t; they give such a finish, as one may say, being so rich-looking. But for my part I think Miss Elisabeth has been a bit short with the c.r.a.pe, considering that Miss Farringdon was father and mother and what-not to her. Now supposing she"d had a c.r.a.pe mantle with handsome bugle fringe for Sundays; that"s what I should have called paying proper respect to the departed; instead of a short jacket with ordinary braid on it, that you might wear for a great-uncle as hadn"t left you a penny."
"Well, Mrs. Hankey, folks may do what they like with their own, and it"s not for such as us to sit in judgment on our betters; but I don"t think as Miss Farringdon"s will gave her any claim to a c.r.a.pe mantle with a bugle fringe; I don"t indeed."
"Well, to be sure, but you do speak strong on the subject!"
"And I feel strong, too," replied Mrs. Bateson, waxing more indignant.
"There"s dear Miss Elisabeth has been like an own daughter to Miss Farringdon ever since she was a baby, and yet Miss Farringdon leaves her fortune over Miss Elisabeth"s head to some good-for-nothing young man that n.o.body knows for certain ever was born. I"ve no patience with such ways!"
"It does seem a bit hard on Miss Elisabeth, I must admit, her being Miss Farringdon"s adopted child. But, as I"ve said before, there"s nothing like a will for making a thorough to-do."
"It"s having been engaged to Mr. George all them years ago that set her up to it. It"s wonderful how folks often turn to their old lovers when it comes to will time."
Mrs. Hankey looked incredulous. "Well, that beats me, I"m fain to confess. I know if the Lord had seen fit to stop me from keeping company with Hankey, not a bra.s.s farthing would he ever have had from me. I"d sooner have left my savings to charity."
"Don"t say that, Mrs. Hankey; it always seems so lonely to leave money to charity, as if you was nothing better than a foundling. But how did you enjoy the sermon this morning?"
"I thought that part about the punishment of the wicked was something beautiful. But, to tell you the truth, I"ve lost all pleasure in Mr.
Sneyd"s discourses since I heard as he wished to introduce the reading of the Commandments into East Lane Chapel. What"s the good of fine preaching, if a minister"s private life isn"t up to his sermon, I should like to know?"
Mrs. Bateson, however, had broad views on some matters. "I don"t see much harm in reading the Commandments," she said.
Mrs. Hankey looked shocked at her friend"s laxity. "It is the thin end of the wedge, Mrs. Bateson, and you ought to know it. Mark my words, it"s forms and ceremonies such as this that tempts our young folks away from the chapels to the churches, like Miss Elisabeth and Master Christopher there. They didn"t read no Commandments in our chapel as long as Miss Farringdon was alive; I should have liked to see the minister as would have dared to suggest such a thing. She wouldn"t stand Ritualism, poor Miss Farringdon wouldn"t."
"Here we are at home," said Mrs. Bateson, stopping at her own door; "I must go in and see how the master"s getting on."
"And I hope you"ll find him better, Mrs. Bateson, I only hope so; but you never know how things are going to turn out when folks begin to sicken--especially at Mr. Bateson"s age. And he hasn"t been looking himself for a long time. I says to Hankey only a few weeks ago, "Hankey," says I, "it seems to me as if the Lord was thinking on Mr.
Bateson; I hope I may be mistaken, but that"s how it appears to me." And so it did."
On the afternoon of that very Sunday Christopher took Elisabeth for a walk in Badgering Woods. The winter was departing, and a faint pink flush on the bare trees heralded the coming of spring; and Elisabeth, being made of material which is warranted not to fret for long, began to feel that life was not altogether dark, and that it was just possible she might--at the end of many years--actually enjoy things again.
Further, Christopher suited her perfectly--how perfectly she did not know as yet--and she spent much time with him just then.
Those of us who have ever guessed the acrostics in a weekly paper, have learned that sometimes we find a solution to one of the lights, and say, "This will do, if nothing better turns up before post-time on Monday"; and at other times we chance upon an answer which we know at once, without further research, to be indisputably the right one. It is so with other things than acrostics: there are friends whom we feel will do very well for us if n.o.body--or until somebody--better turns up; and there are others whom we know to be just the right people for the particular needs of our souls at that time. They are the right answers to the questions which have been perplexing us--the correct solutions to the problems over which we have been puzzling our brains. So it was with Elisabeth: Christopher was the correct answer to life"s current acrostic; and as long as she was with Christopher she was content.
"Don"t you get very tired of people who have never found the fourth dimension?" she asked him, as they sat upon a stile in Badgering Woods.
"What do you mean by the fourth dimension? There are length and breadth and thickness, and what comes next?"
Christopher was pleased to find Elisabeth facing life"s abstract problems again; it proved that she was no longer overpowered by its concrete ones.
"I don"t know what its name is," she replied, looking dreamily through the leafless trees; "perhaps eternity would do as well as any other. But I mean the dimension which comes after length and breadth and thickness, and beyond them, and all round them, and which makes them seem quite different, and much less important."
"I think I know what you are driving at. You mean a new way of looking at things and of measuring them--a way which makes things which ordinary people call small, large; and things which ordinary people call large, small."
"Yes. People who have never been in the fourth dimension bore me, do you know? I daresay it would bore squares to talk to straight lines, and cubes to talk to squares; there would be so many things the one would understand and the other wouldn"t. The line wouldn"t know what the square meant by the word _across_, and the square wouldn"t know what the cube meant by the word _above_; and in the same way the three-dimension people don"t know what we are talking about when we use such words as _religion_ and _art_ and _love_."
"They think we are talking about going regularly to church, and supporting picture-galleries, and making brilliant matches," suggested Christopher.
"Yes; that"s exactly what they do think; and it makes talking to them so difficult, and so dull."
"When you use the word _happiness_ they imagine you are referring to an income of four or five thousand a year; and by _success_ they mean the permission to stand in the backwater of a fashionable London evening party, looking at the mighty and n.o.ble, and pretending afterward that they have spoken to the same."
"They don"t speak our language or think our thoughts," Elisabeth said; "and the music of their whole lives is of a different order from that of the lives of the fourth-dimension people."
"Distinctly so; all the difference between a Sonata of Beethoven and a song out of a pantomime."
"I haven"t much patience with the three-dimension people; have you?"
asked Elisabeth.
"No--I"m afraid not; but I"ve a good deal of pity for them. They miss so much. I always fancy that people who call pictures pretty and music sweet must have a dreary time of it all round. But we"d better be getting on, don"t you think? It is rather chilly sitting out-of-doors, and I don"t want you to catch cold. You don"t feel cold, do you?" And Christopher"s face grew quite anxious.
"Not at all."
"You don"t seem to me to have enough furbelows and things round your neck to keep you warm," continued he; "let me tie it up tighter, somehow."
And while he turned up the fur collar of her coat and hooked the highest hook and eye, Elisabeth thought how nice it was to be petted and taken care of; and as she walked homeward by Christopher"s side, she felt like a good little girl again. Even reigning monarchs now and then like to have their ermine tucked round them, and to be patted on their crowns by a protecting hand.
As the weeks rolled on and the spring drew nearer, Elisabeth gradually took up the thread of human interest again. Fortunately for her she was very busy with plans for the benefit of the work-people at the Osierfield. She started a dispensary; she opened an inst.i.tute; she inaugurated courses of lectures and entertainments for keeping the young men out of the public-houses in the evenings; she gave to the Wesleyan Conference a House of Rest--a sweet little house, looking over the fields toward the sunset--where tired ministers might come and live at ease for a time to regain health and strength; and in Sedgehill Church she put up a beautiful east window to the memory of Maria Farringdon, and for a sign-post to all such pilgrims as were in need of one, as the east window in St. Peter"s had once been a sign-post to herself showing her the way to Zion.
In all these undertakings Christopher was her right hand; and while Elisabeth planned and paid for them, he carefully carried them out--the hardest part of the business, and the least effective one.
When Elisabeth had set afoot all these improvements for the benefit of her work-people, she turned her attention to the improving of herself; and she informed Christopher that she had decided to go up to London, and fulfil the desire of her heart by studying art at the Slade School.
"But you can not live by yourself in London," Christopher objected; "you are all right here, because you have the Tremaines and other people to look after you; but in town you would be terribly lonely; and, besides, I don"t approve of girls living in London by themselves."
"I sha"n"t be by myself. There is a house where some of the Slade pupils live together, and I shall go there for every term, and come down here for the vacation. It will be just like going back to school again. I shall adore it!"
Christopher did not like the idea at all. "Are you sure you will be comfortable, and that they will take proper care of you?"
"Of course they will. Grace Cobham will be there at the same time--an old schoolfellow to whom I used to be devoted at Fox How--and she and I will chum together. I haven"t seen her for ages, as she has been scouring Europe with her family; but now she has settled down in England, and is going in for art."
Christopher still looked doubtful. "It would make me miserable to think that you weren"t properly looked after and taken care of, Elisabeth."
"Well, I shall be. And if I"m not, I shall still have you to fall back upon."
"But you won"t have me to fall back upon; that is just the point. If you would, I shouldn"t worry about you so much; but it cuts me to the heart to leave you among strangers. Still, the Tremaines will be here, and I shall ask them to look after you; and I daresay they will do so all right, though not as efficiently as I should."
Elisabeth grew rather pale; that there would ever come a day when Christopher would not be there to fall back upon was a contingency which until now had never occurred to her. "Whatever are you talking about, Chris? Why sha"n"t you be here when I go up to the Slade?"
"Because I am going to Australia."