"I am so glad to see you, my dear," she said, kissing Elisabeth; "it is lonely in this big house all by myself."
"It is always rather lonely to be in state," Elisabeth replied, returning her salute. "I wonder if kings find it lonely all by themselves in pleasures and palaces. I expect they do, but they put up with the loneliness for the sake of the stateliness; and you could hardly find a statelier house than this to be lonely in, if you tried."
"Yes; it is a beautiful place," agreed Mrs. Herbert listlessly.
Elisabeth wondered what was wrong, but she did not ask; she knew that Mrs. Herbert would confide in her very soon. People very rarely were reserved with Elisabeth; she was often amazed at the rapidity with which they opened their inmost hearts to her. Probably this accounted in some measure for her slowness in understanding Christopher, who had made it a point of honour not to open his inmost heart to her.
"Don"t the woods look lovely?" she said cheerfully, pretending not to notice anything. "I can"t help seeing that the trees are beautiful with their gilt leaves, but it goes against my principles to own it, because I do so hate the autumn. I wish we could change our four seasons for two springs and two summers. I am so happy in the summer, and still happier in the spring looking forward to it; but I am wretched in the winter because I am cold, and still wretcheder in the autumn thinking that I"m going to be even colder."
"Yes; the woods are pretty--very pretty indeed."
"I am so glad you have come while the leaves are still on. I wanted you to see Felicia"s home at its very best; and, at its best, it is a home that any woman might be proud of."
Mrs. Herbert"s lip trembled. "It is indeed a most beautiful home, and I am sure Felicia has everything to make her happy."
"And she is happy, Mrs. Herbert; I don"t think I ever saw anybody so perfectly happy as Felicia is now. I"m afraid I could never be quite as satisfied with any impossible ideal of a husband as she is with Alan; I should want to quarrel with him just for the fun of the thing, and to find out his faults for the pleasure of correcting them. A man as faultless as Alan--I mean as faultless as Felicia considers Alan--would bore me; but he suits her down to the ground."
But even then Mrs. Herbert did not smile; instead of that her light blue eyes filled with tears. "Oh! my dear," she said, with a sob in her voice, "Felicia is ashamed of me."
For all her high spirits, Elisabeth generally recognised tragedy when she met it face to face; and she knew that she was meeting it now. So she spoke very gently--
"My dear Mrs. Herbert, whatever do you mean? I am sure you are not very strong, and so your nerves are out of joint, and make you imagine things."
"No, my love; it is no imagination on my part. I only wish it were. Who can know Felicia as well as her mother knows her--her mother who has worshipped her and toiled for her ever since she was a little baby? And I, who can read her through and through, feel that she is ashamed of me." And the tears overflowed, and rolled down Mrs. Herbert"s faded cheeks.
Elisabeth"s heart swelled with an immense pity, for her quick insight told her that Mrs. Herbert was not mistaken; but all she said was--
"I think you are making mountains out of molehills. Lots of girls lose their heads a bit when first they are married, and seem to regard marriage as a special invention and prerogative of their own, which ent.i.tles them to give themselves air _ad libitum_; but they soon grow out of it."
Mrs. Herbert shook her head sorrowfully; her tongue was loosed and she spake plain. "Oh! it isn"t like that with Felicia; I should think nothing of that. I remember when first I was married I thought that no unmarried woman knew anything, and that no married woman knew anything but myself; but, as you say, I soon grew out of that. Why, I was quite ready, after I had been married a couple of months, to teach my dear mother all about housekeeping; and finely she laughed at me for it. But Felicia doesn"t trouble to teach me anything; she thinks it isn"t worth while."
"Oh! I can not believe that Felicia is like that. You must be mistaken."
"Mistaken in my own child, whom I carried in my arms as a little baby?
No, my dear; there are some things about which mothers can never be mistaken, G.o.d help them! Do you think I did not understand when the carriage came round to-day to take her and Alan to return Lady Patchingham"s visit, and Felicia said, "Mamma won"t go with us to-day, Alan dear, because the wind is in the east, and it always gives her a cold to drive in an open carriage when the wind is in the east"? Oh! I saw plain enough that she didn"t want me to go with them to Lady Patchingham"s; but I only thanked her and said I would rather stay indoors, as it would be safer for me. When they had started I went out and looked at the weather-c.o.c.k for myself; it pointed southwest." And the big tears rolled down faster than ever.
Elisabeth did not know what to say; so she wisely said nothing, but took Mrs. Herbert"s hand in hers and stroked it.
"Perhaps, my dear, I did wrong in allowing Felicia to marry a man who is not a true believer, and this is my punishment."
"Oh! no, no, Mrs. Herbert; I don"t believe that G.o.d ever punishes for the sake of punishing. He has to train us, and the training hurts sometimes; but when it does, I think He minds even more than we do."
"Well, my love, I can not say; it is not for us to inquire into the counsels of the Almighty. But I did it for the best; I did, indeed. I did so want Felicia to be happy."
"I am sure you did."
"You see, all my life I had taken an inferior position socially, and the iron of it had entered into my soul. I daresay it was sinful of me, but I used to mind so dreadfully when my husband and I were always asked to second-rate parties, and introduced to second-rate people; and I longed and prayed that my darling Felicia should be spared the misery and the humiliation which I had had to undergo. You won"t understand it, Elisabeth. People in a good position never do; but to be alternately snubbed and patronized all one"s life, as I have been, makes social intercourse one long-drawn-out agony to a sensitive woman. So I prayed--how I prayed!--that my beautiful daughter should never suffer as I have done."
Elisabeth"s eyes filled with tears; and Mrs. Herbert, encouraged by her unspoken sympathy, proceeded--
"Grand people are so cruel, my dear. I daresay they don"t mean to be; but they are. And though I had borne it for myself, I felt I could not bear it for Felicia. I thought it would kill me to see fine ladies overlook her as they had so often overlooked me. So when Alan wanted to marry her, and make her into a fine lady herself, I was overwhelmed with joy; and I felt I no longer minded what I had gone through, now that I knew no one would ever dare to be rude to my beautiful daughter. Now I see I was wrong to set earthly blessings before spiritual ones; but I think you understand how I felt, Elisabeth."
"Yes, I understand; and G.o.d understands too."
"Then don"t you think He is punishing me, my dear?"
"No; I think He is training Felicia--and perhaps you too, dear Mrs.
Herbert."
"Oh! I wish I could think so. But you don"t know what Felicia has been to her father and me. She was such a beautiful baby that the people in the street used to stop the nurse to ask whose child she was; and when she grew older she never gave us a moment"s trouble or anxiety. Then we pinched and pared in order to be able to afford to send her to Fox How; and when her education was finished there wasn"t a more perfect lady in the land than our Felicia. Oh! I was proud of her, I can tell you. And now she is ashamed of me, her own mother! I can not help seeing that this is G.o.d"s punishment to me for letting her marry an unbeliever." And Mrs. Herbert covered her face with her hands and burst out into bitter sobs.
Elisabeth took the weeping form into her strong young arms. "My poor dear, you are doing Him an injustice, you are, indeed. I am sure He minds even more than you do that Felicia is still so ignorant and foolish, and He is training her in His own way. But He isn"t doing it to punish you, dear; believe me, He isn"t. Why, even the ordinary human beings who are fond of us want to cure our faults and not to punish them," she continued, as the memory of Christopher"s unfailing patience with her suddenly came into her mind, and she recalled how often she had hurt him, and how readily he had always forgiven her; "they are sorry when we do wrong, but they are even sorrier when we suffer for it. And do you think G.o.d loves us less than they do, and is quicker to punish and slower to forgive?"
So does the love of the brother whom we have seen help us in some measure to understand the love of the G.o.d Whom we have not seen; for which we owe the brother eternal thanks.
CHAPTER X
CHANGES
Why did you take all I said for certain When I so gleefully threw the glove?
Couldn"t you see that I made a curtain Out of my laughter to hide my love?
"My dear," said Miss Farringdon, when Elisabeth came down one morning to breakfast, "there is sad news to-day."
Miss Farringdon was never late in a morning. She regarded early rising as a virtue on a par with faith and charity; while to appear at the breakfast-table after the breakfast itself had already appeared thereon was, in her eyes, as the sin of witchcraft.
"What is the matter?" asked Elisabeth, somewhat breathlessly. She had run downstairs at full speed in order to enter the dining-room before the dishes, completing her toilet as she fled; and she had only beaten the bacon by a neck.
"Richard Smallwood has had a paralytic stroke. Christopher sent up word the first thing this morning."
"Oh! I am so sorry. Mr. Smallwood is such a dear old man, and used to be so kind to Christopher and me when we were little."
"I am very sorry, too, Elisabeth. I have known Richard Smallwood all my life, and he was a valued friend of my dear father"s, as well as being his right hand in all matters of business. Both my father and uncle thought very highly of Richard"s opinion, and considered that they owed much of their commercial success to his advice and a.s.sistance."
"Poor Christopher! I wonder if he will mind much?"
"Of course he will mind, my dear. What a strange child you are, and what peculiar things you say! Mr. Smallwood is Christopher"s only living relative, and when anything happens to him Christopher will be entirely alone in the world. It is sad for any one to be quite alone; and especially for young people, who have a natural craving for companionship and sympathy." Miss Farringdon sighed. She had spent most of her life in the wilderness and on the mountain-tops, and she knew how cold was the climate and how dreary the prospect there.
Elisabeth"s eyes filled with tears, and her heart swelled with a strange new feeling she had never felt before. For the first time in her life Christopher (unconsciously on his part) made a direct appeal to her pity, and her heart responded to the appeal. His perspective, from her point of view, was suddenly changed; he was no longer the kindly, easy-going comrade with whom she had laughed and quarrelled and made it up again ever since she could remember, and with whom she was on a footing of such familiar intimacy; instead, he had become a man standing in the shadow of a great sorrow, whose solitary grief commanded her respect and at the same time claimed her tenderness. All through breakfast, and the prayers which followed, Elisabeth"s thoughts ran on this new Christopher, who was so much more interesting and yet so much farther off than the old one. She wondered how he would look and what he would say when next she saw him; and she longed to see him again, and yet felt frightened at the thought of doing so. At prayers that morning Miss Farringdon read the lament of David over Saul and Jonathan; and while the words of undying pathos sounded in her ears, Elisabeth wondered whether Christopher would mourn as David did if his uncle were to die, and whether he would let her comfort him.
When prayers were over, Miss Farringdon bade Elisabeth accompany her to Mr. Smallwood"s; and all the way there the girl"s heart was beating so fast that it almost choked her, with mingled fear of and tenderness for this new Christopher who had taken the place of her old playmate. As they sat waiting for him in the oak-panelled dining-room, a fresh wave of pity swept over Elisabeth as she realized for the first time--though she had sat there over and over again--what a cheerless home this was in which to spend one"s childhood and youth, and how pluckily Christopher had always made the best of things, and had never confessed--even to her--what a dreary lot was his. Then he came downstairs; and as she heard his familiar footstep crossing the hall her heart beat faster than ever, and there was a mist before her eyes; but when he entered the room and shook hands, first with Miss Farringdon and then with her, she was quite surprised to see that he looked very much as he always looked, only his face was pale and his eyes heavy for want of sleep; and his smile was as kind as ever as it lighted upon her.
"It is very good of you to come to me so quickly," he said, addressing Miss Farringdon but looking at Elisabeth.