"I haven"t. Of course you were angry with me when I seemed so disagreeable and unkind; any girl would have been," replied Chris, forgetting how very unreasonable her anger had seemed only five minutes ago. But five minutes can make such a difference--sometimes.
Elisabeth cheerfully caught at this straw of comfort; she was always ready to take a lenient view of her own shortcomings. If Christopher had been wise he would not have encouraged such leniency; but who is wise and in love at the same time?
"Of course it did seem rather unkind of you," she admitted; "you see, I thought you had thrown me over just for the sake of some tiresome business arrangement, and that you didn"t care about me and my disappointment a bit."
A little quiver crept into Christopher"s voice. "I think you might have known me better than that."
"Yes, I might; in fact, I ought to have done," agreed Elisabeth with some truth. "But why didn"t you tell me the real reason?"
"Because I thought it might worry and frighten you. Not that there really was anything to be frightened about," Christopher hastened to add; "but you might have imagined things, and been upset; you have such a tremendous imagination, you know."
"I"m afraid I have; and it sometimes imagines vain things at your expense, Chris dear."
"How did you find me out?" Chris asked.
"Alan told me about the cholera scare at Burlingham, and I guessed the rest."
"Then Alan was an a.s.s. What business had he to go frightening you, I should like to know, with a lot of fiction that is just trumped up to sell the papers?"
"But, Chris, I want you to understand how sorry I am that I was so vile to you. I really was vile, wasn"t I?" Elisabeth was the type of woman for whom the confessional will always have its fascinations.
"You were distinctly down on me, I must confess; but you needn"t worry about that now."
"And you quite forgive me?"
"As I said before, I"ve nothing to forgive. You were perfectly right to be annoyed with a man who appeared to be so careless and inconsiderate; but I"m glad you"ve found out that I wasn"t quite as selfish as you thought."
Elisabeth stroked his coat sleeve affectionately. "You are not selfish at all, Chris; you"re simply the nicest, thoughtfullest, most unselfish person in the world; and I"m utterly wretched because I was so unkind to you."
"Don"t be wretched, there"s a dear! Your wretchedness is the one thing I can"t and won"t stand; so please leave off at once."
To Christopher remorse for wrong done would always be an agony; he had yet to learn that to some temperaments, whereof Elisabeth"s was one, it partook of the nature of a luxury--the sort of luxury which tempts one to pay half a guinea to be allowed to swell up one"s eyes and redden one"s nose over imaginary woes in a London theatre.
"Did you mind very much when I was so cross?" Elisabeth asked thoughtfully.
Christopher was torn between a loyal wish to do homage to his idol and a laudable desire to save that idol pain. "Of course I minded pretty considerably; but why bother about that now?"
"Because it interests me immensely. I often think that your only fault is that you don"t mind things enough; and so, naturally, I want to find out how great your minding capacity is."
"I see. Your powers of scientific research are indeed remarkable; but did it never strike you that even vivisection might be carried too far--too far for the comfort of the vivisected, I mean; not for the enjoyment of the vivisector?"
"It is awfully good for people to feel things," persisted Elisabeth.
"Is it? Well, I suppose it is good--in fact, necessary--for some poor beggars to have their arms or legs cut off; but you can"t expect me to be consumed with envy of the same?"
"Please tell me how much you minded," Elisabeth coaxed.
"I can"t tell you; and I wouldn"t if I could. If I were a rabbit that had been cut into living pieces to satisfy the scientific yearnings of a learned professor, do you think I would leave behind me--for my executors to publish and make large fortunes thereby--confidential letters and private diaries accurately describing all the tortures I had endured, for the recreation of the reading public in general and the said professor in particular? Not I."
"I should. I should leave a full, true, and particular account of all that I had suffered, and exactly how much it hurt. It would interest the professor most tremendously."
Christopher shook his head. "Oh, dear! no; it wouldn"t."
"Why not?"
"Because I should have knocked his brains out long before that for having dared to hurt you at all."
CHAPTER XI
MISS FARRINGDON"S WILL
Time speeds on his relentless track, And, though we beg on bended knees, No prophet"s hand for us puts back The shadow ten degrees.
During the following winter Miss Farringdon gave unmistakable signs of that process known as "breaking-up." She had fought a good fight for many years, and the time was fast coming for her to lay down her arms and receive her reward. Elisabeth, with her usual light-heartedness, did not see the Shadow stealing nearer day by day; but Christopher was more accustomed to shadows than she was--his path had lain chiefly among them--and he knew what was coming, and longed pa.s.sionately and in vain to shield Elisabeth from the inevitable. He had played the part of Providence to her in one matter: he had stood between her and himself, and had prevented her from drinking of that mingled cup of sweetness and bitterness which men call Love, thinking that she would be a happier woman if she left untasted the only form of the beverage which he was able to offer her. And possibly he was right; that she would be also a better woman in consequence, was quite another and more doubtful side of the question. But now the part of Elisabeth"s Providence was no longer cast for Christopher to play; he might prevent Love with his sorrows from coming nigh her dwelling, but Death defied his protecting arm. It was good for Elisabeth to be afflicted, although Christopher would willingly have died to save her a moment"s pain; and it is a blessed thing for us after all that Perfect Wisdom and Almighty Power are one.
As usual Elisabeth was so busy straining her eyes after the ideal that the real escaped her notice; and it was therefore a great shock to her when her Cousin Maria went to sleep one night in a land whose stones are of iron, and awoke next morning in a country whose pavements are of gold. For a time the girl was completely stunned by the blow; and during that period Christopher was very good to her. Afterward--when he and she had drifted far apart--Elisabeth sometimes recalled Christopher"s sheltering care during the first dark days of her loneliness; and she never did so without remembering the words, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem"; they seemed to express all that he was to her just then.
When Maria Farringdon"s will was read, it was found that she had left to her cousin and adopted daughter, Elisabeth, an annuity of five hundred a year; also the income from the Osierfield and the Willows until such time as the real owner of these estates should be found. The rest of her property--together with the Osierfield and the Willows--she bequeathed upon trust for the eldest living son, if any, of her late cousin George Farringdon; and she appointed Richard Smallwood and his nephew to be her trustees and executors. The trustees were required to ascertain whether George Farringdon had left any son, and whether that son was still alive; but if, at the expiration of ten years from the death of the testator, no such son could be discovered, the whole of Miss Farringdon"s estate was to become the absolute property of Elisabeth. As since the making of this will Richard had lost his faculties, the whole responsibility of finding the lost heir and of looking after the temporary heiress devolved upon Christopher"s shoulders.
"And how is Mr. Bateson to-day?" asked Mrs. Hankey of Mr. Bateson"s better-half, one Sunday morning not long after Miss Farringdon"s death.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hankey, he is but middling, I"m sorry to say--very middling--very middling, indeed."
"That"s a bad hearing. But I"m not surprised; I felt sure as something was wrong when I didn"t see him in chapel this morning. I says to myself, when the first hymn was given out and him not there, "Eh, dear!"
I says, "I"m afraid there"s trouble in store for Mrs. Bateson." It seemed so strange to see you all alone in the pew, that for a minute or two it quite gave me the creeps. What"s amiss with him?"
"Rheumatism in the legs. He could hardly get out of bed this morning he was so stiff."
"Eh, dear! that"s a bad thing--and particularly at his time of life. I lost a beautiful hen only yesterday from rheumatism in the legs; one of the best sitters I ever had. You remember her?--the speckled one that I got from Tetleigh, four years ago come Michaelmas. But that"s the way in this world; the most missed are the first taken."
"I wonder if that"s Miss Elisabeth there," said Mrs. Bateson, catching sight of a dark-robed figure in the distance. "I notice she"s taken to go to church regular now Miss Farringdon isn"t here to look after her.
How true it is, "When the cat"s away the mice will play!"" Worship according to the methods of that branch of the Church Militant established in these kingdoms was regarded by Mrs. Bateson as a form of recreation--harmless, undoubtedly, but still recreation.
Mrs. Hankey shook her head. "No--that isn"t her; she can"t be out of church yet. They don"t go in till eleven." And she shook her head disapprovingly.
"Eleven"s too late, to my thinking," agreed Mrs. Bateson.
"So it is; you never spoke a truer word, Mrs. Bateson. Half-past ten is the Lord"s time--or so it used to be when I was a girl."
"And a very good time too! Gives you the chance of getting home and seeing to the dinner properly after chapel. At least, that is to say, if the minister leaves off when he"s finished, which is more than you can say of all of them; if he doesn"t, there"s a bit of a scrimmage to get the dinner cooked in time even now, unless you go out before the last hymn. And I never hold with that somehow; it seems like skimping the Lord"s material, as you may say."
"So it does. It looks as if the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches had choked the good seed in a body"s heart."
"In which case it looks what it is not," said Mrs. Bateson; "for nine times out of ten it means nothing worse than wanting to cook the potatoes, so as the master sha"n"t have no cause for grumbling, and to boil the rice so as it sha"n"t swell in the children"s insides. But that"s the way with things; folks never turn out to be as bad as you thought they were when you get to know their whys and their wherefores; and many a poor soul as is put down as worldly is really only anxious to make things pleasant for the master and the children."