"Yes," said Erica, "all my life. How I should like to confront Mr.
Cuthbert with a man like Hazeldine, or with dozens of others whom I could name!"
"Why?" asked Donovan.
"Because no one could really know such men without learning where the present systems want mending. If Hazeldine could be shut into Mr.
Cuthbert"s study for a few hours, and induced to tell the story of his life, I believe he would have the effect of the ancient mariner on the wedding guest. Only, the worst of it is, I"m afraid the very look of Mr.
Cuthbert would quite shut him up."
"Tell me about him," said Donovan.
"It is nothing at second hand," said Erica. "He is a shoe maker, as grand-looking a fellow as you ever saw, fond of reading, and very thoughtful, and with more quiet common sense than almost any I ever met.
He had been brought up to believe in verbal inspiration that had been thoroughly crammed down his throat; but no one had attempted to touch upon the contradictions, the thousand and one difficulties which of course he found directly he began to study the Bible. So he puzzled and puzzled, and got more and more dissatisfied, and never in church heard anything which explained his difficulties. At last one day in his workshop a man lent him a number of the "Idol Breaker," and in it was a paper by my father on the Atonement. It came to him like a great light in his darkness; he says he shall never forget the sudden conviction that the man who wrote that article understood every one of his difficulties, and would be able to clear them right away. The next Sunday he went to hear my father lecture. I believe it would make the veriest flint cry to hear his account of it, to see the look of reverent love that comes over his face when he says, "And there I found Mr.
Raeburn ready to answer all my difficulties, not holding one at arm"s length and talking big and patronizing for all he was so clever, but just like a mate." That man would die for my father any day hundreds of them would."
"I can well believe it," said Donovan. Then, after a pause, he added, "To induce Christians to take a fair, unprejudiced look at true secularism and to induce secularists to take a fair, unprejudiced view of true Christ-following, seems to me to be the great need of today."
"If one could!" said Erica, with a long-drawn sigh.
"If any one can, you can," he replied.
She looked up at him quickly, awed by the earnestness of his tone. Was she a young girl, conscious of so many faults and failings, conscious of being at the very threshold herself to dare even to attempt such a task?
Yet was it a question of daring to attempt? Was it not rather the bit of work mapped out for her, to undertake, perhaps to fail in, but still bravely to attempt? He heart throbbed with eager yearning, as the vision rose before her. What was mere personal pain? What was injustice? What was misunderstanding? Why, in such a cause she could endure anything.
"I would die to help on that!" she said in a low voice.
"Will you live for it?" asked Donovan, with his rare, beautiful smile.
"Live, and do something more than endure the Lady Carolines and Mr.
Cuthberts?"
Few things are more inspiriting that the realization that we are called to some special work which will need our highest faculties, our untiring exertions which will demand all that is good in us, and will make growth in good imperative. With the peacefulness of that country Sunday was interwoven a delicious perception that hard, beautiful work lay beyond.
Erica wandered about the shady Mountshire woods with Gladys and the children, and in the cool restfulness, in the stillness and beauty, got a firm hold on her lofty ideal, and rose about the petty vexations and small frictions which had been spoiling her life at Greyshot.
The manor grounds were always thrown open to the public on Sunday, and a band in connection with one of the temperance societies played on the lawn. Donovan had been much persecuted by the Sabbatarians for sanctioning this; but, though sorry to offend any one, he could not allow what he considered mistaken scruples to interfere with such a boon to the public. Crowds of workingmen and women came each week away from their densely packed homes into the pure country; the place was for the time given up to them, and they soon learned to love it, to look upon it as a property to which they had a real and recognized share.
Squire Ward, who owned the neighboring estate, grumbled a good deal at the intrusion of what he called the "rabble" into quiet Oakdene.
"That"s the worst of such men as Farrant," he used to say. "They begin by rushing to one extreme, and end by rushing to the other. Such a want of steady conservative balance! He"s a good man; but, poor fellow, he"ll never be like other people, never!"
Mrs. Ward was almost inclined to think that he had been less obnoxious in the old times. As a professed atheist, he could be shunned and ignored, but his uncomfortably practical Christianity had a way of shaking up the sleepy neighborhood, and the neighborhood did not at all like being shaken!
CHAPTER XXIX. Greyshot Again
To what purpose do you profess to believe in the unity of the human race, which is the necessary consequence of the unity of G.o.d, if you do not strive to verify it by destroying the arbitrary divisions and enmities that still separate the different tribes of humanity? Why do we talk of fraternity while we allow any of our brethren to be trampled on, degraded or despised? The earth is our workshop. We may not curse it, we are bound to sanctify it.
... We must strive to make of humanity one single family.
Mazzini
Erica"s appearance at Lady Caroline"s dinner party had caused a sort of storm in a tea cup; the small world of Greyshot was in a state of ferment, and poor Mrs. Fane-Smith suffered a good deal from the consciousness that she and her family were the subject of all the gossip of the place. Her little expedients had failed, and she began to reflect ruefully that perfect sincerity, plain honesty, would have been the best policy, after all. By the time that a week had pa.s.sed, however, censure and harsh comments began to give place to curiosity, and the result of this was that on Monday, which was Mrs. Fane-Smith"s "at home" day, Greyshot found it convenient to call in large numbers.
Erica, returning from Oakdene in the afternoon, found her work awaiting her. Her heart beat rather quickly when, on entering the drawing room she found it full of visitors; she half smiled to herself to find such an opportunity of beginning Donovan"s work. And very bravely she set about it. Those who had come from curiosity not unmixed with malice were won in spite of themselves; even Mr. Cuthbert, who bore down upon her with the full intention of making her uncomfortable, found himself checkmated as effectually as at Lady Caroline"s dinner table, though in a very different way.
"I think I saw you in church yesterday morning!" he remarked, by way of introducing a discordant subject.
"Yes," replied Erica, "I have been staying at Oakdene Manor, and had a most delicious time."
"Sharing Mr. Farrant"s philanthropic labors?" asked Mr. Cuthbert, with his unpleasant smile.
She laughed.
"No; I have been thoroughly lazy, and September is their holiday month, too. You would have been amused to see us the other evening all hard at work making paper frogs like so many children."
"Paper frogs!" said Mr. Cuthbert, with an intonation that suggested sarcasm.
"Yes; have you ever seen them?" asked Erica. "I don"t think many people know how to make them. Feltrino taught me when I was a little girl I"ll show you, if you like."
"Did you ever meet Feltrino?" asked Lady Caroline.
She knew very little of the Italian patriot. In his life time he had been despised and rejected, but he was now dead; his biography a well-written one was in all the circulating libraries, and even those who were far from agreeing with his political views, had learned something of the n.o.bility of his character. So there was both surprise and envy in Lady Caroline"s tone; she had a weakness for celebrities.
"I saw him once when I was seven years old," said Erica. "He knew my father, and one day we were overtaken by a tremendous shower, and happened to meet Feltrino, who made us come into his rooms and wait till it was over. And while they talked Italian politics I sat and watched him. He had the most wonderful eyes I ever saw, and presently, looking up and seeing me, he laughed and took me on his knee, saying that politics must not spoil my holiday, and that he would show me how to make j.a.panese frogs. Once, when he was imprisoned, and was hardly allowed to have any books, the making of those frogs kept him from going mad, he said."
While she spoke she had been deftly folding a sheet of paper, and several people were watching curiously. "Before very long, the frog was completed, and the imitation proved so clever that there was an unanimous chorus of approval and admiration. Every one wanted to learn how to make them; the Feltrino frogs became the topic of the afternoon, and Erica fairly conquered the malicious tongues. She was superintending Lady Caroline"s first attempt at a frog, when a familiar name made her look up.
"Mr. Cunningham Mr. Leslie Cunningham."
"I thought you were in Switzerland!" she exclaimed, as he crossed the room and shook hands with her.
"I never got further than Paris," he said, smiling. "My brother has gone instead, and I am going to follow your example and study the beauties of English scenery."
Perhaps Greyshot opinion was more conciliated by the long talk with Mr.
Leslie Cunningham, M.P., than even by the Feltrino frogs. To have Luke Raeburn"s daughter suddenly thrust into the midst of their select society at Lady Caroline"s dinner was one thing they had one and all shunned her. But when she proved to be, after all, clever and fascinating, and original, when they knew that she had sat on Feltrino"s knee as a little child, above all, when they saw that Leslie Cunningham was talking to her with mingled friendliness and deference, they veered round. Politically, they hated Sir Michael Cunningham, but in society they were pleased enough to meet him, and in Greyshot, naturally enough, his son was a "lion." Greyshot made much of him during his stay at Blachingbury, and he found it very convenient just then to be made much of.
Hardly a day of that week pa.s.sed in which he did not in some way meet Erica. He met her in the park with her aunt; he sat next to her at an evening concert; he went to the theater and watched her all through "Hamlet," and came to the Fane-Smith"s box between the acts. Yet, desperately as he was in love, he could not delude himself with the belief that she cared for him. She was always bright, talkative, frank, even friendly, but that was all. Yet her unlikeness to the monotonously same girls, whom he was in the habit of meeting, fascinated him more and more each day. She was to go back to town on the Monday; on Friday it so happened that she met Leslie Cunningham at a great flower show, and with perfect unconsciousness piqued him almost beyond endurance. Now at last he hoped to make her understand his admiration. They discussed "Hamlet,"
and he had just brought the conversation adroitly round to the love scene in the third act, when Erica suddenly dashed his hopes to the ground.
"Oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed, pausing before a beautiful exotic.
"Surely that must be an orchid?"
And the reluctant Leslie found the conversation drifting round to botany, about which he knew little and cared less. Once more his hopes were raised only to be frustrated. He was sitting besides Mrs.
Fane-Smith and Erica, and had managed to stem the tide of the botany.
The band was playing. Erica, half listening to the music and half attending to his talk, looked dreamily peaceful; surely now was the time! But all at once the clear eyes looked up with their perfectly wide-awake interest, and she exclaimed:
"I do wish the Farrants would come! They certainly meant to be here. I can"t make it out."
Leslie patiently talked about the member for Greyshot; but, just when he hoped he was quit of the subject, Erica gave an exclamation of such unfeigned delight that a consuming envy took possession of him.
"Oh, there he is! And Ralph and Dolly, too!"