A Rich Man's Relatives Volume I Part 11

When Judith made the acquaintance of the Rev, Dionysius Bunce, it was with something of the trepidation with which an explorer clambers up the side of an unknown volcano. "Could he be a Jesuit in disguise, as some people said?" she wondered, "or was he a well-meaning but uninstructed person who had lost his way, and now unwittingly was travelling the broad and flowery road, whose course is ever downward, and which leads, we all know whither?" What an achievement it would be could she lead back the wanderer, if indeed he were astray! Or if he were, as she had been taught to think, a wolf in sheep's clothing, what a privilege to unmask him and save true Protestantism from his insidious wiles!

But there was a single-minded earnestness in this young man which interested her from the first, and soon a.s.sured her he was no Jesuit; and he was so strangely willing to listen, to discuss, and even to admit that there might be much in her view of a question. This was new to Judith, whose guides. .h.i.therto, knowing all about everything, had tolerated no differences of opinion, and had shown her the path of orthodoxy laid down with square and compa.s.s from which no one must venture to diverge under pain of running up against some text of Scripture, set like a curbstone by the wayside, to the peril of unwary wheels meandering off the track. Dionysius was self-denying in his charity, too. He would give his dinner to the poor any day, instead of dining first and bestowing the leavings, as is more usual; and self-denial is a virtue which enthusiastic women delight in.

Enthusiasm is catching, and when it has caught, it makes scattered units run together and cohere like drops of quicksilver. Judith had caught it from him as had the members of his guilds; and they worked away with a happy feeling of earnestness which made things very pleasant, and over-rode all misgivings as to whether the dance were worth the candle, or at least as to the usefulness or wisdom of what they were about.

Judith was drawn by the fervour of St. Wittikind's curate into visiting his poor, and even decorating his sanctuary--a Low Church lady actually embroidering crosses and polemical symbols!--and yet in her new frame of mind it did not occur to her she had at first discussed with disapproval the use of papistical emblems. He had treated her view with every respect while differing from it, and then had talked round the point to the other side, and shown the amiable and pious feeling in which such things may be done when looked at the other way, till Judith, won by his toleration, could not but be tolerant too, and actually joined in the work.

It must have been this mixture of docility and independence which won on Dionysius, and recalled the sacred feelings with which in his boyhood he had regarded a venerable aunt and a saintly mother both deceased. He was a young man of a pre-eminently earnest cast of mind, which turned churchwards. He greatly admired and fain would have copied the saints and heroes of early times. Had the Church of Canada kept a wilderness for retiring into, like the Thebaeid of antiquity, he would have turned hermit; or had there been some real genuine pagans within its confines he would have been a missionary; but the Indian of the North-West, part horse-thief, part fur-trader, and altogether indifferent, offers no opening to aspirants to the rank of martyr or confessor; so he was forced to do like the rest, and stay at home.

He did what he could in St. Wittikind's, but it was discouraging work.

The men there were mostly wealthy, and all engrossed in business. They could not be induced to attend either daily matins or evensong, and though scrupulously polite when he approached them, were sure to have an important appointment somewhere, and forced to hurry away. The young ladies of course were ready, nay charmed, to attend matins or anything else, provided the hour was reasonable and there had been no ball overnight. Evensong he found unpopular with them, as interfering with "home duties," to wit afternoon tea; but they were eager for "Church work," at least in the shape of elaborate embroideries in gold thread and ecclesiastical patterns. If Dionysius would have interested himself in croquet or lawn tennis, or if he would have nourished a taste for music of a form less severe than Gregorians, he would have come to have influence; but the young man at that stage of his growth was too single-minded to have any mistress but Religion; and Mrs.

Silvertongue, his rector's worldly-minded wife, was heard to compare him to a s.h.a.ggy young Baptist broke loose from the desert, when Judith rushed to the rescue by declaring that he seemed to be a very sound Churchman indeed, and everybody laughed at both the ladies.

As years went on, the intimacy grew closer. Judith found it delightful to be busy and of importance--to be authorized to interfere with people too poor to dare resent it; telling them what they must do, scolding and physicking them as seemed best, and really being kind, though in a provoking way; consulting with a clergyman, talking and being listened to by a gentleman with interest and respect. It was so very long ago since any gentleman had shown interest in her conversation, or anything but weariness, and now this ordained pastor sometimes even consulted her. It made her feel that she was not yet all of the past, that there was something to live for still, and afforded some of the old time satisfaction in being minded by one of the stronger s.e.x, mixed at once with the reverence she owed a spiritual guide, and motherly interest in one so much her junior.

Dionysius, too, grew attached, though not precisely in the same way as if she had been twenty years younger. He was so good a young man, and so shy, that he failed, perhaps, to fill all the social uses of a curate, and grew somewhat out of intimacy with the younger ladies of his cure, who, though they saw him daily at matins, had learned not to look for his presence at garden parties and afternoon teas. Judith listened to him with so ardent an interest that he forgot his diffidence and reserve in conversing with her, and grew even eloquent at times, as he knew by the admiring reverence in her face; and then, in the gratification of appreciated merit, he would forget the disparity in their ages, and hail her as a sister spirit travelling the same heavenward road with himself. And so they continued to fare on together in amity and trust, the brother uttering words of wisdom, the sister accepting them humbly, and ignorant that they were leading her far from the truth according to St. Silas, where with her sister on Sundays she still went to church; for Judith's theological mind was of the emotional not the argumentative sort; though she loved to use the party catch-words, and believed she set great store by them, they conveyed to her no clearly defined ideas. Warmth was what she longed for, and friendship, and these she drew most readily from the curate of St. Wittikind.

The intimacy between the two might have gone on for ever unchanged, but at length Dionysius fell ill, and then the crisis in their friendship and their lives arrived. Judith called regularly at her friend's lodging to inquire for his health. By-and-by she had messages to carry him from his poor, she sat down by his bedside and conversed, and he declared himself so much refreshed by her visit that it would have been inhuman if she had not called again. She did call again, and again; and by-and-by she fell into the way of bringing jellies and little dainties to tempt the sick man's appet.i.te. One day as he was dining on a warm and greasy broth, misnamed beef tea, he laid it down scarce tasted on her entrance, and with manifest disrelish pushed it away. Judith peered and sniffed at the ungrateful preparation, and pressed him to try her jelly instead. "I know how beef-tea should be made, and I shall bring your landlady a supply, and then she will only have to warm a little from time to time as you want it."

The next day Judith arrived, carrying upstairs with difficulty a large stone jar in a basket. In the study, which was also the ante-chamber to the sick-room, she encountered the landlady coming out. Mrs.

McQuirter looked her full in the face, flushing indignantly and eyeing with a sniff and a toss of the head the jar which Judith was lifting with difficulty to the table.

"Good morning, Mrs. McQuirter," said Judith in her most conciliatory manner.

"Morning, miss," replied the other with a side-long glance which was far from friendly.

"How do you think Mr. Bunce is to-day, Mrs. McQuirter?"

"Guess you're going in, miss, and will see for yourself; so there's no good me telling you. You'd be sure to think you knew a deal better,"

and she sailed towards the door in her grandest style; then turning as if an idea had struck her, and as if fearing that she had not already been sufficiently provoking, she added:

"Say, miss! Is that sleigh as brought you and your basket still at the door? We've a deal of old crockery here as don't belong to us, and we'd be right glad to be rid on. Odd bowls, and plates, and chipped jelly gla.s.ses as don't match our sets, and make me feel kind o' mean when neighbours come in at dish-washing time with their 'Laws, Mrs.

McQuirter, now! and where in goodness did you ever pick up all them cracked dishes?' If you're agreeable, I will just get 'em all together and send them back by the carman before they get broke, for it 'ud cost more than the valy of all the messes they brought here to replace 'em with new."

Judith felt indignant, and coloured deeply, but as to reply in kind would have been to raise a dragon in the path to her friend's bedside, she restrained herself, and merely answered: "By all means, Mrs.

McQuirter. Kindly help me to lift this jar out of the basket, and then you can take it."

"And what may you be bringing here in your large crock, miss?" asked the landlady contemptuously. It seemed so impossible to irritate this old maid into the scolding match she thirsted for, that she was growing to despise as well as detest her.

"This is some beef-tea--a most excellent form in which to give nourishment to invalids like Mr. Bunce."

"Beef-tea, indeed! It's more like half-melted glue to look at. Ugh!"

"Quite natural in you to say so, Mrs. McQuirter. So few people know what beef-tea really should be like. It is the strength of the stock, which has jellied in cooling, that gives it the appearance you allude to. If you will just warm a cupful in a saucepan as it is wanted, without letting it boil, you will find it delicious. Try a little of it yourself, I know you will like it."

"Not me! And do you know, miss, how many large knuckles of beef I have boiled into tea in the last ten days? And scarce a drop has he let pa.s.s his lips! All clean gone to waste. I don't hold with beef-tea for Mr. Bunce no ways. He seems to hate it like pizen."

"I am not surprised at his having refused the decoction I saw sent up to him yesterday," said Judith with a relish. It seemed that notwithstanding her forbearance she was to have an innings, and she meant to use it in truly Christian fashion; not to exult openly, but to rub any blistering truth which came to hand well into the bone. "In making beef-tea all fat is carefully removed, and the meat is then placed in a jar with salt and cold water, near the fire, where it must stand for hours without boiling or even simmering. Now, really, Mrs.

McQuirter," and she dipped a teaspoon in the jar, "just taste how good it is! If you will warm a cup or so of it two or three times a day I am confident you will have no difficulty in getting Mr. Bunce to drink it."

"I think I see me trying it, miss! And it shows your a.s.surance to be evening me to the like. You are but a young lady yet, so to say, though you were born ten years before myself, I guess, as am the mother of six--leastways you are but an old maid, when all is said, and to take upon you to tell me how to make beef-tea! Me, as am the mother of six, and has buried a good husband. And many a bowl of my beef-tea the poor man drank, and him lying on the very feather bed where the parson lies now."

"And he died, Mrs. McQuirter? I am not surprised," said Miss Judith, thinking more of her argument and less of conciliation as the talk went on. "I observed the mixture yesterday when Mr. Bunce was unable to swallow it--a mere mixture of grease and warm water. Do you not know that at boiling point alb.u.men coagulates, and becomes insoluble, like the white of a hard-boiled egg? You would not expect the water you boil eggs in to be very nourishing? Your beef-tea is just like that, and if your late husband's dietary contained no more nourishing items, I cannot wonder that he did not survive."

"You owdacious old maid, you! How daar you? To insinniwate that me as has fairly slaved for my man and his children had a hand to his taking off. But I'll have the law of you, I will! and I take Mr. Bunce in there as must have heard ye, if he's awake yet, to witness that you said it. Me, the mother of six, to be insulted and put upon by an old thing as never was able to get married at all! And it shows the men's good sense, that same. And here you come with your broths and your messes after my poor young gentleman, as is laid on the broad of his back, and too sick to run away from you like the rest. And it's a disgrace to your sect, you are, miss! for all your silk, and your sealskin, and me but a poor lone widdy with a quiet lodger--to be coming here at all hours acourting a gentleman as don't want you--you that are old enough to be his grandmother and should be at home making your soul, for your change as must come before long, 'stead of running that shameless after the men to make them marry you."

"Oh!" was all that Judith could utter, throwing up her black gloved hands to the ceiling and then dropping in a heap on a stool in the corner and burying her face in her handkerchief. The wordy hurricane had fallen on the flower--an elderflower--and beaten it down and crushed it; and there she cowered in her confusion, convulsed with sobs, while the hurricane whistled but the more wildly in its triumph, and would fain have scattered and dispersed the ruin it had already made.

"And well may you hide your face after sich ongoings! and it don't become one as sets up for quality to have done the like; to be coming here a worritting of a poor young gentleman to marry her, as it's quite oncertain if he will see the light of next week! Or is it that you think you will make the people say he has treated you bad if he don't, after you coming here so often? But the people knows better, miss! and they say you're too old for him; and that you've been worritting around him that long, it's a fair amazement between his patience and your perseverance whatever comes of it. The very rector of the parish takes notice on it, and the rector's lady says its shameless the way you go on to make him marry you!"

"Silence, Mrs. McQuirter! with your bad and cruel tongue."

Mrs. McQuirter turned and stood aghast. The door of the sleeping-room had opened without noise, and framed in the opening stood Dionysius, like the picture of his canonized namesake stepped out of some Gothic window. One arm was thrust into the sleeve of a purple dressing-gown which was wrapped about him, leaving exposed his chest and other arm clothed in their snowwhite sleeping gear. Excitement caused by the altercation he must have overheard, and the exertion of rising had brought a feverish flush to his cheeks, burning into hectic spots amid the pallor of illness, and there was a l.u.s.tre in his eye, which could the world have seen, it would have reconsidered its judgment of his appearance as ordinary and commonplace.

"How dare you address my kind visitor--my friend--in the wicked words I have heard you use?"

Mrs. McQuirter was taken aback; but being now, to use her own phrase, "in for it," as having sinned beyond forgiveness, and sure to lose her lodger, it seemed best to retreat in good order, and show neither fear nor remorse.

"What a lone widdy like me says, Mr. Bunce, ain't of no 'count to a gentleman like you, sir, and I have always done my very best to make you comfortable, so my mind's easy. It's what the rector's lady says, and the quality in your church, and if you like to have them speaking that way of you and that--that female there, as is ashamed to look an honest woman in the face, 'taint no affairs of mine."

Judith felt as if she would gladly die, and sank from the stool to the carpet in a collapsed heap. If the ground would have opened and swallowed her, how thankful she would have been; but it did not, and she could but bury her face deeper in her lap.

"The lady you have presumed to scandalize so shamefully," the curate resumed, "has called here at my earnest request. If I could induce her to come more frequently she would be even more welcome; and in case you should still have any doubts, let me tell you plainly that if this lady would condescend to accept me, there is no one I would so gladly make my wife. Now! I have said all that can possibly interest you.

Leave the room instantly, and close the door."

The door closed behind Mrs. McQuirter and the two were left together.

Judith's confusion was too great to permit her to lift her head, but there was a tremor of expectancy in the heap of silk and sealskin into which she had collapsed, which made itself felt in the surrounding air. She had ceased to sob, and became all ear. Even the silk of her gown, though she was crouched so close that to draw breath without a movement seemed impossible, forbore to rustle.

Dionysius stood still in his white and purple like a Gothic saint, but less erect now that the impulse of battle had spent itself. He stood a committed man, yet a man who has not yet spoken, shivering on the brink of the proposal which he has bound himself to make. You remember the feeling, my married friend, when the words grew too unwieldy to articulate, and there was a pause. The leading up to the grand climax had been achieved, the lady and the universe were waiting, the very next word must be the word of fate, and you were not dreaming of drawing back, but still it lingered; and oh! the effort it took to launch that ill-formed sentence! Dionysius stood, and his strength was waning. Before him there was the prostrate heap of clothing which waited but made no sign, and the air around was still and listening.

The very fire forgot to blaze and crackle, and looked at him silently in red unblinking expectation. Only the clock on the mantelpiece went on unmoved, counting the fleeting seconds as they sped with dispa.s.sionate calmness. They were slipping away, and so too was his strength, and yet he had not spoken.

"Judith," he said at last with a great effort; but when he had so far found his voice the words came easier.

"Judith, my fr----Judith!" and he went and laid a tremulous hand upon her shoulder. "You have heard the words I spoke to Mrs. McQuirter.

Will you forgive me that I should thus have declared myself in the presence of a stranger before having spoken to yourself. Believe me, dear, it was from no disrespect, no lack of appreciation; but you know how we have been with each other. Our close fellowship in the higher life may have made us forgetful of mere earthly relations, but we must remedy that now. This foolish woman, with her idle tongue, has spoken words of more wisdom than she knew, and if we are to be companions on the heavenward way, is it not well that our earthly paths should be united?"

A thrill ran all through Judith's frame. He felt her tremble beneath his hand, but still she did not lift her head.

"Judith, my own dear, you must marry me! It is necessary for your good name. If that is not enough to move you, it is necessary for mine. I will not have them say that I could trifle with a woman's regard.

Though what care we, either you or I, for people's idle talk? Have we not been walking hand-in-hand, each helping and supporting the other to live aright? And has not our companionship been for good to both?

Let us marry, Judith! and silence babbling tongues. It will be best so. Look up, my friend, and answer. And yet, Judith, I must own it, I am poor. I have nothing but the stipend of my curacy; and when the poor, my brothers, have had their share, and my yearly bills are paid, there is nothing over. Not a cent. It will explain to you how I never came to think of marriage before."

Then Judith raised her face suffused with blushes, and lighted with a happy eager look which had not been seen there before in twenty years; and under the transfiguring influence of an unexpected joy, she looked for the moment almost beautiful. So, when the fogs and rain of autumn have spent their strength, and the frosts of winter still linger in their coming, there fall halcyon days, when nature, not yet stripped bare of flower and foliage, blooms out again in her Indian summer. The trees are hung with wreaths of gold-bright leaves, or garlanded with crimson, the sod renewed by rains after the summer scorchings, is green with a greenness unseen at other times; the garden is still cheered by marigolds and asters, larkspur and phlox, and the sky and the waters have a sunny blueness, shining but the brighter for the smoky grey which conceals the distance--the distance which harbours winter, tempest, rain, too soon to be let loose.

A tear was quivering on Judith's eyelash. A happy sob gave a tremor to her voice when she tried to speak.

"Dionysius. And do you mean it? Marry--marry me! But it is only your gentlemanly feeling which will not have me talked about. I dare not take you at your word, however--however much--I might----" and her colour deepened, and the drops rained down, and again she hid her face.

"Indeed, it is not so, Judith. You may indeed believe me--if only you will have it so. And we have been so much to each other--and now we must be nothing any more, unless you will consent to marry."