Faith And Unfaith Part 55

"Go on," says Georgie, encouragingly.

Miss Jennings, being thus entreated, takes heart, and commences the difficult injunction in excellent hope and spirits. All goes "merry as a marriage bell," until she comes to the words "Love your neighbor as yourself," when John Spriggs (who is not by nature a thoroughly bad boy, but whose evil hour is now full upon him) says audibly, and without any apparent desire to torment, "and paddle your own canoe."

There is a deadly pause, and then Amelia Jennings giggles out loud, and Spriggs follows suit, and, after a bit, the entire cla.s.s gives itself up to merriment.

Spriggs, instead of being contrite at this flagrant breach of discipline, is plainly elated with his victory. No smallest sign of shame disfigures his small rubicund countenance.

Georgie makes a praiseworthy effort to appear shocked, but, as her pretty cheeks are pink, and her eyes great with laughter, the praiseworthy effort rather falls through.

At this moment the door of the school-house is gently pushed open, and a new-comer appears on the threshold: it is Mr. Kennedy.

Going up unseen, he stands behind Georgie's chair, and having heard from the door-way all that has pa.s.sed, instantly bends over and hands the notorious Spriggs a shilling.

"Ah! you again?" says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., coloring warmly, merely from surprise. "You are like Sir Boyle Roche's bird: you can be in two places at the same moment. But it is wrong to give him money when he is bad. It is out of all keeping; and how shall I manage the children if you come here, anxious to reward vice and foster rebellion?"

She is laughing gayly now, and is looking almost her own bright little self again, when, lifting her eyes, she sees Dorian watching her.

Instantly her smile fades; and she returns his gaze fixedly, as though compelled to do it by some hidden instinct.

He has entered silently, not expecting to find any one before him but the vicar: yet the very first object his eyes meet is his wife, smiling, radiant, with Kennedy beside her. A strange pang contracts his heart, and a terrible amount of reproach pa.s.ses from his eyes to hers.

He is sad and dispirited, and full of melancholy. His whole life has proved a failure; yet in what way has he fallen short?

Kennedy, seeing Mrs. Brans...o...b..'s expression change, raises his head, and so becomes aware of her husband's presence. Being a wise young man in his own generation, he smiles genially upon Dorian, and, going forward, shakes his hand as though years of devotion have served to forge a link likely to bind them each to each forever.

"Charming day, isn't it?" he says, with a beatific smile. "Quite like summer."

"Rather more like January, I think," says Dorian, calmly, who is in his very worst mood. "First touch of winter, I should say." He laughs as he says this; but his laugh is as wintry as the day, and chills the hearer. Then he turns aside from his wife and her companion, and lays his hand upon the vicar's shoulder, who has just risen from his cla.s.s, having carried it successfully through the best part of Isaiah.

"My dear boy,--you?" says the vicar, quite pleased to see him. "But in bad time: the lesson is over, so you can learn nothing. I don't like to give them too much Scripture on a week-day. It has a disheartening effect, and----"

"I wish they could hear you," says Brans...o...b.., with a slight shrug.

"It is as well they cannot," says the vicar; "though I doubt if free speaking does much harm; and, really, perpetual grinding does destroy the genuine love for our grand old Bible that we should all feel deep down in our souls."

"Feeling has gone out of fashion," says Dorian, so distinctly that Georgie in the distance hears him, and winces a little.

"Well, it has," says the vicar. "There can't be a doubt of it, when one thinks of the alterations they have just made in that fine old Book. There are innovations from morning till night, and nothing gained by them. Surely, if we got to heaven up to this by the teaching of the Bible as it _was_, it serves no cause to alter a word here and there, or a sentence that was dear to us from our childhood. It brings us no nearer G.o.d, but only unsettles beliefs that, perhaps, up to this were sound enough. The times are not to be trusted."

"Is anything worthy of trust?" says Dorian, bitterly.

"I doubt I'm old-fashioned," says the dear vicar, with a deprecating smile. "I dare say change is good, and works wonders in many ways. We old people stick fast, and can't progress. I suppose I should be content to be put on one side."

"I hope you will be put on my side," says Dorian: "I should feel pretty safe then. Do you know, I have not been in this room for so many years that I am afraid to count them? When last here, it was during a holiday term; and I remember sitting beside you and thinking how awfully jolly glad I was to be well out of it, when other children were doing their lesson."

"Comfortable reflection, and therefore, as a rule, selfish," says the vicar, with a laugh.

"Was it selfish? I suppose so." His face clouds again: a sort of reckless defiance shadows it. "You must not expect much from me," he says, slowly: "they don't accredit me with any good nowadays."

"My dear fellow," says the vicar, quietly, "there is something wrong with you, or you would not so speak. I don't ask you now what it is: you shall tell me when and where you please. I only entreat you to believe that no one, knowing you as I do, could possibly think anything of you but what is kind and good and true."

Brans...o...b.. draws his breath quickly. His pale face flushes; and a gleam, that is surely born of tears, shines in his eyes. Clarissa, who, up to this, has been talking to some of the children, comes up to him at this moment and slips her hand through his arm. Is he not almost her brother?

Only his wife stands apart, and, with white lips and dry eyes and a most miserable heart, watches him without caring--or daring--to go near to him. She is silent, _distraite_, and has altogether forgotten the fact of Kennedy's existence (though he still stands close beside her),--a state of things that young gentleman hardly affects.

"Has your cla.s.s been too much for you? Or do other things--or people--distress you?" he asks, presently, in a meaning tone. "Because you have not uttered one word for quite five minutes."

"You have guessed correctly: some people do distress me--after a time," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., so pointedly that Kennedy takes the hint, and, shaking hands with her somewhat stiffly, disappears through the door-way.

"Oh, yes," the vicar is saying to Clarissa, in a glad tone, that even savors of triumph, "the Batesons have given up the Methodist chapel and have come back to me. They have forgiven about the bread, though they made a heavy struggle for it. Mrs. Redmond and I put our heads together and wondered what we should do, and if we couldn't buy anything there so as to make up for the loss of the daily loaves, because she would not consent to poison the children."

"And you would!" says Clarissa, reproachfully. "Oh, what a terrible admission!"

"We won't go into that, my dear Clarissa, if you please," says the vicar, contritely. "There are moments in every life that one regrets.

But the end of our cogitations was this: that we went down to the village,--Mrs. Redmond and I,--and, positively, for one bar of soap and a package of candles we bought them all back to their pew in church. You wouldn't have thought there was so much grace in soap and candles, would you?" says the vicar, with a curious gleam in his eyes that is half amus.e.m.e.nt, half contempt.

Even Georgie laughs a little at this, and comes nearer to them, and stands close beside Clarissa, as if shy and uncertain, and glad to have a sure partisan so near to her,--all which is only additional pain to Dorian, who notices every lightest word and action of the woman he has married.

"How did you get on to-day with your little people?" asks Mr. Redmond, taking notice of her at once,--something, too, in her downcast att.i.tude appealing to his sense of pity. "Was that boy of the Brixton's more than usually trying?"

"Well, he was bad enough," says Georgie, in a tone that implies she is rather letting off the unfortunate Brixton from future punishment.

"But I have known him worse; indeed, I think he improves."

"Indeed, I think a son of his father could never improve," says the vicar, with a melancholy sigh. "There isn't an ounce of brains in all that family. Long ago, when first I came here, Sam Brixton (the father of your pupil) bought a cow from a neighboring farmer called George Gilbert, and he named it John. I thought that an extraordinary name to call a cow, so I said to him one day, 'Sam, why on earth did you christen that poor inoffensive beast John?' 'John?' said he, somewhat indignantly, 'John? Why wouldn't I call him John, when I bought him from George Gilbert?' I didn't see his meaning then,--and, I confess, I haven't seen it since,--but I was afraid to expose my stupidity, so I held my tongue. Do you see it?" He turns to Dorian.

"Not much," says Dorian, with a faint laugh.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow."--_Hamlet._

"One, that was a woman, sir."--_Hamlet._

Across the autumn gra.s.s, that has browned beneath the scorching summer rays, and through the fitful sunshine, comes James Scrope.

Through the woods, under the dying beech-trees that lead to Gowran, he saunters slowly, thinking only of the girl beyond, who is not thinking of him at all, but of the man who, in his soul, Sir James believes utterly unworthy of her.

This thought so engrosses him, as he walks along, that he fails to hear Mrs. Brans...o...b.., until she is close beside him, and until she says, gently,--

"How d'ye do, Sir James?" At this his start is so visible that she laughs, and says, with a faint blush,--

"What! is my coming so light that one fails to hear it?"

To which he, recovering himself, makes ready response:

"So light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint."