Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 16

"To the t.i.tle and, I believe, to very considerable estates. His uncle leaves no male child."

"d.i.c.ky had not told me of this."

"--Because," explained the boy, "I didn't know what it meant, and I don't know now. Papa told me this morning that his uncle was dead, home in England; but I'd never heard of him, and it slipped out of my mind.

Can t.i.tles, as you call them, be pa.s.sed on like that? And if papa died, should I get one? Or would it go to Uncle Harry?"

"It would go to your uncle," said Mr. Silk. "Now run along to the house and tell Miss Quiney that I have found the pair of you. She was getting anxious."

d.i.c.ky hesitated. He knew that Ruth had a horror of his tutor.

"Yes, run," she commanded, reading his glance. "We follow at once."

The boy scrambled up the slope. Mr. Silk looked after him and chuckled.

"d.i.c.ky don't know yet that there are two sides to a blanket."

Getting no answer--for she had turned and was stooping to pick up her book--he went on, "Vyell had a letter, among others, from the widow, Lady Caroline; and that, between ourselves, is the cause of my errand.

She writes that she is taking a trip across here, to restore her nerves, and is bringing her daughter for company. The daughter, so near as I gather, is of an age near-about Vyell's. See?"

"I am afraid I do not." Ruth had recovered her book and her composure.

A rose-flush showed yet on either cheek, but it lay not within Mr.

Silk's competence to read so delicate a signal. "Will you explain?"

"Well"--he leered--"it did occur to me there might be some cleverness in the lady's search after consolation. Her daughter and our Collector being cousins--eh? At any rate, that's her first thought; to bring the girl--woman, if you prefer it--over and renew acquaintance with the heir. Must be excused if I misjudge her. Set it down to zeal for you, Miss Josselin."

"Willingly, Mr. Silk--if your zeal for me did not outrun my understanding."

"Yet you're clever. But you won't persuade me you don't see the difficulty. . . . Er--how shall I put it? The Collector--we'll have to get used to calling him Sir Oliver--is as cool under fire as any man this side of the Atlantic; fire of criticism, I mean. There's a limit though. He despises Colonial opinion--that's his pose; takes pride in despising it, encouraged by Langton. But England? his family?--that's another matter. An aunt--and that aunt an earl's daughter--If you'll believe me, Miss Josselin, I'm a man of family and know the sort.

They're incredible. And the younger lady, if I may remind you, called Diana; which--er--may warn us that she, too, is particular about these things." Here Mr. Silk, having at length found his retort upon her similitude of the satyr, licked his lips.

Ruth drew up and stood tapping her foot. "May I beg to be told exactly what has happened, sir?"

"What has happened? What has happened is that Vyell is placing Sabines at the disposal of his aunt and cousin for so long as they may honour Boston with their presence. He sends the Quiney word to pack and hold herself in readiness for a flitting. Whither? I cannot say; nor can he yet have found the temporary nest for you. But doubtless you will hear in due course. May I offer you my arm?"

"I thank you, no. Indeed we will part here, unless you have further business in the house--and I gather that your errand there is discharged. . . . One question--Captain Vyell sent his message by a letter, which Miss Quiney no doubt will show to me. Did he further commission you with a verbal one? You had better," she added quietly, "be particular about telling me the truth; for I may question him, and for a discovered falsehood he is capable of beating you."

"What I have said," stammered the clergyman, "was--er--entirely on my own responsibility. I--I conceived you would find it sympathetic-- helpful perhaps. Believe me, Miss Josselin, I have considerable feeling for you and your--er--position."

"I thank you." She dismissed him with a gentle curtsy. "I feel almost sure you have been doing your best."

Chapter III.

MR. HICHENS.

She turned and walked slowly back to the house. Once within the front door and out of his sight, she was tempted to rush across the hall and up the stairs to her own room. She was indeed gathering up her skirts for the run, when in the hall she almost collided with the Reverend Malachi Hichens, who stood there with his nose buried in a vase of roses, while behind his back his hands interwove themselves and pulled each at the other's bony knuckles.

"Ah!" He faced about with a stiff bow, and a glance up at the tall clock. "You are late this morning, Miss Josselin. But I dare say my good brother Silk has been detaining you in talk?"

"On the contrary," answered Ruth, "his talk has rather hastened me than not."

They entered the library. "Miss Quiney tells me," he said, "that our studies are to suffer a brief interruption; that you are about to take a country holiday. You antic.i.p.ate it with delight, I doubt not?"

"Have I been, then, so listless a scholar?" she asked, smiling.

"No," he answered. "I have never looked on you as eager for praise, or I should have told you that your progress--in Greek particularly--has been exceptional; for a young lady, I might almost say, abnormal."

"I am grateful to you at any rate for saying it now. It happens that just now I wanted something to give me back a little self-respect."

"But I do not suppose you so abnormal as, at your age, to undervalue a holiday," he continued. "It is only we elders who live haunted by the words 'Work while ye have the light.' If youth extract any moral from the brevity of life it is rather the pagan warning, _Collige rosas_."

Her eyes rested on him, still smiling, but behind her smile she was wondering. Did he--this dry, sallow old man, with the knock-knees and ungainly frame, the soiled bands, the black suit, threadbare, hideous in cut, hideous in itself (Ruth had a child's horror of black)--did he speak thus out of knowledge, or was he but using phrases of convention?

Ruth feared and distrusted all religious folk--clergymen above all; yet instinct had told her at the first that Mr. Hichens was honest, even good in an unlovely fashion; and by many small daily tests she had proved this. Was it possible that Mr. Hichens had ever gathered roses in his youth? Was it possible that, expecting Heaven and professing a spiritual joy in redemption, a man could symbolise his soul's state by wearing these dingy weeds? Had he no sense of congruity, or was all religion so false in grain that it perverted not only the believer's judgment but his very senses, turning white into black for him, and making beauty and ugliness change places?

"For my part," said Mr. Hichens wistfully, "I regret the interruption; for I had even played with the thought of teaching you some Hebrew."

He paused and sighed. "But doubtless the Almighty denies us these small pleasures for our good. . . . Shall we begin with our repet.i.tion?

I forget the number of the Psalm?"

"The forty-fifth," said Ruth, finding the place and handing him the book. "_My heart is inditing of a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made unto the king_." . . . She recited the opening lines very quietly, but her voice lifted at the third verse. Beautiful words always affected her poignantly, but the language of the Bible more poignantly than any other, because her own unforgettable injury had been derived from it and sanctioned by it, and because at the base of things our enemies in this world are dearer to us than friends. They cling closer.

Yet,--and paradox though it be--the Bible was the more alive to her because, on Mr. Langton's hint, she had taken it like any other book, ignoring the Genevan division of verses and the sophisticated chapter headings. Thus studied, it had revenged itself by taking possession of her. It held all the fascination of the East, and little by little unlocked it--Abraham at his tent door, Rebekah by the fountain, her own namesake Ruth in the dim threshing-floor of Boaz, King Saul wrestling with his dark hour, the last loathly years of David, Jezebel at the window, Job on his dung-heap, Athaliah murdering the seed royal, and again Athaliah dragged forth by the stable-way and calling _Treason!

Treason!_ . . . Bedouins with strings of camels, scent of camels by the city gate, clashing of distant cymbals, hush of fear--plot and counterplot in the apartments of the women--outcries, l.u.s.ts, hates-- blood on the temple steps--blood oozing, welling across the gold--blood caking in spots upon illimitable desert sands--watchmen by the wall--in the dark streets a woman with bleeding back and feet seeking and calling, "_I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved_--"

"_Hearken, O daughter, and consider, incline thine ear_"--Ruth's voice swelled up on a full note: "_forget also thine own people and thy father's house._"

"_So shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty: for he is thy lord, and worship thou him_."

"Excuse me--'for he is thy Lord G.o.d,'" corrected Mr. Hichens. . . .

"We are taking the Prayer Book's version."

"I changed to the Bible version on purpose," Ruth confessed; "and 'lord' ought to have a small 'l'. The Prayer Book makes nonsense of it. They are bringing in the bride, the princess, to her lord.

_She is all glorious within, her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework: the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company_--"

"The Hebrew," said Mr. Hichens, blinking over his own text which he had hastily consulted, "would seem to bear you out, or at least to leave the question open. But, after all, it matters little, since, as the chapter heading explains in the Authorized Version, the supposed bride is the Church, and the bridegroom, therefore, necessarily Our Lord."

"Do you think that, or anything like that, was in the mind of the man who wrote it?" asked Ruth, rebellious. "The t.i.tle says, 'To the Chief Musician upon Shoshannim'--whatever that may mean."

"It means that it was to be sung to a tune called Shoshannim or Lilies-- doubtless a well-known one."

"It has a beautiful name, then; and he calls it too 'Maschil, A song of Loves.'"

"Historically no doubt you are right," agreed Mr. Hichens. "The song is undoubtedly later than David, and was written as a Prothalamion for a royal bride. It is, as you say, exceedingly beautiful; but perhaps we had best confine our attention to its allegorical side. You probably do not guess who the bride was?"

"No," Ruth admitted. "Who was she?"