Red Pottage Part 14

"We came ourselves, mother," said Regie. "Frualein said we might, to show Auntie Hester our secrets."

"Well, never mind; run away now," said the poor mother, sitting down heavily in a low chair, "and take Boulou."

"You are tired out," said Hester, slipping on to her knees and unlacing her sister-in-law's brown boots.

Mrs. Gresley looked with a shade of compunction at the fragile kneeling figure, with its face crimsoned by the act of stooping and by the obduracy of the dust-ingrained boot-laces. But as she looked she noticed the flushed cheeks, and, being a diviner of spirits, wondered what Hester was ashamed of now.

As Hester rose her sister-in-law held out, with momentary hesitation, a thin paper bag, in which an oval form allowed its moist presence to be discerned by partial adhesion to its envelope.

"I saw you ate no luncheon, Hester, so I have brought you a little sole for supper."

Some of us poor Marthas spend all our existence, so to speak, in the kitchens of life. We never get so far as the drawing-room. Our conquests, our self-denials, are achieved through the medium of suet and lard and necks of mutton. We wrestle with the dripping, and rise on stepping-stones--not of our dead selves, but of sheep and oxen--to higher things.

The sole was a direct answer to prayer. Mrs. Gresley had been enabled to stifle her irritation against this delicate, whimsical, fine lady of a sister-in-law--laced in, too, we must not forget that--who, in Mrs.

Gresley's ideas, knew none of the real difficulties of life, its butcher's bills, its monthly nurses, its constant watchfulness over delicate children, its long, long strain at two ends which won't meet.

We must know but little of our fellow-creatures if the damp sole in the bag appears to us other than the outward and homely sign of an inward and spiritual conquest.

As such Hester saw it, and she kissed Mrs. Gresley and thanked her, and then ran, herself, to the kitchen with the peace offering, and came back with her sister-in-law's down-at-heel in-door shoes.

Mr. Gresley was stabling his bicycle in the hall as she crossed it. He was generally excessively jocose with his bicycle. He frequently said, "Whoa, Emma!" to it. But to-day he, too, was tired, and put Emma away in silence.

When Hester returned to the drawing-room Mrs. Gresley had recovered sufficiently to notice her surroundings. She was sitting with her tan-stockinged feet firmly planted on the carpet instead of listlessly outstretched, her eyes ominously fixed on the tea-table and seed-cake.

Hester's silly heart nudged her side like an accomplice.

"Who has been here to tea?" said Mrs. Gresley. "I met the Pratts and the Thursbys in Westhope."

Hester was frightened. We need to be in the presence of those who judge others by themselves.

"The Bishop was here and Rachel West," she said, coloring. "They left a few minutes ago."

"Well, of all unlucky things, that James and I should have been out.

James, do you hear that? The Bishop's been while we were away. And I do declare, Hester," looking again at the table, "you never so much as asked for the silver teapot."

"I never thought of it," said Hester, ruefully. It was almost impossible to her to alter the habit of a lifetime, and to remember to dash out and hurriedly change the daily routine if visitors were present. Lady Susan had always used her battered old silver teapot every day, and for the life of her Hester could not understand why there should be one kind one day and one kind another. She glanced resentfully at the little brown earthen-ware vessel which she had wielded so carefully half an hour ago.

Why did she never remember the Gresleys' wishes?

"Hester," said Mrs. Gresley, suddenly, taking new note of Hester's immaculate brown holland gown, which contrasted painfully with her own dilapidated pink shirt with hard collars and cuffs and imitation tie, tied for life in the shop where it was born. "You are so smart; I do believe you knew they were coming."

If there was one thing more than another which offended Hester, it was being told that she was _smart_.

"I trust I am never smart," she replied, not with any touch of the haughtiness that some ignorant persons believe to be the grand manner, but with a subtle change of tone and carriage which seemed instantly to remove her to an enormous distance from the other woman with her insinuation and tan stockings. Mrs. Gresley unconsciously drew in her feet. "I did not know when I dressed this morning that the Bishop was coming to-day."

"Then you _did_ know later that he was coming?"

"Yes, Rachel West wrote to tell me so this morning, but I did not open her letter at breakfast, and I was so vexed at being late for luncheon that I forgot to mention it then. I remembered as soon as James had started, and ran after him, but he was too far off to hear me call to him."

It cost Hester a good deal to give this explanation, as she was aware that the Bishop's visit had been to her and to her alone.

"Come, come," said Mr. Gresley, judicially, with the natural masculine abhorrence of a feminine skirmish.

"Don't go on making foolish excuses, Hester, which deceive no one; and you, Minna, don't criticise Hester's clothes. It is the Bishop's own fault for not writing his notes himself. He might have known that Miss West would have written to Hester instead of to me. I can't say I think Hester behaved kindly towards us in acting as she did, but I won't hear any more argument about it. I desire the subject should now _drop_."

The last words were uttered in the same tone in which Mr. Gresley closed morning service, and were felt to be final. He was not in reality greatly chagrined at missing the Bishop, whom he regarded with some of the suspicious distrust with which a certain cla.s.s of mind ever regards that which is superior to it. Hester left the room, closing the door gently behind her.

"James," said Mrs. Gresley, looking at her priest with tears of admiration in her eyes, "I shall never be good like you, so you need not expect it. How you can be so generous and patient with her I don't know.

It pa.s.ses me."

"We must learn to make allowances for each other," said Mr. Gresley, in his most affectionate cornet, drawing his tired, tearful little wife down beside him on the sofa. And he made some fresh tea for her, and waited on her, and she told him about the children's boots and the sole, and he told her about a remarkable speech he had made at the chapter meeting, and a feeling that had been borne in on him on the way home that he should shortly write something striking about Apostolic Succession. And they were happy together; for though he sometimes reproved her as a priest if she allowed herself to dwell on the probability of his being made a Bishop, he was very kind to her as a husband.

CHAPTER XV

"Beware of a silent dog and still water."

If you are travelling across Middleshire on the local line between Southminster and Westhope, after you have pa.s.sed Wilderleigh with its gray gables and park wall, close at hand you will perceive to nestle (at least, Mr. Gresley said it nestled) Warpington Vicarage; and perhaps, if you know where to look, you will catch a glimpse of Hester's narrow bedroom window under the roof. Half a mile farther on Warpington Towers, the gorgeous residence of the Pratts, bursts into view, with flag on turret flying, and two tightly bitted rustic bridges leaping high over the Drone. You cannot see all the lodges of Warpington Towers from the line, which is a source of some regret to Mr. Pratt; but if he happens to be travelling with you he will point out two of them, chaste stucco Gothic erections with church windows, and inform you that the three others are on the northern and eastern sides, vaguely indicating the directions of Scotland and Ireland.

And the Drone, kept in order on your left by the low line of the Slumberleigh hills, will follow you and leave you, leave you and return all the way to Westhope. You are getting out at Westhope, of course, if you are a Middleshire man; for Westhope is on the verge of Middleshire, and the train does not go any farther--at least, it only goes into one of the insignificant counties which jostle each other to hold on to Middleshire, unknown Saharas, where pa.s.sengers who oversleep themselves wake to find themselves cast away.

Westhope Abbey stands in its long, low meadows and level gardens, close to the little town, straggling red roof above red roof, up its steep cobbled streets.

Down the great central aisle you may walk on mossy stones between the high shafts of broken pillars under the sky. G.o.d's stars look down once more where the piety of man had for a time shut them out. Through the slender tracery of what was once the east window, instead of glazed saint and crucifix, you may see the little town clasping its hill.

The purple clematis and the small lizard-like leaf of the ivy have laid tender hands on all that is left of that stately house of prayer. The pigeons wheel round it, and nest in its niches. The soft, contented murmur of bird praise has replaced the noise of bitter human prayer. A thin wind-whipped gra.s.s holds the summit of the broken walls against all corners. The fallen stones, quaintly carved with angel and griffin, are going slowly back year by year, helped by the rain and hindered by the frost, slowly back through the sod to the generations of human hands that held and hewed them, and fell to dust below them hundreds of years ago. The spirit returns to the G.o.d who gave it, and the stone to the hand that fashioned it.

The adjoining monastery had been turned into a dwelling-house, without altering it externally, and it was here that Lord Newhaven loved to pa.s.s the summer months. Into its one long upper pa.s.sage all the many rooms opened, up white stone steps through arched doors, rooms which had once been monks' dormitories, abbots' cells, where Lady Newhaven and her guests now crimped their hair and slept under down quilts till noon.

It was this long pa.s.sage, with its interminable row of low latticed windows, that Lord Newhaven was turning into a depository for the old English weapons which he was slowly collecting. He was standing now gazing lovingly at them, drawing one finger slowly along an inlaid arquebus, when a yell from the garden made him turn and look out.

It was not a yell of anguish, and Lord Newhaven remained at the window leaning on his elbows and watching at his ease the little scene which was taking place below him.

On his bicycle on the smooth-shaven lawn was d.i.c.k, wheeling slowly in and out among the stone-edged flower-beds, an apricot in each broad palm, while he discoursed in a dispa.s.sionate manner to the two excited little boys who were making futile rushes for the apricots. The governess and Rachel were looking on. Rachel had arrived at Westhope the day before from Southminster. "Take your time, my son," said d.i.c.k, just eluding by a hair's-breadth a charge through a geranium-bed on the part of the eldest boy. "If you are such jolly little fools as to crack your little skulls on the sun-dial, I shall eat them both myself. Miss Turner says you may have them, so you've only got to take them. I can't keep on offering them all day long. My time"--(d.i.c.k ran his bicycle up a terrace, and, as soon as the boys were up, glided down again)--"my time is valuable. You don't want them?" A shrill disclaimer and a fresh onslaught. "Miss Turner, they thank you very much, but they don't care for apricots."

Half a second more and d.i.c.k skilfully parted from his bicycle and was charged by his two admirers and severely pummelled as high as they could reach. When they had been led away by Miss Turner, each biting an apricot and casting longing backward looks at their friend, Rachel and d.i.c.k wandered to the north side of the abbey and sat down there in the shade.

Lord Newhaven could still see them, could still note her amused face under her wide white hat. He was doing his best for d.i.c.k, and d.i.c.k was certainly having his chance, and making the most of it according to his lights.

"But, all the same, I don't think he has a chance," said Lord Newhaven to himself. "That woman, in spite of her frank manner and her self-possession, is afraid of men; not of being married for her money, but of man himself. And whatever else he may not be, d.i.c.k is a man.

It's the best chance she will ever get, so it is probable she won't take it."

Lord Newhaven sauntered back down the narrow black oak staircase to his own room on the ground-floor. He sat down at his writing-table and took out of his pocket a letter which he had evidently read before. He now read it slowly once more.

"Your last letter to me had been opened," wrote his brother from India, "or else it had not been properly closed. As you wrote on business, I wish you would be more careful."

"I will," said Lord Newhaven, and he wrote a short letter in his small, upright hand, closed the envelope, addressed and stamped it, and sauntered out through the low-arched door into the garden.