Salome Part 21

Atherton had said in his sermon on the Sunday before. He had been speaking of those who sought themselves and their own pleasure, and had quoted the well-known words of Thomas a Kempis:--"My son, if thou seekest thyself, thou shalt find thyself, but to thy own punishment."

The thing eagerly coveted and sought after, nay, even prayed for, is granted; but it comes after all in the guise of a foe rather than of a friend.

"I am not seeking myself," Salome thought. "I am trying to serve Raymond, and to save mother from pain; but, oh! I wish I could have had Reginald with me when I go up the road. He knows already something, I am certain, from the Percival who is at the college; but I could not break my word to Raymond, I must go through with it now."

Happily for Salome, Kate and one of her little sisters came to see them soon after dinner on this bright winter day, and Salome and Hans and Carl walked towards Roxburgh with them. Kate was as good-tempered and kind as ever, and infected Salome with her bright spirits.

Reginald was sure to stand marvellously well in the examination, Digby said so. Ralph and Cyril were going to sing at the school concert. It was such a pity Salome could not be there. Everybody always went, and it was such fun. Kate wanted Salome to go round by the college ground, where a football match was on; but as the sun set and the winter's fog gathered, Salome knew her hour was drawing near, towards which she was looking with nervous dread.

The boys ran into the house, and clattered upstairs as soon as they reached home. Salome lingered in the porch a moment irresolute; then started off past the shop, where the gas was already lighted, up the road towards the quarry. The hedges were higher as she advanced, and, indeed, the road was cut out of the rock.

It was dusk, almost dark, and Salome felt lonely and frightened. She had not long to wait in suspense. A tall figure advanced towards her from the overhanging rocks of the old quarry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A tall figure advanced towards her." _Page 176._]

"Miss Wilton?" asked a voice, so pleasant and gentleman-like in its tones that Salome was rea.s.sured. "I was coming to call on Mrs. Wilton. I am Philip Percival. At your brother's entreaty, and not wishing to press too hardly on him, I consented to see you first, as he tells me his mother is in such delicate health that excitement might hurt her. Is that true?"

"Yes, quite true," Salome said; but she was shivering with nervousness, and her voice trembled.

"We had better walk up or down the road," Philip Percival said; "you will take cold. It is a most unpleasant business, Miss Wilton; but I honestly think the only hope of saving your brother is to deal openly with you. He has deceived me so grossly, and you cannot wonder that I am indignant. He represented to me that his mother and sisters were in great difficulty, and that if I lent him the money for a month he could repay it with interest. It was foolish of me to be taken in. I _was_ completely taken in. He has a winning, plausible manner; and he is treated so roughly by some of the clerks who resent the airs he gives himself, that I tried the more to befriend him. I have had a nice reward!"

"I am so sorry," Salome said. "I want to beg you to wait a little while, and perhaps I shall be able to pay you. Mother has no money, I know, just now; and it is not only on that account I do not like to ask her, but because it will grieve her so much to hear of Raymond's deceit. She loves him so dearly, and it would be such a shock to her. Do you think you _could_ wait?"

Philip Percival looked down on the little slight figure in its sombre dress with very different feelings to what he had expected. "My eldest sister will make it all right, if you will see her," had conveyed to his mind the idea of a woman of mature years--not of a young girl, who ought to have been sheltered by Raymond's care, not exposed by him to this painful revelation.

"Could you wait?" Salome repeated; and as she spoke two people coming down the road pa.s.sed her and Philip Percival.

"Salome, is that you?" It was Mrs. Atherton's voice. "Good-night;" and then, as Salome scarcely responded to the greeting, Mr. and Mrs.

Atherton pa.s.sed on.

"Whom could Salome Wilton be talking to so earnestly?" Mrs. Atherton said as they walked away. "It was not one of her brothers."

"No; I think not. You had better speak to her about it. It is far too late for her to be walking here alone with a young man."

"It is very strange. I cannot understand it," Mrs. Atherton said. "Yes; I will speak to her to-morrow. She is such a quiet child, every day I know her and watch her I love her better. I cannot understand it," Mrs.

Atherton repeated.

"Yes; I will wait till Christmas for your sake," Philip said. "I see how painful your position is, and I feel indignant with your brother for placing you in it. He ought never to have sent me here. But lest you should think I love money for its own sake, I want to tell you that we are very poor. My father is paralyzed, and my mother gives lessons in music. I have been working hard to save enough money to help my brother to live on his scholarship at Oxford, if, as we hope, he takes one.

Also, I am able, by strict economy, to get a few things which brighten my mother's life a little. I don't say this to make you think it is wonderful or praiseworthy. I hope you will not misunderstand me."

"No indeed," Salome said earnestly, looking up at the face she could but dimly see,--"no indeed. I think you are brave and good; and, please, do not give up poor Raymond. Perhaps he may get wiser and more used to this great change in his life."

"Let us hope so, for your sake as well as his own. And now, shall I see you home?"

"Oh no, no; it is quite near--at the end of the road. Good-bye, and thank you very, very much."

Philip Percival stood watching the retreating figure as it went swiftly down the road and was soon lost to sight in the gathering darkness.

"His sister, his eldest sister," he said--"a mere child; but what a world of resolution in her face!"

It would not have been Salome had she not dropped something in her flight. Philip saw something white on the road, and picking it up, found it was Salome's pocket-handkerchief. He was irresolute for a moment whether to follow her with it or keep it. He decided on keeping it; and putting it into his coat pocket, walked quickly away in the opposite direction to Elm Cottage.

CHAPTER XIII.

HARD TIMES.

Raymond Wilton came back from dining with his uncle in a very amiable mood; and when he could get a word with Salome, and found that he was relieved from the immediate pressure of debt, he seemed as unconcerned as if he had never been in debt at all. He did not ask many questions about the interview with Philip Percival, catching at the most important part as Salome said,--

"Yes; he promised to wait till Christmas. That is not long, Raymond."

"Oh, well, something will turn up by then, and Uncle Loftus says it is possible there may be a little money coming in. The creditors are going to accept seven shillings in the pound; and if it were not for that hateful bank and its cheating, we should do. Anyhow, I am easy for the present, thanks to you, Sal; I shall not forget it, I can tell you."

"Raymond," Salome said in a low voice, "I wish you would go to church on Sunday mornings, and try to think more of what G.o.d wishes us to do."

"All right, Salome; but you know I am not fond of preaching."

"Dear Ray," said Salome earnestly, "I am sure I am not fit to preach to you or any one, only I do feel sure that if we ask G.o.d to keep us safe, He hears us, and will not forsake us, if we are _really_ sorry, and determined to try to please Him."

"These are old-fashioned notions, Sal," said Raymond carelessly; "but you are a good little thing, and I daresay it would be better for me if I were more like you."

That was all Salome could get out of Raymond; and, chilled and disappointed, she felt, as many of us have felt, that it was no use trying to help people like Raymond, still less to expect anything from them.

But for the present there was a calm. Raymond went off in good time to Harstone. He spent the evening at home; and his mother was quite cheered about him, saying several times to Salome, "I thought, for my sake, Raymond would turn over a new leaf."

Meantime Reginald worked hard at his papers, and was steadfast in his work, fighting his way in the form, step by step, always a hard matter at a new school for the first term.

Salome saw him going on diligently and steadily, and longed for a word of praise for him. But it often happens that there is more joy in the mother's heart over signs of amendment in one child who has given her trouble and anxiety than in the persistent well-doing of those who never cause her uneasiness. This is nothing new. Was it not so in the days when divine lips told the story of the lost piece of silver and of the wandering sheep? Will it not be so to the end of time?

Salome lived for the next few days in constant excitement about the postman. Every time his knock was heard her heart would give an answering thump, and she would go out into the pa.s.sage to take the letters. But Messrs. Bardsley and Carrow made no sign. A week pa.s.sed; and one afternoon, when she went out to meet the postman, and eagerly took the letters from his hand, she came suddenly on Mrs. Atherton.

The rosy flush and the excitement of her manner were not lost on Mrs.

Atherton, nor that she hastily thrust one letter into her pocket, and answered Mrs. Atherton's question as to whether she would like to see the _Review_ she had brought in a confused manner, not even asking her to come in, and standing with Ada's foreign letter in her hand, twisting it nervously in her fingers.

"Shall I come in and see Mrs. Wilton?" Mrs. Atherton asked.

"Oh yes; please come in," was the reply; "but mamma is not downstairs to-day, so we have no fire in the drawing-room. I sit in the dining-room when mother is not well. She has a bad cold and head-ache. Please come in, Mrs. Atherton."

Salome preceded Mrs. Atherton into the dining-room, which Hans and Carl had combined to make very untidy by cutting up newspapers for the tail of a kite bigger than themselves, which Frank Pryor had in leisure moments made for them, with the a.s.surance that "he" would carry a tail that would reach pretty near as far as Harstone Abbey Church. All these untidy sc.r.a.ps were on the floor, and one end of the table was even in a worse condition. Papers, books, pens, and ink were in a state of confusion impossible to describe. By the papers, and engulfed by them as they surged on every side, was a little work-basket, stuffed so full that the lid refused to think of closing, and out of which peeped a curious medley of articles too numerous and varied to mention.

"I am sorry to bring you in here," Salome began. "The children have nowhere else to play. They are gone now to help Ruth to make some tea-cakes. Please sit down."

Mrs. Atherton subsided into a chair, and then laughing, said,--

"I am sitting on some property, I think," and rising, she drew from under her a box of tools, from which Hans had been using the hammer.

"How dreadfully careless and naughty of the children!" Salome exclaimed.