The Girls of St. Olave's Part 12

For this man was his master. This man whom he had been asked to help, had much of the making or marring of Reggie's prospects in his hand, and to interfere, especially in such a delicate matter, was almost certainly to incur more anger, more abiding, unredeemable displeasure, than for any other misdemeanour.

And yet, for four months Reggie had been praying for this very man!

Three years before, when Charlie Henchman had come to the engineering college in the town, he had sought out the loneliest fellow that he knew and for Christ's sake had endeavoured to cheer and uplift and help him by just being companionable to him. And the loneliest fellow that Charlie knew was Reggie Alston, and after they had been companions for quite a long time they found out that they both knew the Brougham family, a link which drew them to be more than companions,--to be friends.

Now Charlie was gone, and Reggie had promised him to seek out some lonely fellow too, and try to help him and cheer him and lead him nearer to Christ. He had prayed to be shown the right fellow, but among all his acquaintances there was no one lonely; one name, and one name only, seemed laid upon his heart, the name of Mr. Gray, his own Manager and master!

But as yet Reggie had done nothing more than to pray for him earnestly and regularly, for there seemed nothing else possible. For how could a junior Bank clerk seek out the companionship of his superior and invite him to supper or to cycle or to go with him to church?

He had been asked to help him now, and if those ways in which he had wished to help some fellow had seemed impossible, in this case how much more impossible were these circ.u.mstances? For to help in this way could only bring the downfall of all Reggie's hopes of promotion, and put off that day when he could tell Gertrude that his home was ready for her.

Yet with all these thoughts surging through his brain, Reggie felt that the call of duty had come to him, and to refuse would be to refuse to take up his Cross and follow Christ. As he took four cups of strong black coffee back to the summer-house, he realised that the Cross is the place of suffering and of death.

He had scarcely been five minutes on his errand and the little party in the summer-house had neither been added to nor diminished, and hope had brought a little colour back to Mrs. Gray's woe-begone face.

A simple straightforwardness was one of Reggie's characteristics. He put a cup of coffee into the manager's hand.

"You'd better drink it, Mr. Gray," he said quietly, "it's--it's refreshing, and then if you'd just take Mrs. Gray home--I'm sure she would feel better at home, and the bride has gone, so we can all slip away together. People are beginning to go now."

Mrs. Gray hated black coffee, but she drank her cup bravely, and looked all the better for it too.

"That stuff is refreshing," said Howard, suddenly, with a nod towards the empty cups, as the four left the summer-house, to make their farewells. "I felt rotten, but I feel as right as a trivet now."

Mr. Gray said nothing. He knew perfectly well that he was being helped, and his pride fiercely resented it, but Reggie's three years of quiet faithful work had had its influence, and the clinging touch of Mrs. Gray's hand on his arm softened him, and he said to himself that Reggie had an unbounded cheek, but there was really nothing to wait for any longer, now that the bride had gone.

But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. The bride's mother, shaking hands and saying pleasant nothings to the first of her departing guests, looked at Mr. Gray reproachfully.

"Mr. Gray! you are never going to desert us already! We want our brightest stars to help illumine our darkness. Mrs. Gray feeling ill?

Surely, my dear Elaine, you do not need _three_ gentlemen to take you home!"

The colour flamed into Mrs. Gray's cheeks.

"My husband is taking me home," she said proudly, "Mr. Alston and Mr.

Bushman happen to be leaving at the same time."

"It _is_ rather early," admitted Mr. Gray. He had caught sight of a fresh tray of gla.s.ses going the round of a circle of his acquaintances, and he decided not to be managed any longer, but to do as he chose.

"Look here, Elaine!" he said in a low tone, "you let Reggie take you home. I won't be a few minutes, but I must speak to Thornton. I've been looking for him all the afternoon, and it's really important."

"I'm sure _you_ are not in a hurry, Howard," said the hostess.

So Reggie and Mrs. Gray found themselves outside the gate alone.

"I'll never go inside that gate again," cried Mrs. Gray, angrily. Then she added piteously, "Oh, Reggie, I thought we had got him safe."

"So did I," said Reggie, ruefully.

"What _can_ I do?" she moaned, "I've seen it coming on little by little, and now he's beginning not to care so much if--if people guess. I'm glad you know, Reggie; it's a comfort to have somebody to speak to. I used to think I should be perfectly happy if I had plenty of money--we girls at home used to be poor till Aunt died and left us her property, just before I was engaged, and now, often, I think I would so willingly have just John's income--and it's only a small income for so responsible a position--or work hard myself, if I could be sure of--of him. But there it is," she added sadly. "Tell me what I can do, Reggie."

"You can pray for him," said Reggie, earnestly, "G.o.d _does_ hear and answer prayer and He can save to the uttermost." He hesitated and then added in a lower tone,

"Mrs. Gray, are you an abstainer yourself?"

"Well, not quite," said she, "but I hardly take anything."

Reggie nodded.

"Yes, but you take as much as you care to, and he takes as much as _he_ cares to. That is how Mr. Gray would look at it, and the way G.o.d looks at it is this, '_Judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak._'"

They had reached the Bank and she held out her hand with a sigh.

"Thank you," she said, "well, I'll think about it."

Reggie walked on to the corner of his own road and stood looking down it distastefully.

Here he was in the middle of Bank holiday afternoon, in his best clothes, with nowhere to go and no one to speak to, feeling as if his life and himself and everything else were an utter failure. If he had only had on his cycling suit, he might have contemplated a ride, but the thought of turning into his dull lodgings, even to change, was unbearable, and the writing of a letter to Gertrude, with which he had beguiled many a lonely hour before, was not possible to-day.

He turned at the sound of quick footsteps behind him, and heard his name called.

"Why! Mr. Alston!" said the cheerful voice of the Scotch minister's little wife, "you look as if you belonged to n.o.body, and nowhere!"

Then, seeing instantly that her words had hit too near the mark, she added quickly,

"I wish, if you aren't engaged, you would come home to supper with us.

I always feel as if I wanted to be entertained after a wedding, as if it were very dull to go home to just an ordinary tea, and its being a Bank holiday seems to emphasise the feeling. Mr. Mackenzie and I were just saying so, weren't we, Will?"

"That is so," a.s.sented Mr. Mackenzie, with his grave smile, "I hear, Mr. Alston, that you are musical and might have played our organ for the marriage had we but known it. I have the organ keys, if you would care to try the instrument. It was unfortunate that our organist was away. I like a little singing at a wedding."

Reggie's face beamed.

"I'd like to come, awfully," he said, "what time shall I turn up?"

"Why, now!" said Mrs. Mackenzie, "we'll have tea at once and then the garden-boy shall blow for you, and we'll be audience, and then we can have supper and talk."

"That's the chief item in the programme, isn't it?" said her husband, with a twinkle.

Reggie tried to smother a laugh but did not succeed. This unexpected treat had wonderfully cheered his drooping spirits, and he laughed and chatted merrily as they walked to the Manse; but beneath the outward pleasure that the invitation gave him, there was running an undercurrent of deep happiness, for he knew that in the moment of the most intense loneliness, the most utter hopelessness that he had ever known, G.o.d had sent His angel and delivered him.

And Mrs. Mackenzie talked on in her usual cheerful, lighthearted way and never dreamed that she had been G.o.d's angel to any one that afternoon. Reggie was too shy to tell her, and she had not the key to the thoughts of the young organist who first woke the echoes of the church for her, with the strains of,

But the Lord is mindful of His own, He remembers His children.

That was for to-day and for to-morrow too, in Reggie's mind. As the evening wore on, the dread of the to-morrow morning, when at nine o'clock he must meet Mr. Gray, grew upon him. That his interference had been resented, even while it was accepted, Reggie had seen quite plainly, and to-morrow was coming nearer with each tick of the clock.

CHAPTER XIII.