The Maidens' Lodge Part 18

The rope is round my neck; and I must trot on beside the executioner, and find what comfort I can in the garland of roses on my head."

There was a silence of a few seconds after Gatty finished her miserable tale. And then Phoebe's voice asked softly,--

"Dear Mrs Gatty, have you asked G.o.d to save you?"

"What's the use?" answered Gatty, in a hopeless tone.

"Because He would do it," said Phoebe. "I don't know how. It might be by changing my Lady Delawarr's mind, or the old lord's, or yours; or many another way; I don't know how. But I do know that He has promised to bring no temptation on those that fear Him, beyond what they shall be able to bear."

"Oh, I don't know!" said Gatty, in that tone which makes the word sound like a cry of pain.

"Have you tried entreating my Lady Delawarr?"

"Tried! I should think so. And what do you think I get by it? 'Gatty, my dear, 'tis so unmodish to be thus warm over anything! Compose yourself, and control your feelings. Love!--no, of course you do not love my Lord Polesworth, while you are yet a maid; 'twould be highly indecorous for you to do any such thing. But when you are his wife, you'll be perfectly content; and that is all you can expect. My dear, do compose yourself, or your face will be quite wrinkled; and let me hear no more of this nonsense, I beg of you. Maids cannot look to choose for themselves, 'tis not reasonable.' That is what I get, Phoebe."

"And your father, Mrs Gatty?"

"My father? Oh! 'Really, Gatty, I can't interfere,--'tis your mother's affair; you must make up your mind to it. We can't have always what we like,'--and then he whistles to his hounds, and goes out a-hunting."

"Well, Mrs Gatty, suppose you try G.o.d?"

"Suppose I have done, Phoebe, and got no answer at all?"

"Forgive me, I cannot suppose it."

"Is He so good to _you_, Phoebe?"

The question was asked in a very, very mournful tone.

"Mrs Gatty," said Phoebe, softly, "He has given me Himself. I do not think He has given me anything else of what my heart longs for. But that is enough. In Him I have all things."

"What do you mean?" came in accents of perplexity from the bed in the opposite corner.

"I am afraid," said Phoebe, "I cannot tell you. I mean, I could not make you understand it."

"'Given you Himself!'" repeated Gatty. "I can fancy how He could reward you or make you happy; but, 'give you Himself!'"

"Well, I cannot explain it," said Phoebe. "Yes, it means giving happiness; but it means a great deal more. I can feel it, but I cannot put it in words."

"I don't understand you the least bit!"

"Will you talk awhile with Mrs Dolly Jennings, and see if she can explain it to you? I do not think any one can, in words; but I guess she would come nearer to it than I could."

"I like Mrs Dolly," said Gatty, thoughtfully; "she is very kind."

"Very," a.s.sented Phoebe.

"I think I should not mind talking to her," said Gatty. "We will walk down there to-morrow, if we can get leave."

"And now, had we not better go to sleep?" suggested Phoebe.

"Well, we can try," sighed Gatty. "But, Phoebe, 'tis no good telling me to pray, because I have done it. I said over every collect in the Prayer-book--ten a day; and the very morning after I had finished them, that horrid man came, and Mother made--I had to go down and sit half an hour listening to him. Praying does no good."

"I am not sure that you have tried it," said Phoebe.

"Didn't I tell you, this minute, I said every--"

"I ask your pardon for interrupting you, but saying is not praying. Did you really pray them?"

"Phoebe, I do not understand you! How could I pray them and not say them?"

"Well, I did not quite mean that," said Phoebe; "but please, Mrs Gatty, did you feel them? Did you really ask G.o.d all the collects say, or did you only repeat the words over? You see, if I felt cold in bed, I might ask Mrs Betty to give me leave to have another blanket; but if I only kept saying that I was cold, to myself, over and over, and did not tell Mrs Betty, I should be long enough before I got the blanket. Did you say the collects to yourself, Mrs Gatty, or did you say them to the Lord?"

There was a pause before Gatty said, in rather an awed voice, "Phoebe, when you pray, is G.o.d there?"

"Yes," said Phoebe, readily.

"He is not, with me," replied Gatty. "He feels a long, long way off; and I feel as if my collects might drop and be lost before they can get up to Him. Don't you?"

"Never," answered Phoebe. "But I don't send my prayers up by themselves; I give them to Jesus Christ to carry. He never drops one, Mrs Gatty."

"'Tis all something I don't understand one bit," said Gatty, wearily.

"Go to sleep, Phoebe; I won't keep you awake. But we'll go and see Mrs Dolly."

The next afternoon, when Rhoda and Molly had disappeared on their private affairs, Gatty dropped a courtesy to Madam, and requested her permission to visit Mrs Dolly Jennings.

"By all means, my dear," answered Madam, affably. "If Rhoda has no occasion for her, let Phoebe wait on you."

The second request which had been on Gatty's lips being thus forestalled, the girls set forth--without consulting Rhoda, which Gatty was disinclined to do, and which Phoebe fancied that she had done--and reached the Maidens' Lodge without falling in with any disturbing element, such as either Rhoda or Molly would unquestionably have been.

Mrs Dorothy received them in her usual kindly manner, and gave them tea before they entered on the subject of which both the young minds were full. Then Gatty told her story, if very much the same terms as she had given it to Phoebe.

"And I can't understand Phoebe, Mrs Dolly," she ended. "She says G.o.d has given her Himself; and I cannot make it out. And she says she gives her prayers to Jesus Christ to carry. I don't know what she means. It sounds good. But I don't understand it--not one bit."

Mrs Dorothy came up to where Gatty was sitting, and took the girl's head between her small, thin hands. It was not a beautiful face; but it was pleasant enough to look on, and would have been more so, but for the discipline which had crushed out of it all natural interest and youthful antic.i.p.ation, and had left that strange, strained look of care and forced calm upon the white brow.

"Dear child," she said, gently, "you want rest, don't you?"

Gatty's grey eyes filled with tears.

"That is just what I do want, Mrs Dolly," she said, "somewhere where I could be quiet, and be let alone, and just be myself and not somebody else."

"Ah, my dear!" said Mrs Dorothy, shaking her head, "you never get let alone in this world. Satan won't let you alone, if men do. But to be yourself--that is what G.o.d wants of you. At least 'tis one half of what He would have; the other half is that you should give yourself to Him."

"'Tis no good praying," said Gatty, as before.

"Did the Lord tell you that, my dear?"

"No!" said Gatty, looking up in surprise.