The Maidens' Lodge Part 25

"I must leave it. He will have it."

"He will have it," repeated Mrs Dorothy solemnly; "but, Phoebe, you can leave it in loving submission, or you can have it wrenched from you in judgment. Though it may be that you must loose your hold on a gem, yet you please yourself whether you yield it as a gift, or wait to have it torn away."

"I see," said Phoebe.

"Was there any further trouble, my dear?"

"Only that," replied Phoebe. "Life seems hard. I get so tired!"

"Thou art young to know that, child," said Mrs Dorothy, with a rather sad smile.

"Well, I don't know," answered Phoebe, doubtfully. "I think I have always been tired. And don't you know some people rest you, and some people don't? When there is n.o.body that rests one-- Father used-- but--"

Mrs Dorothy thought there was not much difficulty in reading the story hidden behind Phoebe's broken sentences.

"So life is hard?" she echoed. "Poor child! Dear, it was harder to Him that sat on the well at Sychar, wearied with His journey. He has not forgotten it, Phoebe. Couldst thou not go and remind Him of it, and ask Him to bless and rest thee?"

"Mrs Dolly, do you feel tired like that?"

A little amused laugh was Mrs Dolly's answer.

"Thou hast not all the sorrows of life in thine own portion, little Phoebe. I have felt it. I do not often now. The journey is too near at an end to fret much over the hard fare or the rough road. When there be only a few days to pa.s.s ere you leave school, your mind is more set on the coming holidays than on the length or hardness of the lessons that lie betwixt."

"I wish I hadn't to go to Delawarr Court!" sighed Phoebe. "There will be a great parcel of people, and not one I know but Rhoda, and Mrs Gatty, and Mrs Molly; and Rhoda always snubs me when Mrs Molly's there."

"Molly is trying," admitted the old lady. "But I think, dear child, you might make a friend of Gatty."

"Perhaps," said Phoebe.

"And, Phoebe, strive against discontent," said Mrs Dorothy; adding, with a smile, "and call it discontent, and not vapours. There is a great deal in giving names to things. So long as you call your pride self-respect and high spirit, you will reckon yourself much better than you are; and so long as you call your discontent low spirits or vapours, you will reckon yourself worse used than you are. Don't split on that rock, Phoebe. The worst thing you can do with wounds is to keep pulling off the bandage to see how they are getting on; and the worst thing you can do with griefs and wrongs is to nurse them and brood over them.

Carry them to the Lord and show them to Him, and ask His help to bear them or right them, as He chooses; and then forget all about them as fast as you can. Dear old Scots Davie gave me that counsel, and through fifty years I have proved how good it was."

"You never finished your story, Mrs Dolly," suggested Phoebe.

"I did not, my dear. Yet there was little to finish. I did but tarry at Court till the great plague-time, when all was broke up, and I went home to nurse my mother, who took the plague and died of it. After that I continued to dwell with my father. For a while after my mother's death, he was very low and melancholical, saying that G.o.d had now met with him and was visiting his old sins upon him. And then, the very next year, came the fire, and we were burned out and left homeless.

Then he was worse than ever. 'Twas like the curse p.r.o.nounced on David, said he, that the sword should never depart from his house: he could never look to know rest nor peace any more; G.o.d hated him, and pursued him to the death. No word of mine, though I strove to find many from the Word of G.o.d, seemed to bring him any comfort at all. They were not for him, he said, but for them toward whom G.o.d had purposes of mercy, and there was none for him. He had sinned against light and knowledge; and G.o.d would none of him any more.

"One morning, about a week after the fire, as I was coming back from my marketing to the little mean lodging where we had took shelter, and was just going in at the door, I was sorely started to feel a great warm hand on my shoulder, and a loud, cheery voice saith, 'Dolly Jennings, whither away so fast thou canst not see an old friend?' I looked up, and there was dear old Farmer Ingham, in his thick boots and country homespun; but I declare to you, child, that in my trouble his face was to me as that of an angel of G.o.d. I brake down, and sobbed aloud.

'Come, come, now!' saith he, comfortably; 'not so bad as that, is it?

I've been seeking thee these four days, Dolly, child. I knew I could find thee if I came myself, though the Missis said I never should; and I've asked at one, and asked at another, and looked up streets and down streets, till this morning I saw a young maid, with her back to me, a-going down an alley; and says I, right out loud, "That's Dolly's back, or else I'm a Dutchman!" So I ran after thee, and only just catched thee up. I'm not so lissome as thou; nay, nor so lissome as I was at thy years. However, here I am, and here thou art; so that's all right.

And there's a good bed and a warm welcome for everyone of you at Ingle Nook'--that was the name of his farm, my dear--'and I've brought up a cart and the old t.i.t to drag it, and we'll see if we can't make thee laugh and be rosy again.' Dear old man! no nay would he take, nor suffer so much as a word from father about our being any cost and trouble to him. 'Stuff and nonsense!' said he; 'I've got money saved, and the farm's doing well, and only my two bits of maids to leave it to; and who should I desire to help in this big trouble, if not my own foster-child, and hers?' So father yielded, and we went down to Ingle Nook.

"Farmer Ingham very soon found what was wrong with father. 'Eh, poor soul!' said he to me, 'he's the hundredth sheep that's got lost out on the moor, and he reckons the Shepherd'll bide warm in the fold with the ninety and nine, and never give a thought to him, poor, starved, straying thing! Dear, dear!--and as if _I'd_ do such a thing, sinner that I am!--as if I could eat a crust in peace till I'd been after my sheep, poor wretch!--and to think the good Lord'd do it!--and the poor thing a-bleating out there, and wanting to get home! Dear, dear! how we poor sinners do wrong the good Lord!' I said, 'Won't you say a word to him, daddy?' That was what I had always called him, my dear, since I was a little child. 'Eh, child!' says he, 'what canst thou be thinking on? The like of me to preach to a parson, all regular done up, bands and ca.s.sock and shovel hat and all! But I'll tell thee what--there's Dr Bates a-coming to bide with me a night this next week, on his way from the North into Suss.e.x, and I'll ask him to edge in a word. He's a grand man, Dolly! "Silver-tongued Bates." Thou'lt hear.'

"Well, I knew, for I had heard talk of it at the time, that Dr Bates was one of them that gave up their livings when the Act of Uniformity came in, so that he was regarded as no better than a conventicler; and I wondered how father should like to be spoke to by Dr Bates any more than by Farmer Ingham, because to him they would both be laymen alike.

But at that time I was learning to tarry the Lord's leisure--ah! that's a grand word, Phoebe! For His leisure runs side by side with our profit, and He'll be at leisure to attend to you the minute that you really need attending to. So I waited quietly to see what would come.

Dr Bates came, and he proved to be no common hedge-preacher, but a learned man that had been to the University, and had Greek and Hebrew pat at his tongue's end. I could see that it was pleasant to father to talk with such a man; and maybe he took to him the rather because he had the look of one that had known sorrow. When a man is suffering, he will converse more readily with a fellow-sufferer than with a hale man. So they talked away of their young days, when they were at school and college, and father was much pleased, as I could see, to find that Dr Bates and he were of the same college, though not there at the same time: and a deal they had to say about this and that man, that both knew, but of course all strangers to me. I thought I had never seen Father seem to talk with the like interest and pleasure since my mother's death.

"But time went on, and their talk, and not a word from Dr Bates of the fashion I desired. I went to bed somewhat heavy. The next morning, however, as I was sat at my sewing by the parlour window--which was open, the weather being very sultry--came Dr Bates and father, and stood just beyond the window. The horse was then saddling for Dr Bates to be gone. All at once, they standing silent a moment, he laid his hand on father's shoulder, and saith very softly, '"I will hearken what the Lord G.o.d will say concerning me."' Father turns and stares at him, as started. But he goes on, and saith, '"For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid Me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him that is far off"'--he said it twice--'"peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him."' He did not add one word, but went and mounted his horse, and when he had bid farewell to all else, just as he was turning away from the door, he calls out, in a cheerful voice, 'Good morning, Brother Jennings.' Then, as it were, Father seemed to awake, and he runs after, and puts his hand in Dr Bates's, who drew bridle, and for a minute they were busy in earnest discourse. Then they clasped hands again, and father saith, 'G.o.d bless you!' and away rode Dr Bates. But after that Father was different. He said to me--it was some weeks later--'Dolly, if it please G.o.d, I shall never speak another word against the men that turned out in Sixty-Two. They may have made blunders, but some at least of them were holy men of G.o.d, for all that.'"

"I was always sorry for them," said Phoebe. "And Father said so too."

"True, my dear. Yet 'tis not well we should forget that the parsons were turned out the first, and the conventiclers afterward. There were faults on both sides."

"But, Mrs Dolly, why can't good men agree?"

"Ah, child! 'They shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.' No sooner. Thank G.o.d that He looketh on the heart. I believe there may be two men in arms against each other, bitter opposers of each other, and yet each of them acting with a single eye to the honour of their Lord. He knows it, and He only, now. But how sorry they will be for their hard thoughts and speeches when they come to understand each other in the clear light of Heaven!"

"It always seems to me," said Phoebe, diffidently, "that there are a great many things we shall be sorry for then. But can anybody be sorry in Heaven?"

Mrs Dorothy smiled. "We know very little about Heaven, my dear. Less than Madam's parrot or Mrs Clarissa's dog understands about anyone writing a letter."

"Dogs do understand a great deal," remarked Phoebe. "Our Flossie did."

"My dear, I have learned no end of lessons from dogs. I only wish we Christians minded the word of our Master half as well as they do theirs.

I wish men would take pattern from them, instead of starving and kicking them, or tormenting them with a view to win knowledge. We may be the higher creatures, but we are far from being the better. You may take note, too, that your dog will often resist an unpleasant thing--a dose of medicine, say--just because he does not understand why you want to give it to him, and does not know the worse thing that would otherwise befall him. Didst thou never serve thy Master like that, dear?"

"I am afraid so," said Phoebe, softly.

"We don't trust Him enough, Phoebe. It does seem as if the hardest thing in all the world was for man to trust G.o.d. You would not think I paid you much of a compliment if you heard me say, 'I'll trust Phoebe Latrobe as far as I can see her.' Yet that is what we are always doing to G.o.d. The minute we lose sight of His footsteps, we begin to murmur and question where He is taking us. But, my dear, I must not let you tarry longer; 'tis nigh sundown."

"Oh, dear!" and Phoebe looked up and rose hurriedly. "I trust Madam will not be angry. 'Tis much later than I thought."

She found Madam too busy to notice what time she returned. Rhoda's wardrobe was being packed for her visit, under the supervision of her grandmother, by the careful hands of Betty. The musk-coloured damask, which she had coveted, was the first article provided, and a cherry-coloured velvet mantle, lined with squirrel-skins, was to be worn with it. A blue satin hood completed this rather showy costume. A wadded calico wrapper, for morning wear; a hoop petticoat wider than Rhoda had ever worn before; the white dress stipulated by Molly; small lace head-dresses, instead of the old-fashioned commode; ap.r.o.ns of various colours, silk and satin; muslin and lace ruffles; a blue camlet riding-habit, laced with silver (ladies rode at this time dressed exactly like gentlemen, with the addition of a long skirt); and an evening dress of cinnamon-colour, brocaded with large green leaves and silver stems, with a white and gold petticoat under it--were the chief items of Rhoda's wardrobe. A new set of body-linen was also added, made of striped muslin. Since our fair ancestresses made their night-dresses of "muslin," it would appear that they extended the term to some stouter material than the thin and flimsy manufacture to which we restrict it.

Rhoda's boots were of white kid, goloshed with black velvet. There were also "jessamy" gloves--namely, kid gloves perfumed with jessamine; a black velvet mask; a superb painted fan; a box of patches, another of violet powder, another of rouge, and a fourth of pomatum; one of the India scarves before alluded to; a stomacher set with garnet, a pearl necklace, and a silver box full of cachou and can-away comfits, to be taken to church for amus.e.m.e.nt during long sermons. The enamelled picture on the lid Rhoda would have done well to lay to heart, as it represented Cupid fishing for human beings, with a golden guinea on his hook. Rhoda was determined to be the finest dressed girl at Delawarr Court, and Madam had allowed her to order very much what she pleased.

Phoebe's quiet mourning, new though it was, looked very mean in comparison--in her cousin's eyes.

No definite time was fixed for Rhoda's return home. She was to stay as long as Lady Delawarr wished to keep her.

"Phoebe, my dear!" said Madam.

"Madam?" responded Phoebe, with a courtesy.

"Come into my chamber; I would have a few words with you."

Phoebe followed, her heart feeling as if it would jump into her mouth.

Madam shut the door, and took her seat on the cushioned settle which stretched along the foot of her bed.

"Child," she said to Phoebe, who stood modestly before her, "I think myself obliged to tell you that I expect Rhoda to settle in life on the occasion of this visit. I apprehend that she will meet with divers young gentlemen, with any of whom she might make a good match; and she can then make selection of him that will be most agreeable to her."

Phoebe privately wondered how the gentleman whom Rhoda selected was to be induced to select Rhoda.

"Then," pursued Madam, "when she returns, she will tell me her design; and if on seeing the young man, and making inquiries of such as are acquainted with him, I approve of the match myself, I shall endeavour the favour of his friends, and doubt not to obtain it. Rhoda will have an excellent fortune, and she is of an agreeable turn enough. Now, my dear, at the same time, I wish you to look round you, and see if you can light on some decent man, fit for your station, that would not be disagreeable to you. I have apprised myself that Sir Richard's chaplain hath entered into no engagements, and if he were to your taste, I would do my best to settle you in that quarter, I cannot think he would prove uneasy to me, should I do him the honour; at the same time, if you find him unpleasant to you, I do not press the affair. But 'tis high time you should look out, for you have no fortune but yourself, and what I may choose to give with you: and if you order yourself after my wish, I engage myself to undertake for you--in reason, my dear, of course. The chaplain is very well paid, for Sir Richard finds him in board and a horse, and gives him beside thirty-five pound by the year, which is more than many have. He is, I learn, a good, easy man, that would not be likely to give his wife any trouble. Not very smart, but that can well be got over; and of good family, but indigent--otherwise it may well be reckoned he would not be a chaplain. So I bid you consider him well, my dear, and let me know your thoughts when you return hither."

Phoebe's thoughts just then were chasing each other in wild confusion: the princ.i.p.al one being that she was a victim led to the sacrifice with a rope round her neck.

"I ask your pardon, Madam; but--"