The Setons Part 21

Elizabeth asked her guest.

He did as he was bid, and remained standing at the mantelpiece looking at the picture which hung above it.

"Your mother, isn't it?" he asked. "She was beautiful; Aunt Alice has often told me of her."

He looked in silence for a minute, and then went back to his chair and lit another cigarette.

"I never knew my mother, and I only remember my father dimly. I was only her husband's nephew, but Aunt Alice has had to stand for all my home-people, and no one knows except myself how successful she has been."

"She is the most golden-hearted person," said Elizabeth. "I don't believe she ever has a thought that isn't kind and gentle and sincere.

I am so glad you had her--and that she had you. One can't help seeing what you have meant to her...." Then a spark of laughter lit in Elizabeth's grey eyes.

"Don't you love the way her sentences never end? just trail deliciously away ... and her descriptions of people?--'such charming people, _such_ staunch Conservatives and he plays the violin so beautifully.'"

Arthur Townshend laughed in the way that one laughs at something that, though funny, is almost too dear to be laughed at.

"That is exactly like her," he said. "Was your mother at all like her sister?"

"Only in heart," said Elizabeth. "Mother was much more definite. People always said she was a 'sweet woman,' but that doesn't describe her in the least. She was gentle, but she could be caustic at times: she hated shams. That picture was painted before her marriage, but she never altered much, and she never got a bit less lovely. I remember once we were all round her as she stood dressed to go to some wedding, and Alan said, 'Are _you_ married, Mums?' and when she said she was, he cried consolingly, 'But you would do again.'... I sometimes wonder now how Mother liked the work of a minister's wife in Glasgow. I remember she used to laugh and say that with her journeys ended in Mothers'

Meetings. I know she did very well, and the people loved her. I can see her now coming in from visiting in the district, crying out on the drabness of the lives there, and she would catch up Buff and dance and sing with him and say little French nursery-songs to him, like a happy school-girl. Poor little Buff! He doesn't know what a dreadful lot he is missing. Sometimes I think I spoil him, and then I remember 'his mother who was patient being dead.'"

The fire had fallen into a hot red glow, and they sat in silence looking into it.

Presently the door opened, and Mr. Seton came in. He came to the fire and warmed his hands, remarking, "There's a distinct touch of frost in the air to-night, and the gla.s.s is going up. I hope it means that you are going to have good weather, Mr. Townshend."

He helped himself to a gla.s.s of milk and a biscuit.

"Elizabeth, do you know what that brother of yours has done? I happened to take down _The Pilgrim's Progress_ just now, and found that the wretched little fellow had utterly ruined those fine prints by drawing whiskers on the faces of the most unlikely people."

Mr. Seton's mouth twitched.

"The effect," he added, "is ludicrous in the extreme."

His listeners laughed in the most unfeeling way, and Elizabeth explained to Mr. Townshend that when Buff was in fault he was alluded to as "your brother," as if hers was the sole responsibility.

"Well, you know," said Mr. Seton, as he made the window secure, "you spoil the boy terribly."

Elizabeth looked at Arthur Townshend, and they smiled to each other.

_CHAPTER X_

"If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church."

_As You Like It._

Mr. Seton's church was half an hour's walk from his house, and the first service began at nine-forty-five, so Sabbath morning brought no "long lie" for the Seton household. They left the house at a quarter-past nine, and remained at church till after the afternoon service, luncheon being eaten in the "interval."

Thomas and Billy generally accompanied them to church, not so much from love of the sanctuary as from love of the luncheon, which was a picnic-like affair. Leaving immediately after it, they were home in time for their two-o'clock Sunday dinner with "Papa."

Elizabeth had looked forward with horror to the prospect of a Sunday shut in with the Arthur Townshend of her imagination, but the actual being so much less black than her fancy had painted she could view the prospect with equanimity, hoping only that such a spate of services might not prove too chastening an experience for a worldly guest.

Sabbath morning was always rather a worried time for Elizabeth. For one thing, the Sabbath seemed to make Buff's brain more than usually fertile in devising schemes of wickedness, and then, her father _would_ not hurry. There he sat, calmly contemplative, in the study while his daughter implored him to remember the "intimations," and to be sure to put in that there was a Retiring Collection for the Aged and Infirm Ministers' Fund.

Mr. Seton disliked a plethora of intimations, and protested that he had already six items.

"Oh, Father," cried his exasperated daughter, "what _is_ the use of saying that when they've all to be made?"

"Quite true, Lizbeth," said her father meekly.

Mr. Seton always went off to church walking alone, Elizabeth following, and the boys straggling behind.

"I'm afraid," said Elizabeth to Mr. Townshend, as they walked down the quiet suburban road with its decorous villa-residences--"I'm afraid you will find this rather a strenuous day. I don't suppose in Persia--and elsewhere--you were accustomed to give the Sabbath up wholly to 'the public and private exercises of G.o.d's worship'?"

Mr. Townshend confessed that he certainly had not.

"Oh, well," said Elizabeth cheeringly, "it will be a new experience. We generally do five services on Sunday. My brother Walter used to say that though he never entered a church again, his average would still be higher than most people's. What king was it who said he was a 'sair saunt for the Kirk'? I can sympathise with him."

They drifted into talk, and became so engrossed that they had left the suburbs and had nearly reached the church before Elizabeth remembered the boys and stopped and looked round for them.

"I don't see the boys. They must have come another way. D'you mind going back with me to see if they're coming down c.u.mberland Street?"

It was a wide street, deserted save for a small child carrying milk-pitchers, and a young man with a bowler hat hurrying churchwards; but, as they watched, three figures appeared at the upper end. Thomas came first, wearing with pride a new overcoat and carrying a Bible with an elastic band. (He had begged it from the housemaid, who, thankful for some sign of grace in such an abandoned character, had lent it gladly.) Several yards behind Billy marched along, beaming on the world as was his wont; and last of all came Buff, deep in a story, walking in a dream. When the story became very exciting he jumped rapidly several times backwards and forwards from the pavement to the gutter. He was quite oblivious of his surroundings till a starved-looking cat crept through the area railings and mewed at him. He stopped and stroked it gently. Then he got something out of his trouser-pocket which he laid before the creature, and stood watching it anxiously.

Elizabeth's eyes grew soft as she watched him.

"Buff has the tenderest heart for all ill-used things," she said, "especially cats and dogs." She went forward to meet her young brother.

"What were you giving the poor cat, sonny?" she asked.

"A bit of milk-chocolate. It's the nearest I had to milk, but it didn't like it. Couldn't I carry it to the vestry and give it to John for a pet?"

"I'm afraid John wouldn't receive it with any enthusiasm," said his sister. ("John's the beadle," she explained to Mr. Townshend.) "But I expect, Buff, it really has a home of its home--quite a nice one--and has only come out for a stroll; anyway, we must hurry. We're late as it is."

The cavalcade moved again, and as they walked Elizabeth gave Mr.

Townshend a description of the meeting he was about to attend.

"It's called the Fellowship Meeting," she told him, "and it is a joint meeting of the Young Men's and the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation.

Someone reads a paper, and the rest of us discuss it--or don't discuss it, as the case may be. Some of the papers are distinctly good, for we have young men with ideas. Today I'm afraid it's a wee young laddie reading his first paper. The president this winter is a most estimable person, but he has a perfect genius for choosing inappropriate hymns.

At ten a.m. he gives out 'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,' or again, we find ourselves singing

'The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren 'neath the Western sky,'

--such an obvious untruth! And he chooses the prizes for the Band of Hope children, and last year, when I was distributing them, a mite of four toddled up in response to her name, and I handed her a cheerful-looking volume. I just happened to glance at the t.i.tle, and it was _The Scarlet Letter_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I suppose he must have bought it because it had a nice bright cover! Don't look at me if he does anything funny to-day! I am so given to giggle."

The Fellowship Meeting was held in the hall, so Elizabeth led the way past the front of the church and down a side-street to the hall door.

First, they all marched into the vestry, where coats could be left, and various treasures, such as books to read in "the interval," deposited in the cupboard. The vestry contained a table, a sofa, several chairs, two cupboards, and a good fire; Mr. Seton's own room opened out of it.