Uncle Max Part 16

'I have tried to do so,' he answered sadly; 'but for the last year she has refused to see me, and Hamilton has advised me to keep away. If I cross the threshold it is to see Miss Locke. I thought it was a whim at first, and I sent Tudor in my stead; but she was so rude to him, and lashed herself into such a fury against us clerics, that he came back looking quite scared, and asked why I had sent him to a mad woman.'

'She was angry with me to-day.' And I told him about the blind.

'That is right, Ursula,' he said encouragingly. 'You have made a good beginning: the singing may do more to soften her strange nature than all our preaching. You will be a comfort to Miss Locke, at any rate.' And then he stopped, and looked at me rather wistfully, as though he longed to tell me something but could not make up his mind to do it 'You will be a comfort to us all if you go on in this way,' he continued; and then he surprised me by asking if I had not yet seen the ladies from Gladwyn.

The question struck me as rather irrelevant, but I took care not to say so as I answered in the negative.

'You have been here nearly a week; they might have risked a call by this time,' he returned, knitting his brows as though something perplexed him; but I broke in on his reflections rather impatiently.

'I declare, Max, you have quite piqued my curiosity about these people; some mystery seems to attach to Gladwyn. I shall expect to see something very wonderful.'

'Then you will be disappointed,' he returned quietly, not a bit offended by my petulance. 'I cannot help wishing you to make acquaintance with them, as they are such intimate friends of mine, and I think it will be a mutual benefit.'

Then, as I made no reply to this, he went on, still more mildly:

'I confess I should like your opinion of them. I have a great reliance in your intuition and common sense; and you are so deliciously frank and outspoken, Ursula, that I shall soon know what you think. Well, I must not stay gossiping here. Your company is very charming, my dear, but I have letters to write before bedtime. You will see our friends in church on Sunday. I hear Miss Elizabeth comes home to-morrow; she is the lively one,--not quite of the Merry Pecksniff order, but still a bright, chatty lady.

"From morning till night It is Betty's delight To chatter and talk without stopping."

'You know the rest, Ursula, my dear. By the bye,' opening the door, and looking cautiously into the pa.s.sage, 'I wonder whom the Bartons are entertaining in the kitchen to-night? I hear a masculine voice.'

'It is only Mr. Hamilton,' I returned indifferently. 'I heard him come in half an hour ago; he is giving Nathaniel a lesson in mathematics.'

'To be sure. What a good fellow he is!' in an enthusiastic tone. 'Well, good-night, child: do not sit up late.' And he vanished.

I am afraid I disregarded this injunction, for I wanted to write to my poor Jill--who was never absent from my mind--and Lesbia; and I was loath to leave the fireside, and too much excited for sleep.

When I had finished my letters I still sat on gazing into the bright caverns of coal, and thinking over Susan Locke's history.

'How many good people there are in the world!' I said, half aloud; but I almost jumped out of my chair at the sound of a deep, angry voice on the other side of the door.

'It is a thriftless, wasteful sort of thing burning the candle at both ends. Women have very little common sense, after all.'

I extinguished the lamp hastily, for of course Mr. Hamilton's growl was meant for me, though it was addressed to Nathaniel. I heard him close the door a moment afterwards, and Nathaniel crept back into the kitchen. I woke rather tired the next day, and owned he was right, for I found my duties somewhat irksome that morning. The feeling did not pa.s.s off, and I actually discovered that I was dreading my visit to Phoebe, only of course I scouted it as nonsense.

Miss Locke was out, and Kitty opened the door. Her demure little face brightened when she saw me, and especially when I placed a large brown-paper parcel in her arms, of that oblong shape dear to all doll-loving children, and bade her take it into the kitchen.

'It is too dark and cold for you to play outside, Kitty,' I observed, 'so perhaps you will make the acquaintance of the blue-eyed baby I have brought you; when Aunt Susan comes in, you can ask her for some pieces to dress her in, for her paper robe is rather cold.'

Kitty's eyes grew wide with surprise and delight as she ran off with her treasure; the baby-doll would be a playmate for the lonely child, and solace those weary hours in the sick-room. I would rather have brought her a kitten, but I felt instinctively that no animal would be tolerated by the invalid.

It was somewhat dark when I entered the room, but one glance showed me that my directions had been obeyed; the window was unshaded, and the flowers were in their place.

Phoebe was lying watching the fire. I saw at once that she was in a better mood. The few questions I put to her were answered quietly and to the point, and there was no excitement or exaggeration in her manner.

I did not talk much. After a minute or two I sat down by the uncurtained window and began to sing as usual. I commenced with a simple ballad, but very soon my songs merged into hymns. It began to be a pleasure to me to sing in that room. I had a strange feeling as though my voice were keeping the evil spirits away. I thought of the shepherd-boy who played before Saul and refreshed the king's tormented mind; and now and then an unuttered prayer would rise to my lips that in this way I might be able to comfort the sad soul that truly Satan had bound.

When my voice grew a little weary, I rose softly and took down the old brown sampler, as I wished to replace it by a little picture I had brought with me.

It was a sacred photograph of the Crucifixion, in a simple Oxford frame, and had always been a great favourite with me; it was less painful in its details than other delineations of this subject: the face of the divine sufferer wore an expression of tender pity. Beneath the cross the Blessed Virgin and St. John stood with clasped hands,--adopted love and most sacred responsibility,--receiving sanction and benediction.

I had scarcely hung it on the nail before Phoebe's querulous voice remonstrated with me.

'Why can you not leave well alone, Miss Garston? I was thanking you in my heart for the music, but you have just driven it away. I cannot have that picture before my eyes; it is too painful.'

'You will not find it so,' I replied quietly; 'it is a little present I have brought you. My dead brother bought it for me when he was a boy at school, and it is one of the things I most prize. He is dead, you know, and that makes it doubly dear to me. That is why I want you to have it, because I have so much and you so little.'

My speech moved her a little, for her great eyes softened as she looked at me.

'So you have been in trouble, too,' she said softly. 'And yet you can sing like a bird that has lost its way and finds itself nearly at the gate of Paradise.'

'Shall I tell you about my trouble?' I returned, sitting down by the bed. It wrung my heart to talk of Charlie, but I knew the history of his suffering and patience would teach Phoebe a valuable lesson.

An hour pa.s.sed by unheeded, and when I had finished I exclaimed at the lateness of the hour.

'Ay, you have tired yourself; you look quite pale,' was her answer; 'but you have made me forget myself for the first time in my life.' She stopped, and then with more effort continued, 'Come again to-morrow, and I will tell you my trouble; it is worse than yours, and has made me the crazy creature you see. Yes, I will tell you all about it'; but, half crying, as though she had little hope of contesting my will, 'You will not leave that picture to make my heart ache more than, it does now?'

'My poor Phoebe,' I said, kissing her, 'when your heart once aches for the thought of another's sorrow your healing will have begun. Let that picture say to you what no one has said to you before, "that all your life you have been an idolater, that you have worshipped only yourself and one other--"'

'Whom? What do you mean? Have you heard of Robert?' she asked excitedly.

'To-morrow is Sunday,' I returned, touching her softly. 'I am going to church in the morning, and I shall not be here until evening; but we shall have time then for a long talk, and you shall tell me everything.'

And then, without waiting for an answer, I left the room. It was late indeed. Miss Locke had long returned, and was busying herself over her sister's supper; she held up her finger to me smiling as I pa.s.sed, and I peeped in.

Kitty was lying on the rug, fast asleep, with the doll in her arms.

'I found them like this when I came in,' whispered Miss Locke; 'she must have been listening to the music and fallen asleep. How late you have stopped with Phoebe! it is nearly eight o'clock!'

'I do not think the time has been wasted,' I answered cheerfully, as I bade her good-night and stepped out into the darkness. Is time ever wasted, I wonder, when we stop in our daily work to give one of these weak ones a cup of cold water? It is not for me to answer; only our recording angel knows how some such little deed of kindness may brighten some dim struggling life that seems over-full of pain.

CHAPTER XII

A MISSED VOCATION

It was pleasant to wake to bright sunshine the next morning, and to hear the sparrows twittering in the ivy.

It had been my intention to set apart Sunday as much as possible as a day of rest and refreshment. Of course I could not expect always to control the various appeals for my help or to be free from my patients, but by management I hoped to secure the greater part of the day for myself.

I had told Peggy not to expect me at the cottage until the afternoon; everything was in such order that there was no necessity for me to forgo the morning service. My promise to Phoebe Locke would keep me a prisoner for the evening, but I determined that her sister and Kitty should be set free to go to church, so my loss would be their gain.

I thought of Jill as I dressed myself. She had often owned to me that the Sundays at Hyde Park Gate were not to her taste. Visitors thronged the house in the afternoon; Sara discussed her week's amus.e.m.e.nts with her friends or yawned over a novel; the morning's sermon was followed as a matter of course by a gay luncheon party. 'What does it mean, Ursula?'

Jill would say, opening her big black eyes as widely as possible: 'I do not understand. Mr. Erskine has been telling us that we ought to renounce the world and our own wills, and not to follow the mult.i.tude to do foolishness, and all the afternoon mother and Sara having been talking about dresses for the fancy-ball. Is there one religion for church and another for home? Do we fold it up and put it away with our prayer-books in the little book-cupboard that father locks so carefully?' finished Jill, with girlish scorn.

Poor Jill! she had a wide, generous nature, with great capabilities, but she was growing up in a chilling atmosphere. Young girls are terribly honest; they dig down to the very root of things; they drag off the swathing cloths from the mummy face of conventionality. What does it mean? they ask. Is there truth anywhere? Endless shams surround them; people listen to sermons, then they shake off the dust of the holy place carefully from the very hem of their garments; their religion, as Jill expressed it, is left beside their prayer-books. Ah! if one could but see clearly, with eyes purged from every remnant of earthliness,--see as the angels do,--the thick fog of unrisen and unprayed prayers clinging to the rafters of every empty church, we might well shudder in the clogging heavy atmosphere.