We Two Part 38

For one moment with her father! One word from a being who loved and trusted her! Tears started to her eyes, but the recollection that even home was no longer a place of refuge checked them. There would be Aunt Jean's wearing remonstrances and sarcastic remarks; there would be Mr.

Masterman's patronizing contempt, and Tom's studious avoidance of the matters she had most at heart. Was it worse to be treated as a well-meaning idiot, or as an outcast and semi-heretic? Never till now had she so thoroughly realized her isolation, and she felt so bruised and buffeted and weary that the realization at that particular time was doubly trying.

Isolation is perhaps the greatest of all trials to a sensitive and warm-hearted nature, and nothing but the truest and deepest love for the whole race can possibly keep an isolated person from growing bitter.

Erica knew this, had known it ever since Brian had brought her the message from her mother; "It is only love that can keep from bitterness." All through these years she had been struggling hard, and though there had been constant temptations, though the harshness of the bigoted, the insults offered to her father in the name of religion, the countless slights and slanders had tried her to the utmost, she had still struggled upward, and in spite of all had grown in love. But now, for the first time, she found herself completely isolated. The injustice, the hardness of it proved too much for her. She forgot that those who would be peace-makers reconcilers, must be content to receive the treatment which the Prince of Peace received; she forgot that these rich, contemptuous people were her brothers and sisters, and that their hard judgment did not and could not alter their relationship; she forgot all in a burning indignation, in an angry revolt against the injustice of the world.

She would study these people, she would note all their little weaknesses and foibles. Mr. Bircham had given her carte blanche for these three weeks; she would write him a deliciously sarcastic article on modern society. The idea fixed her imagination, she laughed to herself at the thought; for, however sad the fact, it is nevertheless true that to ordinary mortals "revenge is sweet." Had she given herself time to think out matters calmly, she would have seen that boh Christianity and the rules of art were opposed to her idea. It is true that Michael Angelo and other painters used to revenge themselves on the cardinals or enemies they most hated by painting them in the guise of devils, but both they and their art suffered by such a concession to an animal pa.s.sion. And Erica fell grievously that evening. This is one of the evils of social ostracism. It is unjust, unnatural, and selfish. To preserve what it considers the dignity of society, it drives human beings into an unnatural position; it fosters the very evils which it denounces. And society is grossly unfair. A word, a breath, a false libel in a newspaper is quite sufficient. It will never trouble itself to inquire minutely into the truth, but will p.r.o.nounce its hasty judgment, and then ostracize.

Erica began to listen attentively to the conversation, and it must be owned that it was not very edifying. Then she studied the faces and manners of her companions, and, being almost in the middle of the table, she had a pretty good view. Every creature she studied maliciously, keenly, sarcastically, until she came to the end of the table, and there a most beautiful face brought her back to herself for a minute with a sort of shock. Where had she seen it before? A strong, manly face of the Roman type, clean-shaven, save for a very slight mustache, which did not conceal the firm yet sensitive mouth; dark eyes, which even as she wondered met hers fully for an instant, and gave her a strange feeling of protection. She knew that at least one person in the room did not shudder at the idea of sitting at table with Luke Raeburn's daughter.

Better thoughts returned to her, she grew a little ashamed of her malice, and began to wonder who that ideal man could be. Apparently he was one of the distinguished guests, for he had taken down Lady Caroline herself. Erica was just too far off to hear what he said, and in another moment she was suddenly recalled to Mr. Cuthbert. He was talking to the old gentleman on her left hand, who had been silently surveying her at intervals as though he fancied she could not be quite human.

"Have you been following this Kellner trial?" asked Mr. Cuthbert.

"Disgraceful affair, isn't it?"

Then followed references to Eric Haeberlein, and veiled hints about his London friends and a.s.sociates more dangerous to the country than say foreigners, "traitors, heady, high-minded," etc., etc. Such evil-doers always managed to keep within the letter of the law; but, for his part, he thought they deserved to be shut up, more than most of those who get penal servitude for life.

Erica's wrath blazed up again. Of course the veiled hints were intended to refer to her father, and the cruelty and insolence of the speaker who knew that she understood his allusions scattered all her better thoughts. It required a strong effort of will to keep her anger and distress from becoming plainly visible. Her unwillingness to give Mr. Cuthbert such a gratification could not have strengthened her sufficiently, but love and loyalty to her father and Eric Haeberlein had carried her through worse ordeals than this.

She showed no trace of embarra.s.sment, but moved a very little further back in her chair, implying by a sort of quiet dignity of manner, that she thought Mr. Cuthbert exceedingly ill-mannered to talk across her.

Feeling that his malicious endeavor had entirely failed, and stung by her dignified disapproval, Mr. Cuthbert struck out vindictively.

Breaking the silence he had maintained toward her, he suddenly flashed round upon her with a question.

"I suppose you are intimately acquainted with Eric Haeberlein?"

He tried to make his tone casual and seemingly courteous, but failed.

"What makes you suppose that?" asked Erica, in a cool, quiet voice.

Her perfect self-control, and her exceedingly embarra.s.sing counter-question, quite took him aback. At that very minute, too, there was the pause, and the slight movement, and the glance from Lady Caroline which reminded him that he was the only clergyman present, and had to return thanks. He bent forward, and went through the usual form of "For what we have received," though all the time he was thinking of the "counter-check quarrelsome" he had received from his next-door neighbor. When he raised his head again he found her awaiting his answer, her clear, steady eyes quietly fixed on his face with a look which was at once sad, indignant, and questioning.

His question had been an insulting one. He had meant it to p.r.i.c.k and sting, but it is one thing to be indirectly rude, and another to give the "lie direct." Her quiet return question, her dignity, made it impossible for him to insult her openly. He was at her mercy. He colored a little, stammered something incoherent about "thinking it possible."

"You are perfectly right," replied Erica, still speaking in her quietly dignified voice. "I have known Herr Haeberlein since I was a baby, so you will understand that it is quite impossible for me to speak with you about him after hearing the opinions you expressed just now."

For once in his life Mr. Cuthbert felt ashamed of himself. He did not feel comfortable all through dessert, and gave a sigh of relief when the ladies left the room.

As for Erica's other neighbor, he could not help reflecting that Luke Raeburn's daughter had had the best of it in the encounter. And he wondered a little that a man, whom he had known to do many a kindly action, should so completely have forgotten the rules of ordinary courtesy.

CHAPTER XXVI. A Friend

Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us; but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable.--Plato.

In the drawing room Erica found the ostracism even more complete and more embarra.s.sing. Lady Caroline who was evidently much annoyed, took not the slightest notice of her, but was careful to monopolize the one friendly looking person in the room, a young married lady in pale-blue silk. The other ladies separated into groups of two and threes, and ignored her existence. Lady Caroline's little girl, a child of twelve, was well bred enough to come toward her with some shy remark, but her mother called her to the other side of the room quite sharply, and made some excuse to keep her there, as if contact with Luke Raeburn's daughter would have polluted her.

A weary half hour pa.s.sed. Then the door opened, and the gentlemen filed in. Erica, half angry, half tired, and wholly miserable, was revolving in her brain some stinging sentences for her article when the beautiful face again checked her. Her "Roman," as she called him, had come in, and was looking round the room, apparently searching for some one. At last their eyes met, and, with a look which said as plainly as words: "Oh, there you are! It was you I wanted," he came straight towards her.

"You must forgive me, Miss Raeburn, for dispensing with an introduction," he said; "but I hardly think we shall need any except the name of our mutual fried, Charles Osmond."

Erica's heart gave a bound. The familiar name, the consciousness that her wretched loneliness was at an end, and above all, the instantaneous perception of the speaker's n.o.bility and breadth of mind, scattered for the time all her resentful thoughts made her again her best self.

"Then you must be Donovan!" she exclaimed, with the quaint and winsome frankness which was one of her greatest charms. "I knew I was sure you were not like other people."

He took her hand in his, and no longer wondered at Brian's seven years'

hopeless waiting. But Erica began to realize that her exclamation had been appallingly unconventional, and the beautiful color deepened in her cheeks.

"I beg your pardon," she said, remembering with horror that he was not only a stranger but an M.P., "I I don't know what made me say that, but they have always spoken of you by your Christian name, and you have so long been 'Donovan' in my mind that somehow it slipped out you didn't feel like a stranger."

"I am glad of that," he said, his dark and strangely powerful eyes looking right into hers. Something in that look made her feel positively akin to him. Like a stranger! Of course he had not felt like one. Never could be like anything but a friend. "You see," he continued, "we have known of each other for years, and we know that we have one great bond of union which others have not. Don't retract the 'Donovan' I like it.

Let it be the outward sign of the real and unusual likeness in the fight we have fought."

She still half hesitated. He was a man of five-and-thirty, and she could not get over the feeling that her impulsive exclamation had been presumptuous. He saw her uncertainty, and perhaps liked her the better for it, though the delicious naturalness, the child-like recognition of a real though scarcely known friend, had delighted him.

"We are a little more brother and sister than the rest of the world," he said, with the chivalrous manner which seemed to belong naturally to his peculiarly n.o.ble face. "And if I were to confess that I had not always thought of you as 'Miss Raeburn'--"

He paused, and Erica laughed. It was absurd to stand on ceremony with this kindred spirit.

"Have you seen the conservatory?" he asked. "Shall we come in there? I want to hear all about the Osmonds."

The relief of speaking with one who knew and loved Charles Osmond, and did not, for want of real knowledge, brand him with the names of half a dozen heresies, was very great. It was not for some time that Erica even glanced at the lovely surroundings, though she had inherited Raeburn's great love of flowers. At last, however, an exquisite white flower attracted her notice, and she broke off in the middle of a sentence.

"Oh, how lovely! I never saw anything like that before. What is it?"

"It is the EUCHARIS AMAZONICA," replied her companion "About the most exquisite flower in the world, I should think the 'dove flower,' as my little ones call it. Ir you look at it from a distance the stamens really look like doves bending down to drink."

"It is perfect! How I wish my father could see it!"

"We have a fairly good one at Oakdene, though not equal to this. We must persuade you and Mr. Raeburn to come and stay with us some day."

The tears came into Erica's eyes, so great was the contrast between his friendliness and the chilling discourtesy she had met with from others that evening.

"You are very good," she said. "If you only knew how hard it is to be treated as if one were a sort of semi-criminal!"

"I do know," he said. "It was this very society which goaded me into a sort of wild rebellion years ago. I deserved its bad opinion in a measure, and you do not, but it was unfair enough to make one pretty desperate."

"If they were actual saints one might endure it," cried Erica. "But to have such a man as my father condemned just as hearsay by people who are living lazy, wasteful lives is really too much. I came to Greyshot expecting at least unity, at least, peace in a Christian atmosphere, and THIS is what I get."

Donovan listened in silence, a great sadness in his eyes. There was a pause; then Erica continued: "You think I speak hotly. I cannot help it.

I think I do not much mind what they do to me, but it is the injustice of the thing that makes one wild, and worst of all, the knowing that this is what drives people into atheism this is what dishonors the name of Christ."

"You are right," he replied, with a sigh; "that IS the worst of it. I have come to the conclusion that to be tolerant to the intolerant is the most difficult thing in life."

"You must have plenty of practice in this dreadful place," said Erica.

He smiled a little.

"Why, to be seen talking to ME will make people say all sorts of evil of you," she added. "I wish I had thought of that before."