Chapter Thirteen.
A new friend for Christabel.
“O Aunt Tabitha! have you and Uncle Thomas been to Canterbury? and did you really see dear Aunt Alice? How looks she? and what said she? I do want to know, and Father never seems to see, somehow, the things I want. Of course I would not—he’s the best father that ever was, Aunt Tabitha, and the dearest belike; but somehow, he seems not to see things—”
“He’s a man,” said Aunt Tabitha, cutting short Christabel’s laboured explanation; “and men never do see, child. They haven’t a bit of gumption, and none so much wit. Ay, we’ve been; but we were late, and hadn’t time to tarry. Well, she looks white belike, as folks alway do when they be shut up from the air; but she seems in good health, and in good cheer enough. She was sat of the corner, hard by a woman that hath, said she, been a good friend unto her, and a right comfort, and who, said she, must needs have a share in all her good things.”
“Oh, I’m glad she has a friend in that dreadful place! What’s her name, Aunt, an’ it like you?”
“Didn’t say.”
“But I would like to pray for her,” said Christie with a disappointed look; “and I can’t say, ‘Bless that woman.’”
“Why not?” said Aunt Tabitha bluntly. “Art ’feared the Lord shall be perplexed to know which woman thou meanest, and go and bless the wrong one?”
“Why, no! He’ll know, of course. And, please, has Aunt Alice a cushion for her back?”
Tabitha laughed curtly. “Cushions grow not in prisons, child. Nay, she’s never a cushion.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Christie mournfully. “And I’ve got three! I wish I could give her one of mine.”
“Well, I scarce reckon she’d have leave to keep it, child. Howbeit, thou canst pray thy father to make inquiration.”
“Oh ay! I’ll pray Father to ask. Thank you, Aunt Tabitha. Was Aunt Alice very, very pleased to see you?”
“Didn’t ask her. She said some’at none so far off it. Dear heart! but what ado is here?”
And Tabitha rose to examine the details of the “ado.” Two fine horses stood before the gate, each laden with saddle and pillion, the former holding a serving-man, and the latter a lady. From a third horse the rider, also a man-servant in livery, had alighted, and he was now coming to help the ladies down. They were handsomely dressed, in a style which showed them to be people of some consequence: for in those days the texture of a woman’s hood, the number of her pearls, and the breadth of her lace and fur were carefully regulated by sumptuary laws, and woe betide the esquire’s daughter, or the knight’s wife, who presumed to poach on the widths reserved for a Baroness!
“Bless us! whoever be these?” inquired Tabitha of nobody in particular. “I know never a one of their faces. Have they dropped from the clouds?”
“Perhaps it’s a mistake,” suggested Christie.
“Verily, so I think,” rejoined her aunt. “I’d best have gone myself to them—I’m feared Nell shall scarce—”
But Nell opened the door with the astonishing announcement of—“Mistress Grena Holland, and Mistress Pandora Roberts, to visit the little mistress.”
If anything could have cowed or awed Tabitha Hall, it would certainly have been that vision of Mistress Grena, in her dress of dark blue velvet edged with black fur, and her tawny velvet hood with its gold-set pearl border. She recognised instinctively the presence of a woman whose individuality was almost equal to her own, with the education and bearing of a gentlewoman added to it. Christabel was astonished at the respectful way in which Aunt Tabitha rose and courtesied to the visitors, told them who she was, and that the master of the house was away at his daily duties.
“Ay,” said Mistress Grena gently, “we wot that Master Hall must needs leave his little maid much alone, for my brother, Master Roberts of Primrose Croft, is owner of the works whereof he is manager.”
This announcement brought a yet lower courtesy from Tabitha, who now realised that members of the family of Roger Hall’s master had come to visit Christabel.
“And as young folks love well to converse together apart from their elders, and my niece’s discretion may well be trusted,” added Mistress Grena, “if it serve you, Mistress Hall, we will take our leave. Which road go you?”
“I will attend you, my mistress, any road, if that stand with your pleasure.”
“In good sooth, I would gladly speak with you a little. I have an errand to Cranbrook, and if it answer with your conveniency, then shall you mount my niece’s horse, and ride with me thither, I returning hither for her when mine occasion serveth.”
Tabitha having intimated that she could make this arrangement very well suit her convenience, as she wished to go to Cranbrook some day that week, the elder women took their departure, and Pandora was left alone with Christie.
Some girls would have been very shy of one another in these circumstances, but these two were not thus troubled; Pandora, because she was too well accustomed to society, and Christie because she was too much excited by the unwonted circumstances. Pandora drew Christie out by a few short, well-directed questions; and many minutes had not passed before she knew much of the child’s lonely life and often sorrowful fancies.
“Father’s the best father that ever was, or ever could be!” said Christie lovingly: “but look you, Mistress, he is bound to leave me—he can’t tarry with me. And I’ve no sisters, and no mother; and Aunt Tabitha can’t be here often, and Aunt Alice is—away at present.”
“Thou art somewhat like me, little Christie, for though I have one sister, I also have no mother.”
“Do you miss her, Mistress?” asked Christie, struck by the pathos of Pandora’s tone.
“Oh, so much!” The girl’s eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t remember my mother,” said Christie simply. “She was good, everybody says; but I can’t recollect her a whit. I was only a baby when she went to Heaven, to live with the Lord Jesus.”
“Ah, but I do remember mine,” was Pandora’s answer. “My sister was thirteen, and I was eleven, when our mother died; and I fretted so much for her, they were feared I might go into a waste, and I was sent away for five years, to dwell with my grandmother, well-nigh all the length of England off. I have but now come home. So thou seest I can feel sorry for lonesome folks, little Christie.”
Christie’s face flushed slightly, and an eager, wistful look came into her eyes. She was nerving herself to make a confession that she had never made before, even to her father or her Aunt Alice. She did not pause to ask herself why she should choose Pandora as its recipient; she only felt it possible to say it to the one, and too hard to utter it to the others.
“It isn’t only lonesomeness, and that isn’t the worst, either. But everybody says that folks that love God ought to work for Him, and I can’t do any work. It doth Him no good that I should work in coloured silks and wools, and the like; and I can’t do nothing else: so I can’t work for God. I would I could do something. I wouldn’t care how hard it was. Justine—that’s one of my cousins—grumbles because she says her work is so hard; but if I could work, I wouldn’t grumble, however hard it was—if only it were work for God.”
“Little Christie,” said Pandora softly, stroking the fair hair, “shall I tell thee a secret?”
“If it please you, Mistress.” The answer did not come with any eagerness; Christie thought the confession, which had cost her something, was to be shelved as a matter of no interest, and her disappointment showed itself in her face.
Pandora smiled. “When I was about thy years, Christie, one day as I came downstairs, I made a false step, and slid down to the bottom of the flight. It was not very far—maybe an half-dozen steps or more: but I fell with my ankle doubled under me, and for nigh a fortnight I could not walk for the pain. I had to lie all day on a day-bed; and though divers young folks were in the house, and many sports going, I could not share in any, but lay there and fretted me o’er my misfortune. I was not patient; I was very impatient. But there was in the house a good man, a friend of my grandmother, that came one even into the parlour where I lay, and found me in tears. He asked me no questions. He did but lay his hand upon my brow as I lay there with my kerchief to mine eyes, and quoth he, ‘My child, to do the work of God is to do His will.’ Hast thou yet learned my lesson, Christie?”
Christie’s eyes were eager enough now. She saw that the answer was coming, not put aside for something more entertaining to Pandora.
“Many and many a time, Christie, hath that come back to me, when I have been called to do that which was unpleasing to me, that which perchance seemed lesser work for God than the thing which I was doing. And I have oft found that what I would have done instead thereof was not the work God set me, but the work I set myself.”
“Then can I work for God, if I only lie here?”
“If God bid thee lie there, and bear pain and weakness, and weariness, dear child, then that is His work, because it is His will for thee. It would not be work for God, if thou wert to arise and scour the floor, when He bade thee ’bide still and suffer. Ah, Christie, we are all of us sore apt to make that blunder—to think that the work we set ourselves is the work God setteth us. And ’tis very oft He giveth us cross-training; the eager, active soul is set to lie and bear, while the timid, ease-loving nature is bidden to arise and do. But so long as it is His will, it is His work.”
It did not strike Christie as anything peculiar or surprising that her new acquaintance should at once begin to talk to her in this strain. She had lived exclusively with people older than herself, and all whom she knew intimately were Christian people. Aunt Tabitha sometimes puzzled her; but Christie’s nature was not one to fret and strain over a point which she could not comprehend. It seemed to her, therefore, not only right, but quite a matter of course, that Pandora Roberts should be of the same type as her father and her Aunt Alice.
“I thank you, Mistress,” she said earnestly. “I will do mine utmost to bear it in mind, and then, maybe, I shall not be so impatient as oft I am.”
“Art thou impatient, Christabel?”
“Oh, dreadfully!” said Christie, drawing a long sigh. “Not always, look you; there be times I am content, or if not, I can keep it all inside mostly. But there be times it will not tarry within, but comes right out, and then I’m so ’shamed of myself afterward. I marvel how it is that peevishness isn’t like water and other things—when they come pouring out, they are out, and they are done; but the more peevishness comes out of you, the more there seems to be left in. ’Tis not oft, look you, it really comes right outside: that would be shocking! but ’tis a deal too often. And I do want to be like the Lord Jesus!”
Something bright and wet dropped on Christabel’s forehead as Pandora stooped to kiss her.
“Little Christie,” she said tenderly, “I too right earnestly desire to be like the Lord Jesus. But the best of all is that the Lord Himself desires it for us. He will help us both; and we will pray each for other.”