Chapter Ten.
Spiders’ Webs.
“Why does he find so many tangled threads,
So many dislocated purposes,
So many failures in the race of life?”
Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.
We had a grand time of it last night, to celebrate the Prince’s entry into Derby. I did not see one red ribbon. Grandmamma is very much put out at the forbidding of French cambrics; she says nobody will be able to have a decent ruffle or a respectable handkerchief now: but what can you expect of these Hanoverians? And I am sure she looked smart enough last night. We had dancing—first, the minuet, and then a round—“Pepper’s black,” and then “Dull Sir John,” and a country dance, “Smiling Polly.” Flora would not dance, and Grandmamma excused her, because she was a minister’s daughter: Grandmamma always says a clergyman when she tells people: she says minister is a low word only used by Dissenters, and she does not want people to know that any guest of hers has any connection with those creatures. “However, thank Heaven! (says she) the girl is not my grand-daughter!” I don’t know what she would say if I were to turn Dissenter. I suppose she would cut me off with a shilling. Ephraim said so, and I asked him what it meant. Shillings are not very sharp, and what was I to be cut off? Ephraim seemed excessively amused.
“You are too good, Cary,” said he. “Did you think the shilling was a knife to cut you off something? It means she will only leave you a shilling in her will.”
“Well, that will be a shilling more than I expect,” said I: and Ephraim went off laughing.
I asked Miss Newton, as she seemed to know him, who Mr Raymond was. She says he is the lecturer at Saint Helen’s, and might have been a decent man if that horrid creature Mr Wesley had not got hold of him.
“Oh, do you know anything about Mr Wesley, or Mr Whitefield?” cried I. “Are they in London now?”
If I could hear them again!
“I am sure I cannot tell you,” said Miss Newton, laughing. “I have heard my father speak of them with some very strong language after it—that I know. My dear Miss Courtenay, does everything rouse your enthusiasm? For how you can bring that brilliant light into your eyes for the Prince, and for Mr Wesley, is quite beyond me. I should have thought they were the two opposite ends of a pole.”
“I don’t know anything about Mr Wesley,” I said, “and I have only heard Mr Whitefield preach once in Scotland.”
“You have heard him?” she asked.
“Yes, and liked him very much,” said I.
Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders in that little French way she has. “Why, some people think him the worse of the two,” she said. “I don’t know anything about them, I can tell you—only that Mr Wesley makes Dissenters faster than you could make tatting-stitches.”
“What does he do to them?” said I.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” said she. “If he had lived in former times, I am sure he would have been taken up for witchcraft. He is a clergyman, or they say so; but I really wonder the Bishops have not turned him out of the Church long ago.”
“A clergyman, and makes people Dissenters!” cried I. “Why, Mr Whitefield quoted the Articles in his sermon.”
“They said so,” she replied. “I know nothing about it; I never heard the man, thank Heaven! but they say he goes about preaching to all sorts of dreadful creatures—those wild miners down in Cornwall, and coal-heavers, and any sort of mobs he can get to listen. Only fancy a clergyman—a gentleman—doing any such thing!”
I thought a moment, and some words came to my mind.
“Do you think Mr Wesley was wrong?” I said. “‘The common people heard Him gladly.’ And I suppose you would not say that our Lord was not a gentleman.”
“Dear Miss Courtenay, forgive me, but what very odd things you say! And—excuse me—don’t you know it is not thought at all good taste to quote the Bible in polite society?”
“Is the Bible worse off for that?” said I. “Or is it the polite society? The best society, I suppose, ought to be in Heaven: and I fancy they do not shut out the Bible there. What think you?”
“Are you very innocent?” she answered, laughing; “or are you only making believe? You must know, surely, that religion is not talked about except from the pulpit, and on Sundays.”
“But can we all be sure of dying on a Sunday?” I answered. “We shall want religion then, shall we not?”
“Hush! we don’t talk of dying either—it is too shocking!”
“But don’t we do it sometimes?” I said.
Miss Newton looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry—certainly very much disturbed.
“Let us talk of something more agreeable, I beg,” said she. “See, Miss Bracewell is going to sing.”
“Oh, she will sing nothing worth listening to,” said I.
“I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to,” responded Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.
I don’t like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me angry.
“Well,” said I, “listen how much this is worth.”
Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song: it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me of those tunes which go just where you don’t expect them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don’t like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and “she sat and wailed,” and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the grammar) “was at rest,” and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia stopped singing.
“How sweet and sad!” said Miss Newton.
“Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish.”
She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me. I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.
“Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!” cried I. “I should like to hear hers.”
“A Scottish ballad, no doubt,” replied Miss Newton.
There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. Each word was clear.
This was Annas’s song.
“She said,—‘We parted for a while,
But we shall meet again ere long;
I work in lowly, lonely room,
And he amid the foreign throng:
But here I willingly abide,—
Here, where I see the other side.
“‘Look to those hills which reach away
Beyond the sea that rolls between;
Here from my casement, day by day,
Their happy summits can be seen:
Happy, although they us divide,—
I know he sees the other side.
“‘The days go on to make the year—
A year we must be parted yet—
I sing amid my crosses light,
For on those hills mine eyes are set:
You say, those hills our eyes divide?
Ay, but he sees the other side!
“‘So these dividing hills become
Our point of meeting, every eve;
Up to the hills we look and pray
And love—our work so soon we leave;
And then no more shall aught divide—
We dwell upon the other side.’”
“Pretty!” said Miss Newton, in the tone which people use when they do not think a thing pretty, but fancy that you expect them to say so: “but not so charming as Miss Bracewell’s song.”
“Wait,” said I; “she has not finished yet.”
The harp was speaking now—in a sad low voice, rising gradually to a note of triumph. Then it sank low again, and Annas’s voice continued the song.
“She said,—‘We parted for a while,
But we shall meet again ere long;
I dwell in lonely, lowly room,
And he hath joined the heavenly throng:
Yet here I willingly abide,
For yet I see the Other Side.
“‘I look unto the hills of God
Beyond the life that rolls between;
Here from my work by faith each day
Their blessed summits can be seen;
Blessed, although they us divide,—
I know he sees the Other Side.
“‘The days go on, the days go on,—
Through earthly life we meet not yet;
I sing amid my crosses light,
For on those hills mine eyes are set:
’Tis true, those hills our eyes divide—
Ay, but he sees the Other Side!
“‘So the eternal hills become
Our point of meeting, every eve;
Up to the hills I look and pray
And love—soon all my work I leave:
And then no more shall aught divide—
We dwell upon the Other Side.’”
I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp. The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.
“Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough’s drawing-room!” she cried. “She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess.”
“But Grandmamma would never—” I said, hesitatingly. “Annas Keith’s connections are—”
“I advise you not to be too sure what she could never,” answered Miss Newton, with a little capable nod. “Mrs Desborough would scarce be civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her drawing-room on a reception evening.”
“But it was charming!” I said.
Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. “The same things do not charm everybody,” said she. “It seemed to me no better than that Methodist doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better.”
When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.
“Cary, we must say ‘good-bye,’ I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs Desborough’s face, when my song was ended, had ‘good-bye’ in it.”
“O Annas!” said I. “Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of connections.”
“If my song had only had a few wicked words in it,” replied Annas, with that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, “I dare say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had been poor people,—or better, Whigs,—or better still, disreputable rakes—she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters. No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman forgive that one crime of crimes—Calvinism. Anything else! Don’t you see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside. She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have happened just now; but I suppose it was to be.”
“Are you going to tell her so?” I asked, wondering what Annas meant.
“I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over,” said Annas, with a peculiar smile.
“But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty.”
“I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the least,” replied Annas. “She asked me to sing.”
When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.
“Miss Keith!”
“Madam!”
“Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of the year?”
“So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our journey thither.”
Grandmamma took another pinch.
“I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable.”
“I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make to Sir James.”
There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over. When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and Flora was too much.
“O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?” I cried.
She laughed. “It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his head down!”
Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do. I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom seem to turn out pleasant people.
Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening, for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings, with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.
I wish I were making jumballs in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?
In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber. Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles—who for a wonder was at home—and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after I got there.
What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl. Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit. Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in. I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at once a voice called me back to something else.
“Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you.”
Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel. If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to speak to me as if nothing had happened!—how could the woman be so brazen as that?
I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people were not wicked.
“For what purpose, Madam?” I replied.
“Dear child, you are angry with me,” she said, and the soft, warm, gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. “It is so natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very sorry, for I loved you so much.”
O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.
“Did you?” I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears. “I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the same thing.”
The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.
“And you won’t forgive me?” she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can govern that voice, to be sure!
“Forgive you? Yes,” I answered. “But trust you? No. I think never again, my Lady Parmenter.”
“You will be sorry some day that you did not.”
Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.
“A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay.”
“You shall have my past thoughts, if you please,” said I, trying to speak lightly. “I would rather not sell my present ones at the price.”
He smiled, and drew out a new penny. “Then let me make the less valuable purchase.”
Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.
“Then tell me, Mr Raymond,” said I, “do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?”
“Once in a thousand times, perhaps,” said he. “I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest.”
“Why?” I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.
“Why not?” answered he, pithily. “Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind’s eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?”
I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to God.
“I give you those nights of prayer,” said Mr Raymond. “But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!—‘Looking up to Heaven, He sighed’ ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, ‘How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!’ ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He ‘took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses’; He knew when ‘virtue had gone out of Him.’ That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense—that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious.”
“Mr Raymond,” I exclaimed, “how can you be a Whig?”
“Pardon me, but what is the connection?” asked he, looking both astonished and diverted.
“Don’t you see it? You are much too good for one.”
Mr Raymond laughed. “Thank you; I fear I did not detect the compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be a Tory?”
“Why, I was born so,” said I.
“And so was I a Whig,” replied he.
“Excuse me!” came laughingly from my other hand, in Miss Newton’s voice. “The waters are not quite so smooth as they were, and I thought I had better be at hand to pour a little oil if necessary. Mr Raymond, I am afraid you are getting worldly. Is that not the proper word?”
“It is the proper word for an improper thing,” said Mr Raymond. “On what evidence do you rest your accusation, Miss Theresa?”
“On the fact that you have twice in one week made your appearance in Mrs Desborough’s rooms, which are the very pink of worldliness.”
“Have I come without reason?”
“You have not given it me,” said the young lady, laughing. “You cannot always come to tell one of the guests that his (or her) relations have been taken prisoner.”
I looked up so suddenly that Mr Raymond answered my eyes before he replied to Miss Newton’s words.
“No, Miss Courtenay, I did not come with ill news. I suppose a man may have two reasons at different times for the same action?”
“Where is our handsome friend of the dreadful name?” asked Miss Newton.
“Mr Hebblethwaite? He told me he could not be here this evening.”
“That man will have to change his name before anybody will marry him,” said Miss Newton.
“Then, if he takes my advice, he will continue in single blessedness,” was Mr Raymond’s answer.
“Now, why?”
“Do you not think it would be preferable to marrying a woman whose regard for you was limited by the alphabet?”
“Mr Raymond, you and Miss Courtenay do say such odd things! Is that because you are religious people?”
Oh, what a strange feeling came over me when Miss Newton said that! What made her count me a “religious person”? Am I one? I should not have dared to say it. I should like to be so; I am afraid to go further. To reckon myself one would be to sign my name as a queen, and I am not sufficiently sure of my royal blood to do it.
But what had I ever said to Miss Newton that she should entertain such an idea? Mr Raymond glanced at me with a brotherly sort of smile, which I wished from my heart that I deserved, (for all he is a Whig!) and was afraid I did not. Then he said,—
“Religious people, I believe, are often very odd things in the eyes of irreligious people. Do you count yourself among the latter class, Miss Theresa?”
“Oh, I don’t make any profession,” said she. “I have but one life, and I want to enjoy it.”
“That is exactly my position,” said Mr Raymond, smiling.
“Now, what do you mean?” demanded she. “Don’t the Methodists label everything ‘wicked’ that one wants to do?”
“‘One’ sometimes means another,” replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look in his eyes. “They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I cannot answer for other people.”
“I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should,” said Miss Newton.
“Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?—or for you?”
“Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is much better to be free.”
The look in Mr Raymond’s eyes seemed to me very like Divine compassion.
“Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose that ‘making no profession’ will excuse you to the Lord? Does your Bible read, ‘He that maketh no profession shall be saved’? And also—Are you free?”
“Am I free? Why, of course I am!” she cried. “I can do what I like, without asking leave of priest or minister.”
“God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth shall come between Him and me.”
“That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?—no, not for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won’t dance, because Mr Gardiner disapproves of it; she can’t sing a song, of the most innocent sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won’t do this, and she can’t go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what do you call that?”
“Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan’s two grand masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods’—‘Yea, hath God said?’—and lastly, ‘There is no God.’ To the weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery, offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life with authority—offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for you. Now just notice how far God’s religion is from both. It does not say, ‘Ye shall be as gods;’ but, ‘This Man receiveth sinners’: not, ‘Hath God said?’ but, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Turn to the other side, and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him.”
“We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!” said Miss Newton, shrugging her shoulders. “If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be sending Caesar to show you the clock.”
“I have not exceeded it yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond.
“Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says she has been—is ‘converted’ the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms. And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit sin. I wish you would talk to her.”
“I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner.”
“Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,—well, they don’t count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that your creed, Mr Raymond?”
“Do you know the true name of that creed, Miss Theresa?”
“Dear, no! I understand nothing about it.”
Mr Raymond’s voice was very solemn: “‘So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.’ ‘Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.’ Antinomianism is the name of it. It has existed in the Church of God from a date, you see, earlier than the close of the inspired canon. Essentially the same thing survives in the Popish Church, under the name of mortal and venial sins; and it creeps sooner or later into every denomination, in its robes of an angel of light. But it belongs to the darkness. Sin! Do we know the meaning of that awful word? I believe none but God knows rightly what sin is. But he who does not know something of what sin is can have very poor ideas of the Christ who saves from sin. He does not save men in sin, but from sin: not only from penalty,—from sin. Christ is not dead, but alive. And sin is not a painted plaything, but a deadly poison. God forgive them who speak lightly of it!”
I do not know what Miss Newton said to this, for at that minute I caught sight of Hatty in a corner, alone, and seized my opportunity at once. Threading my way with some difficulty among bewigged and belaced gentlemen, and ladies with long trains and fluttering fans, I reached my sister, and sat down by her.
“Hatty,” said I, “I hardly ever get a word with you. How long do you stay with the Crosslands?”
“I do not know, Cary,” she answered, looking down, and playing with her fan.
“Do you know that you look very far from well?”
“There are mirrors in Charles Street,” she replied, with a slight curl of her lip.
“Hatty, are those people kind to you?” I said, thinking I had better, like Annas, take the bull by the horns.
“I suppose so. They mean to be. Let it alone, Cary; you are not old enough to interfere—hardly to understand.”
“I am only eighteen months younger than you,” said I. “I do not wish to interfere, Hatty; but I do want to understand. Surely your own sister may be concerned if she see you looking ill and unhappy.”
“Do I look so, Cary?”
I thought, from the tone, that Hatty was giving way a little.
“You look both,” I said. “I wish you would come here.”
“Do you wish it, Cary?” The tone now was very unlike Hatty.
“Indeed I do, Hatty,” said I, warmly. “I don’t half believe in those people in Charles Street; and as to Amelia and Charlotte, I doubt if either of them would see anything, look how you might.”
“Oh, Charlotte is not to blame; thoughtlessness is her worst fault,” said Hatty, still playing with her fan.
“And somebody is to blame? Is it Amelia?”
“I did not say so,” was the answer.
“No,” I said, feeling disappointed; “I cannot get you to say anything. Hatty, I do wish you would trust me. Nobody here loves you except me.”
“You did not love me much once, Cary.”
“Oh, I get vexed when you tease me, that is all,” said I. “But I want you to look happier, Hatty, dear.”
“I should not tease you much now, Cary.”
I looked up, and saw that Hatty’s eyes were full of tears.
“Do come here, Hatty!” I said, earnestly.
“Grandmamma has not asked me,” she replied.
“Then I will beg her to ask you. I think she will. She said the other day that you were very much improved.”
“At all events, my red cheeks and my plough-boy appetite would scarcely distress her now,” returned Hatty, rather bitterly. “Mr Crossland is coming for me—I must go.” And while she held my hand, I was amazed to hear a low whisper, in a voice of unutterable longing,—“Cary, pray for me!”
That horrid Mr Crossland came up and carried her off. Poor dear Hatty! I am sure something is wrong. And somehow, I think I love her better since I began to pray for her, only that was not last night, as she seemed to think.
This morning at breakfast, I asked Grandmamma if she would do me a favour.
“Yes, child, if it be reasonable,” said she. “What would you have?”
“Please, Grandmamma, will you ask Hatty to come for a little while? I should so like to have her; and I cannot talk to her comfortably in a room full of people.”
Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff, as she generally does when she wants to consider a minute.
“She is very much improved,” said she. “She really is almost presentable. I should not feel ashamed, I think, of introducing her as my grand-daughter. Well, Cary, if you wish it, I do not mind. You are a tolerably good girl, and I do not object to give you a pleasure. But it must be after she has finished her visit to the Crosslands. I could not entice her away.”
“I asked her how long she was going to stay there, Grandmamma, and she said she did not know.”
“Then, my dear, you must wait till she do.” (Note 1.)
But what may happen before then? I knew it would be of no use to say any more to Grandmamma: she is a perfect Mede and Persian when she have once declared her royal pleasure. And my Aunt Dorothea will never interfere. My Uncle Charles is the only one who dare say another word, and it was a question if he would. He is good-natured enough, but so careless that I could not feel at all certain of enlisting him. Oh dear! I do feel to be growing so old with all my cares! It seems as if Hatty, and Annas, and Flora, and Angus, and Colonel Keith, and the Prince,—I beg his pardon, he should have come first,—were all on my shoulders at once. And I don’t feel strong enough to carry such a lot of people.
I wish my Aunt Kezia was here. I have wished it so many times lately.
When I had written so far, I turned back to look at my Aunt Kezia’s rules. And then I saw how foolish I am. Why, instead of putting the Lord first, I had been leaving Him out of the whole thing. Could He not carry all these cares for me? Did He not know what ailed Hatty, and how to deliver Angus, and all about it? I knelt down there and then (I always write in my own chamber), and asked Him to send Hatty to me, and better still, to bring her to Him; and to show me whether I had better speak to my Uncle Charles, or try to get things out of Amelia. As to Charlotte, I would not ask her about anything which I did not care to tell the town crier.
The next morning—(there, my dates are getting all wrong again! It is no use trying to keep them straight)—as my Uncle Charles was putting on his gloves to go out, he said,—
“Well, Cary, shall I bring you a fairing of any sort?”
“Uncle Charles,” I said, leaping to a decision at once, “do bring me Hatty! I am sure she is not happy. Do get Grandmamma to let her come now.”
“Not happy!” cried my Uncle Charles, lifting his eyebrows. “Why, what is the matter with the girl? Can’t she get married? Time enough, surely.”
Oh dear, how can men be so silly! But I let it pass, for I wanted Hatty to come, much more than to make my Uncle Charles sensible. In fact, I am afraid the last would take too much time and labour. There, now, I should not have said that.
“Won’t you try, Uncle Charles? I do want her so much.”
“Child, I cannot interfere with my mother. Ask Hatty to spend the day. Then you can have a talk with her.”
“Uncle, please, will you ask Grandmamma?”
“If you like,” said he, with a laugh.
I heard no more about it till supper-time, when my Uncle Charles said, as if it had just occurred to him (which I dare say it had),—“Madam, I think this little puss is disappointed that Hatty cannot come at once. Might she not spend the day here? It would be a treat for both girls.”
Grandmamma’s snuff-box came out as usual. I sat on thorns, while she rapped her box, opened it, took a pinch, shut the box with a snap, and consigned it to her pocket.
“Yes,” she said, at last. “Dorothea, you can send Caesar with a note.”
“Oh, thank you, Grandmamma!” cried I.
Grandmamma looked at me, and gave an odd little laugh.
“These fresh girls!” she said, “how they do care about things, to be sure!”
“Grandmamma, is it pleasanter not to care about things?” said I.
“It is better, my dear. To be at all warm or enthusiastic betrays under-breeding.”
“But—please, Grandmamma—do not well-bred people get very warm over politics?”
“Sometimes well-bred people forget themselves,” said Grandmamma, “But it is more allowable to be warm over some matters than others. Politics are to some degree an exception. We do not make exhibitions of our personal affections, Caroline, and above all things we avoid showing warmth on religious questions. We do not talk of such things at all in good society.”
Now—I say this to my book, of course, not to Grandmamma—is not that very strange? We are not to be warm over the most important things, matters of life and death, things we really care about in our inmost hearts: but over all the little affairs that we do not care about, we may lose our tempers a little (in an elegant and reasonable way) if we choose to do so. Would it not be better the other way about?
Note 1. The use of the subjunctive with when and until, now obsolete, was correct English until the present century was some thirty years old.