Volume Three—Chapter Two.
Mrs Berens is Wounded.
“Is anything the matter, Mrs Berens?”
“Matter, my dear Mary?” said the lady, in a piteous voice. “Oh, yes; but how beautiful and soft and patient you look!”
She bent down and kissed the invalid, sighed, and wafted some scent about the room.
“I’m a great deal worried, dear, about money matters, and—and other things.”
“Money, Mrs Berens? I thought you were rich.”
“Not rich, dear, but well off. But money is a great trouble; for Mr Thompson, my agent in London, worries me a great deal, investing and putting it for me somewhere else. He says I am wasting my opportunities—that he could double my income; and when he comes down, really, my dear, his attentions are too marked for those of a solicitor.”
“Mr Thompson is a relative of Dr North, is he not?” said Mary gravely.
“Yes; he asked Dr North to introduce him, and the doctor did,” said Mrs Berens ruefully. “But it was not about the money; it was about Dr North himself I came to speak.”
“Indeed!” said Mary, with a faint tinge of colour showing.
“Yes, my dear; and I don’t want you to think me a busybody, but I could not help noticing that he seemed attached to Leo; and it is troubling me for Leo’s sake.”
“Will you speak plainly, Mrs Berens?”
“Yes, dear; but you frighten me—you are so severe. There! I will speak out! Leo is engaged to Dr North, is she not?”
“No,” said Mary, after a pause; “there is no engagement.”
“Ah, then that makes it not quite so bad.”
“Mrs Berens!”
“Oh, don’t be so severe, Mary. I was poorly yesterday—a little hysterical—the weather; and I sent for Dr North.”
“Yes.”
“He came, dear, and no medical man could have been nicer than he was at first; but all at once he seemed to change—to become as if he were two people!”
“Mrs Berens!”
“Yes, dear. I did not know what to make of him. He was like one possessed, my dear!”
“Mrs Berens!”
“Yes, dear; it’s quite true. One minute he was sympathetic and kind, and the next laughing at and bantering me in a strange tone.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“No, my dear. He told me it was all nonsense, and that I was as hearty as a brick. What an expression to use to a lady! And then he apologised, and spoke calmly, giving me excellent advice.”
Mary wiped the dew from her white forehead.
“And then, my dear,” continued Mrs Berens, “directly after he called me his pretty buxom widow. I felt as if I should sink through the floor with indignant shame.”
“Are you not mistaken, Mrs Berens?” said Mary, whose voice grew tremulous and almost inaudible.
“Mistaken, my dear? Oh, no; that is what he said; and then he seemed to feel ashamed of it, and I saw him colour up.”
“It seems impossible,” muttered Mary; and then she recalled her brother’s words, and a hand seemed to clutch her heart.
“Of course,” continued Mrs Berens, “I could not order him to leave the house; I could only look at him indignantly.”
“And he apologised?” said Mary eagerly.
“Apologised? No, my dear; he made matters worse by his low bantering—chaff, young men call it—till my face burned, and I felt so shocked that I was ready to burst into tears. For I always did like Dr North. Such a straightforward, gentlemanly man. You always felt such confidence in him.”
Mary looked at her wildly.
“Oh, no, my dear,” continued her visitor, taking her look as a question; “nothing of the kind. I should have smelt him directly. He kissed me. He had not been drinking. And it’s so horrible, for I could never call him in again.”
“Hush!” whispered Mary. “Pray don’t speak of it before my brother.”
“Before your brother! Oh, no, my dear. I should sink with shame. But why did you say that?”
“Because he might come in, and I must think about it all before I mention it to him.”
“But—but Mr Salis—”
“My brother is not out.”
“Not out? I understood your maid to say he had gone to the church,” cried Mrs Berens, starting up in alarm.
She was too late, for directly after Salis entered, with the presentation surplice over his arm.
Some one turned red in the face. It may have been Mrs Berens, or it may have been Salis; and, in either case, the colour was reflected. Certainly both looked warm.
Salis was the first to recover his equanimity and greet the visitor.
“I did not know you had company, Mary,” he said. “I was going to ask you to alter the buttons at the neck of this. It is too tight.”
“Then you are going to wear it?” said Mary, with the first display of malicious fun that had shone in her eyes since her accident.
“Wear it? Well, yes; I suppose I must,” said Salis gruffly. “I can’t afford to buy myself a new one. Only a beggarly, hard-up curate, you see, Mrs Berens.”
“Oh, Mr Salis!” faltered the lady.
“And I really was ashamed of my surplice on Sunday. Mary here patched and darned all she could; but I looked a sad tatterdemalion. Didn’t you think so?”
“I? Oh, no, Mr Salis; I was thinking of your discourse.”
“But I didn’t wear it during the discourse,” said Salis slowly.
“Oh, of course. I should not have noticed it during the prayers,” said Mrs Berens, who was strung up now.
“That means that the prayers are better worth listening to than my sermons?” said Salis quickly.
“I did not say so,” retorted Mrs Berens, who momentarily grew more dignified and distant of manner, while Mary looked from one to the other, surprised into enjoyment of the novel scene.
“Ah, well, never mind,” said Salis half-bitterly. “Never mind the sermon, Mrs Berens.”
“Is not that rather bad advice for one’s pastor to give to a member of his flock, Mr Salis?”
“I’m afraid it is,” said Salis, laughing. “I am beaten. Now it’s my turn, madam,” he added to himself. “What do you think of that, Mrs Berens?” and he held out and displayed the surplice, as a modiste would a dress.
“It looks very white, Mr Salis,” said the lady, fanning herself with a highly-scented handkerchief.
“Are you a judge of the quality of linen, Mrs Berens?”
“Well, not a judge; but I think I can tell that this is very fine.”
“Exactly,” said Salis; “very fine, ma’am. Do you know what this is?”
“What it is—ahem! I suppose it is a surplice.”
“Yes, ma’am, but it is something more,” said Salis sharply; “it is an insult!”
“An insult, Mr Salis?”
“Yes, ma’am, an insult; an anonymous insult! Somebody had said to himself or herself, ‘This poor curate has lost his surplice, and can’t afford another without going into debt; I’ll buy him one and send him—carriage paid.’”
“Mr Salis!”
“Yes, ma’am. That is the state of the case. All right, Mary, my dear; I know what I am saying. Perhaps Mrs Berens may know who sent it.”
“Mr Salis! I—”
“Stop, stop, ma’am; pray don’t tell me. I would rather not know; it would be too painful to me. I only wish you, if you happen to know, to tell the anonymous donor what I feel about the matter. I was going to send the robe back to the maker: but, on second thoughts, I said to myself, I cannot afford a new one, so will swallow my pride, and wear it regularly, as a garb of penance, as a standing reproach—to the giver.”
There was quite a strong odour of patchouli in the room, for Mrs Berens was whisking her handkerchief about wildly.
“That’s all I wanted to say, ma’am. Mary, you’ll alter those buttons. I’ve tried it on, and my breast swelled so much with honest indignation, I suppose, that the fastenings nearly flew off. Good-bye, Mrs Berens. Oh! pray shake hands, ma’am. We are not going to be bad friends because I spoke out honestly and plainly.”
“Oh, no! Mr Salis,” faltered the lady, who had hard work to keep back her tears.
“I only want the donor to know how I feel about an anonymous gift, which stings a poor man who has any pride in him.”
“But clergymen should not have any pride,” said Mary, coming to Mrs Berens’ help.
“Quite right, my dear, but they have, and a great deal too sometimes.”
He nodded shortly to both in turn, and stalked out of the room.
Mrs Berens had risen. So had the tears, in spite of a very gallant fight. She made one more effort to keep them back, but her emotion was too strong; and, woman-like, seeking sympathy of woman, she sank upon her knees by Mary’s side, sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Good-bye, Mary, dear,” she said at last. “I’m a weak, simple woman; but I can feel, and very deeply too.”
This, after a long weeping communion, during which Mary Salis understood the gentle-hearted widow better than she had ever grasped her character before.
There was a very tender embrace, and then, with her veil drawn down tightly, Mrs Berens left.
“Why not?” said Mary to herself as she lay back thinking. “She is very good and amiable, and she loves him very much. And if I die—poor Hartley will seem to be alone.—Why not?”
Then her mind reverted to her visitor’s words, and a cloud of trouble sat upon her brow.
“What can it mean?” she mused. “And I so helpless here!” she sighed at last; “compelled to hear everything from others, unable to do anything but lie here and think.”