Chapter Eighteen.
The cure for a bad temper.
The first days of winter passed away rapidly. Gertrude continued to watch Christie’s daily life, and to draw her own conclusions from what she saw. Humble, patient, and self-denying she always saw her, and almost always she was peaceful and happy. Not quite always; for Christie was not very strong, and had her home-sick days, and was now and then despondent. But she was rarely irritable at these times. She was only very quiet, speaking seldom, even to little Claude, till the cloud passed away. And when it passed it left the sunshine brighter, the peace of her trusting heart greater than before.
It is not to be supposed that Gertrude watched all this with no thought beyond the little nurserymaid. When she had settled in her own mind that it was her religion which made Christie so different from most of the people with whom she had come in contact, she did not fail to bring into comparison with her life the lives and professions of many who wished to be considered Christians. This was not the wisest course she could have taken, but happily she went farther than this. Comparing her own life and conduct with that of Claude’s nurse, she did not fail to see how far it fell short.
There was nothing very difficult in Christie’s daily duties. She had no opportunities for doing great things, or for bearing great trials. But seeing her always as she saw her, Gertrude came to feel that the earnestness, the patience, the self-forgetfulness, with which all her little duties were done, and all her little disappointments borne, would have made any life beautiful. And seeing and feeling all this, there gradually grew out of her admiration a desire to imitate what seemed so beautiful in the little maid; and many a time when she was disappointed or angry did the remembrance of her humble friend help her to self-restraint. With a vague idea that Christie’s power came from a source beyond herself, she groped blindly and only half consciously for the same help. She studied in secret the Bible that seemed to be so precious to her, and she prayed earnestly—or she believed she prayed—to be made wise and strong and self-denying, and in short, did what might be done to build up a righteousness for herself.
Of course she failed, and then came discouragement and despondency; and while this mood lasted, all the days in the upper nursery were not happy ones. For Gertrude, vexed with herself and her failure, grew impatient and exacting with all the world; and as all the world was not at the young lady’s command, a great deal of her discomfort was visited on Christie.
As for Christie, she was very patient and forbearing with her, waiting till her unkind moods were over, not answering her at all, or waiting and watching for an opportunity to win her from an indulgence of her spleen. Sometimes she succeeded, sometimes her gentleness served to irritate the wayward girl to sharper words or greater coldness. But save by silence, or a look of grieved surprise, her unkindness was never resented.
A half perception of how it was with the young lady helped her greatly to endure her petulance. She longed to help her, but she did not know how to do so by words. So she prayed for her and had patience with her, saying to herself, if Miss Gertrude was in earnest to do right, God would guide her to Himself in time.
“Do you know you speak to me just as you speak to Claude when he is fretful and naughty,” said Gertrude one day, when she had been more than usually irritable and unhappy.
“Do I?” said Christie, looking up, gravely; but she smiled brightly enough when she saw by Gertrude’s face that the cloud was passing away for this time.
“Yes. If you would pat me gently, and smooth my hair, and offer to tell me a story, the illusion would be complete. Why don’t you tell me to take myself and my books down-stairs? I am sure you must be sick of the sight of me.”
Christie laughed, and shook her head.
“Come, now, confess that you were just saying to yourself, How cross and unreasonable she has been all day!”
“No; I was wondering what could be vexing you, and wishing I could help you in some way.”
“There is nothing vexing me that you can help. It is just my nature to be cross and disagreeable. I don’t suppose there’s any help for that.”
Christie laughed quite merrily now.
“It’s a wonder I never found out that was your nature before.”
“Oh, well, you are finding it out now. I only found it out lately myself. I never in all my life tried so hard to be good and patient and self-denying, and I was never so bad in all my life. There are times when I quite hate myself; and I am sure I shouldn’t wonder if you were to hate me too.”
She had been gazing moodily into the fire, but she turned as she said this, and met the wistful, almost tearful, eyes of Christie fixed upon her.
“I wish you could tell me something to do,” she added. “You know so much more about these things than I do.”
Christie shook her head with a sigh.
“Oh, no; I know very little; and even what I know I can’t speak about as other people can. You must have patience with yourself,”—“and pray,” she would have added; but Miss Gertrude cut her short.
“Oh, yes! it is easily said, ‘have patience.’ I would give a great deal to be naturally as gentle and patient and even-tempered as you are.”
“As I am!” said Christie, laughing; but she looked grave in a moment. “That shows how little you know of me, if indeed you are not mocking me in saying that.”
“No; you know very well I am not mocking you now, though I was a little while ago. I don’t think I have seen you angry since you came here—really angry, I mean.”
“Well, no, perhaps not angry. Do you really think I am gentle and even-tempered?” she asked, suddenly, turning her face towards her. “I am sure I used not to be. But then I have so little to try me now.”
“Well, I think you have had enough just for to-day, what with the boys and with me. But if you were not always patient and good, what changed you? What did you do to yourself? Tell me about it, as Claude would say.”
“Oh, I don’t know what I could tell,” said Christie, in some embarrassment. “I only mind what a peevish, good-for-nothing little creature I was. The others could have had little pleasure with me, only they were strong and good-tempered and didn’t mind. Even to Effie I must have been a vexation; but mother gave me to her care when she died, and so she had patience with me. I was never well, and my mother spoiled me, they said. I’m sure it was a sad enough world to me when she died. And then my aunt came to live with us, and she was so different. And by and by we came to Canada, and then everything was changed. I mind, sometimes, if a body only looked at me I was in a pet. I was not well, for one thing, and I used to fancy that my aunt liked me less and had less patience with me than with the rest; and no wonder, when I think of it. Effie was good and kind to me always, though I must have tried her many a time.”
“Well,” said Miss Gertrude, “but you don’t tell me what changed you.”
“Well, I can’t tell. I believe I was never quite so bad after the time Effie gave me my Bible.” And she gave Miss Gertrude the history of the miserable day with which our story commenced—of her trying to pray under the birch-tree by the brook, of Effie’s coming home with the book-man, and of their walk to the kirk and the long talk they had together.
“And it was soon after that that my father was hurt and my aunt grew ill again. We had a very sorrowful winter. But there is one good thing in having real trouble to bear; one doesn’t fret so much about little things, or about nothing at all, as I used to do. I think that winter was really happier to me than any time I had had since my mother’s death. I was with my father a great deal towards the end; and though he was so ill and suffered so much, he was very kind and patient with me.”
There was a long pause before Christie could go on again, and she rather hurried over the rest of her tale.
“After he died we left the farm. I came here with Annie. I was very home-sick at first. Nothing but that I couldn’t bear to go home and depend on Aunt Elsie kept me here. I thought sometimes I must die of that heart-sickness, and besides, I made myself unhappy with wrong thoughts. In the spring Annie went away. I couldn’t go, because Mrs Lee and the children were ill; you mind I told you about that. I was unhappy at first; but afterwards I was not, and I never was again—in the same way, I mean.”
The work she had been busy upon dropped from her hands, and over her face stole the look of peace and sweet content that Gertrude had so often wondered at. For a little while she sat quite still, forgetting, it seemed, that she was not alone; and then Gertrude said, softly.
“Well, and what then?”
Christie drew a long breath as she took up her work.
“Well, after that, something happened. I’m afraid I can’t tell it so that you will understand. It seems very little just to speak about, but it made a great difference to me. I went to the kirk one day when a stranger preached. I can’t just mind the words he said, at least I can’t repeat them. And even if I could I dare say they would seem just common words to you. I had heard them all before, many a time, but that day my heart was opened to understand them, I think. The way that God saves sinners seemed so plain and wise and sure, that I wondered I had never seen it so before. I seemed to see it in a new way, and that it is all His work from beginning to end. He pardons and justifies and sanctifies, and keeps us through all; and it seemed so natural and easy to trust myself in His hands. I have never been very unhappy since that day, and I don’t believe I shall ever be very unhappy again.”
There was a long silence. Miss Gertrude was repeating to herself, over and over again:
“His work, from beginning to end! He pardons, justifies, sanctifies, and saves at last.”
So many new and strange thoughts crowded into the young girl’s mind that for the moment she forgot Christie and her interest in all she had been saying. Word by word she repeated to herself, “pardons,” “justifies,” “sanctifies,” “saves.”
“I cannot understand it.” And in a little while, bewildered with her own speculations, she turned from the subject with a sigh.
“Well, and what else?” she said to Christie.
“Oh, there is no more. What were we speaking about? Oh, yes; about having patience. Well, when one has a great good to fall back upon, something that cannot be changed or lost or taken from us, why, it is easy to have patience with common little things that cannot last long and that often change to good. Yes, I do think I am more patient than I used to be. Things don’t seem the same.”
It filled Gertrude with a strange unhappiness to hear Christie talk in this way. The secret of the little maid’s content appeared so infinitely desirable, yet so unattainable by her. She seemed at once to be set so far-away from her—to be shut out from the light and pleasant place where Christie might always dwell.
“I don’t understand it,” she repeated to herself. “If it were anything that could be reasoned out or striven for, or even if we could get it by patient waiting. But we can do nothing. We are quite helpless, it seems.”
In her vexed moments Gertrude sometimes took pleasure in starting objections and asking questions which Christie found it difficult to answer.
“It is all real to her, though. One would think, to see her sitting there, that there is nothing in the world that has the power to trouble her long. And there really is nothing, if she is a child of God—as she says. What a strange thing it is!”
She sat watching the little absorbed face, thinking over her own vexed thoughts, till the old restless feeling would let her sit no longer. Rising, she went to the window and looked out.
“What a gloomy day it is!” she said. “How low the clouds are, and how dim and grey the light is! And listen to the wind moaning and sighing among the trees! It is very dreary. Don’t you think so, Christie?”
Christie looked up. “Yes, now that you speak of it, it does seem dreary; at least, it seems dreary outside. And I dare say it seems dreary in the house to you. Have they all gone out?”
“Yes; and there is to be no six o’clock dinner. They are to dine in town and go to some lecture or other. I almost wish I had gone.”
“I promised Claude that if he was very good he should go down to the drawing-room, and you would sing to us,” said Christie. “We must air the nursery, you know.”
“I have been very good, haven’t I, Tudie?” said the little boy, looking up from the pictures with which he had been amusing himself.
“Very good and sweet, my darling,” said Gertrude, kneeling down by the low chair on which her little brother sat. She put her arms around him, and drawing his head down on her breast, kissed him many times, her heart filling full of tenderness for the fragile little creature. The child laughed softly, as he returned her caresses, stroking her cheeks and her hair with his little thin hand.
“You won’t be cross any more, Tudie?” he said.
“I don’t know, dear. I don’t mean to be cross, but I dare say I shall be, for all that.”
“And will you sing to Christie and me?”
“Oh, yes; that I will—to your heart’s content.”
She had taken him in her arms, and was sitting with him on her lap, by this time; and they were silent, while Christie moved about the room, putting things away before they should go down-stairs.
“Christie,” said Gertrude, “do you know I think Claude must be changed as you say you are? He is so different from what he used to be!”
Christie stood quite still, with the garment she had been folding in her hands.
“He is much better,” she said. “He does not suffer as he used to do.”
“No. Well, perhaps that is it. Do you think he is too young to be changed? But if the change is wrought by God, as you say it is, how can he be too young?”
Christie came and knelt beside them.
“I don’t know. I suppose not. You know it is said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me.’”
The little boy looked from one to the other as they spoke.
“It was Jesus who said that—Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind man. And He loved us and died for us. I love Him dearly, Tudie.”
The girls looked at each other for a moment. Then Christie kissed his little white hands, and Gertrude kissed his lips and his shining hair, but neither of them spoke a word.
“Now, Tudie, come and sing to Christie and me,” said the child, slipping from her lap, and taking her hand.
“Yes; I will sing till you are weary.” And as she led him down-stairs and through the hall, her voice rose clear as a bird’s, and her painful thoughts were banished for that time.
But they came back again more frequently and pressed more heavily as the winter passed away. She put a restraint on herself, as far as Christie and her little brothers were concerned. When she felt unhappy or irritable, she stayed away from the upper nursery. She would not trouble Christie any more with her naughtiness, she said to herself; so at such times she would shut herself in her room, or go out with her mother or Miss Atherton to drive or pay visits, so as to chase her vexing thoughts away. But they always came back again. She grew silent and grave, caring little for her studies or her music, or for any of the thousand employments that usually fill up the time of young people.
Even Clement was permitted to escape from the discipline of lessons to which he had been for some time condemned during at least one of Miss Gertrude’s morning hours. She no longer manifested the pride in his progress and in his discipline and obedience which had for some time been a source of amusement and interest to the elder members of the family. Master Clement was left to lord it over Martha in the lower nursery as he had not been permitted to do since his mother’s visit to the sea-side.
“What ails you, Gertrude?” said Mrs Seaton, one Sabbath afternoon. “Are you not well? What are you thinking about? I declare, you look as if you had not a friend in the world!”
Gertrude was sitting with her chin leaning on her hand and her eyes fixed on the grey clouds that seemed to press close down on the tops of the snow-laden trees above the lawn. It was already growing dark, and the dreariness of the scene without was reflected on the girl’s face. She started at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“I am quite well,” she said, coming towards the fire, slightly shivering, “but somehow I feel stupid; I suppose just because it is Sunday.”
“That is not a very good reason, I should think,” said Mrs Seaton, gravely. “What were you thinking about?”
“I don’t know; I have forgotten. I was thinking about a great many things. For one thing, I was thinking how long the winter is here.”
“Why, it is hardly time to think about that yet,” said Miss Atherton, coming forward from the sofa where she had been sitting; “the winter is hardly begun yet. For my part, I like winter. But,” she added, pretending to whisper very secretly to Miss Gertrude, “I don’t mind telling you that I get a little stupid on Sunday myself.”
“Frances, pray don’t talk nonsense to the child,” said Mrs Seaton.
“It is not half so much of a sin to talk nonsense as it is to look glum, as Gertrude does. What ails you, child?”
Gertrude made no answer.
“Are you unwell, Gertrude?” asked Mrs Seaton.
“No, mother; I am perfectly well. What an idea!” she said, pettishly.
“She looks exactly like her Aunt Barbara,” said Miss Atherton. “I declare, I shouldn’t be surprised if she were to turn round and propose that I should read that extraordinary book I saw in her hand this morning! She looks capable of doing anything in the solemn line at this moment.”
Gertrude laughed, but made no answer.
“You do not take exercise enough,” said Mrs Seaton. “You have not been like yourself for a week.”
“I dare say that is it, mamma.”
“Of course she is not like herself!” said Miss Atherton. “She is exactly like her Aunt Barbara. Gertrude, my dear, you’re not thinking of growing good, are you?”
“Don’t you think it might be of some advantage to the world if I were to improve a little?” asked Gertrude, laughing, but not pleasantly.
“Well, I don’t know. I am afraid it would put us all out sadly. Only fancy her ‘having a mission,’ and trying to reform me!”
“Pray, Frances, don’t talk that way,” said Mrs Seaton; but she could not help laughing at the look of consternation the young lady assumed.
“Ah, I know what is the matter with her!” exclaimed Miss Atherton, just as the gentlemen came in. “It is your fault, Mr Sherwood. You are making her as wise as you are yourself, and glum besides. It is quite time she were done with all those musty books. I think for the future we will consider her education finished.”
“What is the matter, young ladies? You are not quarrelling, I hope?” said Mr Seaton, seating himself beside them.
“Oh, no! It is with Mr Sherwood I am going to quarrel. He and his big books are giving Gertrude the blues. It must be stopped.”
“I am sorry Miss Gertrude is in such a melancholy state,” said Mr Sherwood, laughing; “but I am quite sure that neither I nor my big books have had anything to do with it. I have not had an opportunity to trouble her for a week, and I doubt whether she has troubled herself with any books of my selection for a longer time than that.”
“Oh, well, you need not tell tales out of school,” said Miss Atherton, hastily, noticing the look of vexation that passed over Gertrude’s face. “I am going to take the refractory young lady in hand. I think I can teach her.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Mr Sherwood, with a smile and a shrug; “but if I were to be permitted to name a successor in my labours, it certainly would not be you.”
“Hear him!” exclaimed Miss Atherton, with indignation which was only partly feigned. “As if I were not to be entrusted with the instruction of a chit like you! Gertrude, can’t you think of something terribly severe to say to him? Tell him you are to have nothing more to do with him.”
Gertrude shook her head and laughed.
“I am very well content with my teacher,” she said.
“And as a general thing, I have been very well content with my pupil,” said Mr Sherwood, looking grave. “I should like nothing better than to teach her still.”
“Charles, is it decided? Are you going away?” asked Mrs Seaton.
“Yes, I am going; and the sooner the better, I suppose.”
“If one could really be sure that it is best for you to go,” said Mrs Seaton, with a sigh. “But it is sad that you should go alone, perhaps to be ill among strangers.”
“By no means. I have no thought of being ill,” said Mr Sherwood, cheerfully. “My going is not altogether, nor chiefly, on account of my health. This is the best season for my long-talked-of Southern trip, and I dare say the milder climate will suit me better than the bitter Canadian winds.”
There was a great deal more said about his going which need not be repeated. Gertrude listened to all, sadly enough.
“I know how it will end,” she said to herself; “I shall have to go to school after all.”
She thought at first this was her only cause of regret. But it was not. Mr Sherwood and she had become much better friends within the last few months than they used to be. As a general thing, the lessons had been a source of pleasure to both, and of great profit to Gertrude. In his capacity of teacher, Mr Sherwood never teased and bantered her as he had been apt to do at other times. Indeed, he had almost given up that now; and Gertrude thought it much more pleasant to be talked to rationally, or even to be overlooked altogether, than to be trilled with. Besides, though he put a cheerful face on the matter of leaving, he was ill, and sometimes despondent; and it seemed to her very sad indeed that he should go away among strangers alone.
“Will you answer my letters if I write to you? Or will you care to hear from me?” asked Mr Sherwood, as he bade her good-bye.
“Oh, yes, indeed! I should care very much. But I am afraid you would think my letters very uninteresting—such letters as I write to the girls at home. You would not care for them?”
“I shall care very much for them. Promise me that you will tell me everything—about your reading, and your visits, and about your little brothers, and their nurse even. I think I shall wish to hear about everything here, when I am so far-away.”
Gertrude promised, but not very eagerly. An impulse seized her to ask him to forgive all her petulant speeches and waywardness, but when she tried to do it she could not find her voice. Perhaps he read her thought in her tearful eyes and changeful face, and grew a little remorseful as he remembered how often he had vexed her during the first months of their acquaintance. At any rate, he smiled very kindly as he stooped to kiss her, and said, earnestly:
“We shall always be good friends now, whatever happens. God bless you, my child! and good-bye.”