Chapter Fifteen.
Fidelia’s Perplexity.
This year in the seminary was far more profitable to Fidelia than the former year had been. The work which she had done so faithfully at home told now. She was not pressed or hurried by overwork in preparing for her classes, and had time to take the good of other things besides study.
Under the Christian influence lovingly and judiciously exercised over them, not even the careless or unimpressionable among the pupils could remain altogether untouched by some sense of their responsibility to the Lord Jesus, or to the claims which He had on them to be workers together with Him in the world which He came to save. Fidelia, with softened heart and awakened conscience, was now open to that influence, and yielded to it as she had not done before. There was no neglect or misappropriation of the “quiet half-hour” morning and evening now, nor of any other of the many means of grace provided for the benefit of all.
The scope and sense of all the teaching, as to duty, of the noble woman through whose labours and self-denials the seminary was founded had been—“Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
“No man liveth to himself.” One of her last utterances to the pupils whom she loved and for whom she laboured was this: “There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.” She was dead, but her works and words still lived and spoke through those who had come after her, and through them there came richly to Fidelia the blessing which above all other blessings she desired for herself—the wish and the power to consecrate her life to the work which is the highest of all. So she came back to her home in a different state of heart and mind this time—she herself did not know how different till she was among old familiar friends and circumstances again, looking over the past and on to the future with other hopes and aspirations than those which had made her discontented about the time of her last coming home.
It did not seem quite like home to her in Halsey any more. But she told herself she would wait patiently and do faithfully the work which came to her hand, till some opening should come to her of higher work in a larger field as a teacher, and then she would strive to be such a teacher as Eunice might have been in her youth, had not other work fallen to her hand.
By-and-by something happened. A letter came to her from Dr Justin Everett which surprised her. It was not the first time that he had written to her. After the death of her sister he had written a letter of sympathy which she had answered briefly. She had not answered other letters which had followed, but this one must be answered. It was a long letter, telling her something of his youth and of his engagement to her sister, and of the disappointment and pain which their necessary separation had caused to them both.
He said he had returned to Halsey two years ago, hoping to carry Eunice back with him as his wife; but in her state of health they had both seen this to be impossible. Then he went on to say how unconsciously at first his heart had turned to the sister of the woman he had loved so dearly in his youth, and how Eunice had not refused to sanction his love, though she had utterly forbidden him to speak then or for some time to come. “Has the time come now when I may speak? And will you not listen to me?” That was the sum of what followed, though many words were used in saying it; and it must be owned that Fidelia was moved by them—for a time. If he had come himself it would have been a much more troublesome matter. But her dream had passed, and so had the pain it had caused her, though it took a little time to make her sure that it was so. After reading her letter over again, she wrapped a shawl about her, and went up the hill till she came to the turn of the road where she had seen Dr Justin standing soothing his startled mare. She could think of it all quietly enough now, and her calmness might have helped her to the knowledge of what her answer ought to be. But she allowed herself to ponder over it. It was a pleasant life that was set before her. She might have a charming home, intellectual society, a chance to improve herself, a chance also to do good to others. There would be the happy mean—neither poverty nor riches, and a home of her own; and for a time she was not aware how the possibility of taking all this into consideration, and of weighing it all quietly, proved that she did not care for Justin Everett as she ought to do before she answered him, “Yes.” There was the further question, though she scarcely dared to pursue it. Was the man who could thus transfer his affections really worthy of her trust? She shrank back when she thought of the past, as if she were wronging her sister’s memory.
“You are not worrying about anything, are you, Fidelia?” said Mrs Stone at last.
“Worrying? No; I hope not. I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
“Was the big letter that Calvin brought you the other day from Dr Justin Everett?”
“Yes, it was,” answered Fidelia, with a touch of vexation in her voice.
“I wouldn’t have asked only—”
“Oh, there is no harm done!” said Fidelia, laughing. “I hope not,” said Mrs Stone gravely. “I have been expecting it ever since you came here. You mustn’t think I want to meddle, dear. I want just to tell you something that Eunice said to me. Oh, yes! She knew it might come some time. But she would not say a word about it. She said that the Lord would guide you right in this and in all other things. And so He will, if you ask Him.”
Mrs Stone gathered up her work, and rose to leave the room.
“Tell me about it, Aunt Ruby,” said Fidelia gently.
There was not much to tell. For herself, Mrs Stone had not a word to say. Even when Fidelia asked her advice, she replied quietly—
“It seems to me you ought to have known what answer to send to that letter as soon as ever you read it.” And then she went away, leaving Fidelia to ponder her words. She came back to add another word, however.
“Let your answer, whether it be Yes or No, be final. Don’t let there be any half-and-half doings—any waiting to find out what your real feelings are. You ought to know this minute all you need to know. Say it once for all.”
That very day another letter came, not so long as the other, but it brought help to Fidelia, in a way unexpected. This letter was from “Ella Wainright.” Fidelia knew that Miss Kent had married; but she did not know that she had married a widower with children. The letter told her this, and it told her also that the two little girls who had fallen into her hands more than filled them. They had been spoiled all their lives by two loving grandmothers and several aunts, all of whom had the best intentions with regard to the motherless children.
“As for me,” wrote Mrs Wainright, “I am to them the cruel or indifferent stepmother of the story-books, and I should not have a chance with them, even if I had any faculty with children, which I have not. They are bright girls of nine and twelve. I might leave them in school while I go to Europe with my husband, but that would not be good for them nor right for me, and it would only be postponing, perhaps increasing, the trouble. I know you mean to teach, and I have heard from your friend Nelly Austin that you covet hard work; and here it is, ready to your hand. You may name your salary. You will earn it, whatever it is. We shall be in Europe two years at least, perhaps longer. You will have a chance to see much that every one wishes to see, and you can improve yourself in your music, and learn a language or two; and you can help me to do the same. Do not decide against me till you come over to Eastwood to see me.” And so on.
Fidelia came into the room where Mrs Stone was sitting with her letter in her hand.
“Aunt Ruby, listen, and tell me what I had better do.” Then she read the letter.
Mrs Stone listened, but she did not need to advise. She saw that, though she was not aware of it herself, Fidelia had almost made up her mind to go.
“I think I would go over to Eastwood and see Mrs Wainright, and talk it over with her.” And she would have liked to add—“You may as well write your letter to Dr Justin before you go,” but she did not. “It is all right, I guess; and I, for one, am glad of it.”
Fidelia went to Eastwood. If she had been inclined to hesitate over her decision, she could hardly have done so. Mrs Wainright took possession of her at once.
“If it is a chance to do good that you desire, it is the very place for you, for the children need you sorely.” And Miss Abby Chase, who had seen the children, said the same. Mrs Austin wished her to go because of Mrs Wainright, who was not strong, and who did not seem to have a chance with the children; and Nellie enlarged upon the delights of travel, and the opportunities for self-improvement which she would enjoy. There was, besides, little time for hesitation. Within ten days they were to sail. So Fidelia went home and wrote her letter to Dr Justin, and set her house in order, and was ready to depart.
“Halsey will always be your home while you own this place, and so you must keep it,” said Mrs Stone. “I don’t know a more forlorn feeling than for such a home-bird as you have always been than to find herself without a nest. We talked it all over, Eunice and I. I’d as lief live in your house as in my own, and I will pay you rent. It’s paid already in a way. Eunice had a little change of investment to make, under Dr Everett’s advice, about the time I came here, and I put something with what she had in your name—just about enough to make the interest pay rent for your house and land. I’ll keep up the place as well as I know how; the rent may be put with the rest while you don’t want, and it will be handy when you do. I thought it would be better to fix it so than to put you in my will, because of Ezra’s folks. No; there is nothing to be said. Eunice knew all about it; and you can just think of me as keeping house for you till you come home.”
Fidelia did not say much, but she said just the right thing in the right way when the time came. It was the night before she left.
“Aunt Ruby, let us go down to the graveyard now. We can go by the old road, where we shall not likely to meet any one, and come home by moonlight.”
So together they stood beside the grave of Eunice, and spoke lovingly and thankfully of her, and prayed in silence for each other. And there was no bitterness in Fidelia’s tears, though they came in a flood as she turned away. For it was well with Eunice, and she knew they would meet again. She turned back when she had gone a little way toward the gate, and, kneeling once more, kissed the dear name carved on the stone, and prayed with all her heart that by God’s grace she might be kept unspotted from the world, till the time came when she should meet her sister again.
And so Fidelia left her home—sad, but hopeful.
One untoward event happened before she set sail. She had to meet Dr Justin face-to-face, and give him his answer. She was not many minutes in his company, but they were full of pain to her.
Strangely enough, she caught her first glimpse of him from a window, as she had done that day in Eastwood from Miss Abby’s room; and, more strangely still, he was walking as he had been walking that day, by Miss Avery’s side, looking down upon her, while she, with smiles and pretty eager gestures, looked up at him. For a minute Fidelia was not sure of the nature of the feelings which the sight awoke within her; but she was quite sure of one thing—she did not intend to break her engagement to go with her friend and schoolmate, Mary Holbrook, to Cambridge, to see at least the outside of the poet’s house before she went away. She listened till she heard them enter the house; and, when she knew them to be safe in the parlour, she went softly downstairs and out into the street; and, though she felt a little ashamed of herself for running away, she laughed heartily as she hastened on. She enjoyed every minute of the day, she told Mrs Wainright when—rather late in the evening—she came home. She had seen, not only the outside of the poet’s house, but also, through the kindness of a friend of Miss Holbrook, the inside of it, and Mr Longfellow himself as well; and the day was a day to be remembered for many reasons.
She saw Dr Justin in the morning, however, though she hoped she need not. There was not time for many words between them; but Fidelia’s words were spoken with sufficient decision. Dr Justin had not received her letter. He had heard from his niece Susie that her friend was going away, and he hastened to see her before her departure. He asked for nothing that would make it necessary for her to break her engagement with Mrs Wainright. He only asked her promise to return at the end of the year, and give him her answer then. But she refused to make the promise, or even to correspond with him while she was away.
“I have spoken too soon; I will wait and come again,” said he.
“You will not be wise to wait or to come again,” said Fidelia gravely.
He came to the steamer with other friends of the Wainrights to see the last of them. Miss Avery was there among the rest; and, as Fidelia watched them moving away together, she said to herself, that the chances were few that Dr Justin would either wait or return to her again.
And so it proved. Before the first year of her absence was quite over there came to Mrs Wainright a letter from her cousin, telling her of her engagement to Dr Justin Everett, and trusting that they might meet them in Europe before many months.
“And so that is well over,” said Fidelia.
Fidelia’s desire for real work by which she might do some good in the world was granted during the next three years, and besides her work she had both pleasure and profit; and little more than this can be told of the time she spent away from her home, on the other side of the sea. Her pupils respected her always, and by-and-by they loved her dearly; and her influence over them was altogether good and happy to body, mind, and spirit. And as much as that can be said as regarded her influence over their mother also. During a long and tedious illness, which came upon Mrs Wainright in Switzerland, Fidelia nursed and comforted her as she could not have done had there not been mutual respect as well as love between them; and to both mother and daughters her influence and example was a source of blessing which did not cease when the time came that they were called to separate.
This time came when they returned to America, for on going home to Halsey Fidelia found Mrs Stone—not ill, but ailing; and she made up her mind that it was her duty to remain with her old friend during the winter. Her pupils were to be sent to school, and needed her no longer. Their mother needed her very much, or she thought she did, and entreated her to return. But, even if Fidelia had not thought it her duty to remain with Mrs Stone, she would have hesitated about returning, for she had not been long in Halsey before she made a discovery which surprised her, and which made her ashamed.
After the first joy of welcome from old friends, and the first glad renewal of old associations well over, she could not but own to herself that she did not find life in Halsey altogether to her mind. This was not her discovery. She had hardly expected to find it so. She had had some such thought before she left it. Her surprise was, to find that she missed—even greatly missed—the pleasant things which she had become accustomed to during the last three years—the new books, the music, the sight and touch of rare and beautiful things; all the luxuries and the ease-giving which wealth dispensed judiciously, sometimes lavishly, had secured to her friend’s household, and to her with the rest. She missed the movement and the change made by the coming and going of the many friends of the household—not merely the ordinary friends and neighbours, but people of whom the world had heard—men and women whom it was good to see and know.
The life had suited her. It was not surprising that she should regret many things which she had enjoyed while with the Wainrights. Was it wrong to regret them? She might enjoy them all again in somewhat different circumstances. Would it be right and wise for her to return at the entreaty of her friend?
“I must settle the question once for all,” she said to herself. And she did settle it; and with it she settled another question which went farther and deeper. “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Would a chance to lead an easy, pleasant, even useful life in the house of her friend cover for her all the ground which this command covered? She did not need a long time to consider the answer. The past she did not regret. It was well that she had gone with Mrs Wainright. She knew that she had helped the mother and the children to a better knowledge of each other, and she trusted also that she had done something towards encouraging in them a desire for a higher knowledge—the knowledge which God alone can give. She was glad in looking back; but could she look forward and see that she had any special work for these young people which their mother might not do better than she did? And might she not be taking out of the mother’s hands work the doing of which would be for her good as well as for theirs?
And then as to herself. Was “an easy time,” with only light duties—which could hardly be called work in any right sense, amid the luxury which she had learned to like so well that now she missed it—was this what she ought to accept for herself as the best and highest? Did she owe no more than this to Him Who had bought her with a price? She was, in a sense, quite alone, and at her own disposal, free from all ties of relationship or friendship, such as might interfere with any work to which she gave herself. She could teach. That had been her plan always, and her sister’s plan for her, because teaching undertaken and pursued in a right spirit might be made a part of the highest work of all. This Eunice had coveted for her; she had coveted it for herself.
Yes; the faithful doing of such work might be made work for the Master. Had she lost her desire to have a part in this work? she asked herself. Had her easy life among the pleasant things of the last few years done her this evil? She had many thoughts about it, and, after a time, she had some talk with Mrs Stone about it also.
“No; I don’t think you are spoiled. Your life could not have been a very easy one. Anyway, it hasn’t spoiled you. You had good work to do over there and you did it pretty well, I expect, or they wouldn’t want you back again. In one way it has helped you. Yes, I think you could now do good work in a better way for the advantages you have had, and you are bound to do it. If you don’t, your privileges may become a snare to you, and you may get to be satisfied with a kind of work lower than the highest you are capable of. ‘No man liveth to himself,’ you must remember.”
“And the highest work I seem to be capable of, is to teach.”
“There is no higher work, if it is done in the right spirit. And it is the work you have prepared yourself for. If you are better fitted for other work, you’ll have a chance to try it. It seems to be your work in the meantime. You may marry.”
Fidelia shook her head.
“I am not sure about other work. I know I can teach.”
And so for the next few years she did teach. In one of those large seminaries which the Christian beneficence of many wise men of moderate means, with the help of a few rich men, has established for the higher education of the young women of the country, Fidelia found her work. She was one of many who there worked willingly and well, in a field where good and willing work rarely fails to give a full return.
It would take a long chapter to give even a glimpse of her experiences during those years. She was not without her troubles and anxieties, but on the whole they were happy years. For to be successful in good work which one loves, and which one can do well, comes as near to true happiness as most people ever come in this world. Day by day, as time went on, she was permitted to see the springing up of some “plant of grace” from the seed which she had sown; and she had good cause to hope that there were more to follow, for such plants do not die out, but increase, and bear fruit abundantly as the years go by. Once in a while, but not often, she paused amid her work, to ask herself whether she would be quite content in it all her life long. It was a question which did not need an answer, as she was quite satisfied with the present; and the future, she believed, would be guided and guarded by the Hand of love which had led her during the past.