Chapter Twenty.
Cecilia’s home was in London, and there until Christmas-time her brothers and sisters remained. It was not the best season of the year for sight-seeing, but by taking advantage of such gleams of sunshine as now and then came to brighten the general dulness, a good deal was enjoyed even in that way. Nothing came amiss in the way of amusement to any of them. Everything was new and full of interest, and in their eyes wonderful. A drive through London streets gave matter for discussion for days afterwards.
It was all new and strange to them, the crowds of people hurrying to and fro, the great dingy houses, the queer narrow courts into which they sometimes peeped, the splendour of the shop windows, the monuments and public buildings afforded never-ending themes for talk, and the bright quaint remarks which were now and then made, amused their elders greatly.
But there were many dull days during that autumn, when all things were seen dimly through rain or fog, and there were some days when nothing at all could be seen, when the gas burned at noon, and when the carts and carriages that rumbled through the streets all day long, were quite invisible to the eager eyes of the little boys. On such days, no wonder that they grew impatient and even fretful, now and then, or that their sisters were not always so bright and cheerful themselves, as to be able to beguile their brothers back to cheerfulness and good-humour again. They were all a little homesick on such days; and so, when the time came to accept Col. Bentham’s invitation for Christmas, they were glad to leave the dull dark streets behind them, and to get a glimpse of blue sky and green fields again.
For in sheltered places the fields were green still, almost with the greenness of summer. In their own country at Christmas-time the snow lies thick on the ground, and the smaller streams, and sometimes even the great rivers, are covered with ice. Not a leaf is to be seen or a blade of grass, but great snowdrifts on the hill-sides, and icicles hanging from the bare boughs of the trees.
The skaters are out on the ice, and the snow-shoe clubs are beginning to think of long tramps over the fields. Hundreds of sleighs are gliding along the city streets, and over the country roads, and the air is full of the music of sleigh-bells, and the merry voices of people enjoying the holidays.
And Jack and Jill used to be out with the rest, with a sleighful of happy children behind them. The children’s faces grew grave as they told one another of all this. How bright it used to be! How delightful! Oh, yes! Of course it was cold sometimes, but who would mind the cold, with furs and wraps, great buffalo robes, and bearskins to keep them warm!
No, it did not seem like Christmas-time to them here. In some of the sunny glades of Eastwood Park, the little Canadians could have forgotten that it was not summer, except when they looked up at the great leafless oaks and elms and beeches, which made a wide dark network of boughs between them and the sky. There were no flowers in the open park, but the grass was green, and there was ivy on the wall, and there were great holly bushes and laurels, and in Grandmamma Bentham’s garden, shut in from the winds, and having the sunshine full upon it, there were heartsease and Christmas roses. It was all very different, out of doors, from Christmas time at home. But within doors it was like the best of Christmas-times.
There was a large party assembled at Eastwood Park—sons and daughters of Col. Bentham, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, and friends of the family. Their brother Edgar was there for a few days, and his friend Captain Clare. Everard Bentham, the Colonel’s youngest son, was Edgar’s dear friend, though they were not at all alike in most respects. Everard was gay and inclined to be idle, and had caused his father some anxiety during the last year or two. But of all this nothing was known to the young Vanes. He was very kind to them, very merry and light-hearted, and they liked him dearly—almost as well as they liked Captain Clare, who was a very different sort of man.
He was older than their other friend, though not so much older as they fancied, because his hair was a little grey, and he was often grave and silent when there were others besides the children present. He was a soldier, and had been in battle many times, and had the Victoria cross and medals to show that he had done his duty on the field. He had other tokens as well. There was a faintly traced scar extending along his temple, which his hair only partially concealed, and he always wore a glove on his left hand to hide the traces of another wound.
He had much to tell the little lads about many things. He had been in their own country, had spent a winter in their own city. He had known their father and their mother, and remembered Jack and Jill, and never tired listening to all they had to tell about them, and this was one secret of his popularity doubtless.
The sisters liked him also, for similar reasons, and for better reasons. For he was a true soldier of Christ, as well as of the Queen, and had fought and won battles for Him in his day, and the very first words that he spoke to them, as he came upon them one day in old Mrs Bentham’s garden, made Selina and Frederica glad in the hope of having him for their friend.
All who came to Eastwood Park were interested in these children and very kind to them. They were kind, and they were a little curious also—that is, they watched with interest, and sometimes with amusement, the words and ways of these young Canadians, who were not in all respects just like English children. I speak of them all as children, for with all their womanliness and decision of manner, the sisters were in some respects quite as childlike as were little Hubert and Charlie. Selina was like no one else in her never-failing sweetness and cheerfulness. Tessie’s frankness and independence of speech might, under the encouragement of amused listeners, have fallen into undesirable freeness, had it not been for the gentle check of her eldest sister’s influence. She rebelled sometimes under Fred’s rather imperative hints as to what was desirable and right or otherwise, but Selina’s lightest half-spoken remonstrance never passed unheeded.
It was the same with the little lads. It was Frederica who assumed authority over them; and her little motherly ways and words, at once coaxing and determined, generally answered well with them. They were obedient and teachable usually; but they now and then appealed from her rather arbitrary rule to the gentler rule of Selina; and the way in which she used to soften and modify her sister’s decisions, while she gravely and firmly upheld her sister’s authority with their brothers, was a pretty thing to see. Frederica was careful and troubled over them and their future often; Selina was trustful and cheerful always, and not afraid.
Everybody was kind to them, and much was done to make their Christmas, not only a merry one, but a happy one. Everybody was kind to them; but, after Cecilia and her husband and their brother Edgar, they liked no one so well as Captain Clare. A good many people went away when the holidays ended, but Captain Clare stayed on, and so did Everard Bentham. Everard had been thrown from his horse, and so seriously hurt, that, much against his will, he was obliged to remain at home several weeks longer than it had been his intention to stay. He made the best of it, and amused himself as well as he could, and by-and-by got “great fun,” as he called it, out of the little Canadians. But he gave them quite as much as he got from them in the way of amusement; for he was kind as well as merry. In the way of real and lasting benefit, his intercourse with these young people did much to change his character, and influence his future life; but all this came later.
In the meantime Captain Clare was their dearest friend after their brother Edgar went away; and it was in this way that their friendship began: They were sitting—Selina and Frederica—one day in old Mrs Bentham’s garden, where the sunshine made it, to Selina at least, just like a summer day. Frederica had been reading a word or two, as her sister liked to have her do when they were alone together; and to-day it had been the first verses of the twelfth of Hebrews that she had chosen. They had not gone beyond the first two or three verses; there was enough in them to talk and wonder over.
“Perhaps it means this, Fred,” said Selina, after a minute’s silence; “these people, ‘so great a cloud of witnesses’—the people in the last chapter, you know—are all looking at us, and so we must ‘run with patience the race set before us.’ Or is it that all these people looked to Jesus, and so got strength and patience to ‘subdue kingdoms,’ to ‘stop the mouths of lions’? Don’t you remember? They were ‘destitute, afflicted, tormented,—of whom the world was not worthy.’ Oh! Fred dear, how little we know!”
But it was not Fred that answered her, but Captain Clare. Fred had gone down the garden path, not caring less than her sister for the reading, or for the meaning of what they read, but less intent upon it for the moment, because she could see so much that was beautiful around her. For even in winter Grandmamma Bentham’s garden was beautiful, and not every visitor at Eastwood Park was admitted to it. But when Captain Clare took up the book which Frederica had laid down, and reading over again the words Selina had found so difficult, added afterwards a few words of his own, she came back again, and leaned on the garden chair on which her sister sat.
It was nothing very new or very wonderful that he said to them. He only told them in a few clear words what he thought the apostle meant in writing thus to the suffering Hebrews, touching incidentally on other points of interest in other parts of the Bible, over which the sisters had pondered together with varying interest and profit. Selina listened eagerly, only saying now and then with smiling lips, “Do you hear, Frederica?”
“Are you listening, dear Fred?”
Fred was listening, forgetting the holly leaves and the bright berries with which she had filled her apron to make wreaths for some young friends in the house. She listened silently. She had less to say on all subjects than she used to have in the old days, before care had been laid so heavily upon her. But she listened earnestly, for she knew that all would have to be gone over again with her sister when they were alone. They listened till Miss Agnace came to warn them that the sun had gone behind the clouds, and that they must return to the house.
“But you will tell us more,” said Selina, softly passing her fingers over the hand that had taken hers in saying good-bye. “Another day you will tell us more.”
It was an easy promise to make, and a pleasant promise to keep.
“We know so little,” said Frederica, as, with Captain Clare, she followed her sister and Miss Agnace up the avenue to the other side of the house. “We had no one to teach us, and at first we did not care to learn,” added she humbly. “It was for mama’s sake at first—because—she was going to die—and—she was afraid—” and the tears rushed to her eyes.
She hardly ever spoke of her mother to any one but her sisters, and she wondered a little at herself that she should do so now. She wondered less when she looked up and met the kind eyes looking down upon her.
“Some day you must tell me more about your mother,” said Captain Clare.
This was the beginning. After that, while they were at Eastwood, not a day passed in which Captain Clare did not pass an hour with them. When the weather did not allow them to go out of doors, they sat in the library or in one of the deep windows of the hall. The party was variable as to numbers; but Selina was always there, and almost always Miss Agnace. She was never far away from her charge, unless her sisters were with her; and although she would sit with her face averted, apparently absorbed with her work, she never lost a word which Captain Clare said about the truth which she was beginning to love, though she hardly knew it yet. She was never in the way, and because of Selina’s blindness it did not seem out of place that she should be constantly with her. Besides, her service was a service of love.
She did not listen now as she had done at first to the reading and the talk, that she might detect errors, and warn these children against them. She said little to them now of the “true Church,” or its teachings. She only listened, saying to herself, that however at variance with these teachings some things which she heard might seem to be, there could not be any real difference, seeing the same fruits of the Spirit—love, peace, joy—which flourished and showed in the life of many a saint of old, showed fair and sweet in the lives of these children growing so dear to her. So she always listened when she could, and Selina made it easy for her to be near her at such times.
Cecilia was with them often, and Edgar, but most of their intercourse with Captain Clare as a near friend and teacher took place after Edgar went away. Mr Everard Bentham, when he began to limp about the house again after his hurt, found his time pass more rapidly among these young people, who asked questions, and discussed subjects as little likely to interest young people as could well be imagined, he thought. It seemed to him the oddest fancy in the world that kept these girls intent on Captain Clare’s words, as he made clear to them how the Old Testament and the New were one, how the truths dimly foretold in the one found fulfilment in the other, and showed how in all things written in both Christ appeared. What could it matter to them to be wise about such things? he questioned laughing. But he never laughed at them. It might be odd and foolish, but at the same time he liked to see it all; and though he listened for a while, that he might catch the wonderful brightness on the blind girl’s face, as some new thought was made clear to her; and though he asked questions in his turn, that he might provoke Frederica’s eager defence of her opinions and beliefs, the Word did not “return void,” as far as he was concerned. Now and then a bow drawn at a venture sent an arrow home to his conscience, and none of them had better reason to remember those days than the hitherto careless Everard Bentham.
Sometimes the little lads heard tales of marches and battles, of suffering bravely borne, of good work well done for the sake of duty. But rarely a day passed in which there did not fall to the share of the sisters some good word about the Lord they loved, and about whom they longed to know more. These children knew already that Christ was the only Saviour from sin, and from its consequences,—the Friend of sinners—the Conqueror of death. They knew and they rejoiced in all that He had done for them and for all, and in all that He had promised still to do. They knew what they owed Him, but they knew less of what He expected from them. They loved Him, and for His sake they loved His friends and followers. But they had never been taught the duty of self-denial for His sake, the blessedness of a life given up to Him in the doing of service to His little ones.
Of all this Captain Clare told them, and they were apt scholars. Frederica displayed something like her old bright eagerness in explaining some of the plans of usefulness which her imagination suggested as wise and possible to be carried out in the future. Some foolish things might have been done, if they had been left to their own counsels. But it did not need severity, nor even great firmness, to check Frederica now. She was not unwilling to acknowledge that they were yet too young and inexperienced to undertake on their own responsibility any of the schemes of usefulness so well carried out for the benefit of the ignorant and the suffering by others who were wiser and fitter for the work than they.
All this might come later. In the meantime Frederica had her brothers and sisters to live for and to influence. She had her own education to complete. She laughed now at the remembrance of the time when she had boasted of having “gone through all the books” in Miss Robina’s class. There was enough to do for herself, as well as for the others, she acknowledged; and she listened earnestly when Colonel Bentham, as her guardian, spoke to her of the serious responsibilities which the possession of wealth would involve in her case, and that of them all.
In the meantime she and Selina had much to say between themselves of all they meant to do when they should go home. Selina’s wish was to gather together all the blind people who were poor, and who needed a home—the old people and little children—and teach them about Jesus, and about the land where all shall see His face. In this work her sister was to help her, and Miss Agnace. In all her plans for the future Miss Agnace had a place.
In her heart Miss Agnace knew that in such a home as these young girls were planning she would be suffered to have no part, unless, indeed, Father Jerome, or others who thought as he did, should have the guidance of it all. But she did faithfully her duty to her blind friend and mistress, loving her more dearly every day, content with the present, and willing to accept without question whatever the future might bring.