Chapter Four.
What is Unselfishness?
Colonel Dawson took a deep interest both in Miss Stansfield and her niece. He understood them both, and pitied them both, but for very different reasons. He pitied the old lady because she was throwing away her own happiness and crippling her own usefulness. He pitied her because she was not what she might so easily have been; because she was storing up vinegar where she might have gathered honey; and was one of those of whom Dr South says that “they tell the truth, but tell it with the tongue of a viper.” He pitied Mary Stansfield, but with a pity mingled with profound respect and admiration. He pitied her that she should have to bear those daily raspings of the spirit which her aunt, half unconsciously, perpetually inflicted on her. And yet he could not altogether regret the discipline, when he marked how the trial was daily burnishing the fine gold of her character. Still, he pitied both, and was a frequent visitor at Morewood Court, partly because he marked how few were the friends who cared to stay at the house, and, more still, because he hoped to be of use in lightening the burden of both aunt and niece.
Colonel Dawson was one of those who love “working in the shade.” Not that he was ashamed or afraid of working in the light, but he was content to pursue the less attractive and less ornamental paths of usefulness, which few comparatively cared to follow. And so he had set himself resolutely and prayerfully to the task of rearranging the character of one who, he was persuaded, was capable and desirous of doing good and great things, could she only be got to hold herself at arm’s-length from herself for a little while, and see herself in the glass of God’s Word, and as others saw her. He felt sure that there was good, practical sense enough in her mind, and grace enough in her heart, to make her yield to conviction when he should draw her on to see and acknowledge a better way; and then he knew that, when she should have been drawn out of the old self into a better self, she would duly appreciate and love her long-suffering niece. But he was well aware that the old self would not surrender its throne without a severe struggle, and he was therefore not surprised to find the old lady’s bitterness rather increase than diminish as through their conversations she was learning to become more and more dissatisfied with herself.
Her poor niece had to bear in consequence the burden of an increased irritability in her aunt’s addresses to her. But she was greatly cheered when the colonel took an opportunity of seeing her alone, and assuring her that, spite of appearances to the contrary, the clouds were beginning to break, and that light and peace would shortly follow.
It was now the month of June; the school and reading-room at Bridgepath had got fairly established; the growlers and grumblers had nearly all of them subsided; and many long-benighted souls were receiving light with gladness.
“Pray excuse my calling so early,” said the colonel, as he took his seat beside the elder Miss Stansfield, on a bright sunny morning. The drawing-room window was open, and the ladies were seated on either side of it—the aunt half reclining on an easy-chair, the other occupying a low stool, with the open Bible from which she had been reading aloud on her lap.
Miss Stansfield received her visitor very cordially, but it was plain that the reading of the Holy Book had not imparted any sunshine to her spirit, and there were traces of recent tears in her niece’s eyes.
The colonel saw this, but made no remark on it. For a few moments he gazed on the lovely garden, visible through the open window, without speaking; then he said abruptly, “I was thinking how selfish we naturally are; those beautiful flowers reminded me of it, and seemed to reproach me. God gives us such a profusion of colour, and harmonises it so marvellously to delight us; and yet how ready we are to pick out, as it were, the sombrest tints in his dealings with us, and to keep our eyes fixed on them.”
Miss Stansfield coloured slightly, and then said, after a pause, during which her niece did not look up, but nervously moved the leaves of her Bible, “Yes, I quite agree with you, Colonel Dawson; there is abundance of selfishness in our days, especially among young people. They seem to think of nothing but having their own way, and seldom condescend to admit that those who have been brought up in less enlightened days can have gained any wisdom by experience.”
“Ah! I dare say,” replied the other; “I’ve no doubt that young people, many of them at least, have a large share of this very unlovable quality. Perhaps we have all of us more of it than we should like to admit to ourselves. But now, to tell the truth, I am on the look-out for one or two unselfish people;—can either of you, my dear friends, help me to find them?”
“I think you will search in vain in this neighbourhood,” said the old lady dryly.
“Nay, my dear Miss Stansfield, are you not a little uncharitable? Surely you can point me to some who love doing good, and forget themselves in doing it.”
“I can say ‘Yes’ to the first but not to the last part of your question,” was the reply. “There are plenty who love doing good, according to the popular estimate of goodness; but they love still more to be known and praised as the doer of it.”
“Well,” rejoined her visitor, “granting this in a measure, I should still like to know of some of these popular good-doers. We must make considerable allowance for human frailty. Perhaps I shall be able to pick out a real jewel, where you have believed them to be only coloured glass and tinsel.”
“I fear not, Colonel Dawson. However, I will mention a few of what I believe to be but counterfeit gems. There are the Wilders, for instance. Those girls are always doing good, and their brother too. You have only to look into the local papers to see what a broad stream of good works is perpetually flowing from that family. What with ecclesiastical decorations, Sunday-school and day-school fêtes, dancing at charity balls, managing coal and clothing clubs, and a hundred other things in which the world and the Church get their alternate share pretty evenly, that family is a perfect pattern of good deeds for everybody to look at,—like the children’s samplers, which their mothers point to with so much pride, as they hang up framed in their cottages.”
The colonel looked grave, and said, “Then you do not consider that there are likely to be any unselfish workers in the Wilder family?”
“You had better ask my niece, colonel. She will give you an unprejudiced opinion.”
The other looked towards the younger lady, and said, “I am asking now in confidence, and with an object, not from mere idle curiosity, far less from any wish to pick holes in the characters and conduct of any of my neighbours. So, Miss Mary, kindly give me your opinion.”
Thus appealed to, the younger lady replied, but evidently with much reluctance, “I fear that my aunt is right in her judgment of the Wilders. I dare not recommend them to you as likely to prove, in the truest sense, unselfish workers. They are very kind and good-natured, and no one can help liking them; but—” and she hesitated.
“I understand you,” said the colonel; “they would not come up to my standard, you think?”
“I fear not; but then I should be sorry to judge them harshly, only you asked my honest opinion.”
“Oh, speak out, my dear, speak out,” said her aunt; “they are but afflicted with the epidemic which has attacked all ranks in our day. Thus, where will you find a really unselfish servant nowadays? The old-fashioned domestics who would live a generation in a family, mourn over an accidental breakage committed once in a quarter of a century, and count their employer’s interest as their own, are creatures entirely of the past. And as with maid and man, so with mistress and master, old or young. ‘What am I to get as an equivalent if I do this or that?’ seems the prevailing thought now with workers of every kind.”
“Ah yes,” said the colonel thoughtfully, “there is too much truth in what you say; only, in the darkest night we may detect a few stars, and some very bright ones too, if we will only look for them. And I am looking for stars now, but I shall be quite content to get one or two of the second or third magnitude.”
“I’m afraid you’ll hardly be able to find any in this neighbourhood, for the clouds,” said the old lady, with a smile, in which the bitter prevailed over the sweet.
“Nay, nay, my dear friend,” cried the colonel cheerily, “don’t let us talk about clouds this lovely June morning. I fear, however, that I must not look for what I want among the Wilders. I can readily understand that they might be unwilling to work in the shade, where there would be nothing to repay them except the smile of Him who will not let even the cup of cold water rightly given go unrewarded. What do you say to Lady Willerly’s daughter? I have heard great things of her. They tell me she is one of the most unselfish creatures under the sun.”
“Ay,” said the old lady dryly, “when the sun shines on her; but you want workers in the shade. Grace Willerly will not do for that.”
“You think not? Well, let me tell you what I have heard of her. Those who know her well say that she never seems so happy as when she is doing good and making others happy. Her mother calls her ‘my sunbeam.’ She seems to take a pleasure in thwarting herself in order to gratify others. If she wants to go out for a walk, and some tiresome visitor comes in, she will laugh, and say, ‘I was just wanting some one to come and keep me in, for I dare say I should have caught cold if I had gone out just now.’ Or it may be quite the other way. She is just sitting down to draw or play, and some one calls and asks her to take a walk, and she at once leaves her occupation, jumps up, and says, ‘Ah, how nice this is! I ought to take exercise, but felt disinclined; and you’ve come at the very right time, to entice me out.’ In fact, her greatest pleasure seems to be to cross her own will and inclinations, that she may do what will give pleasure to others. Such is the picture that intimate friends have drawn of her; and certainly it is a very charming one. What say you to it, Miss Mary?”
“It is very beautiful, Colonel Dawson—” and she hesitated.
“Ah, then, too highly coloured, I suppose you would say. Give me your candid opinion.”
“It is very difficult to say what I feel,” replied Mary Stansfield, “without seeming to lay myself open to the charge of censoriousness or captiousness; and yet I cannot help seeing a shade of unreality, and even insincerity, on that bright and beautiful character,—that it wants, in fact, one essential element of genuine unselfishness.”
“Of course it does,” broke in the elder lady; “you mean that it is not free from self-consciousness and, more or less, of parade.”
“I fear so, dear aunt. I cannot help thinking that, as some one has said of faith, so it may be said of true unselfishness, that ‘it is colourless like water,’—it makes no show nor assertion of itself. But dear Grace Willerly is a sterling character for all that.”
“So then,” said the colonel, after a pause, “I must give up in despair, must I? No, that will never do. Now, I am wanting a quiet worker in the shade for poor Bridgepath,—some young lady friend who has a little leisure time, and will go now and then and read in the cottages there the Word of God, and give some loving counsel to those who need it so much. I have the good vicar’s full consent and approbation; he will gladly welcome any such helper as I may find for the post. It will be a true labour of love; and, without any more words I am come to ask Miss Stansfield if she will spare her niece for the good work, and Miss Mary if she will be willing to undertake it.”
The reply of the two ladies, who were equally taken by surprise, was in each case made in a single word, and that word very characteristic. “Impossible!” cried the old lady. “Me!” exclaimed the younger one.
“Nay, not impossible, dear friend,” said the colonel gently. “I want this service of love only once a week for an hour or two, and I am sure you can spare my young friend for that time.—And as for yourself, Miss Mary, I believe, from what I have seen of you, that you are just fitted for the work; and I am sure that you are too sincere to excuse yourself on the ground of an unfitness which you do not really feel.”
“And what am I to do?” asked the old lady bitterly.
“Exercise a little of this true unselfishness, dear friend. You see there are many ways in which you too can show true unselfishness in the cause of that Master whom I know you truly love, though he has laid you aside from much active work for him.”
Miss Stansfield did not answer for a time; she looked pained, but the bitterness had passed away from her countenance. Evading an immediate reply, she said, “I don’t understand these many ways in which I can show unselfishness, Colonel Dawson.”
“Do you not? May I mention some?”
“Yes, do,” she replied earnestly.
“Well, bear with me then, while I make one or two suggestions which our late conversations have been leading up to. I will imagine myself in your place, and looking out to see where I may best put the stamp of the Cross on my life. I am wishing to do good, I am trying to do good: but may it not be that my benevolence is sometimes rendered so ungraciously that it gives more pain than pleasure to those who receive it? Ah, then, I will put the stamp of the Cross here. I will try, not only to do good, but to do it graciously. Perhaps, again, I am looking upon suffering and natural infirmity of temper as an excuse for harshness and hard judgment, and not as a call to exercise charity, patience, and forbearance. Then let me put the stamp of the Cross here also. Or, once more, perhaps I am in the habit of looking for the weeds rather than the flowers, for the shadows rather than the sunshine, in my lot. Well, then, here again I may place the stamp of the Cross, by exercising quiet, unostentatious self-denial and unselfishness before the loving eyes of him who has made us for himself, and redeemed us that we might in all things glorify him. Might I not thus, dear friend, exhibit true unselfishness, and at the same time brighten my own heart, and also the hearts of others?”
No one spoke for a few moments, but the old lady bowed her head upon her hands and wept silently. Then she stretched out a hand to the colonel, without raising her head, and said in a half-stifled whisper, “Thank you, thank you, faithful friend. Mary shall undertake the post if she will.”
Ah yes! Light had shone into that clouded spirit; the shadows were passing away. Mary Stansfield knelt her down by the old lady’s side, and in one loving, tearful embrace, such as they had never known before, the icy barrier that had so long chilled that young and loving heart was melted, and there was peace.
The colonel was more than satisfied. He knew, as he quietly stole out of the room without a further word, that he had been privileged to gain that morning two like-minded workers in the shade, instead of one.