CHAPTER VI.
A SHADOWED HOME.
unt Mary, I am so delighted to see you! I have been so looking forward to this visit!”
“And I too, dearest! I would have come to you before, only I was prevented by so many things. I fear you have had an anxious winter. But Guy is better, is he not?”
“Oh, yes, much better! He is about again now,” answered young Lady Dumaresq, with a smile in her sweet hazel eyes. “Sit down by the fire, Aunt Mary, and let me take your wraps. Now we will be cosy together over our cup of tea. I want to talk to you about Guy before he comes down. He will never be talked of when he is present. He will tell you he is perfectly well. I wish I could believe it myself!”
“You are anxious still, then?”
“I cannot help being. He keeps so weak, in spite of all we do for him, and he has still a great deal of pain, though he never complains. His heart was affected, you know; it is so often the case in rheumatic fever. The doctors think he will get over it in time; but it is so hard to be patient!”
“Poor children!” said Miss Adene softly. “I have been grieved for you. But the little fellow is well, is he not? You have no anxiety on that score?”
The mother’s face brightened with a soft, sweet smile.
“Oh, the little rogue is as well as possible, and Guy’s great resource when he is ailing! It amuses him by the hour to watch the child at play. And then Ronald has been so good, doing everything indoors and out, so that nobody, I hope, has suffered from the absence of the master’s eye. I think it is quite beautiful, the love between Guy and Ronald! They are more than brothers. Oh, yes, Aunt Mary, I have a great deal to be thankful for!”
“And the summer is before Guy too,” said Miss Adene. “He will make great strides, you will see.”
“Yes, I think so truly; but there is one thing that lies before us—all the doctors say that he must not try another winter in England just yet. I believe now we should have done better to go away in November, as some of them wished; but Guy did not seem fit to move and dreaded the thought so much; and it seemed impossible, and our own man was against it then. But what they all say now is that, if he could get three summers in succession by going away for next winter, he might entirely regain his health; and, of course, for the sake of that we would do anything in the world!”
“Of course! And Guy will probably look forward with pleasure to the thought of the flowers, and sunshine, and blue skies, when he is a little stronger. You know how much I have travelled, and how I enjoy it! I declare I will go with you myself, if you will only ask me, when the time comes!”
Lady Dumaresq clasped her hands in a pretty gesture of delight. Her eyes were bright and sparkling.
“Oh, Aunt Mary, do you really mean it? That would be just delightful! You would be like a tower of strength to us.”
“Only you must go to a nice place,” Miss Adene went on, quite pleased and interested by the idea. “I won’t have the Riviera—I tell you that frankly. I don’t like it, and I never did, and it’s not a climate to take liberties in. Everybody gets chills there.”
“Guy has suggested Algiers; he does not care for the Riviera.”
“Algiers is better, but it faces north. And you so soon lose the sun behind Mustapha Supérieur in the winter months. Now I should advise Madeira. I was there once in November and December, and you can’t imagine the delicious softness and steady warmth of the climate, and the glorious wealth of flowers. And such nice hotels too, with English proprietors. I shall talk to Guy about Madeira. I always declared I must go there again!”
At that moment there was a sound outside, and Lady Dumaresq raised her head with a listening gesture.
“There are the two Guys,” she said softly; and the next moment the door was opened and a beautiful little boy of nearly three years old came rushing into the room, making straight for his mother. A little behind him, walking rather slowly with a stick in his hand, came a tall, thin young man, whose pale face and deliberate movements indicated recent illness. Miss Adene rose quickly from her seat and advanced to meet him.
“My dear Guy, I am so glad to find you downstairs after all this long time!”
He smiled, and bent to kiss her, for he was tall, whilst little Miss Adene was short, though she was slim and elegant both in her dress and figure, and had the air of refinement and breeding which goes so much farther than mere good looks. Indeed, that nameless air of distinction characterised the whole party. It was very marked in Sir Guy himself, and in his beautiful young wife.
“We have been looking forward to this visit, Aunt Mary. I am glad now you did not come earlier. We have a sort of make-believe summer just now, though probably we shall get some cold winds later on. You are well?”
“Always well, you know, Guy, and very pleased to be here.”
“Where you will stay for quite a long time if we can keep you,” said Sir Guy eagerly. “It will do Violet a lot of good to have you. She has been looking pale and depressed lately. I am dull company for her, and she ought to go out again and see the world. She will, now that she has you to go with her.”
“Well, I will stay as long as I can! But I have other visits booked later on. Do you remember, Violet, my old friends the Lawrences? They had some money troubles a year or two back, and they had to leave Lakeside. They have got a rather nice old house in the eastern counties, where property is to be had so much more cheaply. I don’t exactly know where it is; but Isingford is their post town, though they are right away in the country. I have promised to go and see them. They say the house and garden are very nice; but, of course, the society is nothing like what they have been used to. There are a few old families living within a drive; but most of the better houses are taken up by people who have made their money in trade and retired. Some are quite pleasant and possible, they say; though, of course, they miss the old set! But that sort of change is going on all over the country more or less.”
“Yes,” answered Sir Guy, “we have all of us to learn the lesson of tolerance, I think—to be catholic in our sympathies, in our religion and social life alike. Some of our neighbours here, who decidedly have not the stamp of Vere de Vere, have been as kind and sympathetic as possible to Violet these past months when life has been rather dreary for her. Hullo, here is the young rascal wanting his Aunt Mary’s notice! Hasn’t he grown a big, strong fellow? He’s getting quite a handful for his parents, I can tell you.”
Little Guy was a very charming young man, as he ought to be with such handsome parents and so much care taken of his education, for Lady Dumaresq had resolutely set her face against having him spoiled, and had got him an old-fashioned nurse, who was quite one with her as to strict rules of simple diet, early hours, and no undue indulgence. So he did not interrupt the conversation of his elders, nor intrude his own wishes at every opportunity. He had an engaging little way of creeping softly up to the person whose attention he wished to attract, and silently possessing himself of a disengaged hand, against which he would lay his soft round cheek in an irresistible caress.
Miss Adene was charmed with him, took him on her knee, and let him prattle to her. In the midst of this talk a step was heard in the hall, and little Guy slipped down and ran towards the door, exclaiming—
“Sat’s Uncle Ronald!”
The next minute Guy’s brother was in their midst, shaking hands with Miss Adene most cordially, and tossing the boy upon his broad shoulder, as the father had not done for many a long day now. He was a very handsome fellow twenty-four years old, two years younger than the baronet, with the same well-cut features and tall, manly figure; only he was muscular and athletic-looking where Sir Guy was thin almost to gauntness, and there were no lines of pain in his brown face, whilst the eyes seemed always brimming over with fun and good humour.
He seemed to bring with him a whiff of fresh air and sunshine. He almost lived out of doors, looking after the estate for his brother, and enjoying his favourite pursuits of shooting, fishing, or hunting, according to the season.
“Yes, always killing something, Aunt Mary,” he replied laughingly to her query—“the typical Englishman for that. I say, Rascal, what do you think of having a professional murderer for an uncle? Isn’t it a shocking sort of thing?”
“I’ll be professional murderer too!” cried little Guy, gulping a little over the long words, whereat they all laughed, and Ronald made such a raid upon the teapot that it had to be sent out to be replenished.
Miss Adene told her budget of family news. She was one of those delightful members of a family, popular with every branch, who have leisure to go about from house to house and act as a connecting-link between those who can seldom meet. She never had an unkind thing to say, was never known to make a particle of mischief, though such persons have endless opportunities of doing this if they have the disposition for it, or are lacking in tact and discrimination. Everybody was glad to see her come, and sorry when her visit ended. She was popular alike with young and old, and had always an interesting way of telling her news that gave it a charm independent of the subject.
After dinner, when Lady Dumaresq and her aunt were alone together, she eagerly asked for her opinion about Guy.
“He looks quite as well as I expected, Violet; but, of course, one can see that he will have to be very careful for some time to come. An illness like that leaves traces behind for a very long time. Still, I don’t see any reason for undue anxiety. He has a fine constitution, and is a young man still. He has everything in his favour, and I cordially approve of taking him away next winter. He will gain ground during the warm weather, but he would very likely lose it in the winter; whereas, if he can be out in Madeira, or somewhere where he can go on living out of doors, and then come back again to another summer here, he would probably get quite sound and well.”
“I told him what you had said about Madeira and coming with us, and the idea quite took his fancy. It is the first time he has shown any enthusiasm over the thought of going away. If he can be brought to like it that will be a great step.”
“Oh, we will make him like it!” cried Miss Adene brightly. “I will tell him things about Madeira that will make his mouth water. Such rainbows hanging over the hills—such sunsets! And everything so curious and semi-barbaric in the town; and yet every English comfort within doors. Oh, we will make him take to the plan! And it’s a fine place for children; they thrive amazingly there! We can take little Guy with us. But it will leave Ronald rather lonely.”
“I expect Ronald will come with us—for a month or two, at least.”
“What, in the middle of the hunting season—or the beginning—for I should not be later than October starting!”
“Well, I fancy Ronald will come out with us. He is fond of travelling, and is an excellent sailor; and living alone would be a dreary thing for him. He always likes company.”
“I wonder he does not marry. Is he engaged?”
“No; we sometimes wish he would choose a good wife for himself. Since he came into that nice little property and income from their eccentric old uncle who died two years ago, he could very well afford a comfortable establishment. But he lets his house on a yearly tenancy and stays on here to be with Guy; and what we should have done without him this past year I cannot imagine. Still, if Guy gets back his health again, and can take up his own work for himself, it would really be better for Ronald to marry and settle down on his own property. But he has never shown any disposition to fall in love.”
“He would have no difficulty in getting a wife,” said Miss Adene with a little laugh. “He is a fascinating boy, and very good company, as well as so good-looking.”
“I’m afraid that’s partly it,” said Lady Dumaresq, laughing. “The girls are all too willing and ready. He is quite the catch of the county; and perhaps they court him a little too much. It bores him, and, though he always makes himself universally agreeable and popular, he takes very good care not to be ‘hooked,’ or ‘booked,’ or whatever you call it. He treats all the girls alike in a provoking sort of way—provokingly equal and friendly. It would do him good, I think, to fall in love and feel a little qualm of anxiety as to his fate. He’s wonderfully unspoiled, all things considering; but it’s never quite good for a young man to feel he has only to throw the handkerchief.”
Miss Adene nodded sagely.
“That’s quite true. It is a wonder he has kept from growing conceited and affected. But he’s a thoroughly nice boy, and a good one too, I think. He does not speak lightly or sneeringly of women. I always think that is a good test. In these days it is such a fashion to sneer at everything.”
“That is not Ronald’s way,” answered Lady Dumaresq thoughtfully. “Aunt Mary, I was quite touched by what I found out about Ronald when Guy was so ill. You know he was prayed for in the little church here close by the park gates? Well, Ronald used to go there regularly every morning all through that time, to the little short eight o’clock service. I never heard about it till long afterwards; but he never missed unless he were taking my place just then in Guy’s room. I don’t think it would be many young men who would do that. He has never said a word, and I don’t think he knows we know. But there he was.”
“That is very nice,” said Miss Adene softly. “I sometimes think, my dear, that, if we had more real lively faith, there would be less sickness and trouble in the world.”
“Do you know, I have thought so myself often?” said the young wife earnestly. “I always thought Guy’s life was given back as an answer to prayer. You know, there was a time when all the doctors had given him up. That is why I feel a sort of confidence that he will be fully restored. I think God would not have given him back only to linger on in more or less suffering, and then be taken away again.”
“God sometimes tries us in ways which we cannot understand,” said Miss Adene in a low voice, “but I think He wishes us to put our full faith and confidence in Him. We must use every means which He puts into our hands, and then leave the rest to Him, and wait calmly and hopefully for the result.”
Lady Dumaresq took Miss Adene’s hand and kissed it.
“That is what I mean to do, Aunt Mary. I will not lose hope or faith. We will do everything we can and leave the rest. I am so happy and thankful to have you here to help me!”
(To be continued.)
[VARIETIES.]
No Time to Play on it.—At a meeting of a rural Board of Guardians in Devonshire recently, it was proposed to give the Master of the workhouse a honorarium, but one of the members objected, on the ground that the Master was so much occupied that he did not think he would have time to play on it!
A Fatal Obstacle.—The greatest drawback to the current of true love is the undertow of selfishness.
A New Conundrum.
What is the largest room in the world? The room for improvement.
Who makes the best Match?—It is not the girl that fires up the quickest that makes the best match.
The Narrow Mind.—The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.
EARLY SUMMER.
[THE FAIRIES.]
Oh, brightly, brightly go the days,
And merrily we sing,
And mosses, ferns, and flowers fair
All welcome in the Spring!
The earth is clad in laughing green,
The snow has passed away,
The sun shines forth with beaming face
And bids us dance and play!
We live in nooks of moss and fern,
Where grows the blue hare-bell,
Which rings whene’er a gentle breeze
Wafts softly down our dell.
We ride on graceful dragon-flies,
With gauzy wings of light;
And glow-worms lie in readiness
To shine for us at night.
We go to children in their sleep,
And with our fairy art
We spin sweet dreams of fairyland
To rest each tired heart!
So gaily, gaily run the days,
And so we dance and sing,
And so the happy flowers bloom
And merrily they ring!
A. M. W.
[A POOR NEEDLEWOMAN.]
A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE.—Chapter IV.
By C. A. MACIRONE.
A prison in a little seaport town in England—a jail where criminals of every type, sex, and class herded together.
The fresh sea air outside those locked and barred doors inspired health and brightness to the busy population, but within, instead of the rush of the waves, the happy sounds of passing people and children, the rattle of coach and cart, and the cries of hawkers—within, there were sounds indeed, but the vile language of criminals, oaths and curses, whose time was given to gaming, fighting, and quarrelling—unemployed, uncontrolled, without schoolmaster or clergyman, or any attempt at reformation—without any divine worship; it was a place where every wickedness was roused and fostered, and there was neither hope nor help for those inmates who were not entirely lost.
“The place itself was fit for such inhabitants—cells underground quite dark and unventilated, suffocatingly hot in summer, and unfit for the confinement of any human being, the whole place unhealthy and filthy; the prisoners were infected with vermin and skin disease.”[1]
Into this pandemonium in August, 1819, a woman was sent, committed for a most unnatural crime. It was a mother who had forgotten her sucking child! She had no compassion on her helpless infant, but had cruelly beaten and ill-used it.
The inhabitants of the bright little town took cheerfully the accounts of the trial of this woman, and went about their usual avocations as quietly and busily as usual.
But one poor woman, a dressmaker, not peculiarly gifted with any power or influence beyond an intense love and sympathy, plain, poor, and unknown—the horror of the thought of this lost woman, of what she was, what she would suffer, what yet it might be possible to do for her, possessed her whole soul with a mighty impulse to try what even she would do in her Master’s strength and with His blessing.
This young woman, Sarah Martin, lived in the little village of Caistor, near Yarmouth, with an old grandmother whom she tended; she walked to and fro to her needlework, passing the jail, and she had long wished in some way she could help the miserable people within it. If she could only read the Bible to them, show them some love and sympathy, see for herself if there could be any way of helping them, of making them see the divine love and compassion which was the life of her own soul, if any prodigal son could be awakened to the Father’s love—always ready to bless, always glad to forgive—she thought she would die happier. So in her sudden horror of the condition of the condemned mother, all her impulses sprang into active life, and she went to the jail for permission to see her. Of course her petition was refused at first, and obstacles on all sides delayed her success, but her patience and energy were equal to the occasion, and as she cared nothing for herself, and had a sublime faith in the help which is never refused to His children when they ask for it, she won her way at last. “By her love she overcame.” At first, when that mother saw her, she only wondered that anyone would care to come to her. But when the love and pity of real sympathy became a reality before her, tears and thanks gushed from her poor broken heart like the waters from the rock in the wilderness, and the good work was begun.
Once admitted within the prison, her quick intelligence saw what could be done, and her work grew and prospered. She began reading to the prisoners, and that was gradually valued as their greatest comfort. Then she began to teach them reading, so as to improve the hours of her absence; gradually she taught them various works, and small sums were given to her to buy materials. First, (being a very expert needlewoman), she taught the women to make sets of baby clothes, and then these were sold, and made a fund for prisoners after their discharge. The men were taught to make straw hats, bone spoons, and seats; even patchwork the men would delight in, and learnt to sew gray cotton shirts, while she begged for and got materials from anyone who would or could help, and contrived to make odds and ends into materials.
Very gradually and steadily she made the sacredness of Sunday a rest and a blessing—a contrast to the employments of the week. And she borrowed drawings and prints to show and interest them, and one of these was Retzsch’s sketch of “The chess-players,” a young student playing a game for his soul, an angel on one hand, and Satan on the other side. This interested some of the men so much that they begged to be allowed to copy it, and hours of happy study and improvement passed in helping those prisoners to develop powers they never knew they possessed.
All these plans encroached more and more on her own private earnings, but the service of her Master was to her the greatest luxury and privilege, and her own occupations became less and less capable of giving her even the very scanty needs of her own life. Also we must remember that besides her attendance at the prison, her readings and instructions, her classes for needlework and other arts, she had to prepare all her work, cutting it out and arranging it, get together the books and materials used, and on Sunday she managed to get the prisoners together to a morning, and even an evening, service, for which she chose such prayers and Bible readings as she found they could follow, and wrote the addresses which were included in the services, which were eminently suited to that very peculiar audience.
For six or seven hours daily she was at the prison, and converted that which at the best would have been vicious idleness into a hive of industry and order, and a good preparation for a more useful and happy life when that in the prison ended.
There is not on record a single instance of failure in this life of complete self-devotion. Those who at first were stubborn and saucy, shallow and self-conceited, full of cavils and objections, as time went on and her influence made itself felt, became anxious to learn, to be allowed to work, and to share in the busy life around. Young men as impudent as they were ignorant, beginning by learning one verse to please her, went on to long passages, and even the dullest found the interest and refreshment of learning a few lines every day and working to some useful purpose.
We must remember that this was accomplished without any official authority whatever, only the most overwhelming persuasion on their part that her whole heart was set upon doing them good, and making them happier and better. And this was not all. It involved many other claims on her time and strength, inquiries for friends, care for those who had begun a better life, and whom she managed still to keep true to their new resolutions and better lives.
On the few evenings she would be free to see her own friends and those who were interested in her work and would help in it, she would take plenty of work with her, and get all those present to help in carrying out her plans. Old pieces of stuffs, paper, old drawings, scraps that seemed mere litter would, by her active and inventive mind, be turned to some good use.
Her day was closed, after her exhausting labours, by no return to a cheerful home where rest and welcome and sympathy, food and comfort, were waiting for her, but a lonely locked-up room, fireless and cheerless, dark and lonely, where all had to be done by her own tired hands. Her account books, her notes of her work, and the poor for whom she was fighting all the powers of evil, had to be written.
These account books, of every item of her expenditure, are now in the public library at Yarmouth. They record the name and career of every prisoner she visited, her experience of their character and development. And all this time she was living in the most absolute poverty, and yet of total unconcern as to her temporal support. She said, “God was my Master, and would not forsake His servant; He was my father, and could not forget His child.”
Meantime the Corporation had no expense for a chaplain or a schoolmaster. She supplied the place of both, but as time went on some members of the Corporation wished to make some pecuniary provision for her wants out of the borough funds, but they desisted in consequence of her most earnest opposition.
At last it was wisely intimated (as the Edinburgh Review writes) to this high-souled woman, “If we permit you to visit the prison, you must submit to our terms” (in spite of her earnest appeal, and her urging that her work, being known to be a voluntary work, had greater influence). And so these worshipful gentlemen, who were then making use of Sarah Martin as a substitute for the schoolmaster and the chaplain, whom it was by law their bounden duty to have appointed, converted her into their salaried servant by the munificent grant of £12 per annum.
Sarah Martin lived for two years in the receipt of this memorable evidence of Corporation bounty, but her health and strength was failing fast, and it was with increasing suffering and difficulty that she continued her work in the prison until April, 1843, when a most painful disease, increasing rapidly, prevented all exertion.
It is a triumphant sequel to a life of incessant self-denial and heroic exertion to find that this brave woman would cheer the sacred loneliness of her entrance into the dark valley of the shadow of death with songs of victory and triumph, and when the nurse told her that she believed the time of her departure was at hand, she, clapping her hands together, exclaimed, “Thank God! thank God!” and never spake more. It was once truly said, “A little faith will take you to Heaven; but a great faith will bring Heaven to you.”
Captain Williams, the Inspector of Prisons, before quoted, says of her, “Her simple unostentatious, yet energetic devotion to the interest of the outcast and the destitute, her gentle disposition, never irritated by disappointment, nor her charity straightened by ingratitude, presents a combination of qualities which imagination sometimes portrays as the ideal of what is pure and beautiful, but which are rarely found embodied in humanity. She was no titled sister of charity, but was silently felt and acknowledged to be one by the many outcast and destitute persons who received encouragement from her lips, and relief from her hands, and a higher and purer life from her influence, and by the few who were witnesses of her good works.”
We remember, as who does not, the noble faith of Mrs. Fry, who fought a like battle in the walls of a prison. Mrs. Fry was a woman of high education, of assured position, of practised eloquence, and supported by influential and important friends. But Sarah Martin was a poor lone woman, plain and little educated, endowed only by the magnificence of her faith and love with the energy of waging such a war.
The Edinburgh Review, in an eloquent article on the Life and Poems of Sarah Martin, closes with the following words:
“It is the business of literature to make such a life stand out from the masses of ordinary existences with something of the distinctness with which a lofty building uprears itself in the confusion of a distant view. It should be made to attract all eyes, and to excite the hearts of all persons who think the welfare of their fellow mortals an object of interest or duty; it should be included in collections of biography, and chronicled in the high places of history; men should be taught to estimate it as that of one whose philanthropy has entitled her to renown, and children to associate the name of Sarah Martin with those of Howard, Buxton, Fry, the most benevolent of mankind.”