“Then do you yours,” said Mr Roberts coldly, “and bring Mrs Benden before me next sessions day. There is time to forethink you ere it come.”
Unconscious of the storm thus lowering over her, Alice Benden was sitting by little Christie’s sofa. There were then few playthings, and no children’s books, and other books were scarce and costly. Fifty volumes was considered a large library, and in few houses even of educated people were there more books than about half-a-dozen. For an invalid confined to bed or sofa, whether child or adult, there was little resource save needlework. Alice had come to bring her little niece a roll of canvas and some bright-coloured silks. Having so much time to spare, and so little variety of occupation, Christie was a more skilful embroideress than many older women. A new pattern was a great pleasure, and there were few pleasures open to the invalid and lonely child. Her sole home company was her father, for their one servant, Nell, was too busy, with the whole work of the house upon her hands, to do more for Christabel than necessity required; and Mr Hall, who was manager of one of the large factories in Cranbrook, was obliged to be away nearly the whole day. Other company—her Aunt Alice excepted—was rather a trial than a pleasure to Christabel. The young people were rough and noisy, even when they tried not to be so, and the child’s nerves were weak. Aunt Tabitha worried her to “rouse herself, and not be a burden on her poor father”; and how gladly would Christabel have done it! Uncle Thomas was also a harassing visitor, though in another way. He never knew what to say, when he had once asked how the invalid felt: he only sat and gazed at her and the window alternately, now and then, as though by a mental jerk, bringing out a few words.
“He causes me to feel so naughty, Aunt,” said Christie dolefully, “and I do want to be good. He sits and looks on me till I feel—I feel—Aunt Alice, I can’t find the words: as if all my brains would come out of my finger-ends, if he went on. And now and then he says a word or two—such as ‘Rain afore night, likely,’ or ‘Bought a drove of pigs yesterday,’ and I can only say, ‘Yes, uncle.’ I think ’tis hard for both of us, Aunt Alice, for we don’t know what to say one to the other. I can’t talk to him, and he can’t talk to me.”
Alice laughed, and then the tears almost rose in her eyes, as she softly smoothed Christie’s fair hair. She knew full well the sensation of intense, miserable nerve-strain, for which the little girl strove in vain to find words.
“’Tis hard to be patient, little Christie,” she said tenderly. “But God knoweth it, dear heart; and He is very patient with us.”
“O Aunt Alice, I know! And I am so sorry afterwards, when I should have been quiet and patient, and I have spoken crossly. People know not how hard it is, and how hard one tries: they only see when one gives way. They see not even how ashamed one is afterwards.”
“Truth, sweet heart; but the Lord seeth.”
“Aunt, think you the Lord Jesus ever felt thus?”
“He never felt sin, Christie; but I reckon He knew as well as any of us what it is to be wearied and troubled, when matters went not to His comfort. ‘The contradiction of sinners’ covereth a great deal.”
“I wonder,” said Christie plaintively, “if He felt as if it hurt Him when His brethren banged the doors! Friswith alway does when she comes; and it is like as if she struck me on the ears. And she never seems to hear it!”