Ashcliffe Hall: A tale of the last century

by Emily Sarah Holt

"'The man who'—precisely: Savarie Leroy. I see Patient has told you that sad story."

"Philip," said Celia, very seriously, "I wish I could do something to help you. If you do really wish to fear God"—

"My dear little sister," replied Philip, putting his arm round her, "have you any idea how much you have helped me already? I am not quite the Gallio you and Patient think me—caring for none of these things. Now I will just give you a glimpse into my heart. I always knew what Patient was—she never concealed her thoughts on the matter; but there are thirty years between her and me, and I fancied—perhaps foolishly—that the religion which might be very good for her would not do for me. I thought many a time, 'If I could find some one in my own rank, and near my own age, who had not been brought up with Patient as Ned and I have, and therefore had not taken the tone of his feelings from her; if this person should think, feel, and talk in the same way that she does, having derived it from a different locality and breeding, and all that,—why, then, I should feel that, whatever else this religion of hers were, at least it was a reality.' Now this I never could have found in Ned, for two reasons: as to religious breeding, Patient has brought him up; the tone and color of his religion he derives from her. And, secondly, Ned is rather close. Not in the least sternly or unkindly so—nothing of the sort; but he is not such an open, foolish, off-handed fellow as I am. It is not natural to him, as it is to me, to say everything he thinks, to everybody who comes in his way; and in religious matters particularly, what he thinks and feels he keeps to himself. Well, then you came. For the first few weeks that you were here, I watched you like a cat watches a mouse. If you had made one slip—if I had once seen your profession and practice at variance—if you had been less gentle and obedient to my mother, when I could see that she was making you do things which you would much rather not do: or if, on the other hand, you had allowed her to lead you into something which I knew that you considered positively forbidden—if I had seen anything of this, Celia, I should have gone away more irretrievably disgusted than ever with religion and all who professed it.

"Now, my dear, I don't want to make you proud and puff you up, but as I am telling you all this, I must add that I found not one slip in you. I cannot understand how you have done it. It seems to me that you must have a very large amount of what Patient calls 'grace,' that I, who have been watching you so narrowly, could detect nothing in you which I thought wrong. Now will you forgive me for the ordeal through which, unknown to you, I have been putting you? The conclusion to which it has led me is this:—This thing—this religion of yours and Patient's—call it fear of God, or what you will—is a real thing. It is not the disordered fancy of one good woman, as I for a time imagined that it might be. It is a genuine compact and converse between God and your souls, and I only wish I were one of you."

Rather to Philip's surprise, Celia, who while he spoke had been earnestly regarding him, with brilliant eyes and smiling lips, put her head down and burst into tears.

"My dear!" he said.

"O Philip, I am so glad!" she said,—"so glad, so thankful—so very, very glad!" And she sobbed for pure joy.

"Then I am very glad that I have told you, my dear. And if it gives you any satisfaction, I will say again what I have said:—from my soul I wish I were one of you!"

[[1]] The ugly word "ex-queen" had not yet come into use, and the English spoke of Maria Beatrice as they would have done if she had died.

[[2]] I must own to having left my heroine's letter defective in one point. In her day ladies' orthography was in a dreadful state. Queen Anne usually signed herself the "affectionat freind" of her correspondents; and it had only just ceased to be the fashion for ladies to employ the longest words they could pick up, using them in an incorrect sense, and with a wrong pronunciation. Addison gives an account of one French lady who having unfortunately pronounced a hard word correctly, and employed it in the proper sense, "all the ladies in the Court were out of countenance for her."