“All these wretched doings have left Miss Pembroke very lonely,” he said. “She has really no one left who is near to her, though she has a host of friends. But what, after all, is a host of friends, as the world calls them, worth? When a [pg 492] thunderbolt falls on you, people always gather round, and a great deal of kind feeling is struck out; but, perhaps, you have needed the kindness a great deal more in the long, dry days when there was no thunder. It is the constant, daily, intimate friendship that gives happiness. But there! it is of no use to abuse the world, especially when one forms a part of it, and is thus abusing one's self. All of us feel our hearts warm towards people who are in great affliction, when we do not think of them in their ordinary trials. It is only God who is constant to all needs, who knows all. Mr. Schöninger, you are welcome.”
They had reached the house, and the priest turned on the threshold to offer his hand to the man whom he had so long courted in vain, and who had so many times refused his friendship. He knew that he had conquered when his hospitality was accepted.
He had conquered, in so much as he had won the Jew's friendship and confidence; for, having renounced his distrust, Mr. Schöninger was, in an undemonstrative way, generously confiding. Hard to win by one whose circumstances were so alien to his own, when won, there was no reserve.
F. Chevreuse's sitting-room was never a very pleasant one, except for his presence. It had too many doors, was too shut in from outside, and had also the uncomfortable air of being the first of a suite. One never feels at rest in the first room of a suite. He felt the unpleasantness of the place, without in the least knowing the cause of it, and always took his special visitors into his mother's room.
Mother Chevreuse had, woman-like, known precisely what her son's apartment lacked, and had given it a pleasant look by employing those little devices which can introduce a fragment of beauty into the most desolate place; but her mantle had not fallen on Jane, the housekeeper, and thus it chanced that the priest had, without knowing it, lost more than his mother.
Her sitting-room was cheerfully lighted when the two entered it, and the table, prepared for supper, awaited them. It was the Thursday before Palm Sunday, and F. Chevreuse had eaten nothing since taking a cup of coffee and a crust of bread in the morning; and now, the work and excitement of the day over, and nothing worse than he had anticipated having happened, he felt like resting and refreshing himself. If Mrs. Gerald had been alive and mourning, he would have been tormented by the thought of her; but she was safe in the care of God, and he left her there in perfect trust.
Andrew, the man-servant, sacristan, and factotum of the establishment, was lurking somewhere about when the priest entered, and came forward to make a crabbed salutation. If he ever felt in an amiable mood or was satisfied with anything, this man took good care that no one should know it; and not all the cheerfulness, patience, and amiability of F. Chevreuse could for a moment chase away the cloud that brooded over his face, or make him acknowledge that there was anything but tribulation in his life. The priest bore more patiently the constant, petty trial of such a presence about him because he believed that sorrow for the death of Mother Chevreuse had changed the old man from bad to worse, when the truth was that the lady had skilfully hidden much of their servant's [pg 493] crabbedness, or had so displayed the comical phase of it that it had ceased to be an annoyance, and was often amusing.
“Tell Jane to give us our supper right away, Andrew,” the priest said. “And bring up a bottle of wine with it.”
“Jane is gone to bed, sir,” Andrew announced, and stood stubbornly to be questioned, his whole air saying plainly that all had not been told.
“Gone to bed!” echoed F. Chevreuse. “What is the matter with her?”