CHAPTER XXXV.
ROGER’S FATE.
Roger Burchell had made two unsuccessful visits to the Square—the first absolutely painful, the second disappointing. On both occasions he had failed to see Cara, except surrounded by strangers, who were nothing, and indeed less than nothing to him; and both times he had gone away resolute that nothing should induce him to tempt fate again, and come back. But a young man who is in love persuades himself with difficulty that fate is against him. It seems so unlikely and incredible that such a thing should be; and short of a distinct and unmistakable sentence, hope revives after the shock of a mere repulse has a little worn off. And then Roger had heard that Cara was coming back to the Hill, and his heart had risen. When she was there again, within his reach, without ‘these fellows’ by, who had troubled him, Cara, he flattered himself, would be to him as she used to be; and, distance lending enchantment to his vision, it appeared to him that she had been much kinder in those days than she ever really was, and that she must have understood him, and had seriously inclined to hear what he had to say. Soon he managed to persuade himself that Cara had never been cold, never had been anything but sweet and encouraging, and that it was only her surroundings which had led her far away from him, and forced the attention which she would have much more willingly bestowed upon himself, the companion of her youth. This idea brought a rush of tender feeling with it, and resolution not to be discouraged—never to take an answer again but from Cara herself. How likely that she might have wondered too why he did not take the initiative, why he did not insist upon speaking to her, and getting her own plain answer! From this to the thought that Cara was looking out for him every Sunday—wondering, disappointed, and alarmed that he did not come—was but a step; and then Roger made up his mind to go again, to insist on seeing her, and to ask her—simply to ask her, neither more nor less—for there was very little time to lose. In the autumn he was going to India; already his importance had risen with all belonging to him. Up to this moment he had been only one of the boys, more or less, wasting money, and limiting the advantages of the others; but in autumn he would have an income of his own, and would be independent. The sense of importance went to his head a little. Had he met the Queen, I think that he would have expected her Majesty to know that he was going out to India in October. It was not that he was vain of himself or his prospects; but a man with an income is very different from a man without that possession. This is a fact which no one can doubt. It was late in April when he came to the Square for the third time, and so fine a day that everybody had gone out, except Cara, who was not well. When he was ushered into the drawing-room, he found her seated in an easy chair, with a shawl round her. Though it was very sunshiny outside, it was rather cold indoors. Miss Cherry, who stood by with her bonnet on, and her prayer-book in her hand, had just ordered the fire to be lighted, and Cara, with her cold, had crept close to it. Miss Cherry was going to the afternoon service.
‘I shall not be long, my darling. You will not miss me,’ she was saying, ‘though I don’t like to leave you on my last day.’
‘Don’t say it is the last day—and look, here is Roger to keep me company,’ said Cara. ‘He will sit with me while you are away.’
How glad he was, and how eager to promise!
Miss Cherry thought no more of poor Roger than if he had been a cabbage. She thought it might be an amusement to her niece to hear his little gossip about home; and though she saw through his eagerness, and suspected his object, yet she was not alarmed for Cara. Poor blind moth, coming to scorch his wings, she said to herself, with a half-amused pity. She did not pay very much attention to what he might have to suffer. Indeed, unless one has a special interest in the sufferer, such pangs always awake more or less amusement in the mature bosom; and, tender-hearted as Miss Cherry was, her mind was too full of other things to have much leisure for Roger, who was, she thought, anyhow too shy and awkward to commit himself. She had her mind full of a great many things. She was going away, now that her brother was not going. But though she was anxious about her old aunt, and her home, which she had left for so long a period, she was anxious about Cara too, and did not know which of these opposing sentiments dragged her most strongly to one side or the other. And then she was angry with her brother—angry with him for staying, and angry that there had been an occasion for his going away. She went to afternoon church at that drowsiest hour, when, if the mind has any temptation to be dejected, or to be cross, it is crosser and more downcast than at any other moment, and attended a sleepy service in an old dingy chapel, one of the few which are still to be found remaining, in which a scattered congregation drowse in big pews, and something like a clerk still conducts the responses. Miss Cherry had been used to this kind of service all her life, and in her gentle obstinacy of conservatism clung to it, though it possessed very few attractions. She said her own prayers very devoutly, and did her best to join in the irregular chorus of the clerk; and she sat very erect in the high corner of the pew, and gave an undivided attention to the sermon, sternly commanding every stray thought out of the way. But the effort was not so successful as the valour of the endeavour merited. Miss Cherry did not like, as she said, to have the good effect all dissipated by worldly talk after a good sermon (and was not every sermon good in intention at least—calculated, if we would only receive its directions, to do good to the very best of us?), and for this reason she was in the habit of avoiding all conversation on her way from church. But her resolution could not stand when she saw Mr. Maxwell coming towards her from the other side of the street. He had not been at church, she feared; but yet she had a great many things to ask him. She let him join her, though she liked to have her Sundays to herself.
‘Yes, I hope Miss Charity is better,’ he said. ‘Her energy has come back to her, and if the summer would really come—— I hear of another change, which I can’t say surprises me, but yet—your brother then is not going away?’
‘No—why should he?’ said Miss Cherry. It is one thing to find fault with one’s brother, and quite another thing to hear him criticised by his friend.
‘I thought so,’ said Maxwell; ‘he has no stamina, no firmness. I suppose, then, he has made up his mind?’
‘To what, Mr. Maxwell? He has made up his mind not to go away.’
‘And to all the consequences. Miss Cherry, you are not so simple as you wish people to think. He means, of course, to marry again. I had hoped he would have more sense—and better feeling.’
‘I don’t know why you should judge James so harshly,’ said Miss Cherry, with spirit. ‘Many people marry twice, of whom nothing is said—and when they do not, perhaps it is scarcely from good taste or feeling on their part.’
‘You are kind,’ said the doctor, growing red, and wondering within himself how the d—— could she know what he had been thinking of? Or was it merely a bow drawn at a venture, though the arrow whistled so close?
‘Whatever wishes I might have,’ he added, betraying himself, ‘are nothing to the purpose. Your brother is in a very different position. He has a pretty, sweet daughter, grown up, at a companionable age, to make a home for him. What would he have? Such a man might certainly be content—instead of compelling people to rake up the past, and ask unpleasant questions.’
‘Questions about James? I don’t know what questions anyone could ask about my brother——’
‘Well,’ said Maxwell, somewhat hotly; ‘I don’t like doing anything in the dark, and you may tell Beresford, if you like, Miss Cherry, all that I have to say, that I shall oppose it. I shall certainly oppose it. Never should I have said a word, had he let things alone; but in this case, it will become my duty.’
‘What will become your duty?’ said Miss Cherry, aghast.
He looked at her wondering face, and his own countenance changed. ‘It is not anything to bother you about,’ he said. ‘It is—a nothing—a matter between your brother and me.’
‘What is it?’ she said, growing anxious.
He had turned with her, and walked by her side in his vehemence. Now that she had taken fright, he stopped short.
‘It is only that I have a patient to see,’ he said; ‘and I am glad to be able to make your mind quite easy about Miss Beresford. She is twice as strong as either you or I.’
And before she could say another word he had knocked at a door they were passing, and left her, taking off his hat in the most ordinary way. What did he mean? or was it nothing—some trifling quarrel he had got into with James? Miss Cherry walked the rest of the way home, alone indeed and undisturbed, but with a strange commotion in her mind. Was there something serious behind these vague threatenings, or was he only depressed and cross, like herself, from the troublesome influence of spring, and of this east-windy day?
Meanwhile, Roger sat down in front of Cara’s fire, which was too warm, and made him uncomfortable—for he had been walking quickly, and he had no cold. He thought she looked pale, as she reclined in the big chair, with that fleecy white shawl round her, and he told her so frankly.
‘It is living in town that has done it,’ he said. ‘When you come back to the country you will soon be all right.’
‘It is only a cold,’ said Cara. ‘I don’t know now when we shall go to the country. Aunt Cherry leaves us to-morrow.’
‘But you are coming too? Yes, you are! Miss Charity told my mother so. In a few days——’
‘Ah, that was before papa changed his plans; he is not going abroad now—so I stay at home,’ said Cara.
The young man started up from his seat in the sudden sting of his disappointment. He was too unsophisticated to be able to control his feelings. Still, he managed not to swear or rave, as Nature suggested. ‘Good Heavens!’ was the only audible exclamation he permitted himself, which, to be sure, is merely a pious ejaculation; though a lower ‘Confound!’ came under his breath—but this Cara was not supposed to hear.
‘Home?’ he said, coming back after a walk to the window, when he had partially subdued himself. ‘I should have thought the Hill, where you have lived all your life, and where everybody cares for you, would have seemed more like home than the Square.’
‘Do not be cross, Roger,’ said Cara. ‘Why should you be cross?’ Something of the ease of conscious domination was in her treatment of him. She did not take the same high ground with Oswald or Edward; but this poor boy was, so to speak, under her thumb, and, like most superior persons, she made an unkind use of her power, and treated her slave with levity. ‘You look as if you meant to scold me. There is a little red here,’ and she put up her hand to her own delicate cheek, to show the spot, ‘which means temper, and it is not nice to show temper, Roger, especially with an old friend. I did not choose my home any more than my name. You might as well say you should have thought I would prefer to be May, rather than Cara.’
‘It is you who are unkind,’ said the poor young fellow. ‘Oh, Cara, if you remember how we have played together, how long you have known me! and this is my last summer in England. In six months—less than six months—I shall be gone.’
‘I am very sorry,’ she said. ‘But why should you get up and stamp about? That will not make things any better. Sit down and tell me about it. Poor Roger! are you really going away?’
Now, this was not the tone he wished or expected; for he was far from feeling himself to be poor Roger, because he was going away. Offended dignity strove with anxious love in his mind, and he felt, with, perhaps, a vulgar yet very reasonable instinct, that his actual dignity and importance made the best foundation for his love.
‘It is not so much to be regretted, Cara, except for one thing. I shall enter upon good pay at once. That is worth sacrificing something for; and I don’t care so much, after all, for just leaving England. What does it matter where a fellow is, so long as he is happy? But it’s about being happy that I want to speak to you.’
‘I think it matters a great deal where one is,’ said Cara; but she refrained, out of politeness to him, who had no choice in the matter, to sing the praises of home. ‘I have been so used to people wandering about,’ she said, apologetically; ‘papa, you know; but I am glad that you don’t mind; and, of course, to have money of your own will be very pleasant. I am afraid they will all feel it very much at the Rectory.’
‘Oh, they! they don’t care. It will be one out of the way. Ah, Cara, if I only could think you would be sorry.’
‘Of course I shall be sorry, Roger,’ she said, with gentle seriousness. ‘There is no one I shall miss so much. I will think of you often in the woods, and when there are garden parties. As you are going, I am almost glad not to be there this year.’
‘Ah, Cara! if you would but say a little more, how happy you might make me,’ said the young man, self-deceived, with honest moisture in his eyes.
‘Then I will say as much more as you like,’ she said, bending forward towards him with a little soft colour rising in her cheeks. ‘I shall think of you always on Sundays, and how glad we used to be when you came; and if you have time to write to me, I will always answer; and I will think of you at that prayer in the Litany for those who travel by land and water.’
‘Something more yet—only one thing more!’ cried poor Roger, getting down upon one knee somehow, and laying his hand on the arm of her chair. His eyes were quite full, his young face glowing: ‘Say you love me ever so little, Cara! I have never thought of anyone in my life but you. Whenever I hoped or planned anything it was always for you. I never had a penny: I never could show what I felt, anyhow: but now I shall be well enough off, and able to keep——’
‘Hush!’ said Cara, half frightened; ‘don’t look so anxious. I never knew you so restless before; one moment starting up and walking about, another down on your knees. Why should you go down on your knees to me? Of course I like you, Roger dear; have we not been like brother and sister?’
‘No!’ he said; ‘and I don’t want to be like brother and sister. I am so fond of you, I don’t know what to say. Oh, Cara! don’t be so quiet as if it didn’t matter. I shall be well off, able to keep a wife.’
‘A wife?—that is a new idea,’ she said, bewildered; ‘but you are too young, Roger.’
‘Will you come with me, Cara?’ he cried, passing over, scarcely hearing, in his emotion, the surprise yet indifference of this question. ‘Oh, Cara! don’t say no without thinking! I will wait if you like—say a year or two years. I shall not mind. I would rather wait fifty years for you than have anyone else, Cara. Only say you will come with me, or even to me, and I shall not mind.’
Cara sat quite upright in her chair. She threw her white shawl off in her excitement. ‘Me?’ she said; ‘me?’ (That fine point of grammar often settles itself summarily in excitement, and on the wrong side.) ‘You must be dreaming,’ she said; ‘or am I dreaming, or what has happened? I don’t know what you mean.’
He stumbled up to his feet red as the glow of the fire which had scorched him, poor boy, as if his unrequited passion was not enough. ‘If I am dreaming!’ he said, in the sharp sting of his downfall, ‘it is you who have made me dream.’
‘I?’ said Cara, in her surprise (the grammar coming right as the crisis got over); ‘what have I done? I don’t understand at all. I am not unkind. If there was anything I could do to please you, I would do it.’
‘To please me, Cara?’ he cried, sinking again into submission. ‘To make me happy, that is what you can do, if you like. Don’t say no all at once; think of it at least; the hardest-hearted might do that.’
‘I am not hard-hearted,’ she said. ‘I begin to see what it is. We have both made a mistake, Roger. I never thought this was what you were thinking; and you have deceived yourself, supposing I knew. I am very, very sorry. I will do anything—else——’
‘I don’t want anything else,’ he said, sullenly. He turned his back upon her in the gloom and blackness of his disappointment. ‘What else is there between young people like us,’ he said, bitterly. ‘My mother always says so, and she ought to know. I have heard often enough of girls leading men on—enticing them to make fools of themselves—and I see it is true now. But I never thought it of you, Cara. Whatever others did, I thought you were one by yourself, and nobody like you. But I see now you are just like the rest. What good does it do you to make a fellow unhappy—to break his heart?’ Here poor Roger’s voice faltered, the true feeling in him struggling against the vulgar fibre which extremity revealed. ‘And all your smiling and looking sweet, was it all for nothing?’ he said—‘all meaning nothing! You would have done just the same for anybody else! What good does it do you? for there’s nobody here to see how you have made a laughing-stock of me.’
‘Have I made a laughing-stock of you? I am more ready to cry than to laugh,’ said Cara, indignantly, yet with quivering lip.
‘I know what you will do,’ he said; ‘you will tell everybody—that is what you will do. Oh, it’s a devilish thing in girls! I suppose they never feel themselves, and it pleases their vanity to make fools of us. You will go and tell those fellows, those Merediths, what a laugh you have had out of poor Roger. Poor Roger! but you shan’t have your triumph, Miss Beresford,’ said the poor lad, snatching up his hat. ‘If you won’t look at me, there are others who will. I am not so ridiculous as to be beneath the notice of someone else.’
He made a rush to the door, and Cara sat leaning forward a little, looking after him,—her blue eyes wide open, a look of astonishment, mingled with grief, on her face. She felt wounded and startled, but surprised most of all. Roger!—was it Roger who spoke so? When he got to the door he turned round and looked back upon her, his lips quivering, his whole frame trembling. Cara could scarcely bear the pitiful, despairing look in the lad’s eyes.
‘Oh, Roger!’ she said; ‘don’t go away so. You can’t imagine I ever laughed at you, or made fun of you—I?—when you were always the kindest friend to me. Won’t you say “good-by” to me kindly? But never mind—I shall see you often before you go away.’
And then, while he still stood there irresolute, not knowing whether to dart away in the first wrathful impulse, or to come back and throw himself at her feet, all these possibilities were made an end of in a moment by Miss Cherry, who walked softly up the stairs and came in with her prayer-book still in her hand. Roger let go his hold of the door, which he had been grasping frantically, and smiled with a pale countenance as best he could to meet the new-comer, standing out into the room to let her pass, and doing all he could to look like any gentleman saying ‘good-by’ at the end of a morning call. Cara drew the shawl again upon her shoulders, and wrapped herself closer and closer in it, as if that was all she was thinking of. If they had not been so elaborate in their precautions they might have deceived Miss Cherry, whose mind was taken up with her own thoughts. But they played their parts so much too well that her curiosity was aroused at once.
‘Are you going, Roger? You must stop first and have some tea. I daresay Cara had not the good sense to offer you some tea; but John will bring it directly when he knows I have come in. Is it really true, my dear Roger, that you are going away? I am sure I wish you may have every advantage and good fortune.’
She looked at him curiously, and he felt that she read him through and through. But he could not make any attempt to make-believe with Miss Cherry, whom he had known ever since he could remember. He muttered something, he could not tell what, made a hurried dash at Cara’s hand, which he crushed so that her poor little fingers did not recover for half an hour; and then rushed out of the house. Miss Cherry turned to Cara with inquiring eyes. The girl had dropped back into her chair, and had almost disappeared in the fleecy folds of the shawl.
‘What have you been doing to Roger?’ she said. ‘Poor boy! If I had known I would have warned him. Must there always be some mischief going on whenever there are two together? Oh, child! you ought to have let him see how it was; you should not have led him on!’
‘Did I lead him on? What have I done? He said so too,’ cried poor Cara, unable to restrain her tears. She cried so that Miss Cherry was alarmed, and from scolding took to petting her, afraid of the effect she had herself produced.
‘It’s only a way of speaking,’ she said. ‘No, my darling, I know you did not. If he said so, he was very unkind. Do not think of it any more.’
But this is always so much easier to say than to do.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BETWEEN THE TWO.
Oswald’s spirits very soon recovered the shock of his father’s death. He was as light-hearted as ever after that day when he had visited little Emmy at the hospital. Perhaps the satisfaction of having done a good action was in his mind, for he was permitted to send Emmy to the seaside to the abode of another sisterhood there. Agnes undertook after all to make the proposal for him, which was graciously accepted, though she herself received another admonition from the Superior. Sister Mary Jane appointed a meeting with the other culprit who had made this charitable offer. As usual, he was not supposed to be at all in fault. He was allowed to enter the sacred convent gates, and wait in St. Elizabeth (for so the Superior’s room was entitled) till Sister Mary Jane made her appearance, who made all the arrangements, and took his money with much gracious condescension, but said nothing about his ambassadress. Neither did he say anything, though he looked up eagerly every time the door opened, and made furtive investigations, as well as he could, through the long bare passages, where all sorts of instruction were going on. When he opened (as he had no right to do) one of the doors he passed, he found it to be full of infants, who turned round en masse to his great terror, and saluted him with a simultaneous bob. They knew their manners if he did not. But nowhere could he see Agnes, and not a word about her did these unfeeling Sisters utter. To tell truth, they both waited for each other. Sister Mary Jane had little doubt that his real mission at the ‘House’ was to find out all he could from her, whereas he on his part had a lively anticipation of being called to task for following and talking to the governess. Oswald had something of the feeling of a schoolboy who has escaped when he found that no explanation was asked from him, and this was the only reason he gave to himself for not making those inquiries into Agnes Burchell’s family which he felt it was now really necessary to make. But why immediately? Let him make a little more ground with her first, and establish his own position. It charmed him a great deal more to think of winning her in this irregular way than to plan the proper formal approach to her parents, and application for their consent. To go and hunt up an unknown family and introduce himself to them in cold blood, and ask them, ‘Will you give me your daughter?’ was quite alarming to him. He put it off, as it is so easy to do. Certainly it would be his duty to do it, one time or other, if his suit prospered, and he was not much afraid of the non-success of his suit. But to go to them once for all, and inform them of his engagement with their daughter, would, he thought, be a less difficult matter—and all the delightful romance of the strange wooing would be lost should he adopt the other plan. He felt that he had got off when the door of the House closed upon him without any questioning from Sister Mary Jane; but on her side the feeling was different. She was disappointed. She had guessed how things were going, though not that they had gone nearly so far, and she had been convinced that the young stranger’s anxiety to see her arose from his honourable desire to set everything on a proper footing. The reader will perceive that Sister Mary Jane was too simple and too credulous. She was half vexed at the idea of losing the girl whom she had grown fond of, and half glad that Agnes had found a new life more suited to her than the routine of the House, for Agnes, it was evident, had no ‘vocation,’ and she did not doubt for a moment what Mr. Oswald Meredith’s real object was. She had made up her mind to allow herself to be sounded, to yield forth scraps of information diplomatically, and finally to divulge everything there was to tell, and set the eager lover off to the rectory at the foot of the hill. But Sister Mary Jane was much dismayed to be asked no questions at all on the subject. She could not understand it, and all the disagreeable stories she had ever heard of the wolves that haunt the neighbourhood of a fold came into her mind and filled her with dismay. Instead of being honourable and high-minded, as she had taken it for granted he must be, was he designing and deceiving, according to the ideal of men who used to appear in all the novels? Up to this moment Sister Mary Jane had felt disposed to laugh at the Lothario of fiction. Was this that mythical personage in his improper person? The result of the interview on her side was that she reproved poor Agnes gently for a few days, and declined to allow her to go anywhere, and would not make any reference whatever to little Emmy’s going to the seaside. Yes, she was to go. Oh, certainly, everything was arranged; but not a word about Emmy’s friend, whose liberality procured her this change. Agnes felt her heart sink. She had expected at least to be questioned about the young stranger who must, she felt convinced, have asked questions about her, and the silence was hard to bear. Once more, indeed, she was permitted to go out to see Emmy before she went away; but the lay Sister, the porteress, was sent with her on some pretext or other. Thus it happened that when Oswald appeared as usual, he found himself confronted by a respectable visage of forty under the poke-bonnet which he had supposed to enshrine that Perugino countenance to which he had addressed so many uncompleted verses. To be sure, the Perugino face was close by, but the dragon kept so near that nothing could be said. Oswald talked a little about Emmy loudly, by way of deceiving the respectable attendant. Then he ventured upon a few hurried words in a lower tone. ‘Is this an expedient of the Sisters?’ he said, hastily. ‘Am I never to speak to you again? Do they think they can send me away like this, and get the better of me? Never! You need not think so. You may send me away, but no one else shall.’
‘Mr. Meredith, for heaven’s sake——’
‘I am taking care; but you don’t mean to cast me off, Agnes?’
She gave him a sudden look. Her face was full of emotion. Fright, melancholy, wistfulness, inquiring wonder, were in her eyes. What did he mean? Was he as true, as reverent, as real in his love, as he had said? He could not have realised in his confident happiness and ability to do everything he wished the sense of impotent dejected wondering, and the indignation with herself, for thinking about it so, which were in Agnes’s mind. But something in her eyes touched and stopped him in his eager effort to continue this undertone of conversation, to elude the scrutiny of her companion. ‘Good-by,’ she said, with a slight wave of her hand, hurrying on. Oswald was overcome in spite of himself. He fell behind instinctively, and watched her moving quickly along the street with the other black shadow by her in the sunshine. For the moment he ceased to think of himself and thought of her. Had it been for her comfort that he had crossed her path? It had been the most delightful new existence and pursuit to him—but to her? Oswald could not have imagined the waves of varied feeling, the secret storms that had gone over Agnes in the quiet of the convent, on account of those meetings and conversations; but he did consciously pause and ask himself whether this which had been so pleasant to him had been equally pleasant to her. It was but a momentary pause. Then he went after her a little more slowly, not unselfish enough, even in his new care for her, not to be rather anxious that Agnes should be aware that he was there. And, who knows? perhaps it was more consolatory for her when she half turned round, standing at the door of the House waiting for admittance, to see him pass taking off his hat reverentially, and looking at her with eyes half reproachful and tender, than it would have been had he accepted the repulse she had given him, and put force upon himself and stayed absolutely away. He had no intention of staying away. He meant to continue his pursuit of her—to waylay her, to lose no possibility of getting near her. He was pertinacious, obstinate, determined, even though it annoyed her. Did it annoy her? or was there some secret pleasure in the warm glow that came over her at sight of him? She hurried in, and swore to herself not to think of this troublesome interruption of her quiet life any more. It was over. Emmy was removed, and there was an end of it. She would think of it no more; and with this determination Agnes hastened to the girls in St. Cecilia, and never left off thinking of it till weariness and youth together, making light of all those simple thorns in her pillow, plunged her into softest sleep.
Oswald went to Cara to unburden his mind next day. He did not quite know what his next step was to be. ‘I think it is all right,’ he said. ‘You should have seen the look she gave me. She would not have given me a look like that if she had not liked me. It set me wondering whether she was as happy as—such a creature as she is ought to be. Would they scold her badly because I followed her? You know what women do—would they be hard upon her? But why? If I insisted upon being there it was not her fault.’
‘They would say it was her fault. They would say that if she had refused to speak to you you would not have come back.’
‘But I should. I am not so easily discouraged. Oh, yes, perhaps if she had looked as if she hated me; but, then,’ said Oswald, with complacence, ‘she did not do that.’
‘Don’t be so vain,’ said Cara, provoked. ‘Oh, I hate you when you look vain. It makes you look silly too. If she saw you with that imbecile look on your face she would never take the trouble of thinking of you again.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t she?’ said Oswald, looking more vain than ever. ‘Because you are insensible, that is not to say that other people are. Of course I should pull up if I did not mean anything. But I do mean a great deal. I never saw anyone like her. I told you she was like a Perugino—and you should hear her talk. She is thrown away there, Cara. I am sure she never was meant to be shut up in such a place, teaching a set of little wretches. I told her so. I told her a wife was better than a Sister.’
‘Are you so very sure of that?’ cried Cara; for what she called the imbecile look of vanity on Oswald’s handsome face had irritated her. ‘Would it be so very noble to be your wife, Oswald? Now tell me. You would like her to look up to you, and think you very grand and clever. You would read your poetry to her. You would like her to order you a very nice dinner——’
‘Ye-es,’ said Oswald, ‘but if she smiled at me sweetly I should forgive her the dinner; and she should do as she pleased; only I should like her, of course, to please me.’
‘And you would take her to the opera, and to parties—and give up your club, perhaps—and you would take a great deal of trouble in furnishing your house, and altogether enjoy yourself.’
‘Very much indeed, I promise you,’ said the young man, rubbing his hands.
‘And now she is not enjoying herself at all,’ said Cara; ‘working very hard among the poor children, going to visit sick people in the hospital. Oh, yes, there would be a difference! The wife would be much the most comfortable.’
‘I don’t like girls to be satirical,’ said Oswald. ‘It puts them out of harmony, out of drawing. Now she said something like that. She asked me in her pretty way if it would be better to make one man happy than to serve a great number of people, and take care of those that had nobody to take care of them. That was what she said; but she did not laugh, nor put on a satirical tone.’
‘That shows only that she is better than I am,’ said Cara, slightly angry still; ‘but not that I am wrong. Your wife! it might be nice enough. I can’t tell; but it would not be a great life—a life for others, like what, perhaps, she is trying for now.’
‘You are complimentary, Cara,’ said Oswald, half offended. ‘After all, I don’t think it would be such a very bad business. I shall take good care of my wife, never fear. She shall enjoy herself. Don’t you know,’ he added with a laugh, ‘that everybody thinks you and I are going to make it up between us?’
Cara turned away. ‘You ought not to let anyone think so,’ she said.
‘What harm does it do? It amuses everybody, keeping them on the stretch for news. They think we are actually engaged. The times that Edward has tried to get it out of me—all particulars—and my mother too. It is far too good a joke not to keep it up.’
‘But, Oswald, I don’t like it. It is not right.’
‘Oh, don’t be so particular, Cara. I shall believe you are going to be an old maid, like Aunt Cherry, if you are so precise. Why, what possible harm can it do? It is only keeping them on the rack of curiosity while we are laughing in our sleeves. Besides, after all, Cara mia, it is just a chance, you know, that it did not come to pass. If it had not been for her, and that she turned up just when she did——’
‘I am much obliged to you, Oswald. You think, then, that it all depends upon you, and that the moment it pleased you to throw your handkerchief——’
‘Do not be absurd, my dear child. You know I am very fond of you,’ said Oswald, with such a softening in his voice, and so kind a look in his eyes, that Cara was quite disarmed. He put his hand lightly upon her waist as a brother might have done. ‘We have known each other all our lives—we shall know each other all the rest of our lives. I tell you everything—you are my little conscience keeper, my adviser. I don’t know what I should do without you,’ he said; and, being of a caressing disposition, Oswald bent down suddenly, and kissed the soft cheek which was lifted towards him. There were two doors to the room—the one most generally used was in its second division, the back drawing-room; but another door opened directly out upon the staircase, and the two were standing, as it happened, directly in front of this. By what chance it happened that Miss Cherry chose this door to come in by, and suddenly, softly threw it open at this particular moment, will never be known. There is something in such a salutation, especially when at all ambiguous in its character, which seems to stir up all kinds of malicious influences for its betrayal. The sudden action of Miss Cherry in opening this door revealed the little incident not only to her but to Edward, who was coming up the stair. Cara rushed to the other end of the room, her lace scorching with shame; but Oswald, more used to the situation, stood his ground, and laughed. ‘Ah, Aunt Cherry, are you really going?’ he said, holding out his hand to her, while Edward stalked into the room like a ghost. Of all the party, Oswald was the least discomposed. Indeed, it rather pleased him, his vanity and his sense of fun being both excited. He had a kind of notion that Edward was jealous, and this added to his mischievous enjoyment. Where was the harm?
‘Yes, I am going away,’ said Miss Cherry, ‘and perhaps it is time—though I sometimes don’t know whether I ought to go or stay,’ she added, mournfully, with a glance at her niece. Cara had turned her back upon the company, and was in the other room arranging some music on the piano, with trembling fingers. She could not bear either reproach or laughter, for her shame was excessive, and out of all proportion to the magnitude of the offence, as was to be expected at her years.
‘Oh, you must not be uneasy about Cara,’ said Oswald, lightly. ‘Cara will be well taken care of. We will all take care of her. I must go now, Cara. Good morning. I am going to look after the business I have been telling you of. Why, there is nothing to make a bother about,’ he said, in an undertone. ‘Cara! crying! Why, what harm is done?’
‘Oh, tell them, Oswald; if you have any pity for me, tell them!’
‘Tell them what? There is nothing to tell. If they put foolish constructions on the simplest incident, it is not our fault. Good-by; only look unconcerned as I do; there is no possible harm done.’
And with this he went away, shaking hands with Miss Cherry, who was very pale with agitation and disapproval. As for Edward, he gave her a very formal message from his mother about a drive which Cara was to take with her in the afternoon. He scarcely spoke to the girl herself, who indeed kept in the background and said nothing. Edward had grown quite pale: he bowed in a formal way, and spoke so stiffly that Miss Cherry was almost driven to self-assertion. ‘Pray don’t let Mrs. Meredith take any trouble about Cara’s drive,’ she said, drawing herself up. ‘Cara can get an airing very easily if this is troublesome.’
‘What I said was that my mother would call at four,’ said the young man; and he bowed again and went away. With what a heavy heart he went downstairs, not seeing the pitiful look Cara stole at him as he went out, this time through the legitimate door, the neglect of which had caused all the mischief; no, not the neglect, but Oswald’s dreadful wicked levity and her own (as it almost seemed) crime.
‘I am going away,’ said Miss Cherry, with dignity. ‘I will not ask you what you don’t choose to tell me, Cara. I have seen enough for myself; but I can’t help saying that I go with a heavy heart. Your father and you have both gone out of my reach. It is not for me to blame you. I am old-fashioned, and prefer old ways, and perhaps it is you who know best.’
‘Oh, Aunt Cherry,’ said the girl, in a passion of tears. ‘What can I say to you? You are mistaken, indeed you are mistaken. I am not concealing anything.’
‘We will not speak of it, my dear,’ said Miss Cherry with trembling lips. ‘You are out of my reach, both your father and you. Oh, when I think how things used to be! What a good child you were—so true, so transparent! and now I don’t seem to know what truth is—everything is muddled up. Oh, I wonder if it is our fault! They say that to have a mother is everything; but I thought I had tried to be like a mother,’ cried Miss Cherry, giving way to the inevitable tears.
‘I am not false,’ said Cara, putting her arms round her. ‘Oh, Aunt Cherry, believe me. I did not know what he was going to do. It was to thank me, because he had been asking—my advice——’
‘Your advice! Ah, you will be fine guides to each other, if this is how you treat your best friends,’ said Miss Cherry. But she yielded a little to the girl’s caressing, and dried her eyes. ‘I am going away with a heavy heart,’ she added, after this partial making-up, shaking her head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know what it is all coming to. He is never at home—always there:—and you——. In my time we thought of what was right, not only what we liked best; but they tell us in all the books that the world is getting wiser, and knows better every day. I only hope you will find it so. Oh, Cara,’ said Miss Cherry, ‘it is thought a mean thing to say that honesty is the best policy, though it was the fashion once; but it is. I don’t mean to say that is the highest way of looking at it; but still it is so. For one vexation you may have by speaking the truth, you will find a dozen from not speaking it. I wish you would think of this. But I will not say any more.’
‘I am not a liar,’ said Cara, with a wild indignation in her heart which was beyond words; and she refused to speak again, and saw her aunt off with a throbbing heart, but neither tears nor words beyond what was absolutely needful; never had she parted with anyone in this way before. She came in and shut herself up in her room, directing them to say that she was ill, and could not drive when Mrs. Meredith came for her. Honesty the best policy! What breaking up of heaven and earth was it that placed her amid all these shadows and falsities, she whose spirit revolted from everything that was even doubtful? She lay down upon her little bed, and cried herself, not to sleep, but into the quiet of exhaustion. Aunt Cherry, who had been like her mother to her, had gone away wounded and estranged. Edward—what a countenance his had been as he turned and went out of the room! And Oswald, who had dragged her into this false position and would not clear her, laughed! Cara hid her eyes from the light in one of those outbursts of youthful despair, which are more intolerable than heavier sorrows. Such pangs have before now driven young souls to desperation. She was hemmed in, and did not know what to do. And where in all the world was she to find a friend now?
While she was lying there in her despair, Oswald, walking along lightly, could scarcely keep himself from laughing aloud when he thought of this quaint misadventure. How absurd it was! He hoped Miss Cherry would not be too hard upon Cara—but he took the idea of the scolding she would receive with a certain complacence as well as amusement. It was as good as a play; Miss Cherry’s look of horror, the blanched face of the virtuous Edward, and poor little Cara’s furious blush and overwhelming shame. What an innocent child it must be to feel such a trifle so deeply! But they were all rather tiresome people with their punctilios, Oswald felt, and the sooner he had emancipated himself, and settled independently, the better. Thanks to that sensible old governor, who, after all, could not have chosen a better moment to die in, there was no need for waiting, and nobody had any power to raise difficulties in respect to money. No, he could please himself; he could do what he liked without interference from anyone, and he would do it. He would win his little wife by his spear and his bow, without intervention of the old fogeys who spoil sport; and when the romance had been exhausted they would all live happy ever after like a fairy tale. As for any harm to be done in the meantime, any clouding of other lives, he puffed that into the air with a ‘Pshaw, nonsense!’ as he would have puffed away the smoke of his cigar.
But it surprised him when he returned home to find his mother in tears over Edward’s resolution, after all, to carry out his original plan and go out to India. Mrs. Meredith was broken-hearted over this change. ‘I thought it was all settled. Oh, Oswald, there are but two of you. How can I bear to part with one of my boys?’ she said.
‘Well, mother, but you had made up your mind to it; and, to tell the truth, it is a shame to sacrifice such prospects as his,’ said the elder son, with exemplary wisdom. ‘I am very sorry, since you take it so to heart; but otherwise one can’t deny it’s the best thing he could do.’
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE CRISIS APPROACHING.
While Oswald went about the streets so lightly, and thought so pleasantly of his prospects, another mind, still more agitated than that of Cara, was turning over and over all he had done for the last five or six weeks, and all that he might be about to do in the future. Agnes in her convent, with all her routine of duties—with the little tinkling bell continually calling her to one thing or another, to matins or evensong, to ‘meditation,’ to this service or that, to choir practice, to dinner and tea and recreation—carried a tumult of fancies about with her, which no one, except perhaps Sister Mary Jane, guessed. Oswald would have stood aghast could he have seen into that little ocean of excited feeling, where the waves rose higher and higher as the hours went on, and sometimes a swelling tide almost swept the thinker herself away—though indeed he would have been so unable to understand it that the inspection would probably have taught him little. How easily he took all this, which was so tremendous to her! and that not only because of the difference between man and woman, but because of the fundamental difference in temperament, which was greater still. Agnes had known but little that was lovely or pleasant in her life. Her rectory-home was neither; her father and mother and brothers and sisters were all vulgar and commonplace, struggling for existence, and for such privileges as it contained, one against another, and against the world, each grumbling at the indulgences the other managed to secure. The parish and its poor—and its rich, who were not much more attractive—had been all the world she had known; and the only beings who had crossed her horizon, who were not struggling like her own people, in the sordid race of existence, to get something, whatever it might be, were the Sisters in the House, and such a gentle retired person as Miss Cherry, who was not fighting for anything, who was ready to yield to anyone, and whose mild existence was evidently not pervaded by that constant recollection of self which filled up all the life of the others. This was what had brought the visionary girl into the House, which was sordid, too, in its details, though not in its spirit. Then there had been suddenly presented to her, just as she settled down to the work of the House, an image of something new, something more spontaneous, more easy in generosity, more noble in liberality than anything she had ever encountered. What did it matter that this type of nobleness was a handsome young man? Visionary Agnes, in the daring of her youth, saw no harm, but rather a beautiful fitness, in the fact that this revelation of the ideal should have all that was best in external as well as in more important things. He had stopped short—no doubt with all the brilliant world, which she did not know, waiting for him, arrested till he should rejoin it—to carry the wounded child to the hospital. He had left those mysterious glories of life, day after day and week after week, to go and ask for little Emmy. How wonderful this was! The devotion of Sister Mary Jane, the loving-kindness of Miss Cherry, faded before such an example; for they had not the world at their feet as this young paladin evidently had.
This was how the first chapter of the story came about. It opened her eyes (Agnes thought) to nobleness undreamed of, and for the first few weeks the universe itself had grown more bright to her. Could it be possible, then, that in ‘the world’ itself, which the Sisters had abjured—in that splendid glorious ‘society’ which even ascetic books spoke of as something too full of enhancements and seductions to be resisted by any but the most heroic, there were still opportunities of living the highest unselfish life, to the glory of God and the comfort of man? When Agnes found that this ideal hero of hers had thoughts less exalted in his bosom—that so small a motive as the wish to see herself and talk to her, had something to do with his devotion to the orphan, her visionary mind received a shock. Probably, had Oswald’s enthusiasm been for another, she would have been permanently disquieted by the discovery; but there is something strangely conciliatory in the fact that it is one’s self who is admired and followed. Such trivial emotions detract from the perfection of an ideal character; but still it is a much more easy thing to forgive your own lover than anyone else’s. And the more he sought her, the more Agnes’s heart, in spite of herself, inclined towards the man who could be thus moved. The ideal stole away, but so insensibly, in rose-coloured clouds, that she had not discovered the departure of her first admiration and wonder before something else stole in. It was not all goodness, nobleness, Christian charity, perhaps, that moved him; but what was it? Love, which in its way is divine too. Only after this altogether new influence had made itself felt did doubts appear, making a chaos in her mind. Were his sentiments as true as she had first thought? Was it right to counterfeit goodness, even in the name of love? Was not, after all, the life of the Sisters, the life of sacrifice, more noble than the other smiling life, of which he was the emblem? Was it not a mean thing to go back from that, and all one’s high thoughts of it, to the common romance of a story-book? Might not this romance lead back again to those vulgar beaten paths out of which Agnes had supposed herself to have escaped? And, ah! was it true after all? this was the refrain which kept coming back. Was it love and not levity? Was he seeking her seriously, in honour and truth; or was it possible that he was not noble at all, seeking her only for his own amusement? These thoughts shook Agnes to the bottom of her soul. They were like convulsions passing over her, tearing her spirit asunder. She went on with her work and all her religious exercises, and nobody found out how curiously unaware of what she was doing the girl was; living in a dream, performing mechanically all outside functions. Who does know, of those who are most near to us, what is going on in our minds? And not a calm Sister, not a little orphan in the House, would have been more incapable of comprehending, than was Oswald—to whom it would have seemed impossible—that anything in the world could produce so much emotion. Not only was it incomprehensible to him, but he could not even have found it out; and that his conduct should move either Agnes or Cara to this passionate suffering was an idea out of his grasp altogether. He would have been astounded, and more than astounded, had he been able to see into these two strange phases of unknown existence, which he could not have realised; but yet he was interested as warmly as his nature permitted. He was ‘in love;’ he was ready to do a great deal to secure to himself the girl he loved. He was ready to proceed to the most unmistakable conclusions, to commit himself, to blazon his love to the eyes of day. Perhaps even the sense that it was in his power to do this, without waiting for a keynote from anyone else, had something to do with his perfect calm.
After this, however, the departure of Emmy brought a new phase to the strange wooing. There was no reason now why Agnes should go out alone; and watchful Sister Mary Jane, who was not satisfied with the shape the affair was taking, exercised an undisclosed surveillance over her young disciple. Things ‘of the world,’ like love and marriage, are out of the way of professed Sisters, Anglican or otherwise; but Sister Mary Jane had long recognised that Agnes Burchell had not a ‘vocation,’ and she was a woman, though she was a Sister, and had a soft spot in her heart which would have made her not inexorable to an incipient romance. But why didn’t he ask me about her friends? Sister Mary Jane said to herself. This seemed to her the test by which Oswald was to be known, and he had borne its application badly. Accordingly she watched over Agnes with double zeal, scarcely letting her out of her own sight. Someone was always ready to accompany her, when she went out; and even in the daily procession of the school-girls Agnes was never left alone. Here, however, Oswald was just as much in advance of everything Agnes could have thought of, as she was in advance of him in intensity of feeling. Nothing could exceed the cleverness, the patience, the pertinacity with which he baffled this attempt to shut him out from her. He would not be shut out; he haunted the neighbourhood like the air they breathed. The door seemed never to open but he was within reach, and Agnes never went to a window without seeing him. He passed the procession as it went demurely along the street; he was present somewhere when it came out, and when it went in; whenever Agnes was visible he was there. This might have been the most intolerable persecution, enough to drive the victim crazy; but oddly enough it did not produce this effect. On the contrary, the sense of his constant presence near her, watching her perpetually, became like an intoxication to Agnes. She went about more and more like a person in a dream. To feel that when you lift your eyes you will most probably see a handsome face full of tender interest, anxiously waiting to secure your answering glance, and beautiful eyes full of love and eagerness watching you wherever you go, is not a thing which produces a very displeasing effect upon the mind of a girl. He could not approach her directly, had not a chance of speaking to her; but he never gave her time to forget him. The excitement of this pursuit delighted Oswald. It would have pleased him, even had he been much less truly touched by genuine love than he was, so far as that love can be considered genuine which springs from the sudden impression made by a fair face, and which has no foundation (to speak of) of personal knowledge or intimate acquaintance. As this, however, is what is called love by the great majority of the world, we need not apologise for Oswald’s sentiment, which was quite real and very engrossing. But it suited his character admirably to carry it on in this way. He enjoyed the sensation of foiling all precautions, and conveying by a glance, by the taking off of his hat, by his mere appearance, as much as other men do by chapters of more practical wooing. Agnes, after a week or two of such treatment, began to forget all her doubts, and to feel herself floated upwards into a visionary world, a kind of poetical paradise, in which the true knight worships and the fair lady responds at a saintly distance, infinitely above him yet beneath him, half angelic yet half parasitic, owing to his worship the greater part of her grandeur. She made a little feeble resistance, now and then, saying to herself that she did not know him, that he did not know her; asking herself how could this interchange of glances and the dozen words they had spoken to each other form any foundation for ‘friendship,’ which in the trouble of her mind was what she chose to call it? But such arguments do not count for much in the mind of a girl who feels and knows that all her comings and goings are marked by adoring eyes, that some instinct guides her lover across her path whenever she leaves the shelter of her home, and that his love is great enough to encounter perpetual fatigue and trouble, and to make him give up his entire leisure to the chance of seeing her. If it ever gleamed across her mind that he might have found out an easier way by making love to her parents, and that this would at once have delivered them both from all possibility of misunderstanding, the idea faded as quickly as it entered, driven away by the next appearance of Oswald’s reverential salutation, his eager glance, his apparently accidental presence. Sister Mary Jane very seldom went with the procession, and it was not etiquette to talk of what was seen or heard outside, and the Superior of the House was so occupied as to be beyond the possibility of gossip. So that she did not hear of the daily appearance of the intruder. Sister Catherine was short-sighted, and very much taken up with the demeanour of the girls. If she remarked him at all with her dim eyes, she took it for granted that he lived in the neighbourhood and was going to his occupation, whatever it might be, when the girls went out for their walk. ‘I don’t keep up the practice of recognising the people I knew in the world,’ she said on one occasion, seeing somebody taking off his hat. ‘Never mind whether it was for you or for me; it is best to take no notice—unless, indeed, with real friends.’ But she did not mention the incident to the Superior, and Agnes, though she trembled, said nothing. The daily encounter was like wine in her veins. It intoxicated her with a curious dreamy intoxication of the spirit. Her head was in the clouds as she walked, and she did not know which was real—the curious life which she passed like a dream in the House, or that glimpse of freedom and light and sunshine which she had abroad, light in which he stood enshrined like the young Saint Michael in the painted window. By degrees that moment of encounter became the principal fact in the day. Who was she to resist this fanciful, delicate worship? and Agnes did not know that it was to him no visionary reverential distant worship, but the most amusing and seductive pursuit in the world.
It was evident, however, that this could not go on indefinitely without coming to some conclusion. A few weeks stole by; Oswald did not tire, and Agnes grew more and more self-absorbed. She struggled, but ineffectually, against the sweet, strange fascination which rapt her out of the vulgar world altogether, in which she still went on mechanically doing her duties, very good to the children, very submissive and sweet to the Sisters, caring for nothing so much as to sit still in a corner and muse and dream when her work was done. Agnes felt herself a very unsatisfactory person all these weeks. She was ashamed to think how little her heart was in her work, although she did it to all appearance more dutifully than ever. All her little disquiet was over. She bore the dulness of routine like an angel, because of this visionary refuge of dreams which she had; but with all this outward sweetness Agnes felt that in her early days in the House, when her heart rebelled at the details, but was warm as an enthusiast’s in the spirit of the place, she was more true than now. Now she was patient, docile, gentle with everybody, and when she had an opportunity of quiet would stroll into the little rude chapel with its bare walls—for what; for prayer? She had gone there to pray for strength many a time when her patience was nearly at an end before; but now what visions stole unwittingly yet too sweetly upon her dreamy soul, what words imagined or remembered kept echoing in her ears! Poor Agnes, how happy she was and how miserable! Good Sister Catherine, short-sighted and dull, wondered over the young teacher’s growth in grace, and whispered to the Superior that a great work was going on, and that their young helper would soon devote herself, as they had done, and join them altogether in their work. But Sister Mary Jane, who was wise, shook her head. She saw something in the dreamer’s eyes which did not mean devotion. And oh, how guilty poor Agnes felt when, stealing out of chapel where her prayers had so soon melted away into those musings, she encountered the blue eyes which Oswald had thought too beautiful not to be merciful as well! Agnes trembled daily to be asked, ‘What are you thinking of?’ What was she thinking of? how could she tell anyone—much less Sister Mary Jane? It was shameful, terrible, to carry such thoughts into such a place. How she had fallen off from the first fervour, the early enthusiasm of self-devotion! to what was that devotion now turned aside? Alas! alas! But, all the same, in external matters the change was for the better. The more pious of the girls thought her a true Agnes, fit votary of the saint who bears the lamb. They hoped she would keep that gentle name and be Sister Agnes when she was professed.
Thus Agnes got an altogether fictitious reputation while Oswald carried on his wooing; and summer came, and the long evenings grew more and more akin to dreams. Oswald did what few men of his class would do for love or anything else—went without his dinner, evening after evening. In the hot days the girls had their walk later; and, as soon as he found this out, love and the excitement of pursuit and the determination to succeed, persuaded him, between them, to this sublime point of self-sacrifice. After a while he was rewarded. And this was how it came about.
It was June; the summer had expanded until the days were almost at their longest, and, as the season had all through been a very warm and bright one, everything was in its perfection of summer beauty. Oswald had seen the school procession trip in one evening by the door of the House, leaving behind all the lovely glow of a summer sunset. He turned round and walked away towards that brilliant western blaze with a sigh; twilight was in his face, which the golden light caught aslant and glorified. It was getting on to the wistful moment of the day when the excitement of the sun’s departure is over, and Nature, too, sighs in exhaustion and gentle sadness; and it was the wistful moment for the lover, his lady just disappeared out of sight, and the impossibility of following her, speaking to her, getting any point of connection with her, overwhelming his mind. Was this how it was always to be; never to get any further; never to do anything but wait and gaze and salute her as she passed; was this to be all? Rather indeed this for her, than anything with another! But yet the days were long, and it is dreary always to wait:
When there suddenly appeared against the blaze in the west a black poke-bonnet, the ugliest of its kind. He pricked up his ears and quickened his steps. How he could think it might be she whom he had just seen to disappear at the convent door, I don’t understand; but his heart began to beat and his steps quickened as if by magic. Nothing short, however, of a novel adaptation of the great Indian juggling trick could have brought Agnes there. She was, on the contrary, safe in the House, superintending the girls who were getting ready for tea, with the sweetest angelic smile upon her face. The girls were hot from their walk, tired and troublesome and noisy; but Agnes bore with them like a saint—did not hear them, indeed, having retired into her private chapel and place of musing. But if it was not Agnes, if indeed it was someone as unlike Agnes as could be conceived, Agnes herself could scarcely have been so desirable to meet. It was the old porteress of the House, the lay Sister who had several times accompanied her on her expeditions to the hospital. A sudden inspiration came to Oswald. There could be nothing improper in addressing her, a perfectly safe person to whom his interest in little Emmy could bear nothing but the most natural and genuine aspect. He hastened up to her with anxious looks and asked how the little patient was, and if any news of her had been received at the House.
‘Oh, bless you, sir, yes!’ said the lay Sister; ‘she’s been very bad, but now she’s better. She won’t be a long liver, that child. She’s very delicate, but come when it will the little lamb is prepared. She is the piousest child I ever came across.’
‘Do you mean to say she is dying?’ said Oswald, alarmed in spite of himself.
‘Oh, no, sir! Some time, I make no doubt, but not now; but she has been that delicate—you could blow her away with a puff of wind. So she has never come back. Indeed, I hear the teacher of the third division, that’s Miss Burchell—you’ve seen her—the one as always went to the hospital——’
‘Oh, yes, I have seen her!’
‘Delicate, too, sir. I’m not easy deceived, and I saw in a moment as she was not fit for the work.’
‘Is she ill?’ said Oswald, all tremulous and excited, feeling disposed to rush forthwith to the House without rhyme or reason, and carry her off.
‘Oh, no, sir; not at all! But Sister Mary Jane, she’s the Superior——’
‘She thinks that she’d be the better for a change, and so, as she wants to send some more children to the Sanatorium, she’s made up her mind to send her, for she’d be a deal the better she says of a little sea air herself.’
‘Ah!’ said Oswald, ‘she who is going to the Sanatorium is Sister Mary Jane?’
‘Not at all, sir, oh no, the one that is going is Miss Burchell. Sister Mary Jane is the Superior, and she thinks it will do her good and take off her thoughts.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said Oswald, gravely. ‘When does Miss Burchell go? you might ask her from me to remember me to little Emmy; when does she go!’
‘To-morrow, sir. I am sure, sir, you’re very good to think so much about such a little thing as that; but she is a dear little thing. I have understood, sir, that it was you that paid for her going——’
‘That is a trifle, Sister——’
‘Oh, I am not called Sister,’ said the porteress, blushing with pleasure, ‘I am not a lady like the rest. I am only in the House to open the door and to do the chars; but if I was the Superior I could not be more interested for little Emmy. Bless you, sir, she is the piousest little thing! And thank you, sir, for your goodness to her; that child’s prayers will bring down a blessing on you.’
‘Amen!’ said Oswald, himself feeling much more pious than usual. ‘I want it badly enough——’
‘And I’ll tell Miss Burchell to give Emily your love——’
‘On second thoughts,’ said Oswald, astutely, ‘it will be better not to say anything about it. The Sister Superior might not like a stranger to send messages.’
‘That is very true,’ said the lay Sister, perceiving all at once that she too might have come in for a rebuke; and after this she ran on into sundry communications about Sister Catherine who was newly arrived and not quite up to the work. ‘For them that know such ladies as Sister Mary Jane and Miss Burchell is naturally particular,’ said the porteress.
‘Very naturally,’ said Oswald, with fervour. He asked her to put a sovereign for him into the poor-box at the chapel door, and then sent her off well pleased, while he turned back in great haste to prepare for his going. Here was his opportunity at last.