This dress Mr. Spelt had got ready in view of a contemplated walk with Poppie. He was going to take her to Highgate on a Sunday morning, with his Bible in his pocket. I have already said that he was an apparent anomaly, this Mr. Spelt, loving his New Testament, and having no fancy for going to church. How this should come about I hardly understand. Not that I do not know several instances of it in most excellent men, but not in his stratum. Yet what was his stratum? The Spirit of God teaches men in a thousand ways, and Mr. Spelt knew some of the highest truths better than nine out of ten clergymen, I venture to say. Yet Mr. Spelt was inwardly reproached that he did not go to church, and made the attempt several times, with the result that he doubted the truth of the whole thing for half the week after. Some church-going reader must not condemn him at least for preferring Highgate to the church-yard gate.
It was a bright frosty morning, full of life and spirit, when the father and daughter—for thus we accept the willful conviction of the tailor, and say no more about it—set out for Highgate. Poppie was full of spirits, too full for her father's comfort, for, every time she drew her hand from his, and danced away sideways or in front, he feared lest he had seen the last of her, and she would never more return to lay her hand in his. On one of these occasions, it was to dart a hundred yards in advance upon another little girl, who was listlessly standing at a crossing, take the broom from her hand, and begin to sweep vigorously. Nor did she cease sweeping till she had made the crossing clean, by which time her father had come up. She held out her hand to him, received in it a ready penny, and tossed it to the girl. Then she put her hand in his again, and trotted along with him, excited and sedate both at once.
"Would you like to sweep a crossing, Poppie?" asked he.
"Wouldn't I just, daddie? I should get no end o' ha'pence."
"What would you do with them when you got them?"
"Give them to poor girls. I don't want them, you see, now I'm a lady."
"What makes a lady of you, then?"
"I've got a father of my own, all to myself—that makes a lady of me, I suppose. Anyhow I know I am a lady now. Look at my jacket."
I do not know that Mr. Spelt thought that her contempt of money, or rather want of faith in it, went a good way to make her a very peculiar lady indeed; but he did think that he would buy her a broom the first day he saw the attraction of the streets grow too strong for Guild Court.
This day, things did not go quite to the tailor's mind. He took Poppie to a little public-house which he had known for many years, for it was kept by a cousin of his. There he ordered his half-pint of beer, carried it with him to a little arbor in the garden, now getting very bare of its sheltering leaves, sat down with Poppie, pulled out big Bible, and began to read to her. But he could not get her to mind him. Every other moment she was up and out of the arbor, now after one thing, now after another; now it was a spider busily rolling up a fly in his gluey weft; now it was a chicken escaped from the hen-house, and scratching about as if it preferred finding its own living even in an irregular fashion; and now a bird of the air that sowed not nor reaped, and yet was taken care of.
"Come along, Poppie," said her father; "I want you to listen."
"Yes, daddie," Poppie would answer, returning instantly; but in a moment, ere a sentence was finished, she would be half across the garden. He gave it up in despair.
"Why ain't you reading, daddie?" she said, after one of these excursions.
"Because you won't listen to a word of it, Poppie."
"Oh! yes; here I am," she said.
"Come, then; I will teach you to read."
"Yes," said Poppie, and was off after another sparrow.
"Do you know that God sees you, Poppie?" asked Mr. Spelt.
"I don't mind," answered Poppie.
He sighed and closed his book, drank the last of his half-pint of beer, and rose to go. Poppie seemed to feel that she had displeased him, for she followed without a word. They went across the fields to Hampstead, and then across more fields to the Finchley Road. In passing the old church, the deeper notes of the organ reached their ears.
"There," said Poppie; "I suppose that's God making his thunder. Ain't it, daddie?"
"No. It's not that," answered Spelt.
"It's there he keeps it, anyhow," said Poppie. "I've heard it coming out many a time."
"Was you never in one o' them churches?" asked her father.
"No," answered Poppie.
"Would you like to go?" he asked again, with the hope that something might take hold of her.
"If you went with me," she said.
Now Mr. Spelt had heard of Mr. Fuller from Mr. Kitely, and had been once to hear him preach. He resolved to take Poppie to his church that evening.
My reader will see that the child had already made some progress. She talked at least. How this began I cannot explain. No fresh sign of thought or of conscience in a child comes into my notice but I feel it like a miracle—a something that cannot be accounted for save in attributing it to a great Thought that can account for it.
They got upon an omnibus, to Poppie's great delight, and rode back into the city. After they had had some tea they went to the evening service, where they saw Lucy, and Mattie with her father. Mattie was very devout, and listened even when she could not understand; Poppie only stared, and showed by her restlessness that she wanted to be out again. When they were again in the street she asked just one question: "Why did Jesus Christ put on that ugly black thing?"
"That wasn't Jesus Christ," said Mattie, with a little pharisaical horror.
"Oh! wasn't it?" said Poppie, in a tone of disappointment. "I thought it was."
"Oh, Poppie, Poppie!" said poor Mr. Spelt; "haven't I told you twenty times that Jesus Christ was the Son of God?"
But he might have told her a thousand times. Poppie could not recall what she had no apprehension of when she heard it. What was Mr. Spelt to do? He had tried and tried, but he had got no idea into her yet. But Poppie had no objection either to religion in general, or to any dogma whatever in particular. It was simply that she stood in no relation of consciousness toward it or any part or phrase of it. Even Mattie's attempts resulted in the most grotesque conceptions and fancies. But that she was willing to be taught, an instance which soon followed will show.
Her restlessness increasing, and her father dreading lest she should be carried away by some sudden impulse of lawlessness, he bought her a broom one day—the best he could find, of course—and told her she might, if she pleased, go and sweep a crossing. Poppie caught at the broom, and vanished without a word. Not till she was gone beyond recall did her father bethink himself that the style of her dress was scarcely accordant with the profession she was about to assume. She was more like a child belonging to a traveling theater than any other. He remembered, too, that crossing-sweepers are exceedingly tenacious of their rights, and she might get into trouble. He could not keep quiet; his work made no progress; and at last he yielded to his anxiety and went out to look for her. But he wandered without success, lost half his day, and returned disconsolate.
At their dinner-hour Poppie came home; but, alas! with her brilliant jacket nearly as dirty as her broom, the appearance of which certainly indicated work. Spelt stooped, as usual, but hesitated to lift her to his nest.
"Oh, Poppie," he expostulated, "what a mess you've made of yourself!"
"'Tain't me, daddie," she answered. "It's them nasty boys would throw dirt at me. 'Twasn't their crossing I took—they hadn't no call to chivy me. But I give it them."
"What did you do, Poppie?" asked her father, a little anxiously.
"I looks up at St. Pauls's, and I says, 'Please, Jesus Christ, help me to give it 'em.' And then I flies at 'em with my broom, and I knocks one o' them down, and a cart went over his leg, and he's took to the 'ospittle. I believe his leg's broke."
"Oh, Poppie! And didn't they say anything to you? I wonder they didn't take you up."
"They couldn't find me. I thought Jesus Christ would help me. He did."
What was Mr. Spelt to say? He did not know; and, therefore, unlike some, who would teach others even when they have nothing to impart, he held his peace. But he took good care not to let her go out in that dress any more.
"Didn't you get any ha'pence?" he asked.
"Yes. I gave 'em all to the boy. I wouldn't if the cart hadn't gone over him, though. Catch me!"
"Why did you give them to him?"
"Oh, I don't know. I wanted to."
"Did he take them?"
"Course he did. Why shouldn't he? I'd ha' tookt 'em."
Mr. Spelt resolved at last to consult Mr. Fuller about the child. He went to see him, and told him all he knew concerning her. To his surprise, however, when he came to her onset with the broom, Mr. Fuller burst into a fit of the heartiest laughter. Spelt stood with his mouth open, staring at the sacred man. Mr. Fuller saw his amazement.
"You don't think it was very wicked of your poor child to pray to God and shoulder her broom, do you?" he said, still laughing.
"We're told to forgive our enemies, sir. And Poppie prayed against hers."
"Yes, yes. You and I have heard that, and, I hope, learned it. But Poppie, if she has heard it, certainly does not understand it yet. Do you ever read the Psalms?"
"Yes, sometimes. Some of them pretty often, sir."
"You will remember, then, how David prays against his enemies?"
"Yes, sir. It's rather awful, sometimes."
"What do you make of it? Was it wicked in David to do so?"
"I daren't say that, sir."
"Then why should you think it was in Poppie?"
"I think perhaps David didn't know better."
"And you think Poppie ought to know better than David?"
"Why, you see, sir, if I'm right, as I fancy, David lived before our Saviour came into the world to teach us better."
"And so you think Poppie more responsible than a man like David, who loved God as not one Christian in a million, notwithstanding that the Saviour is come, has learned to love him yet? A man may love God, and pray against his enemies. Mind you, I'm not sure that David hated them. I know he did not love them, but I am not sure that he hated them. And I am sure Poppie did not hate hers, for she gave the little rascal her coppers, you know."
"Thank you, sir," said Spelt, grateful to the heart's core that Mr. Fuller stood up for Poppie.
"Do you think God heard David's prayers, against his enemies?" resumed Mr. Fuller.
"He gave him victory over them, anyhow."
"And God gave Poppie the victory, too. I think God heard Poppie's prayer. And Poppie will be the better for it. She'll pray for a different sort of thing before she's done praying. It is a good thing to pray to God for anything. It is a grand thing to begin to pray."
"I wish you would try and teach her something, sir. I have tried and tried, and I don't know what to do more. I don't seem to get anything into her."
"You're quite wrong, Mr. Spelt. You have taught her. She prayed to God before she fell upon her enemies with her broom."
"But I do want her to believe. I confess to you, sir, I've never been much of a church-goer, but I do believe in Christ."
"It doesn't much matter whether you go to church or not if you believe in him. Tell me how you came to hear or know about him without going to church."
"My wife was a splendid woman, sir—Poppie's mother, but—you see, sir—she wasn't—she didn't—she was a bit of a disappointment to me."
"Yes. And what then?"
"I took to reading the Bible, sir."
"Why did you do that?"
"I don't know, sir. But somehow, bein' unhappy, and knowin' no way out of it, I took to the Bible, sir. I don't know why or wherefore, but that's the fact. And when I began to read, I began to think about it. And from then I began to think about everything that came in my way—a tryin' to get things all square in my own head, you know, sir."
Mr. Fuller was delighted with the man, and having promised to think what he could do for Poppie, they parted. And here I may mention that Spelt rarely missed a Sunday morning at Mr. Fuller's church after this. For he had found a fellow-man who could teach him, and that the Bible was not the sole means used by God to make his children grow: their brothers and sisters must have a share in it too.
Mr. Fuller set about making Poppie's acquaintance. And first he applied to Mattie, in order to find out what kind of thing Poppie liked. Mattie told him lollipops. But Mr. Fuller preferred attacking the town of Mansoul at the gate of one of the nobler senses, if possible.—He tried Lucy, who told him about the bit of red glass and the buttons. So Mr. Fuller presented his friendship's offering to Poppie in the shape of the finest kaleidoscope he could purchase. It was some time before she could be taught to shut one eye and look with the other; but when at length she succeeded in getting a true vision of the wonders in the inside of the thing, she danced and shouted for joy. This confirmed Mr. Fuller's opinion that it was through her eyes, and not through her ears, that he must approach Poppie's heart. She had never been accustomed to receive secondary impressions: all her impressions, hitherto, had come immediately through the senses. Mr. Fuller therefore concluded that he could reach her mind more readily through the seeing of her eyes than such hearing of the ears as had to be converted by the imagination into visual forms before it could make any impression. He must get her to ask questions by showing her eyes what might suggest them. And Protestantism having deprived the Church of almost all means of thus appealing to the eye as an inlet of truth, he was compelled to supply the deficiency as he best could. I do not say that Mr. Fuller would have filled his church with gorgeous paintings as things in general, and artists in especial, are. He shrunk in particular from the more modern representations of our Lord given upon canvas, simply because he felt them to be so unlike him, showing him either as effeminately soft, or as pompously condescending; but if he could have filled his church with pictures in which the strength exalted the tenderness, and the majesty was glorified by the homeliness, he would have said that he did not see why painted windows should be more consistent with Protestantism than painted walls. Lacking such aids, he must yet provide as he could that kind of instruction which the early Church judged needful for those of its members who were in a somewhat similar condition to that of Poppie. He therefore began searching the print-shops, till he got together about a dozen of such engravings, mostly from the old masters, as he thought would represent our Lord in a lovable aspect, and make the child want to have them explained. For Poppie had had no big family Bible with pictures, to pore over in her homeless childhood; and now she had to go back to such a beginning.
By this time he had so far ingratiated himself with her that she was pleased to accompany Mattie to tea with him, and then the pictures made their appearance. This took place again and again, till the pictures came to be looked for as part of the entertainment—Mr. Fuller adding one now and then, as he was fortunate in his search, for he never passed a fresh print-shop without making inquiry after such engravings.
Meantime Poppie went out crossing-sweeping by fits and starts. Her father neither encouraged nor prevented her.
One afternoon of a cold day, when the wind from the east was blowing the darkness over the city, and driving all who had homes and could go to them home for comfort, they were walking hand in hand in Farringdon Street—a very bleak, open place. Poppie did not feel the cold nearly so much as her father, but she did blow upon the fingers of her disengaged hand now and then notwithstanding.
"Have a potato to warm you, Poppie," said her father, as they came up to one of those little steam-engines for cooking potatoes, which stand here and there on the edges of the pavements about London, blowing a fierce cloud of steam from their little funnels, so consoling to the half-frozen imagination.
"Jolly!" cried Poppie, running up to the man, and laying her hand on the greasy sleeve of his velveteen coat.
"I say, Jim, give us a ha'porth," she said.
"Why, 'tain't never you, Poppie?" returned the man.
"Why ain't it?" said Poppie. "Here's my father. I've found one, and a good 'un, Jim."
The man looked at Poppie's dress, then at Mr. Spelt, touched the front of his cloth cap, and said:
"Good evenin', guvnor." Then in an undertone he added,
"I say, guvnor, you never did better in your life than takin' that 'ere pretty creetur off the streets. You look well arter her. She's a right good un, I know. Bless you, she ain't no knowledge what wickedness means."
In the warmth of his heart, Mr. Spelt seized the man's hand, and gave it a squeeze of gratitude.
"Come, Jim, ain't your taters done yet?" said Poppie.
"Bustin' o' mealiness," answered Jim, throwing back the lid, and taking out a potato, which he laid in the hollow of his left hand. Then he caught up an old and I fear dirty knife, and split the potato lengthways. Then, with the same knife, he took a piece of butter from somewhere about the apparatus—though how it was not oil instead of butter I cannot think—laid it into the cleft as if it had been a trowelful of mortar, gave it a top-dressing of salt and a shake of the pepper-box, and handed it to Poppie.
"Same for you, sir?" he asked.
"Well, I don't mind if I do have one," answered Spelt. "Are they good?"
"The best and the biggest at the price in all London," said Jim. "Taste one," he went on, as he prepared another, "and if you like to part with it then, I'll take it back and eat it myself."
Spelt paid for the potatoes—the sum of three ha'pence—and Poppie, bidding Jim good-night, trotted away by his side, requiring both her hands now for the management of her potato, at which she was more expert than her father, for he, being nice in his ways, found the butter and the peel together troublesome.
"I say, ain't it jolly?" remarked Poppie. "I call that a good trade now."
"Would you like to have one o' them things and sell hot potatoes?" asked her father.
"Just wouldn't I?"
"As well as sweeping a crossing?"
"A deal better," answered Poppie. "You see, daddie, it's more respectable—a deal. It takes money to buy a thing like that. And I could wear my red jacket then. Nobody could say anything then, for the thing would be my own, and a crossing belongs to everybody."
Mr. Spelt turned the matter over and over in his mind, and thought it might be a good plan for giving Poppie some liberty, and yet keeping her from roving about everywhere without object or end. So he began at once to work for a potato-steamer for Poppie, and, in the course of a fortnight, managed to buy her one. Great was Poppie's delight.
She went out regularly in the dusk to the corner of Bagot Street. Her father carried the machine for her, and leaving her there with it, returned to his work. In following her new occupation, the child met with little annoyance, for this was a respectable part of the city, and the police knew her, and were inclined to protect her. One of her chief customers was Mr. Spelt himself, who would always once, sometimes twice, of an evening, lay down his work, scramble from his perch, and, running to the corner of the street, order a potato, ask her how she was getting on, pay his ha'penny or penny, and hurry back with the hot handful to console him for the absence of his darling. Having eaten it, chuckling and rejoicing, he would attack his work with vigor so renewed as soon to make up for the loss of time involved in procuring it. But keeping out of view the paternal consumption, Poppie was in a fair way of paying all the expense of the cooking apparatus. Mr. and Miss Kitely were good customers, too, and everything looked well for father and daughter.
Every night, at half-past nine, her father was by her side to carry the "murphy-buster"—that was Jim's name for it—home. There was no room for it in the shop, of course. He took it up the three flights of stairs to Poppie's own room; and there, with three-quarters of a pint of beer to wash them down, they finished the remaining potatoes, "with butter, with pepper, and with salt," as Poppie would exclaim, in the undisguised delight of her sumptuous fare. Sometimes there were none left, but that gave only a variety to their pleasures; for as soon as the engine, as Mr. Spelt called it, was deposited in safety, they set out to buy their supper. And great were the consultations to which, in Mr. Spelt's desire to draw out the choice and judgment of his daughter, this proceeding gave rise. At one time it was a slice of beef or ham that was resolved upon, at another a bit of pudding, sometimes a couple of mutton-pies or sausages, with bread ad libitum. There was a cook-shop in the neighborhood, whose window was all beclouded with jets of steam, issuing as from a volcanic soil, and where all kinds of hot dainties were ready for the fortunate purchaser: thither the two would generally repair, and hold their consultation outside the window. Then, the desirable thing once agreed upon, came the delight of buying it, always left to Poppie; of carrying it home, still left to Poppie; of eating it, not left to Poppie, but heightened by the sympathetic participation of her father. Followed upon all, the chapter in the Bible, the Lord's Prayer, bed, and dreams of Mrs. Flanaghan and her gin-bottle, or, perhaps, of Lucy and her first kiss.
CHAPTER XL.
THOMAS'S MOTHER.
Meantime Mrs. Worboise had taken to her bed, and not even Mr. Simon could comfort her. The mother's heart now spoke louder than her theology.
She and her priest belonged to a class more numerous than many of my readers would easily believe, a great part of whose religion consists in arrogating to themselves exclusive privileges, and another great part in defending their supposed rights from the intrusion of others. The thing does not look such to them, of course, but the repulsiveness of their behavior to those who cannot use the same religious phrases, indicating the non-adoption of their particular creed, compels others so to conclude concerning their religion. Doubtless they would say for themselves, "We do but as God has taught us; we believe but as he has told us; we exclude whom he has excluded, and admit whom he has admitted." But, alas for that people! the god of whose worship is altogether such a one as themselves, or worse; whose god is paltry, shallow-minded and full of party spirit; who sticks to a thing because he has said it, accepts a man because of his assent, and condemns him because of his opinions; who looks no deeper than a man's words to find his thoughts, and no deeper than his thoughts to find his will! True, they are in the hands of another God than that of their making, and such offenses must come; yet, alas for them! for they are of the hardest to redeem into the childhood of the kingdom.
I do not say that Mrs. Worboise began to see her sin as such, when the desolation of Thomas's disappearance fell upon her, but the atmosphere of her mind began to change, and a spring-season of mother's feelings to set in. How it came about I cannot explain. I as well as any of my readers might have felt as if Mrs. Worboise were almost beyond redemption; but it was not so. Her redemption came in the revival of a long suppressed motherhood. Her husband's hardness and want of sympathy with her sufferings had driven her into the arms of a party of exclusive Christians, whose brotherhood consisted chiefly, as I have already described it, in denying the great brotherhood, and refusing the hand of those who followed not with them. They were led by one or two persons of some social position, whose condescending assumption of superiority over those that were without was as offensive as absurd, and whose weak brains were their only excuse. The worst thing of this company was that it was a company. In many holding precisely the same opinions with them, those opinions are comparatively harmless, because they are more directly counteracted by the sacred influences of God's world and the necessities of things, which are very needful to prevent, if possible, self-righteous Christians from sending themselves to a deeper hell than any they denounce against their neighbors. But when such combine themselves into an esoteric school, they foster, as in an oven or a forcing-pit, all the worst distinctions for the sake of which they separate themselves from others. All that was worst in poor Mrs. Worboise was cherished by the companionship of those whose chief anxiety was to save their souls, and who thus ran the great risk set forth by the Saviour of losing them. They treated the words of the Bible like talismans or spells, the virtue of which lay in the words, and in the assent given to them, or at most, the feelings that could be conjured up by them, not in the doing of the things they presupposed or commanded. But there was one thing that did something to keep her fresh and prevent her from withering into a dry tree of supposed orthodoxy, the worst dryness of all, because it is the least likely to yield to any fresh burst of living sap from the forgotten root—that was her anxiety to get her son within the "garden walled around," and the continual disappointment of her efforts to that end.
But now that the shock of his flight had aggravated all the symptoms of her complaint, which was a serious one though slow in the movement of its progressive cycles, now that she was confined to her bed and deprived of the small affairs that constituted the dull excitements of her joyless life, her imagination, roused by a reaction from the first grief, continually presented to her the form of her darling in the guise of the prodigal, his handsome face worn with hunger and wretchedness, or still worse, with dissipation and disease; and she began to accuse herself bitterly for having alienated his affections from herself by too assiduously forcing upon his attention that which was distasteful to him. She said to herself that it was easy for an old woman like her, who had been disappointed in everything, and whose life and health were a wreck, to turn from the vanities of the world; but how could her young Thomas, in the glory of youth, be expected to see things as she saw them? How could he flee from the wrath to come when he had as yet felt no breath of that wrath on his cheek? She ought to have loved him, and borne with him, and smiled upon him, and never let him fancy that his presence was a pain to her because he could not take her ways for his. Add to this certain suspicions that arose in her mind from what she considered unfriendly neglect on the part of the chief man of their chosen brotherhood, and from the fact that her daughter Amy had already wrought a questionable change on Mr. Simon, having persuaded him to accompany her—not to the theatre at all—only to the Gallery of Illustration, and it will be seen that everything tended to turn the waters of her heart back into the old channel with the flow of a spring-tide toward her son. She wept and prayed—better tears and better prayers because her love was stronger. She humbled her heart, proud of its acceptance with God, before a higher idea of that God. She began to doubt whether she was more acceptable in his sight than other people. There must be some who were, but she could not be one of them. Instead of striving after assurance, as they called it, she began to shrink from every feeling that lessened her humility; for she found that when she was most humble then she could best pray for her son. Not that had her assurance rested in the love of God it would ever have quenched her prayer; but her assurance had been taught to rest upon her consciousness of faith, which, unrealized, tended to madness—realized, to spiritual pride. She lay thus praying for him, and dreaming about him, and hoping that he would return before she died, when she would receive him as son had never before been welcomed to his mother's bosom.
But Mr. Worboise's dry, sand-locked bay was open to the irruption of no such waters from the great deep of the eternal love. Narrow and poor as it was, Mrs. Worboise's religion had yet been as a little wedge to keep her door open to better things, when they should arrive and claim an entrance, as they had now done. But her husband's heart was full of money and the love of it. How to get money, how not to spend it, how to make it grow—these were the chief cares that filled his heart. His was not the natural anxiety the objects of which, though not the anxiety, were justified by the Lord when he said, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." It was not what he needed that filled his mind with care, but what he did not need, and never would need; nay, what other people needed, and what was not his to take—not his in God's sight, whatever the law might say. And to God's decision everything must come at last, for that is the only human verdict of things, the only verdict which at last will satisfy the whole jury of humanity. But I am wrong; this was not all that filled his heart. One demon generally opens the door to another—they are not jealous of exclusive possession of the human thrall. The heart occupied by the love of money will be only too ready to fall a prey to other evils; for selfishness soon branches out in hatred and injustice. The continued absence of his son, which he attributed still to the Boxalls, irritated more than alarmed him; but if sometimes a natural feeling of dismay broke in upon him, it only roused yet more the worst feelings of his heart against Lucy and her grandmother. Every day to which Thomas's absence extended itself, his indignation sank deeper rather than rose higher. Every day he vowed that, if favored by fortune, he would make them feel in bitterness how deeply they had injured him. To the same account he entered all the annoyance given him by the well-meaning Mr. Sargent, who had only as yet succeeded in irritating him without gaining the least advantage over him. His every effort in resistance of probate failed. The decision of the court was that Mr. Boxall, a strong, healthy, well-seasoned, middle-aged man, was far more likely to have outlived all his daughters, than any one of them have outlived him; therefore Mr. Worboise obtained probate and entered into possession.
Although Mr. Sargent could not but have at least more than doubted the result, he felt greatly discomfited at it. He went straight to Mr. Morgenstern's office to communicate his failure and the foiling of the liberality which had made the attempt possible. Mr. Morgenstern only smiled, and wrote him a check for the costs. Of course, being a Jew, he did not enjoy parting with his money for nothing—no Christian would have minded it in the least. Seriously, Mr. Morgenstern did throw half his cigar into the fire from annoyance. But his first words were:
"What's to be done for those good people, then, Sargent?"
"We must wait till we see. I think I told you that the old lady has a claim upon the estate, which, most unfortunately, she cannot establish. Now, however, that this cormorant has had his own way, he will perhaps be inclined to be generous; for justice must be allowed in this case to put on the garb of generosity, else she will not appear in public, I can tell you. I mean to make this one attempt more. I confess to considerable misgiving, however. To-morrow, before his satisfaction has evaporated, I will make it, and let you know the result."
By this time Mr. Morgenstern had lighted another cigar.
CHAPTER XLI.
LUCY'S NEW TROUBLE.
Mr. Sargent's next application to Mr. Worboise, made on the morning after the decision of the court in his favor, shared the fate of all his preceding attempts. Mr. Worboise smiled it off. There was more inexorableness expressed in his smile than in another's sullen imprecation. The very next morning Mrs. Boxall was served with notice to quit at the approaching quarter-day; for she had no agreement, and paid no rent, consequently she was tenant only on sufferance. And now Mr. Stopper's behavior toward them underwent a considerable change; not that he was in the smallest degree rude to them; but, of course, there was now no room for that assumption of the confidential by which he had sought to establish the most friendly relations between himself and the probable proprietors of the business in which he hoped to secure his position, not merely as head-clerk, but as partner. The door between the house and the office was once more carefully locked, and the key put in his drawer, and having found how hostile his new master was to the inhabitants of the house, he took care to avoid every suspicion of intimacy with them.
Mrs. Boxall's paroxysm of indignant rage when she received the notice to quit was of course as impotent as the bursting of a shell in a mountain of mud. From the first, however, her anger had had this effect, that everybody in the court, down to lowly and lonely Mr. Dolman, the cobbler, knew all the phases of her oppression and injury. Lucy never said a word about it, save to Mr. and Mrs. Morgenstern, whose offer of shelter for herself and her grandmother till they could see what was to be done, she gratefully declined, knowing that her grandmother would die rather than accept such a position.
"There's nothing left for me in my old age but the work-house," said Mrs. Boxall, exhausted by one of her outbursts of fierce vindictive passion against the author of her misfortunes, which, as usual, ended in the few bitter tears that are left to the aged to shed.
"Grannie, grannie," said Lucy, "don't talk like that. You have been a mother to me. See if I cannot be a daughter to you. I am quite able to keep you and myself too as comfortable as ever. See if I can't."
"Nonsense, child. It will be all that you can do to keep yourself; and I'm not a-going to sit on the neck of a young thing like you, just like a nightmare, and have you wishing me gone from morning to night."
"I don't deserve that you should say that of me, grannie. But I'm sure you don't think as you say. And as to being able, with Mrs. Morgenstern's recommendation I can get as much teaching as I can undertake. I am pretty sure of that, and you know it will only be paying you back a very little of your own, grannie."
Before Mrs. Boxall could reply, for she felt reproached for having spoken so to her grand-daughter, there was a tap at the door, and Mr. Kitely entered.
"Begging your pardon, ladies, and taking the liberty of a neighbor, I made bold not to trouble you by ringing the bell I've got something to speak about in the way of business."
So saying, the worthy bookseller, who had no way of doing anything but going at it like a bull, drew a chair near the fire.
"With your leave, ma'am, it's as easy to speak sitting as standing. So, if you don't object, I'll sit down."
"Do sit down, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy. "We're glad to see you—though you know we're in a little trouble just at present."
"I know all about that, and I don't believe there's a creature in the court, down to Mrs. Cook's cat, that isn't ready to fly at that devil's limb of a lawyer. But you see, ma'am, if we was to murder him it wouldn't be no better for you. And what I come to say to you is this: I've got a deal more room on my premises than I want, and it would be a wonderful accommodation to me, not to speak of the honor of it, if you would take charge of my little woman for me. I can't interfere with her, you know, so as to say she's not to take care of me, you know, for that would go nigh to break her little heart; but if you would come and live there as long as convenient to you, you could get things for yourselves all the same as you does here, only you wouldn't have nothing to be out of pocket for house-room, you know. It would be the making of my poor motherless Mattie."
"Oh! we're not going to be so very poor as grannie thinks, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy, trying to laugh, while the old lady sat rocking herself to and fro and wiping her eyes. "But I should like to move into your house, for there's nowhere I should be so much at home."
"Lucy!" said her grandmother, warningly.
"Stop a bit, grannie. Mr. Kitely's a real friend in need; and if I had not such a regard for him as I have, I would take it as it's meant. I'll tell you what, Mr. Kitely; it only comes to this, that I have got to work a little harder, and not lead such an idle life with my grannie here."
"You idle, miss!" interrupted the bookseller. "I never see any one more like the busy bee than yourself, only that you was always a-wastin' of your honey on other people; and that they say ain't the way of the bees."
"But you won't hear me out, Mr. Kitely. It would be a shame of me to go and live in anybody's house for nothing, seeing I am quite able to pay for it. Now, if you have room in your house—"
"Miles of it," cried the bookseller.
"I don't know where it can be, then; for it's as full of books from the ground to the garret as—as—as my darling old grannie here is of independence."
"Don't you purtend to know more about my house, miss, than I does myself. Just you say the word, and before quarter-day you'll find two rooms fit for your use and at your service. What I owe to you, miss, in regard of my little one, nothing I can do can ever repay. They're a bad lot them Worboises—son and father! and that I saw—leastways in the young one."
This went with a sting to poor Lucy's heart. She kept hoping and hoping, and praying to God: but her little patch of blue sky was so easily overclouded! But she kept to the matter before her.
"Very well, Mr. Kitely; you ought to know best. Now for my side of the bargain. I told you already that I would rather be in your house than anywhere else, if I must leave this dear old place. And if you will let me pay a reasonable sum, as lodgings go in this court, we'll regard the matter as settled. And then I can teach Mattie a little, you know."
Mrs. Boxall did not put in a word. The poor old lady was beginning to weary of everything, and for the first time in her life began to allow her affairs to be meddled with—as she would no doubt even now consider it. And the sound of paying for it was very satisfactory. I suspect part of Lucy's desire to move no farther than the entrance of the court, came from the hope that Thomas would some day or other turn up in that neighborhood, and perhaps this emboldened her to make the experiment of taking the matter so much into her own hands. Mr. Kitely scratched his head, and looked a little annoyed.
"Well, miss," he said, pausing between every few words, a most unusual thing with him, "that's not a bit of what I meant when I came up the court here. But that's better than nothing—for Mattie and me, I mean. So if you'll be reasonable about the rent, we'll easily manage all the rest. Mind you, miss, it'll be all clear profit to me."
"It'll cost you a good deal to get the rooms put in order as you say, you know, Mr. Kitely."
"Not much, miss. I know how to set about things better than most people. Bless you, I can buy wall-papers for half what you'd pay for them now. I know the trade. I've been a-most everything in my day. Why, miss, I lived at one time such a close shave with dying of hunger, that, after I was married, I used to make picture frames and then pawn my tools to get glass to put into them, and then carry them about to sell, and when I had sold 'em I bought more gold-beading and redeemed my tools, and did it all over again. Bless you! I know what it is to be hard up, if anybody ever did. I once walked from Bristol to Newcastle upon fourpence. It won't cost me much to make them rooms decent. And then there's the back parlor at your service. I shan't plague you much, only to take a look at my princess now and then."
After another interview or two between Lucy and Mr. Kitely, the matter was arranged, and the bookseller proceeded to get his rooms ready, which involved chiefly a little closer packing, and the getting rid of a good deal of almost unsalable rubbish, which had accumulated from the purchase of lots.
Meantime another trial was gathering for poor Lucy. Mr. Sargent had met Mr. Wither, and had learned from him all he knew about Thomas. Mr. Wither was certain that everything was broken off between Lucy and him. It was not only known to all at the office that Thomas had disappeared, but it was perfectly known as well that for some time he had been getting into bad ways, and his disappearance was necessarily connected with this fact, though no one but Mr. Stopper knew the precise occasion of his evanishment, and this he was, if possible, more careful than ever to conceal. Not even to the lad's father did he communicate what he knew: he kept this as a power over his new principal. From what he heard, Mr. Sargent resolved to see if he could get anything out of Molken, and called upon him for that purpose. But the German soon convinced him that, although he had been intimate with Thomas, he knew nothing about him now. The last information he could give him was that he had staked and lost his watch and a lady's ring that he wore; that he had gone away and returned with money; and, having gained considerably, had disappeared and never been heard of again. It was easy for Mr. Sargent to persuade himself that a noble-minded creature like Lucy, having come to know the worthlessness of her lover, had dismissed him forever; and to believe that she would very soon become indifferent to a person so altogether unworthy of her affection. Probably he was urged yet the more to a fresh essay from the desire of convincing her that his motives in the first case had not been so selfish as accident had made them appear; nor that his feelings toward her remained unaltered notwithstanding the change in her prospects. He therefore kept up his visits, and paid them even more frequently now that there was no possible excuse on the score of business. For some time, however, so absorbed were Lucy's thoughts that his attentions gave her no uneasiness. She considered the matter so entirely settled, that no suspicion of the revival of any farther hope in the mind of Mr. Sargent arose to add a fresh trouble to the distress which she was doing all she could to bear patiently. But one day she was suddenly undeceived. Mrs. Boxall had just left the room.
"Miss Burton," said Mr. Sargent, "I venture to think circumstances may be sufficiently altered to justify me in once more expressing a hope that I may be permitted to regard a nearer friendship as possible between us."
Lucy started as if she had been hurt. The occurrence was so strange and foreign to all that was in her thoughts, that she had to look all around her, as it were, like a person suddenly awaking in a strange place. Before she could speak, her grandmother reëntered. Mr. Sargent went away without any conviction that Lucy's behavior indicated repugnance to his proposal.
Often it happens that things work together without any concerted scheme. Mrs. Morgenstern had easily divined Mr. Sargent's feelings, and the very next day began to talk about him to Lucy. But she listened without interest, until Mrs. Morgenstern touched a chord which awoke a very painful one. For at last her friend had got rather piqued at Lucy's coldness and indifference.
"I think at least, Lucy, you might take a little interest in the poor fellow, if only from gratitude. A girl may acknowledge that feeling without compromising herself. There has Mr. Sargent been wearing himself out for you, lying awake at night, and running about all day, without hope of reward; and, you are so taken up with your own troubles that you haven't a thought for the man who has done all that lay in human being's power to turn them aside."
Could Lucy help comparing this conduct with that of Thomas? And while she compared it, she could as little help the sudden inroad of the suspicion that Thomas had forsaken her that he might keep well with his father—the man who was driving them, as far as lay in his power, into the abysses of poverty; and that this disappearance was the only plan he dared to adopt for freeing himself—for doubtless his cowardice would be at least as great in doing her wrong as it had been in refusing to do her right. And she did feel that there was some justice in Mrs. Morgenstern's reproach. For if poor Mr. Sargent was really in love with her, she ought to pity him and feel for him some peculiar tenderness, for the very reason that she could not grant him what he desired. Her strength having been much undermined of late, she could not hear Mrs. Morgenstern's reproaches without bursting into tears. And then her friend began to comfort her; but all the time supposing that her troubles were only those connected with her reverse of fortune. As Lucy went home, however, a very different and terrible thought darted into her mind: "What if it was her duty to listen to Mr. Sargent!" There seemed no hope for her any more. Thomas had forsaken her utterly. If she could never be happy, ought she not to be the more anxious to make another happy? Was there any limit to the sacrifice that ought to be made for another—that is of one's self? for, alas! it would be to sacrifice no one besides. The thought was indeed a terrible one.
All the rest of the day her soul was like a drowning creature—now getting one breath of hope, now with all the billows and waves of despair going over it. The evening passed in constant terror, lest Mr. Sargent should appear, and a poor paltry little hope grew as the hands of the clock went round, and every moment rendered it less likely that he would come. At length she might go to bed without annoying her grandmother, who, by various little hints she dropped, gave her clearly to understand that she expected her to make a good match before long, and so relieve her mind about her at least.
She went to bed, and fell asleep from very weariness of emotion. But presently she started awake again; and, strange to say, it seemed to be a resolution she had formed in her sleep that brought her awake. It was that she would go to Mr. Fuller, and consult him on the subject that distressed her. After that she slept till the morning.
She had no lesson to give that day, so as soon as Mr. Fuller's church-bell began to ring, she put on her bonnet. Her grandmother asked where she was going. She told her she was going to church.
"I don't like this papist way of going to church of a week-day—at least in the middle of the day, when people ought to be at their work."
Lucy made no reply; for, without being one of those half of whose religion consists in abusing the papists, Mrs. Boxall was one of those who would turn from any good thing of which she heard first as done by those whose opinions differed from her own. Nor would it have mitigated her dislike to know that Lucy was going for the purpose of asking advice from Mr. Fuller. She would have denounced that as confession, and asked whether it was not more becoming in a young girl to consult her grandmother than go to a priest. Therefore, I say, Lucy kept her own counsel.
There were twenty or thirty people present when she entered St. Amos's; a grand assembly, if we consider how time and place were haunted—swarming with the dirty little demons of money-making and all its attendant beggarly cares and chicaneries—one o'clock in the City of London! It was a curious psalm they were singing, so quaint and old-fashioned, and so altogether unlike London in the nineteenth century!—the last in the common version of Tate and Brady. They were beginning the fifth verse when she entered:
"Let them who joyful hymns compose
To cymbals set their songs of praise;
Cymbals of common use, and those
That loudly sound on solemn days."
Lucy did not feel at all in sympathy with cymbals. But she knew that Mr. Fuller did, else he could not have chosen that psalm to sing. And an unconscious operation of divine logic took place in her heart, with result such as might be represented in the following process: "Mr. Fuller is glad in God—not because he thinks himself a favorite with God, but because God is what he is, a faithful God. He is not one thing to Mr. Fuller and another to me. He is the same though I am sorrowful, I will praise him too. He will help me to be and do right, and that can never be anything unworthy of me." So, with a trembling voice, Lucy joined in the end of the song of praise. And when Mr. Fuller's voice arose in the prayer—"O God, whose nature and property is ever to have mercy and to forgive, receive our humble petitions, and though we be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose us: for the honor of Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate. Amen"—she joined in it with all her heart, both for herself and Thomas. Then, without the formality of a text, Mr. Fuller addressed his little congregation something as follows:
"My friends, is it not strange that with all the old church-yards lying about in London, unbusinesslike spots in the midst of shops and warehouses, 'and all the numberless goings on of life,' we should yet feel so constantly as if the business of the city were an end in itself? How seldom we see that it is only a means to an end! I will tell you in a few words one cause of this feeling as if it were an end; and then to what end it really is a means. With all the reminders of death that we have about us, not one of us feels as if he were going to die. We think of other people—even those much younger than ourselves—dying, and it always seems as if we were going to be alive when they die: and why? Just because we are not going to die. This thinking part in us feels no symptom of ceasing to be. We think on and on, and death seems far from us, for it belongs only to our bodies—not to us. So the soul forgets it. It is no part of religion to think about death. It is the part of religion, when the fact and thought of death come in, to remind us that we live forever, and that God, who sent his Son to die, will help us safe through that somewhat fearful strait that lies before us, and which often grows so terrible to those who fix their gaze upon it that they see nothing beyond it, and talk with poor Byron of the day of death as 'the first dark day of nothingness.' But this fact that we do not die, that only our bodies die, adds immeasurably to the folly of making what is commonly called the business of life an end instead of a means. It is not the business of life. The business of life is that which has to do with the life—with the living us, not with the dying part of us. How can the business of life have to do with the part that is always dying? Yet, certainly, as you will say, it must be done—only, mark this, not as an end, but as a means. As an end it has to do only with the perishing body; as a means it has infinite relations with the never-ceasing life. Then comes the question, To what end is it a means? It is a means, a great, I might say the great, means to the end for which God sends us individually into a world of sin; for that he does so, whatever the perplexities the admission may involve, who can deny, without denying that God makes us? If we were sent without any sinful tendencies into a sinless world, we should be good, I dare say; but with a very poor kind of goodness, knowing nothing of evil, consequently never choosing good, but being good in a stupid way because we could not help it. But how is it with us? We live in a world of constant strife—a strife, as the old writers call it, following St. Paul, between the flesh and the spirit; the things belonging to the outer life, the life of the senses, the things which our Saviour sums up in the words, 'what we shall eat, and what we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed,' forcing themselves constantly on our attention, and crowding away the thought and the care that belong to the real life—the life that consists in purity of heart, in love, in goodness of all kinds—that embraces all life, using our own life only as the standpoint from which to stretch out arms of embracing toward God and toward all men. For the feeding and growth of this life, London city affords endless opportunity. Business is too often regarded as the hindrance to the spiritual life. I regard it as among the finest means the world affords for strengthening and causing to grow this inner real life. For every deed may be done according to the fashion of the outward perishing life, as an end; or it may be done after the fashion of the inward endless life—done righteously, done nobly, done, upon occasion, magnificently—ever regarded as a something to be put under the feet of the spiritual man to lift him to the height of his high calling. Making business a mean to such end, it will help us to remember that this world and the fashion of it passeth away, but that every deed done, as Jesus would have done it if he had been born to begin his life as a merchant instead of a carpenter, lifts the man who so does it up toward the bosom of Him who created business and all its complications, as well as our brains and hands that have to deal with them. If you were to come and ask me, 'How shall I do in this or that particular case?' very possibly I might be unable to answer you. Very often no man can decide but the man himself. And it is part of every man's training that he should thus decide. Even if he should go wrong, by going wrong he may be taught the higher principle that would have kept him right, and which he has not yet learned. One thing is certain, that the man who wants to go right will be guided right; that not only in regard to the mission of the Saviour, but in regard to everything, he that is willing to do the will of the Father shall know of the doctrine.—Now to God the Father," etc.
The worship over, and the congregation having retired, Lucy bent her trembling steps toward the vestry, and there being none of those generally repellent ministers, pew-openers, about, she knocked at the door. By the way, I wish clergymen were more acquainted with the nature and habits of those who in this lowly—alas, how far from humble—office represent the gospel of welcome. They ought to have at least one sermon a year preached to them upon their duties before the whole congregation. The reception the servants of any house afford has no little share in the odor of hospitality which that house enjoys, and hospitality is no small Christian virtue. Lucy's troubled heart beat very fast as she opened the door in answer to Mr. Fuller's cheerful "Come in." But the moment she saw Mr. Fuller she felt as if she had been guilty of an act of impropriety, and ought to have waited in the church till he came out. She drew back with a murmured "I beg your pardon," but Mr. Fuller at once reassured her. He came forward; holding out his hand.
"How do you do, Miss Burton? I am delighted to see you. By your coming to the vestry, like a brave woman, I suppose there is something I can do for you. Let me hear all about it. Sit down."
So saying, he gave her a chair, and seated himself on the only remaining one. And as soon as she saw that Mr. Fuller was not shocked at her forwardness, such was Lucy's faith in him, that her courage returned, and with due regard to his time and her own dignity, she proceeded at once to explain to him the difficulty in which she found herself. It was a lovely boldness in the maiden, springing from faith and earnestness and need, that enabled her to set forth in a few plain words the main points of her case—that she had been engaged for many months to a youth who seemed to have forsaken her, but whom she did not know to have done so, though his conduct had been worse than doubtful, seeing he had fallen into bad company. She would never have troubled Mr. Fuller about it for that, for it was not sympathy she wanted; but there was a gentleman—and here she faltered more—to whom she was under very great obligation, and who said he loved her; and she wanted much to know whether it was her duty to yield to his entreaties.
My reader must remember that Lucy was not one of those clear-brained as well as large-hearted women who see the rights of a thing at once. Many of the best women may be terribly puzzled, especially when an opportunity of self-sacrifice occurs. They are always ready to think that the most painful way is the right one. This indicates a noble disposition. And the most painful way may be the right one; but it is not the right one because it is the most painful. It is the right way because it is the right way, whether it be painful or delightful; and the notion of self-sacrifice may be rooted in spiritual pride. Whether it be so or not, the fact that the wrong way is the least self-indulgent, is the most painful, will not prevent it from bringing with it all the consequences that belong to it: wrong-doing cannot set things right, however noble the motive may be. Of course the personal condemnation and the individual degradation are infinitely less than if the easiest and pleasantest way is chosen only because it is the easiest and pleasantest. But God will not make of law a child's toy, to indulge the vagaries of his best children.
When Lucy had finished setting forth her case, which the trembling of her voice, and the swelling of her tears, hardly interrupted, Mr. Fuller said:
"Now you must allow me, Miss Burton, to ask you one or two plain questions."
"Certainly, sir. Ask me whatever you please. I will answer honestly."
"That I have no doubt about. Do you love this man to whom you say you are obliged?"
"Indeed I do not. I hope I am grateful to him, and I would do anything in return, except—"
"I understand you. It seems to me, though this kind of thing involves many questions too delicate to be easily talked about, that, whatever he may desire at the time, it is doing any man a grievous wrong to marry him without loving him. Blinded by his love, he may desire it none the less even if you tell him that you do not love him; but the kindest thing, even to him, is to refuse. This is what seems to me the truth."
While Mr. Fuller spoke, Lucy heaved such a deep sigh of relief, that if any corroboration of what she represented as the state of her feelings had been necessary, Mr. Fuller had it. After a little pause, he went on:
"Now, one question more: Do you love the other still?"
"I do," said Lucy, bursting at last into a passion of tears. "But, perhaps," she sobbed, "I ought to give him up altogether. I am afraid he has not behaved well at all."
"To you?"
"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking about myself just then."
"Has he let you understand that he has forsaken you?"
"No, no. He hasn't said a word. Only I haven't seen him for so long."
"There is, then, some room for hope. If you were to resolve upon anything now, you would be doing so without knowing what you were doing, because you do not know what he is doing. It is just possible it may be a healthy shame that is keeping him away from you. It may become your duty to give him up, but I think when it is so, it will be clearly so. God gives us all time: we should give each other time, too. I wish I could see him."
"I wish, indeed, you could, sir. It seems to me that he has not been well brought up. His father is a dreadfully hard and worldly man, as my poor grandmother knows too well; and his mother is very religious, but her religion seems to me to have done my poor Thomas more harm than his father's worldliness."
"That is quite possible. When you do see him again, try to get him to come and see me. Or I will go and see him. I shall not overwhelm him with a torrent of religion which he cannot understand, and which would only harden him."
"There is nothing I should wish more. But tell me one thing, Mr. Fuller: would it be right to marry him? I want to understand. Nothing looks farther off; but I want to know what is right."
"I think," returned Mr. Fuller, "that every willing heart will be taught what is right by the time that action is necessary. One thing seems clear, that while you love him—"
"I shall always love him," interrupted Lucy.
"LUCY NEVER LIFTED HER EYES."
"I must speak generally," said Mr. Fuller; "and there have been a few instances," he added, with the glimmer of a smile through the seriousness of his countenance, "of young maidens, and young men no less, changing their minds about such matters. I do not say you will. But while you love him it is clear to me, that you must not accept the attentions of any one else. I could put a very hard and dreadful name upon that. There is another thing equally clear to me—that while he is unrepentant, that is, so long as he does not change his ways—turn from evil toward good—think better of it, that is—you would be doing very wrong to marry him. I do not say when, or that ever you are bound to stop loving him; but that is a very different thing from consenting to marry him. Any influence for good that a woman has over such a man, she may exercise as much before marriage as after it. Indeed, if the man is of a poor and selfish nature, she is almost certain, as far as my observation goes, to lose her influence after her marriage. Many a woman, I fear, has married a man with the hope of reforming him, and has found that she only afforded him opportunity for growth in wickedness. I do not say that no good at all comes of it, so long as she is good, but it is the wrong way, and evil comes of it."
"I am sure you are right, Mr. Fuller. It would be dreadful to marry a bad man—or a man who had not strength, even for love of a wife, to turn from bad ways. But you won't think the hardest of my poor Thomas yet? He has been led astray, and has too much good in him to be easily made all bad."
"I too will hope so, for your sake as well as his own."
Lucy rose.
"Good-morning, Mr. Fuller. I do not know how to thank you. I only wanted leave to go on loving him. Thank you a thousand times."
"Do not thank me as if I could give you leave to do this or that. I only tell you what seems to me the truth of the matter."
"But is not that the best thing to give or to receive?"
"Yes, it is," answered Mr. Fuller, as Lucy left the vestry.
It was with a heart wonderfully lightened that she went home to her grandmother. This new cloud of terror had almost passed away; it only lightened a little on the horizon when she thought of having again to hear what Mr. Sargent wanted to say.
That same evening he came. Lucy never lifted her eyes to his face, even when she held out her hand to him. He misinterpreted her embarrassment; and he found argument to strengthen his first impression; for a moment after, summoning all her courage, and remembering very conveniently a message she had had for him, Lacy said to her grandmother:
"Mr. Kitely said he would like to see you, grannie, about the papers for our rooms. He has got some patterns."
"I have done with this world, child, and all its vanities," said Mrs. Boxall, with a touch of asperity.
"It would only be polite, though, grannie, as he is taking so much trouble about it, to go and see them. He is so kind!"
"We're going to pay him for his kindness," said the old dame, soured out of her better judgment, and jealous of Mr. Sargent supposing that they were accepting charity.
"No, grannie. That nobody ever could do. Kindness is just what can't be paid for, do what you will."
"I see you want to get rid of me," she said, rising; "so I suppose I had better go. Things are changed. Old people must learn to do as they're bid. You'll be teaching me my catechism next, I suppose."
Mrs. Boxall walked out of the room with as stiff a back as she had ever assumed in the days of her prosperity. The moment the door closed, Mr. Sargent approached Lucy, who had remained standing, and would have taken her hand, but she drew it away, and took the lead.
"I am very sorry if I have led you into any mistake, Mr. Sargent. I was so distressed at what you said the other evening, that I made this opportunity for the sake of removing at once any misapprehension. I wish to remind you, that I considered the subject you resumed then as quite settled."
"But excuse me, Miss Burton. I too considered it settled; but circumstances having altered so entirely—"
"Could you suppose for a moment, that because I had lost the phantom of a fortune which I never possessed, I would accept the man—whose kindness I was always grateful for, but whose love I had refused before because I could not give him any in return?"
"No. I did not suppose so. You gave me a reason for refusing my attentions then, which I have the best ground for believing no longer exists."
"What was the reason I gave you then?"
"That you loved another."
"And what ground have I given you for supposing that such has ceased to be the case?"
"You have not given me any. He has."
Lucy started. The blood rushed to her forehead, and then back to her heart.
"Where is he?" she cried, clasping her hands. "For God's sake, tell me."
"That at least is answer enough to my presumptuous hope," returned Mr. Sargent, with some bitterness.
"Mr. Sargent," said Lucy, who, though trembling greatly, had now recovered her self-command, "I beg your pardon for any pain I may have occasioned you. But, by surprising the truth, you have saved me the repetition of what I told you before. Tell me what you know of Mr. Worboise."
But Mr. Sargent's feelings—those especially occupied with himself—got the better of him now, bitterly as he regretted it afterward. He felt it a wrong that such a woman should pass him by for the sake of such a man; and he answered in the heat of injury:
"All I care to know about him is, that for the sake of his game among a low set of gamblers, he staked and lost a diamond ring—a rose-diamond, which one of his companions seemed to know as the gift of a lady. That is the man for whom Lucy Burton is proud to express her devotion!"
Lucy had grown very pale; but she would hold out till Mr. Sargent was gone. She had an answer on her lips; but if she spoke he would stay. Still she would say one word for Thomas.
"Your evidence is hardly of the most trustworthy kind, Mr. Sargent. Good-evening."
"It is of his kind, anyhow, whatever that may be," he retorted, and left the room. Before he reached the bottom of the stairs, he despised himself most heartily, and rushed up again to attempt an apology. Opening the room door, he saw Lucy lying on the floor. He thought she had fainted. But the same moment, Mrs. Boxall, who had only gone up stairs, came down behind him, and he thought it best to leave and write a letter. But Lucy had not fainted. She had only thrown herself on the floor in that agony which would gladly creep into the grave to forget itself. In all grief unmingled with anger there is the impulse to lie down. Lucy had not heard Mr. Sargent return or her grandmother reënter, for she had been pressing her ears with her hands, as if the last sounds that had entered had wounded them grievously.
"Well, I'm sure! what next?" remarked Mrs. Boxall. "I dare say fashions have come to that at last!"
What she meant was not very clear; but the moment she spoke, Lucy started from the floor and left the room. She had not been long in her chamber, however, before, with the ingenuity of a lover, she had contrived to draw a little weak comfort even out of what Mr. Sargent had told her. She believed that he had done worse than part with her ring; but when the thought struck her that it must have been for the sake of redeeming that ring that he had robbed his employer, which was indeed the case, somehow or other, strange as it may seem, the offenses appeared mutually to mitigate each other. And when she thought the whole matter over in the relief of knowing that she was free of Mr. Sargent, she quite believed that she had discovered fresh grounds for taking courage.