Faith And Unfaith Part 11

"It is a wretched place, quite wretched," says Mrs. Redmond, with a depreciating glance directed at a distant sofa that might indeed be termed patriarchal.

"What are you doing?" asks Clarissa, promptly, feeling she cannot with any dignity defend the sofa. "Darning? Why can't I help you?--I am sure I could darn. Oh, what a quant.i.ty of socks! Are they all broken?"

looking with awe upon the overflowing basket that lies close to Mrs.

Redmond's feet.

"Every one of them," replies that matron, with unction. "I can't think how they do it, but I a.s.sure you they never come out of the wash without innumerable tears." Whether she is alluding, in her graceful fas.h.i.+on, to her children or their socks, seems at present doubtful. "I sometimes fancy they must take their boots off and dance on the sharp pebbles to bring them to such a pa.s.s; but they say they don't. Yet how to account for this?" She holds up one bony hand, decorated with a faded sock, in a somewhat triumphant fas.h.i.+on, and lets three emaciated fingers start to life through the toe of it.

"Do let me help you," says Clarissa, with entreaty, and, stooping to the basket, she rummages there until she produces a needle, a thimble, and some thread. "I dare say I shall get on splendidly, if you will just give me a hint now and then and tell me when I am st.i.tching them up too tightly."

This hardly sounds promising, but Mrs. Redmond heeds her not.

"My dear, pray do not trouble yourself with such uninteresting work,"

she says, hastily. "It really makes me unhappy to see you so employed; and that sock of all others,--it is Bobby's, and I'm sure there must be something wrong with his heels. If you insist on helping me, do try another."

"No, I shall st.i.tch up Bobby, or die in the attempt," says Miss Peyton, valiantly. "It is quite nice work, I should think, and so easy. I dare say after a time I should love it."

"Should you?" says Mrs. Redmond. "Well, perhaps; but for myself, I a.s.sure you, though no one will believe it, I abhor the occupation.

There are moments when it almost overcomes me,--the perpetual in and out of the needle, you will understand,--it seems so endless. Dear, dear, there was a time when I was never obliged to do such menial services, when I had numerous dependants to wait on me to do my bidding But then"--with a deep sigh, that sounds like a blast from Boreas--"I married the vicar."

"And quite right, too," says Clarissa, with a cheerful little nod, seeing Mrs. Redmond has mounted her high horse and intends riding him to the death. "I myself shouldn't hesitate about it, if I only got the chance. And indeed where could any one get a more charming husband than the dear vicar."

"Well, well, it was a foolish match notwithstanding," says Mrs.

Redmond, with a smile and a wan sort of blush; "though certainly at that time I don't deny he was very fascinating. Such a voice, my dear!

and then his eyes were remarkably fine."

"'Were'--_are_, you mean," says the crafty Clarissa, knowing that praise of her husband is sweet to the soul of the faded Penelope, and that the surest means of reducing her to a pliant mood is to permit her to maunder on uninterruptedly about past glories, and dead hours rendered bright by age. To have her in her kindest humor, before mentioning the real object of her visit, must be managed, at all risks. "Yours was a love-match, wasn't it?" she says, coaxingly. "Do tell me all about it." (She has listened patiently to every word of it about a hundred times before.) "I do so like a real love-affair."

"There isn't much to tell," says Mrs. Redmond, who is quite delighted, and actually foregoes the charm of darning, that she may the more correctly remember each interesting detail in her own "old story;"

"but it was all very sudden,--very; like a tornado, or a whirlwind, or those things in the desert that cover one up in a moment. First we met at two croquet-parties,--yes, two,--and then at a dinner at the Ramseys, and it was at the dinner at the Ramseys' that he first pressed my hand. I thought, my dear, I should have dropped, it was such a downright, not-to-be-got-over sort of squeeze. Dear me, I can almost feel it now," says Mrs. Redmond, who is blus.h.i.+ng like a girl.

"Yes. Do go on," says Clarissa, who, in reality, is enjoying herself, intensely.

"Well, then, two days afterwards, to my surprise, he called with some tickets for a concert, to which my mamma, who suspected nothing, took me. There we met again, and it was there, right, as one might say, under mamma's nose, he proposed to me. He was very eloquent, though he was obliged to speak rather disconnectedly, owing to the music stopping now and then and my mamma being of a suspicious turn: but he was young in those days, my dear, and well favored, no doubt. So we got married."

"That is the proper ending to all pretty stories. But is it true,"

says Clarissa, with a wiliness really horrible in one so young, "that just at that time you refused a splendid offer, all for the vicar's sake?"

"Splendid is a long word," says Mrs. Redmond, trying to speak carelessly, but unmistakably elated, "yet I must confess there is some truth in the report to which you allude. Sir Hubert Fitz-Hubert was a baronet of very ancient lineage, came over with the Conqueror, or King Alfred, I quite forget which, but it was whichever was the oldest: that I know. He was, in fact, a trifle old for me, perhaps, and not so rich as others I have known, but still a baronet. He proposed to me, but I rejected him upon the spot with scorn, though he went on his knees to me, and swore in an anguished frenzy, that he would cut his throat with his razor if I refused to listen to his suit! I did refuse, but I heard nothing more about the razor. I am willing to believe he put some restraint upon his maddened feelings, and refrained from inflicting any injury upon himself."

"Poor fellow!" says Clarissa, in a suspiciously choky tone.

"Then I espoused the vicar," says Mrs. Redmond, with a sentimental sigh. "One does foolish things sometimes."

"That, now, was a wise one. I would not marry a king if I loved a beggar. Altogether, you behaved beautifully, and just like a novel."

Feeling that the moment for action has arrived, as Mrs. Redmond is now in a glow of pride and vanity well mixed, Clarissa goes on sweetly:

"I have some news for you."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you. I know how delicate you are, and how unable to manage those two strong children you have at home. And I know, too, you have been looking out for a suitable governess for some time, but you have found a difficulty in choosing one, have you not?"

"Indeed I have."

"Well, I think I know some who will just suit you. She was at school with me, and, though poor now, having lost both father and mother, is of very good family, and well connected."

"But the salary?" says Mrs. Redmond, with some hesitation. "The salary is the thing. I hear of no one now who will come for less than sixty or seventy pounds a year at the lowest; and with Henry at school, and Rupert's college expenses, forty pounds is as much as we can afford to give."

"Miss Broughton will, I think, be quite content with that: she only wants to be happy, and at rest, and she will be all that with you and Cissy and Mr. Redmond. She is young, and it is her first trial, but she is very clever: she has a really lovely voice, and paints excessively well. Ethel has rather a taste for painting, has she not?"

"A decided talent for it. All my family were remarkable for their artistic tendencies, so she, doubtless, inherits it; and--yes, of course, it would be a great thing for her to have some one on the spot to develop this talent, and train it. Your friend, you say, is well connected?"

"Very highly connected, on her mother's side. Her father was a lieutenant in the navy, and very respectable too, I believe; though I know nothing of him."

"That she should be a lady is, of course, indispensable," says Mrs.

Redmond, with all the pride that ought to belong to softgoods people.

"I need hardly say _that_, I think. But why does she not appeal for help to her mother's relations?"

"Because she prefers honest work to begging from those who up to this have taken no notice of her."

"I admire her," says Mrs. Redmond, warmly. "If you think she will be satisfied with forty pounds, I should like to try what she could do with the children."

"I am very glad you have so decided. I know no place in which I would rather see a friend of mine than here."

"Thank you, my dear. Then will you write to her, or shall I?"

"Let me write to her first, if you don't mind: I think I can settle everything."

"Mind?--no, indeed: it is only too good of you to take so much trouble about me."

To which Clarissa says, prettily,--

"Do not put it in that light: there is no pleasure so keen as that of being able to help one's friends."

Then she rises, and, having left behind her three socks that no earthly power can ever again draw upon a child's foot, so hopelessly has she brought heel and sole together, she says good-by to Mrs.

Redmond, and leaves the room.

Outside on the avenue she encounters the vicar, hurrying home.

"Turn with me," she says, putting her hand through his arm. "I have something to say to you."

"Going to be married?" asks he, gayly.

"Nonsense!"--blus.h.i.+ng, in that he has so closely hit the mark. "It is not of anything so paltry I would unburden my mind."

"Then you have nothing of importance to tell me," says the vicar; "and I must go. Your story will keep: my work will not. I am in a great hurry: old Betty Martin----"