Hills of the Shatemuc Part 118

She shook her head, still looking at him, and her lips formed that voiceless 'no.' She never forgot the face with which he turned away, -- the face of grave gentleness, of sweet gravity, -- all the volume of reproof, of counsel, of truth, that was in that look. But it was truth that, as it was known to him, he seemed to a.s.sume to be known to her; he did not open his lips.

Elizabeth rose; she must go; she would have given a world to have him say something more. But he stood and saw her put on her gloves and arrange her cloak for going out, and he said nothing. Elizabeth longed to ask him the question, "What must I do?" -- she longed and almost lingered to ask it; -- but something, she did not know what, stopped her and choked her, and she did not ask it. He saw her down to the street, in silence on both sides, and they parted there, with a single grasp of the hand. _That_ said something again; and Elizabeth cried all the way home, and was well nigh sick by the time she got there.

CHAPTER VI.

How now?

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

TWELFTH NIGHT.

Miss Haye came down to breakfast the next morning; but after little more than a nominal presentation of herself there, she escaped from Rose's looks and words of comment and innuendo and regained her own room. And there she sat down in the window to muse, having carefully locked out Clam. She had reason. Clam would certainly have decided that her mistress 'wanted fixing,' if she could have watched the glowing intent eyes with which Elizabeth was going deep into some subject -- it might be herself, or some other. Herself it was.

"Well," -- she thought, very unconscious how clearly one of the houses on the opposite side of the street was defined on the retina of either eye, -- "I have learned two things by my precious yesterday's expedition, that I didn't know before -- or that if I did, it was in a sort of latent, unrecognized way; -- two pretty important things! -- That I wish I was a Christian, -- yes, I do, -- and that there is a person in the world who don't care a pin for me, whom I would lay down my life for! -- How people would laugh at me if they knew it -- and just because themselves they are not capable of it, and cannot understand it. -- Why shouldn't I like what is worthy to be liked? -- why shouldn't I _love_ it? It is to my honour that I do! -- Because he don't like _me_, people would say; -- and why should he like me? or what difference does it make? It is not a fine face or a fair manner that has taken me -- if it were, I should be only a fool like a great many others; -- it is those things which will be as beautiful in heaven as they are here -- the beauty of goodness -- of truth -- and fine character. -- Why should I not love it when I see it? I shall not see it often in my life-time. And what has his liking of me to do with it?

How should he like me! The very reasons for which I look at him would hinder his ever looking at me -- and ought. I am not good, -- not good enough for him to look at me; there are good things in me, but all run wild, or other things running wild over them. I am not worthy to be spoken of in the day that his name is mentioned. I wish I was good! -- I wish I was a Christian! -- but I know one half of that wish is because he is a Christian. --That's the sort of power that human beings have over each other! The beauty of religion, in him, has drawn me more, unspeakably, than all the sermons I ever heard in my life. What a beautiful thing such a Christian is! -- what living preaching! -- and without a word said. Without a word said, -- it is in the eye, the brow, the lips, -- the very carriage has the dignity of one who isn't a piece of this world. Why aren't there more such! -- and this is the only one that ever I knew! -- of all I have seen that called themselves Christians. -- Would any possible combination ever make _me_ such a person? -- Never! -- never. I shall be a rough piece of Christianity if ever I am one at all. But I don't even know what it is to be one. Oh, why couldn't he say three words more yesterday! But he acted -- and looked -- as if I could do without them. What did he mean! --"

When she had got to this point, Elizabeth left her seat by the window and crossed the room to a large wardrobe closet, on a high shelf of which sundry unused articles of lumber had found a hiding place. And having fetched a chair in, she mounted upon the top of it and rummaged, till there came to her hand a certain old bible which had belonged once to her mother or her grandmother. Elizabeth hardly knew which, but had kept a vague recollection of the book's being in existence and of its having been thrust away up on that shelf. She brought it down and dusted off the tokens of many a month's forgetfulness and dishonour; and with an odd sense of the hands to which it had once been familiar and precious, and of the distant influence under the power of which it was now in her own hands, she laid it on the bed, and half curiously, half fearfully, opened it.

The book had once been in hands that loved it, for it was ready of itself to lie open at several places. Elizabeth turned the leaves aimlessly, and finally left it spread at one of these open places; and with both elbows resting on the bed and both hands supporting her head, looked to see what she was to find there. It chanced to be the beginning of the 119th psalm.

"BLESSED ARE THE UNDEFILED IN THE WAY, WHO WALK IN THE LAW OF THE LORD."

By what thread of a.s.sociation was it, that the water rushed to her eyes when they read this, and for some minutes hindered her seeing another word, except through a veil of tears?

"Am I becoming a Christian?" she said to herself. "But something more must be wanting than merely to be sorry that I am not what he is. How every upright look and word bear witness that this description belongs to him. And I -- I am out of 'the way' altogether."

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT KEEP HIS TESTIMONIES, AND THAT SEEK HIM WITH THE WHOLE HEART."

"'Keep his testimonies,'" said Elizabeth, -- "and 'seek him with the whole heart.' -- I never did, or began to do, the one or the other. '_With the whole heart_' -- and I never gave one bit of my heart to it -- and how is he to be _sought?_ --"

"THEY ALSO DO NO INIQUITY; THEY WALK IN HIS WAYS."

The water stood in Elizabeth's eyes again.

"How far from me! -- how very far I am from it! 'Do no iniquity,' -- and I suppose I am always doing it -- 'They walk in his ways,' and I don't even so much as know what they are.

-- I wish Mr. Winthrop had said a little more yesterday!" --

She pondered this verse a little, feeling if she did not recognize its high and purified atmosphere; but at the next she sprang up and went back to her window.

"THOU HAST COMMANDED US TO KEEP THY PRECEPTS DILIGENTLY."

Elizabeth and the Bible were at issue.

She could heartily wish that her character were that fair and sweet one the first three verses had lined out; but the _command_ met a denial; or at the least a putting off of its claim. She acknowledged all that went before, even in its application to herself; but she was not willing, or certainly she was not ready, to take the pains and bear the restraint that should make her and it at one. She did not put the case so fairly before herself. She kept that fourth verse at arm's length, as it were, conscious that it held something she could not get over; unconscious what was the precise why. She rushed back to her conclusion that the Bible teaching was unsatisfactory, and that she wanted other; and so travelling round in a circle she came to the point from which she had begun. With a more saddened and sorrowful feeling, she stood looking at Winthrop's character and at her own; more certified, if that had been wanting, that she herself was astray; and well she resolved that if ever she got another chance she would ask him to tell her more about her duty, and how she should manage to do it.

But how was she to get another chance? Winthrop never came, nor could come, to Mr. Haye's; all that was at an end; she never could go again to his rooms. That singular visit of yesterday had once happened, but could never happen again by any possibility. She knew it; she must wait. And weeks went on, and still her two wishes lived in her heart; and still she waited. There was n.o.body else of whom she chose to ask her questions; either from want of knowledge, or from want of trust, or from want of attraction. And there were few indeed that came to the house whom she could suppose capable of answering them.

One evening it happened that Mr. Satterthwaite came in. He often did that; he had never lost the habit of finding it a pleasant place. This time he threw himself down at the tea- table, in tired fas.h.i.+on, just as the lady of the house asked him for the news.

"No news, Mrs. Haye -- sorry I haven't any. Been all day attending court, till I presume I'm not fit for general society. I hope a cup of tea 'll do something for me."

"What's taken you into court?" said Rose, as she gave the asked-for tea.

"A large dish of my own affairs, -- that is to say, my uncle's and fathers and grandfather's -- which is in precious confusion."

"I hope, getting on well?" said Rose sweetly.

"Don't know," said Mr. Satterthwaite contentedly. "Don't know till we get out of the confusion. But I have the satisfaction of knowing it's getting on as well as it _can_ get on, -- from the hands it is in."

"Whose hands are they?" Elizabeth asked.

"In Mr. Landholm's. -- He'll set it right, if anybody can. I know he will. Never saw such a fellow. Mrs. Haye -- thank you -- this bread and b.u.t.ter is all sufficient. Uncommon to have a friend for one's lawyer, and to know he is both a friend and a lawyer."

"Rather uncommon," said Elizabeth.

"Is Winthrop Landholm your friend?" said Rose dryly.

"Yes! The best friend I've got. I'd do anything in the world for that fellow. He deserves it."

"Mr. Satterthwaite," said Elizabeth, "that bread and b.u.t.ter isn't so good as these biscuits -- try one."

"He don't deserve it from everybody!" said Rose, as Mr.

Satterthwaite gratefully took a biscuit.

"Why not?"

"He don't deserve it from me. I've known him to do unhandsome things. Mean!"

"Winthrop Landholm! -- My dear Mrs. Haye, you are under some misapprehension. I'll stake my reputation he never did an unhandsome or a mean thing. He _couldn't_."

"He did," said Rose.

"Will you favour me with the particulars you have heard?"

"I haven't _heard_," said Rose, -- "I _know_."

"You _have_ heard!" said Elizabeth sternly, -- "and only heard.

You forget. You may not have understood anything right."

The gentleman looked in a little astonishment from the bright- coloured cheeks of one lady to the cloudy brow of the other; but as neither added anything further, he took up the matter.