Heriot's Choice Part 13

'Hoity-toity, there will be some trouble here, Lambert. You must put Heriot on his guard,' and Mr. Heath burst out laughing; Polly regarding him the while with an air of offended dignity.

'Did I say anything to make him laugh? there is nothing laughable in speaking the truth. Papa gave me to my guardian, and of course that means I belong to him.'

'Never mind, Polly, let Mr. Heath laugh if he likes. We know how to value such a faithful little friend--do we not, Mildred?'--and patting her head gently, he bade her fetch him a book he had left on his study table, and to Mildred's relief the conversation dropped, and Mr. Heath shortly afterwards took his departure.

Later on in the afternoon Mildred set out for a quiet walk to the cemetery. Polly and Chriss were sunning themselves on the terrace, while Roy was stretched in sleepy enjoyment on the gra.s.s at their feet, with his straw hat pulled over his face. Richard had walked up to Kirkleatham on business for his father. No one knew exactly what had become of Olive.

'She will turn up at tea-time, she always does,' suggested Roy, in a tone of dreamy indifference. 'Go on, Polly, you have a sweet little voice for reading as well as singing. We are reading Milton, Aunt Milly, only Polly sometimes stops to spell the long words, which somehow breaks the Miltonic wave of harmony. Can't you fancy I am Adam, and you are Eve, Polly, and this is a little bit of Paradise--just that delicious dip of green, with the trees and the water; and the milky mother of the herd coming down to the river to drink; and the rich golden streak of light behind Mallerstang? If it were not Sunday now,' and Roy's fingers grasped an imaginary brush.

'Roy and Polly seem to live in a Paradise of their own,' thought Mildred, as she pa.s.sed through the quiet streets. 'They have only known each other for two days, and yet they are always together and share a community of interest--they are both such bright, clever, affectionate creatures. I wonder where Olive is, and whether she even knows what a real idle hour of _dolce far niente_ means. That girl must be taught positively how to enjoy;' and Mildred pushed the heavy swinging cemetery gates with a sigh, as she thought how joyless and weary seemed Olive's life compared to that of the bright happy creature they had laid there.

Betha's nature was of the heartsease type; it seemed strange that the mother had transmitted none of her sweet suns.h.i.+ny happiness to her young daughter; but here Mildred paused in her wonderings with a sudden start.

She was not alone as she supposed. She had reached a shady corner behind the chapel, where there was a little plot of gra.s.s and an acacia tree; and against the marble cross under which Betha Lambert's name was written there sat, or rather leant--for the att.i.tude was forlorn even in its restfulness--a drooping, black figure easily recognised as Olive.

'This is where she comes on Sunday afternoons; she keeps it a secret from the others; none of them have discovered it,' thought Mildred, grieved at having disturbed the girl's sacred privacy, and she was quietly retracing her steps, when Olive suddenly raised her head from the book she was reading. As their eyes met, there was a start and a sudden rush of sensitive colour to the girl's face.

'I did not know; I am so sorry to disturb you, my love,' began Mildred, apologetically.

'It does not disturb me--at least, not much,' was the truthful answer.

'I don't like the others to know I come here--because--oh, I have reasons--but this is your first visit, Aunt Milly,' divining Mildred's sympathy by some unerring instinct.

'Yes--may I stay for a moment? thank you, my dear,' as Olive willingly made room for her. 'How beautiful and simple; just the words she loved,'

and Mildred read the inscription and chosen text--'His banner over me is love.'

'Do you like it? Mamma chose it herself; she said it was so true of her life.'

'Happy Betha!' and in a lower voice, 'Happy Olive!'

'Why, Aunt Milly?'

'To have had such a mother, though it be only to lose her. Think of the dear bright smiles with which she will welcome you all home.'

Olive's eyes glistened, but she made no answer. Mildred was struck with the quiet repose of her manner; the anxious careworn look had disappeared for the time, and the soft intelligence of her face bore the stamp of some lofty thought.

'Do you always come here, Olive? At this time I mean.'

'Yes, always--I have never missed once; it seems to rest me for the week. Just at first, perhaps, it made me sad, but now it is different.'

'How do you mean, my dear?'

'I don't know that I can put it exactly in words,' she returned, troubled by a want of definite expression. 'At first it used to make me cry, and wish I were dead, but now I never feel so like living as when I am here.'

'Try to make me understand. I don't think you will find me unsympathising,' in Mildred's tenderest tones.

'You are never that, Aunt Milly. I find myself telling you things already. Don't you see, I can come and pour out all my trouble to her, just as I used to? and sometimes I fancy she answers me, not in speaking, you know, but in the thoughts that come as I sit here.'

'That is a beautiful fancy, Olive.'

'Others might laugh at it--Cardie would, I know, but it is impossible to believe mamma can help loving us wherever she is; and she always liked us to come and tell her everything, when we were naughty, or if we had anything nice happening to us.'

'Yes, dear, I quite understand. But you were reading.'

'That was mamma's favourite book. I generally read a few pages before I go. One seems to understand it all so much better in this quiet place, with the sun s.h.i.+ning, and all those graves round. One's little troubles seem so small and paltry by comparison.'

Mildred did not answer. She took the book out of Olive's hand--it was _Thomas a Kempis_--and a red pencil line had marked the following pa.s.sage:--

'Thou shalt not long toil here, nor always be oppressed with griefs.

'Wait a little while, and thou shalt see a speedy end of thy evils.

'There will come a time when all labour and trouble shall cease, 'Poor and brief is all that pa.s.seth away with time.

'Do [in earnest] what thou doest; labour faithfully in My vineyard: I will be thy recompense.

'Write, read, chant, mourn, keep silence, pray, endure crosses manfully; life everlasting is worth all these conflicts, and greater than these.

'Peace shall come in one day, which is known unto the Lord; and it shall not be day nor night (that is at this present time), but unceasing light, infinite brightness, stedfast peace, and secure rest.'

'Don't you like it?' whispered Olive, timidly; but Mildred still made no answer. How she had wronged this girl! Under the ungainly form lay this beautiful soul-coinage, fresh from G.o.d's mint, with His stamp of innocence and divinity fresh on it, to be marred by a world's use or abuse.

Mildred's clear instinct had already detected unusual intelligence under the clumsiness and awkward ways that were provocative of perpetual censure in the family circle. The timidity that seemed to others a cloak for mere coldness had not deceived her. But she was not prepared for this faith that defied dead matter, and clung about the spirit footsteps of the mother, bearing in the silence--that baffling silence to smaller natures--the faint perceptive whispers of deathless love.

'Olive, you have made me ashamed of my own doubts,' she said at last, taking the girl's hand and looking on the unlovely face with feelings akin to reverence. 'I see now, as I never have done before, how a thorough understanding robs even death of its terror--how "perfect love casteth out fear."'

'If one could always feel as one does now,' sighed Olive, raising her dark eyes with a new yearning in them. 'But the rest and the strength seem to last for such a little time. Last Sunday,' she continued, sadly, 'I felt almost happy sitting here. Life seemed somehow sweet, after all, but before evening I was utterly wretched.'

'By your own fault, or by that of others?'

'My own, of course. If I were not so provoking in my ways--Cardie, I mean--the others would not be so hard on me. Thinking makes one absent, and then mistakes happen.'

'Yes, I see.' Mildred did not say more. She felt the time was not come for dealing with the strange idiosyncrasies of a peculiar and difficult character. She was ignorant as yet what special gifts or graces of imagination lay under the comprehensive term of 'bookishness,' which had led her to fear in Olive the typical bluestocking. But she was not wrong in the supposition that Olive's very goodness bordered on faultiness; over-conscientiousness, and morbid scrupulosity, producing a sort of mental fatigue in the onlooker--restfulness being always more highly prized by us poor mortals than any amount of struggling and perceptible virtue.

Mildred was a true diplomatist by nature--most womanly women are. It was from no want of sympathy, but an exercise of real judgment, that she now quietly concluded the conversation by the suggestion that they should go home.

Mildred had the satisfaction of hearing her brother preach that evening, and, though some of the old fire and vigour were wanting, and there were at times the languid utterances of failing strength, still it was evident that, for the moment, sorrow was forgotten in the deep earnestness of one who feels the immensity of the task before him--the awful responsibility of the cure of souls.

The text was, 'Why halt ye between two opinions?' and afforded a rich scope for persuasive argument; and Mildred's attention never wavered but once, when her eyes rested for a moment accidentally on Richard. He and Roy, with some other younger members of the congregation, occupied the choir-stalls, or rather the seats appropriated for the purpose, the real choir-stalls being occupied by some of the neighbouring farmers and their families--an abuse that Mr. Lambert had not yet been able to rectify.

Roy's sleepy blue eyes were half closed; but Richard's forehead was deeply furrowed with the lines of intense thought, a heavy frown settled over the brows, and the mouth was rigid; the immobility of feature and fixed contraction of the pupils bespeaking some violent struggle within.

The sunset clouds were just waning into pallor and blue-gray indistinctness, with a lightning-like breadth of gold on the outermost edges, when Mildred stepped out from the dark porch, with Polly hanging on her arm.

'Is that Jupiter or Venus, Aunt Milly?' she asked, pointing to the sky above them. 'It looks large and grand enough for Jupiter; and oh, how sweet the wet gra.s.s smells!'

'You are right, my little astronomer,' said a voice close behind them.

'There is the king of planets in all his majesty. Miss Lambert, I hope you recognise an old acquaintance as well as a new friend. Ah, Polly!

Faithful, though a woman! I see you have not forgotten me.' And Dr.

Heriot laughed a low amused laugh at feeling his disengaged hand grasped by Polly's soft little fingers.

The laugh nettled her.

'No, I have not forgotten, though other people have, it seems,' she returned, with a little dignity, and dropping his hand. 'Three whole days, and you have never been to see us or bid us welcome! Do you wonder Aunt Milly and I are offended?'

Mildred coloured, but she had too much good sense to disclaim a share in Polly's childish reproaches.