Christian's Mistake Part 8

"He didn't deserve it. If ever there was an utter scapegrace, it was he.

He broke his poor mother's heart; she died during that affair. The dean must have known all about it?"

"Yes, but he and the master kept it very much to themselves. My husband hates talking; and as for Dr. Grey--"

"The dean paid me a long visit this morning, Mrs. Brereton," suddenly interrupted Dr. Grey. "We were congratulating ourselves on our prospects. We think there are one or two men who will do Saint Bede's great credit next year."

"That is well. But my husband says it will be long before we get a man like one whom I was just speaking of--Mr. Uniacke--Sir Edwin he is now. He has succeeded to the baronetcy. Of course you have heard of this?"

"I have," briefly answered Dr. Grey.

And the dean's wife, who had all the love of talking which the dean had not, mingled with a little nettled sense of balked curiosity, then turned to Mrs. Grey.

"You must have heard of that young man, and the scandal about him; it was only a year ago that he was rusticated. Such a pity! He was a most clever fellow--good at every thing. And quite a genius for music. To hear him sing and play was delightful! And yet he was such a scamp--a downright villain."

"My dear Mrs. Brereton," said Dr. Grey, "n.o.body is quite a villain at twenty. And if he were, don't you think that the less we talk about villains the better?"

So the conversation dropped--dropped as things do drop every day, under the smooth surface of society, which handles so lightly edged tools, and treads so gaily upon bomb-sh.e.l.ls, with the fuses just taken out in time.

"I am very tired," said Mrs. Grey, while Dr. Grey was seeing the last of the visitors to their carriage. "I think I will go at once to my own room".

"Do so," replied Aunt Maria. "Indeed, it has been a very fatiguing day for you, and for us all. Go, and I will tell Arnold you are dressing. It only wants half an hour to dinner."

"I will be ready."

And so she was. But for twenty of the thirty minutes she had lain motionless on her bed, almost like a dead figure, as pa.s.sive and as white. Then she rose, dressed herself, and went down to the formal meal, and to the somber, safe routine of her present existence, as it would flow on--and she prayed with all her heart it might--until she died.

Chapter 5.

_"He stands a-sudden at the door, And no one hears his soundless tread, And no one sees his veiled head, Or silent hand, put forth so sure,_

_"To grasp and s.n.a.t.c.h from mortal sight; Or else benignly turn away, And let us live our little day, And tremble back into the light:_

_"But though thus awful to our eyes, He is an angel in disguise."_

Every human being, and certainly every woman, has, among the various ideals of happiness, good to make, if never to enjoy, one special ideal---that great necessity of every tender heart---Home.

Christian had made hers, built her castle in Spain, and furnished and adorned it from bas.e.m.e.nt to battlement, even when she was a girl of fourteen. Sitting night after night alone, listening for the father's footstep, and then trembling when she heard it, or hidden away up in her own bedroom, her sole refuge from the orgies that took place below, where the sound of music, exquisite music, went up like the cry of an angel imprisoned in a den of brutes, the girl had imagined it all.

And through every vicissitude, hidden closer for its utter contrast to all the a.s.sociations and experience of her daily life, Christian Oakley had kept in her heart its innocent, womanly ideal of home.

Now, she had the reality. And what was it?

Externally it looked _very_ bright. Peeping into that warm, crimson- tinted dining-room at the hour between dinner and tea, when the whole family at the lodge were sure to be a.s.sembled there, any body would say what a happy family it was, and what a pleasant picture it made.

Father and mother at either end of the table; children on both sides of it; and the two elderly aunts seated comfortably in their two arm-chairs at the fireside, one knitting--_q. e. d._--, sleeping, the other--

No. Miss Gascoigne never slept. Her sharp,

_"Flaw-seeking eyes, like needles' points,"_

were always open, and more especially when the circle consisted, as now, of her brother-in-law, his children, and his new wife. Doubtless she considered watchfulness her duty. Indeed, as she explained over and over again to Aunt Maria, the princ.i.p.al reason which made her consent still to remain at the Lodge, instead of returning to her own pretty cottage at Avonside, was to overlook and guard the interests of "those poor motherless children."

Now it happened, unfortunately for Miss Gascoigne, that if Christian had one bright spot in the future of her married life to which she had looked forward earnestly, longingly, it was those children--how she would take care of them; fill up her weary days with them; love them, and be loved by them; in short, find in them the full satisfaction of her motherly heart--that heart in which she then thought there was no instincts or emotions left except the motherly. How she yearned and craved for this, G.o.d and her own soul only knew.

Yet, how she hardly knew, but so it was, none of these hopes had been fulfilled. She saw almost nothing of the children save during the one hour after dinner, when she sat silently watching them, one on each side of their father, and one on his knee, all so happy together. Dr.

Grey always looked happy when he was with his little folk. And they, their very faults faded off into sweetnesses when they came within the atmosphere of that good, loving, fatherly nature, for love makes love, and goodness creates goodness. t.i.tia lost her prim conceit, Atty his selfish roughness, and Oliver became a perfect little angel of a child for at least one hour a day--the hour they spent with their father.

It was a pretty picture. Christian, sitting apart, with the gulf of s.h.i.+ning mahogany between, bridged it often with her wistful eyes, but she never said a word.

She was not jealous, not in the slightest degree; for hers was the large nature which, deeply recognizing other's rights, and satisfied with its own, is incapable of any of the lower forms of jealousy; but she was sad. The luxurious aimlessness of her present life was a little heavy to the once poor, active, hard-working young governess, who had never known an idle or even a restful hour. The rest was sweet--oh! how sweet! but the idleness was difficult to bear. She had tried sometimes in the long mornings, when the master was shut up in his study, to get the children with her, and teach them a little; but Miss Gascoigne had replied that "my late sister" did not approve of any but paid governesses, and that it was impossible the wife of the Master of St.

Bede's could go "trapesing about like a nursemaid," taking walks with the children. Their own mamma never thought of doing such a thing.

And this reference to her predecessor, given about twenty times a day, always effectually silenced Christian, though it did not silence--it could not--the cry of her heart to be of some use to somebody; to have some young, fresh, happy creatures to love and be loved by, even though they were another woman's children.

So she sat this evening and many evenings, quiet but sad-eyed; and it was a relief when Barker entered with the tea-tray, and three or four letters for Mrs. Grey.

"How very odd! Who can be writing to me? I know n.o.body!"

At which simple speech Miss Gascoigne looked daggers, and, the minute Barker was gone, spoke them too.

"I must beg you, Mrs. Grey, if only for our sakes, to be a little more circ.u.mspect. How could you let out before Barker that you 'knew n.o.body'?"

"It is the truth--why should I not say it?" was all Christian answered, as she opened the letters, almost the first which had come to her still unfamiliar name. "They are all invitations. Oh dear! what shall I do?"

Dr. Grey looked up at the exclamation; he never seemed to hear much of what pa.s.sed around him except when his wife spoke, and then some slight movement often showed that though, silent, he was not an un.o.bservant man.

"Invitations!" cried Miss Gascoigne; "the very thing I was expecting.

And to the best houses in Avonsbridge, too. This is the result of your At home. I feel quite pleased at having so successfully introduced you into good society."

"Thank you," said Christian, half amused, half--well, it is not worth while being annoyed at such a small thing. She only looked across at her husband to see how he felt on the matter.

"I think," said the master with a comical twinkling in his eye, "that no society is half so good or so pleasant as our own."

Christian looked puzzled a minute, but afterward smiled gratefully.

"We may decline it, then?"

"Should you like it best?"

"I should, indeed." For, somehow, though she did not shrink from her new life--that strange, perplexing life for which her sense of duty was making her every day more strong--she did shrink from the outward shows of it. To be stared at by cold, sharp, Avonsbridge eyes, or pointed at as "the governess" whom Dr. Grey had married--worse, perhaps, as Edward Oakley's daughter, the Edward Oakley whose failings every body knew--"Yes," she added, quickly, "I would much rather decline."

"Decline! when I have taken so much trouble--bought a new dress expressly for these parties! They are bridal parties, Mrs. Grey, given for you, meant to welcome you into Society. Society always does it, except when the marriage is one to be ashamed of?"

Christian started; the hot flush which now twenty times a day was beginning to burn in her once pale cheek, burnt there now; but she restrained herself, for the children sat there--Let.i.tia, preternaturally sharp, and noticing every thing; Arthur, who rarely spoke except to say something rude; and also the children's father.