Much impressed by the bevy of feminine talents around him, and by the unexpected atmosphere of cake and jam at teatime, Eddie listens open-mouthed to the comments, for the most part enthusiastic, as to Amaranth's picture, and waits for the moment when it will be his turn to be showman, and the mice, and toad, and jackdaw, and Tim will be on exhibition.
"My dear Miss Glyn, you must send it to the Academy," is the universal verdict, and a lady in spectacles adds encouragingly, "Of course, they won't hang it, but it is just as well to keep yourself before their eyes. I regularly send a picture every year, so as to keep myself before their eyes."
"That is what I have begged Amaranth to do," says May, earnestly: "to submit this for the Royal Academy. It is far stronger than the work they took of mine. Do, Amaranth, do send it there."
"I believe you are destined to be great, Miss Glyn," says another. "Don't be too proud to remember those at the bottom of the ladder."
With such discourse the fair ladies gather round the tea table, the conversation taking at once a decidedly anatomical turn and veering on skulls, till Eddie is discovered to be in tears, and entreats, "Oh, don't talk about ghosties," and a more cheerful subject is discovered.
It is upon this group that Mr. Matthew Gummer enters by-and-by, having travelled up from Bryantwood in his best suit, with a gift of vegetable produce from his kitchen garden to place his heart and his little cottage at the disposal of the daughter of his first patron and employer. Mr. Fleming has recently entered the employ of Hymen himself, and has celebrated the happy event by increasing the wages of his clerks. Matthew Gummer is so steady and satisfactory, that he is now in the joyful possession of two pounds a week, which appears to him a providential leading towards the matrimonial altar.
It must be owned that Matthew Gummer is not quite so much in love with Amaranth as he has tried to persuade himself coming up in the train. He considers her rather "high" in her ways and a little uncertain in her temper; but he is filled with pity for her now, and his sentiments of gratitude towards his old employer are strong. Matthew has little idea of "governessing" as a means of livelihood. Very likely Amaranth and Eddie may not have quite enough to eat, for he has heard butter and eggs and butcher's meat are dear in London; and poultry is at a sinful price compared with Bryantwood charges.
The old folks have such good appetites that there is necessarily a plentiful board at Matthew's house. He does not think Amaranth and little Eddie will make much difference as to food. So in a spirit of compassion and chivalry, he resolves to assist her in her need, though as he nears Alexandrina Terrace he turns a little hot and cold, and his mouth seems unusually dry.
He wishes he had had the foresight to purchase some manual on the etiquette of courtship, so as to know how to couch the remarks leading up to a declaration. To his relief, he catches sight of the portly figure of his brother-in-law, to whom he hurries with the agitated question, "How did you go about it, William, when you asked Elizabeth to keep company."
Mr. Banks is a gentleman of thoughtful mind and slow delivery. Elizabeth Gummer was said by some of her feminine companions at Bryantwood to be coming down in the world when she changed her position of "lady-help" to share the lot of the builder and contractor. But William Banks, though not endowed with over-much education, knows how to build well -- a kind of knowledge that seems far from general in the present age -- and he is a prosperous man, possessed of the public esteem and a balance in the local bank.
"When I went courting, Matthew," says he, slowly, "I gived your sister Elizabeth a kiss, and, says I, 'Will you walk out with me, Elizabeth?' And says she, 'William, I will.' Them was her words, Matthew, if I were put to it afore a judge and jury. I gived your sister Elizabeth a kiss."
"But you didn't kiss her before you knew you were accepted, William?"
"I did, surely," is the answer. "I were pretty far gone, Matthew, and I couldn't ha' helped that kiss. She was always a fine woman, Matthew, was your sister Elizabeth, with a face like a rose."
"But the editor of the Young Gentleman's Adviser----"
"What do he know about it?" interrupted Mr. Banks. "If you're going courting, Matthew, you do as I advise you and start with the kiss. Why, that's half the battle, Matthew. Ten to one, if she lets you kiss her, you're landed. Not that I've any reason to put anybody agin matrimony, I'm sure, if you reckon your wages will run to it. It isn't everybody gets such another housekeeper as your sister Elizabeth, Matthew. And when you're through with your courtlng, come in and take a plate of shrimps and a cut of ham with us, Matthew. It's Elizabeth's cleaning-day, and we don't have tea till six."
Mrs. Banks is busy, with her young domestic, in cleaning out the cellars. The door of her house stands open, Master Banks having run out surreptitiously for a game at hopscotch round the corner, instead of polishing the boots committed to his charge. Elizabeth is not visible; and the twins, strapped in their chairs on either side of the fireplace, survey their uncle with faces that gradually wrinkle up for tears of surprise. Fleeing before these symptoms of minds ill at ease, Matthew Gummer mounts the stairs to knock at the little room he knows to be the Glyns'.
"Come in, come in," cries a chorus of voices. "It must be Connie Withers. How late she is! Come in, come in, Connie."
Matthew Gummer opens the door, and heaves a gasp of dismay. He is vaguely conscious of a confusion of feminine tongues, of charming faces, bright eyes, and graceful dresses -- of cake and jam and toast on the table, and no signs of starvation -- of a picture that to him seems truly magnificent on the easel -- and of Amaranth, apparently taller and more dignified, certainly lovelier and more womanly, than of yore, offering him her hand cordially, and bidding him be seated.
"Mr. Gummer," says Eddie, stealing to him with an eager face, "Sis has done a wonderful picture, and she's going to be ever so great and famous. Lots of people say so."
And the artist who painted this lifelike scene is the girl he intended, on Mr. Banks' advice, to kiss! Matthew Gummer gazes at her fair, proud face, and feels dazed and frightened. How could he have dreamed of offering to Miss Glyn the keys of the four little rooms of Bluebell Cottage?
Amaranth asks after his grandparents, and passes him a cup of tea, which he stirs continuously in much confusion. One young lady offers him teacake, and another holds the bread-and-butter; and Matthew Gummer is divided between a vague sense of a tea-meeting and a half-frightened, half-delighted consciousness of a most unprecedented and enchanting episode in his career.
"Are you staying long in town, Mr. Gummer?" asks Amaranth. "Won't you put down your bag? I fear it is in your way."
"Oh, I only wished, miss, to ask your acceptance of a few cabbages," he stammers, "and some garden stuff of my own raising. No, miss, I don't stop long; I've took a return ticket. My hopes were to have done a friend a good turn," he says, floundering beneath her beautiful eyes; "but there is graves in every heart, miss, which no doubt, whatever is, is for the best."
Amaranth glances at his blue temperance ribbon, slightly suspicious that he has forgotten his pledge on the journey. Some of her companions, however, suspect his state of mind, and are encouraging him in the poetical vein, when Mrs. Banks comes up hastily with damp, affectionate hands, and begs him, if Miss Glyn will excuse him, to join their tea table, for the children are wild over their uncle's arrival.
Mrs. Banks watches over Amaranth like a lynx, and has other ideas for her brother. She hopes he has been guilty of no imprudent folly, but suspects latent amusement on the feminine faces around. Over the ham and shrimps downstairs, she impresses her brother with the fact that Miss Glyn is sure to become a famous painter, and very likely marry a title before she's done, "For she's quite the lady, and has a goodish bit of pride of her own; make no mistake, Matthew."
Matthew Gummer heaves a sigh of resigned conviction, and takes the children out to purchase "Obadiah rock" and peppermint, to be consumed in the morrow's Sunday school. And so ends his courting expedition; and his brother-in-law, observing him
somewhat silent on the way to the station, reminds him, "There's as good fish in the sea as ever yet come out."
Chapter 7
News at Last
Ever since the shock of her trouble changed her from a carefree girl to a bitter-hearted woman, Amaranth's mind has been fearfully at work. Thoughts that never occurred to her in the sunny days of old, ideas that would have shocked her if expressed by others, have rushed upon her in her loneliness like a flood. Earth and heaven seem alike to deny her rest.
She has turned to free-thinking books, in intensity of longing for the solving of her doubts. It seems to her as if the certainty that Christianity is a delusion might be better even than the suspense and unrest that are racking her. She cannot find God, she tells herself. Most likely, therefore, there is no God to find. And how can she find Him, with this cold, proud, resentful heart, that only upbraids Him -- if indeed He exists -- for her loneliness and apparent orphan-hood?
She does not give place to the voice that whispers, "Except ye become as little children." It does not seem to strike her that the Lord God is not to be fathomed and judged, questioned and criticised, by His creation, but to be touched by love, and humility, and obedience.
And yet faith lies so near the heart of a woman, and her need of a God is such, that Amaranth turns dissatisfied from the arguments of so-called free-thinkers sooner than many a man might have done. Her heart vaguely searches for something beyond the destruction of her childhood's faith; for certainty of some sort, not only the pulling down of the pillars against which, almost unconsciously to herself, she is leaning still.
One Sunday, greatly to Mrs. Banks' surprise, Amaranth restlessly proposes to accompany that good lady to chapel. Eddie, when well enough, has been escorted of late by the little Bankses to the Sunday school adjoining, and passes the morning in a bright flower-decked room, listening enchanted to a blackboard lesson from the superintendent. The Sunday scholars in their children's service have the best time of it this morning. The school, full of energetic teachers and young breezy life, is the better half now of this particular place of worship, the half-filled pews of which strike Amaranth unpleasantly with a lonely chill as she enters.
This is her first experience of a chapel, and an unfortunate one. Mr. Banks gives out "Come let us join our cheerful songs," with rather more than his usual slow deliberation, and a mournfulness he has from childhood supposed to be appropriate to the day and place. The minister, primed with the most intimate knowledge, geographical, historical, and expository, concerning the patriarchs, argues complacently a disputed point as to the Canaanite tribes, and overlooks the possibility of there being among his hearers a throbbing, restless heart that is seeking food beyond the results of his researches in ancient history.
Mr. and Mrs. Banks, good souls, are used to this style of sermon. Mr. Banks divides the time between a short nap and some private Bible reading on his own account; and Mrs. Banks is content to understand the hymns, and to join with all her heart in the grand hymn chosen providentially by the lady at the harmonium:
"The God of Abram Praise."
But Amaranth, searching the minister's face and words for help, turns hungry away; and in the afternoon strays into a neighbouring church, which has the fame of a very intellectual and superior clergyman. Unfortunately, this gentleman has found during the week certain theological difficulties with which he is fain to regale his congregation today. He is rather given to contesting the viewpoints of his neighbours, and to casting little shadows of doubt that hang about people's minds uncomfortably. It is easy enough to suggest doubts and difficulties. Amaranth feels the clergyman is very clever and original, but she has difficulties enough of her own, and leaves his church only more depressed and bewildered.
May Burr, as stout a Protestant as ever breathed, feels her heart sink within her this evening as she sees her friend passing up the steps of a Roman Catholic church. May shudders at the thought of Amaranth as a full-fledged Jesuit, and goes to the little ragged-school meeting, where she is to help tonight, with a trembling prayer for Amaranth on her lips.
She need have little fear on this particular score for her friend. Amaranth listens entranced to the music, feeling as if here she is to be rested and satisfied indeed; but the shifting scene around her soon seems to her more appropriate to some spectacular drama than to the House of God. With every fresh effort of display He seems more deeply hidden from her eyes. And the worthy man who discourses has certain things to say as to the error of private and individual opinion apart from that of the Church, which, to an active mind like Amaranth's, do not at all commend themselves.
By the time Amaranth gets home she is feeling worn out and hopeless, discontented with the spiritual waters that have flowed around her on this day when she resolved to mingle with the worshippers, and yet not bringing herself to go to the Source and Fountain head, where she could have reached Him by a prayer, even a cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
Fortunately for her condition of dreary apathy, Eddie is complaining of pains in his chest, and needing soothing poultices. By the time Amaranth has lulled his pain, and he has fallen asleep, his fair head nestling to her as she sits by his pillow, earth does not seem so vain and drear, or heaven the mere dream of a visionary.
Next day, Eddie's cough is so troublesome that Amaranth puts down her brushes, and wraps him up and takes him to the hospital to consult the visiting doctor again. Much as she dislikes this ordeal, Amaranth never lets another escort the little fellow. She is highly nervous and keenly susceptible to painful sights, and often has a private burst of tears after such a visit, for sometimes she has to wait a long time, next to those who, strange to say, appear to take a sort of pride in the display or explanation of their own or their children's ailments, and who gradually work up her nerves to tension unendurable save for Eddie's sake.
Today she is more fortunate. The old lady next to her shows her where the grandchild she escorts has hurt his head, and gives her the history as usual; but an acquaintance appears on the scene armed with a child troubled with rickets, and the two compare notes, while Amaranth slips away to another corner and is at peace.
Suddenly Eddie pulls her sleeve with an excited gasp. "Look, Sis -- there's Ardyn. I know that was Ardyn going up the staircase. Sis, do you think Ardyn's ill? What's he at the hospital for? Sis, won't you run up after him, and tell him I'm here?"
Amaranth shakes her head, and presses a biscuit on her brother with a trembling hand. Before Eddie spoke she had already recognised Ardyn, though he passed them hurriedly, without noticing them. She sees that he has been ordained, for he is in clerical dress.
She is conscious of wearing her shabby morning serge, and of a large darn in Eddie's overcoat, and of sitting here, seeking charitable relief, among a concourse of the poor. She is thankful he did not see her; yet how she longs and hungers now that they could even exchange a single word.
She is sitting dreaming of Ardyn -- dreaming of the time when, as a bashful boy, he came to live at The Bower, because Mr. Bigham had been left guardian to him, and his wife was too ill for him to live at the Rectory. He studied daily with his uncle, but The Bower was his home, and Amaranth's garden his playground.
Mrs. Bigham knew his board money was welcome to Mrs. Glyn, and she thought The Bower was much more cheerful for the boy than a house of sickness. He stayed there until he went to a public school and thence to college; and Amaranth seems to see again the bright, affectionate boy who year by year confided to her his hopes and plans, in every one of which she had a share. And now -- is it not true that the gods laugh at human ideas? Now their lives have been swept apart; perhaps he is already very well content that so it should be.
The doctor prescribes a tonic and liniment for Eddie, and tells him to beware of the east wind. He terrifies Amaranth by asking if any of their relations are consumptive. She says hurriedly and decisively that she has never heard of any such case in their family, and that Eddie is often feeble in the spring, and
had rather a tiring day yesterday; but she holds the boy close to her with a yearning clasp as she leaves the room.
Eddie is in very good spirits, despite his cough. He is interested in every one of the patients and their ailments, especially the sick babies. These visits to the hospital are rather red-letter days with Eddie, who has now resolved to grow up to be a famous physician.
As they leave the hospital, he is acquainting Amaranth with the history of a girl with a bruised nose, when her name is spoken and both her hands are taken by Ardyn.
What they say in the next few minutes neither know. Eddie gets almost under a horse's feet. Before Amaranth can remonstrate, they are all in a cab, and Ardyn is questioning her as to her success and Eddie's health, and explaining that he now assists his uncle at Bryantwood Church; but a man who waited on him at Cambridge is ill in this hospital, and Ardyn has been visiting him there.
"I was wondering," he said, "whether I dared call upon you. I don't know what uncle would say, for I believe he and aunt miss you dreadfully, Amaranth, and would easily forgive a visit to you; but I was not sure if you would see me if I came. What is the matter with you, dear? You have lost your colour, and you are getting so thin. Is there still no news from your parents? Are you still all alone?"
"Except for Eddie," she says, with her arms around her brother.
"And Tim, and the toad, and the white mice," says Eddie, reproachfully.
"This must not, shall not go on," says Ardyn, impetuously. "Oh, Amaranth, how can I find you, only to lose you again? Come to me and be my own. I can live elsewhere, if you dislike Bryantwood. I have means enough of my own, without applying to uncle. Amaranth, forget the past. Leave the memory of your poor father to Him who is Judge over all. Has He not joined our hearts together? Why do you split apart our lives like this?"