WAS I RIGHT
About the Book
(19 chapters, 60,000 words)
May Lindsay and her young stepsister Maggie are left penniless and homeless when their father the local doctor dies. Maggie can go to live with her three maiden aunts, but May at the age of nineteen is faced with a choice. Should she take the position of companion to a girl she doesn’t know, who lives some distance away, or accept a proposal of marriage from the man who has been her friend since they were small children?
May Lindsay makes her decision, but it is not long before she wonders if she has done the right thing.
This is a story of life in Victorian England as May, who has led a sheltered life, is pushed out into a much bigger world than she has previously known. She soon encounters titled families, and is taken on a tour of the Holy Land which occupies much of the story.
Two men seem to be a big disappointment to May Lindsay. Will her Christian faith hold strong in these troubles? Was she right in the decision she made before leaving home?
Was I Right?
Mrs. O. M. Walton
First published 1879
This Abridged Edition ©2015 Chris Wright
Illustrations © Simon Wright
(Redrawn from Half Hours in the Holy Land 1884)
E-Book ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9
Also available as e-books
from White Tree Publishing
Abridged editions of
two more Classic Romances
by Mrs. O. F. Walton
(see end of this e-book for details)
The Lost Clue E-Book ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6
Doctor Forester E-Book ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2
and by Charles Sheldon
In His Steps abridged e-Book
ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6
Paperback editions of all four books
are available from
most internet book sellers
This book is a work of fiction. Named locations are used fictitiously, and characters and incidents are the product of the original author's imagination. The names of places and people are from the original work. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
Published by
White Tree Publishing Bristol
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Table of Contents
Cover
About this book
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
More Books
About White Tree Publishing
Non-Fiction
Christian Fiction
Younger Readers
Introduction
This romance was first published in serial form in 1879 by the well-known English author Mrs. O. F. Walton. Mrs. Walton wrote many books in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is probably best known for two children's stories: Christie's Old Organ and A Peep Behind the Scenes. Several of her early children's stories are rather morbid, revolving around premature death. Fortunately, her adult romances are free from this.
In the early 1900s, Mrs. Walton wrote two more romantic mysteries, The Lost Clue and Doctor Forester. Both these very readable books are available as abridged editions, as companion volumes for this title. They also have no children dying! The books have been lightly abridged, and a few minor changes have been made to the text to make some incidents more easily understood today. The storylines of all three books remain unchanged.
Mrs. Walton (born Amy Catherine Deck) was the daughter of a vicar in Hull, and she married the church's curate Octavius Frank Walton in 1875. Soon afterwards, her husband took up an appointment at a church on Mount Zion, Jerusalem where he and his wife stayed until 1879. The adventures in this book in the Holy Land are almost certainly based on fascinating eye witness accounts.
The formal way in which people address each other is very much part of the social etiquette of the period. Because this story was written at the time in which it takes place, rather than being seen through the eyes of a modern author, it provides a fascinating and accurate historical peep into life in the late nineteenth century.
The constant reference to servants would have been normal and acceptable to Victorian readers. Most families had at least one member of staff, and large, wealthy houses had many staff, ranging from domestics, to cooks, butlers, gardeners and estate managers. The system gave much needed employment to local people where no social care system was in operation.
One thing that is especially worth pointing out is the frequent mention of the ladies taking up their "work." The word "ladies" is used correctly here for this period, for they were part of the main family of the house. In order to be fully occupied for the improvement of their minds, they carried with them a bag containing sewing or embroidery to do while talking to each other. In this way they could not be accused of spending their time in idle chatter!
Chris Wright
Editor
Chapter One
THERE is one day in my life which stands out as a day above all others. As I look back to it I see myself, a girl of nineteen, sitting at my bedroom window lost in thought and perplexity. I can see in my mind's eye the garden just as it looked as I gazed out onto it that afternoon -- our quaint, old-fashioned garden with its hedge of laurel bushes, and the large elm trees at the end of it with the flickering light and shade underneath.
I can still picture the rabbits nibbling the grass on the lawn. I can hear the trickling of the stream which ran by the side of the house, in which I used to float toy boats with Claude and Maggie in the happy days when we were children.
Our father had been the doctor in the village. It was a very poor place, and the people never had any money to spare. My father was too kind-hearted to press for payment when he saw how hard it was for them to live. Although his practice was large, he saved very little money. But even this small amount never came to us, for just before his death the bank in which it was placed suddenly failed, so when he was gone Maggie and I were penniless.
Maggie was much younger than me. She was my half-sister, and her mother died three weeks after she was born. She committed her little baby to me when she knew that she must leave it, and from that day I became, as far as I was able, a mother to Maggie.
I was a very young "mother," for I was only seven years old at the time, but a feeling of great responsibility and trust came over me as I left the room where my stepmother was dying. I crept up to the nursery and stroked the baby's face, and felt as if she belonged to me from that moment.
And now Maggie and I were left without a penny in the world. A letter had come from Maggie's three maiden aunts, her mother's sisters, to insist on her going at once to live with them in the old Manor House at Branston. I knew that Maggie would be ha
ppy and cared for there, and certainly not living in poverty. It was a great relief to my mind, but there was no such home in prospect for me.
Maggie's aunts were, of course, not related to me, and my mother had been a friendless orphan, so I had no one to take compassion on me. Separated from the old home, separated from Maggie, life at the age of nineteen looked exceedingly cheerless.
My mind was full of trouble and perplexity, for on the table before me lay two letters which must be answered before evening, and on the answer to these letters would hang all my future life.
I sat at my bedroom window, not knowing what to do. The clock ticked on, the hands were moving round, and my letters were still unanswered.
As I gazed into the garden I can remember how the sun went behind a bank of heavy clouds, and all turned gloomy and dismal in a moment. The rabbits ran back to their holes, the sunbeams fled from the lawn, the wind whistled drearily in the chimneys of the old house and flapped the branches of the climbing rose tree against my bedroom window. It seemed to me then like the cloud which had come so suddenly across my hitherto happy life. And now, what was before me? Joy? Or sorrow?
It appeared to be left with me to decide. The two letters must be answered. The first of these was from an old governess of ours, a kind, good woman. I had written to tell her of my difficulties, and she advised me to apply for a situation as companion to a young lady of fortune, in answer to an advertisement which had just appeared in The Times newspaper. A fair salary was promised, and all expenses of travelling would be defrayed.
That was one of the letters which I had to answer. That path of life did not seem bright in prospect. The position of a poor companion in a large household was certainly not one I would have chosen for myself.
I said, "Oh, no," instinctively when I first read the advertisement which Miss Morley enclosed. And yet the more I thought about it the more I felt that perhaps I ought to apply for the situation. It was clear that I must work for my living in some way, so perhaps this would be the very place for me. And yet . . . and yet my heart shrank from what might be the path of duty.
There was another letter on the table. A very different letter. And this letter must be answered before I could decide about Miss Morley's proposal. I had read it so often during the day that I knew every word of it. It opened out to me another path of life -- a path which seemed as bright as the other was shaded.
The letter was from Claude Ellis, my old playfellow and friend. He was the son of the clergyman of the village, his only child. Claude had no companions at home, and therefore when we were children we went, day by day, to the Parsonage, or Claude came to us, and we played together between the hours for lessons. And then we grew older. Claude was sent to school, but always in the holidays our old friendship was renewed, and we walked together, read together, and played together as before.
But schooldays passed, and Claude went to Oxford. I remember so well the day on which he came to say goodbye to us before leaving home. He looked handsome, and was full of spirits, and was so much looking forward to his college life.
Maggie and I walked to the garden gate with him, and we talked of the time when he would come home again, and we would spend our days together as we had always done in the holidays. Then he went out, the gate closed after him, and Maggie and I watched him walking down the road. Maggie waved her handkerchief to him until he was out of sight. When we went hack to the house I counted how many weeks must pass before the term would be ended and Claude would be with us again.
But a short time after, the Reverend Ellis, Claude's father, was taken ill and the doctor ordered him to go to the south of France for the winter. So Claude spent his Christmas vacation with him in Menton instead of at home. And then we looked forward to Midsummer.
But Claude did not return home until the greater part of the long vacation was over. He was in Cornwall and did not come to the Parsonage until about three weeks before his return to Oxford. So Claude and I had not met for nearly a year.
"Claude is at home," said my father one morning at breakfast.
"Oh, is he?" said little Maggie excitedly. "How nice."
I was pleased also. I expected to see exactly the same Claude that I had parted from at the garden gate a year ago. I thought everything would go on just as it had done when he was a boy at school and came home for the holidays.
So when I saw him coming up the road, I ran into the garden to meet him.
"Oh, Claude, I am glad to see you," I cried, as soon as he opened the gate. And then I stopped short, and went up to him quietly. Giving him my hand, I said in a different voice, "How do you do, Claude? When did you come home?"
For in a moment it flashed across me that Claude Ellis and I were not the same. He and I had grown out of a boy and a girl into a young man and woman since we last met. All this flashed across me in a moment as I noticed the difference in Claude's dress, manners and appearance as he came in at the gate. And a chill came over me and I wished that I had not run to meet him quite so eagerly.
And yet when he began to talk I felt that he was in many ways the same Claude still; the same, but changed.
Was he changed for the better? In many ways he was. He was more manly, and had much to tell us of his college friends and college life, which made him a more amusing and pleasant companion than before.
And yet there was another change in Claude which I could not help noticing, in spite of my efforts not to do so. Before Claude went to college we often talked together of the Bible, and he explained to me many things which I did not understand.
We used to sit on the garden seat on Sunday afternoons and read a chapter together, and Claude used to talk so helpfully about it. He often spoke of the time when he would be old enough to be ordained, and when I could come to his church and hear him preach. He even told me what his first text would be, and how he had already written some pages of his first sermon.
But after Claude's return I noticed that he always avoided any mention of Christian subjects, and when, either in his own home or ours, any allusion was made to them, he quickly turned the conversation to some other topic.
I tried for some days to convince myself that it was not because Claude had ceased to care for what he had loved before, but rather that his feelings had grown so much deeper and truer that he felt divine things too sacred to be talked about. But before the vacation was over I was obliged to admit that Claude's views and opinions were completely changed about Christian things. He had begun to doubt what he had before received with child-like faith. He had begun to despise and hold in contempt that which he had learned to love and reverence.
"Oh, you have never been to Oxford, May," he said rather contemptuously one day, when I was trying to explain something to him from the Bible. "You should read some of the books which were lent to me by a friend at college. We are behind the times in this little out-of-the-way place. The world is growing clever and learned, and there are many things which you and I have always taken for granted about which there is really great doubt and uncertainty."
"What things, Claude?" I said.
"I mean parts of the Bible, May, and doctrines which are supposed to be proved from the Bible. But what is the use of talking about it to you? I don't want to unsettle your mind. If you like to believe it, and if it makes you happy, go on believing it, and be glad that you haven't read the books I have read."
"But you, Claude?" I said, sorrowfully.
"Oh, never mind about me, May. I am all right. I am a little wiser than you, that is all."
"Are you happier, Claude?" I ventured to ask.
"Oh, I don't know, May. I don't think happiness, if it is based on a delusion, is much worth having."
"Oh, Claude," I said, "it makes me wretched to hear you talk like that."
"Then talk about something else, May," he said brightly. "You began the subject, not I."
"But, Claude--"
"Now, that will do, May," he said impatiently. "We don't think alike about the
se subjects, simply because I know a great deal more about them than I did before I went away -- or than you do now. So let the matter drop."
I was unhappy after this conversation with Claude. He gave me no opportunity of renewing it; but though he had not explained to me any of his doubts, he had left an uneasy, troubled feeling on my mind, a feeling which I could not shake off.
When I went upstairs to bed that night I sat down to think over what Claude had said. What if, after all, I was resting on a delusion, building my happiness on an unreality? What if, after all, my faith was in vain, my hope unfounded?
Horrible doubts, such as I had never known before, came crowding into my mind. "Are these things so?" was the oft-repeated question of my heart. It was a sad awakening from the trust and implicit confidence of childhood; an awakening which perhaps comes to every thoughtful mind when its faith is brought into contact for the first time with the intellect of this world; an awakening which leads us either into the terrible region of doubt and uncertainty, or into faith, far firmer than ever before, because it is based not on mere childish impressions, but on the words and the being of the eternal God.
In this state of perplexity I went to my bedroom window and looked out. It was a bright, starlight night, so I put out my candle and sat by the window gazing into the sky at the countless multitude of stars. Who had made all these mighty worlds? Who was keeping them all in their places and making them fulfil the object for which they were created?
I knew who it was. My faith in the existence of an Almighty God remained unshaken. I could never look around on God's universe and doubt that God is.
And then, as I looked at the stars, other thoughts came -- thoughts of the majesty and wisdom and power of the God who had made all these, and thoughts of the smallness and insignificance of our own little world in comparison with the rest of God's great universe.
And I -- what was I?
I was just one of the beings which inhabited this tiny world; one of the smallest and least wise of all in God's universe. Who was I, that I should say to God, "Why doest Thou this?" Who was I, that I should presume to sit in judgment on anything in God's revelation?
"His wisdom is unsearchable, His ways past finding out," was the verse from the Psalms in my heart. I am like a little child -- how can I know God's plans? How can I expect to understand that which is understood fully only by God Himself?