CHAPTER XIII.
CONCERNING GUARDIAN ANGELS AND ITHURIEL'S SPEAR.
"Though many a year has o'er us roll'd Since life's bright morningtide, I'm dreaming still the dream of old We once dreamt side by side."
HELEN MARION BURNSIDE.
It had been a long, trying day to Waveney, and it was a great reliefwhen she found herself again in the Pansy Room. It was still early inthe evening; but as soon as the door had closed upon the girl Althearose from her chair.
"I have had a tiring afternoon, Dorrie," she said, in rather a wearyvoice. "A well-dressed crush always flattens me--so many smart bonnets,and so few brains! Somehow society always reminds me of a trifle, allsweetness and froth."
"Aren't you a little mixed, Althea?" returned her sister,good-humouredly. "There is froth certainly, but in my experience thereis plenty of richness and sweetness underneath, if you only dig deepenough."
"Oh, I daresay;" and then a droll idea came to Althea, and she laughedsoftly. "Don't you remember the gingerbread queens that we used to buywhen we were children at the Medhurst Fair, and how angry I was whensome one stripped the gilt off. I thought it was real gold--likeNebuchadnezzar's image. Well, some of those fine ladies reminded me ofthe gingerbread queens."
Doreen looked amused. "You are in a pessimistic mood, dear." Then sheput her hands on her sister's shoulders and scrutinised her face alittle anxiously.
"You are very tired. Are your eyes paining you, Althea?"
"No, dear, but I think I shall go to bed."
But when she had left the room Doreen did not at once resume her book."I wonder what is troubling her," she said to herself. "I know herexpression so well, and with all her little jokes, she is not at ease. Ihope that we have not made a grievous mistake in engaging Miss Ward--andyet she seems a nice little thing! But there is a look in Althea's eyesto-night as though she had seen a ghost. When one is no longer young theghosts will come;" and then Doreen sighed and took up her book.
Althea was very tired, but it was mental, not bodily fatigue, that hadbrought the dark shadows under her eyes. But it was not her habit tospare herself, or to shunt her duties.
So, instead of going straight to her room, she turned down the passagethat led to the two little chambers where their humbler guests slept,and sat for a few minutes beside Laura Cairns' bed. The girl sleptbadly, and Althea's sympathetic nature guessed intuitively how a fewcheering words would sweeten the long night; and she never missed herevening visit.
"It is better to lie awake in the country than in Tottenham CourtRoads," she said, presently. Then Laura smiled.
"Oh, yes, Miss Harford; it is so heavenly, the peace and silence. But atfirst it almost startled me. In London the cabs and carts are alwayspassing, and there seems no quiet at all; but here, one can lie andthink of the birds in their nests. And how good it is to be free frompain! Oh, I am so much better, and it is all owing to your kindness, andthis dear old place!" And here the girl's lips rested for a moment onthe kind hand that held hers. "But you will not leave me without mymessage, Miss Harford?"--for it was one of Althea's habits to give whatshe called "night thoughts" to the sick girls who came to the Red House.
Althea paused a moment. For once she had forgotten it. Then some wordsof Thomas a Kempis came to her, "Seek not much rest, but much patience,"and she repeated them softly. "Will that do, Laura?"
"Oh, yes--and thank you so much, Miss Harford. 'Not much rest, but muchpatience.' I must remember that."
"I must remember it, too," thought Althea; and then she went to theCubby-house to bid her old nurse good-night, and to have a little chatwith her.
Nurse Marks was loud in her praises of Waveney.
"I like her, Miss Althea, my dear," she said, eagerly. "She has prettymanners, and a good heart; dear, dear, just to think of it beingJonadab's young lady. He thinks a deal of her, does Jonadab. She will bea comfort to you, my dearie. But there, you are looking weary, my lamb,and Peachey will be waiting to brush your hair." And Althea was thankfulto be dismissed.
She sent Peachey away as soon as possible, and then sat down in an easychair by the window; her eyes were aching, but the darkness rested them.She was a good sleeper generally, but to-night she knew that no wooingof the drowsy god would avail her. Doreen was right, and the ghost ofthe past had suddenly started up in her path.
Althea's youth had been a very happy one, until the day when she andEverard Ward had gathered peaches together in the walled garden atKitlands, and then it had seemed to her as though they were the veryapples of Sodom--mere dust and ashes.
Everard had judged his own case far too leniently; he had been eager toclear himself from blame. "A young fellow has his fancies before hesettles down finally," he would say, in his careless way. "Oh, yes, youare right, Egerton. I was sweet on Althea Harford--there was somethingfascinating about her; she was rather fetching and picturesque--youknow what I mean. But Dorothy--well, it was love at first sight, thereal thing and no mistake. I wanted to ask her to marry me that veryfirst evening, only I could not do it, you know."
"I suppose not," returned his friend, dryly. "You are a cool hand,Everard, upon my word. I wonder what Miss Harford thought about it all.Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, but in my day we did not think it goodform to pay court to one girl and marry another." But this plainspeaking only offended Everard, probably because in his innerconsciousness he knew the older man had spoken the truth.
Through the sweet spring days and the glorious months of summer EverardWard had wooed the young heiress with the eager persistence that wasnatural to him. Althea's fascinating personality, her gentleness andbright intelligence, all dominated the young man, and for a time atleast he honestly believed himself in love with her. He was not fickleby nature, and if Dorothy Sinclair had not crossed his path, and playedRosalind to his Orlando, in the green glades of Kitlands Park, he wouldto a certainty have married Althea Harford.
Hearts do not break, they say; but when Althea walked down the terracesteps that day, with her basket of peaches on her arm, she knew that thegladness and sweetness of her young life had faded, and that, if herheart were not actually broken, it was only because her unselfishnessand sense of right forbade such wreckage.
"I shall live through it, Dorrie," she had said to her sister, in thoseearly days of misery, "and, God helping me, it shall not make me bitter;but it has robbed me of my youth. One cannot suffer in this way, andkeep young;" and she was right.
"If you could only hate him!" ejaculated Doreen. "In your circumstancesI know I should loathe and despise him." But Althea only shook her head.
"How could I hate him, when I have grown to love him with my wholeheart, when I have regarded myself as his." But here she stopped and hidher face in her hands, with a choking sob. "Oh, Dorrie, that is theworst of all, that I should have believed it, and that he never meantit; that he never really loved me."
"I think he was very fond of you, Althea," returned Doreen, eagerly."Mother was saying so only last night."
"Yes, he was fond of me. We were friends; but I was not his closest anddearest. Dorrie, we must never talk of this again, you and I; a woundlike this, so sore and deep, should be covered up and hidden. I musthide it even from myself. There is only one thing that I want to say,and then we will bury our dead. I cannot hate Everard--hatred is not inmy nature--and neither can I ever cease to love him. Oh, there is noneed for you to look so shocked"--as Doreen's face expressed strongdisapproval of this. "There will be no impropriety in the love I shallbear him. If I could I would be his guardian angel, and keep alltroubles from him." Then she sighed and put her hand gently on hersister's shoulder. "'Seek not much rest, but much patience;' that shallbe my New Year's motto. We will bury our dead." Those had been herwords, and for twenty years the grass had grown over that grave; andyet, on this September night, the ghost of her old love had haunted her,and the ache of the old pain had made itself felt.
Is there any grave deep enough to bury a woma
n's love? Althea Harfordwas nearly forty-one, and yet the memory of Everard Ward, with hisperfect face, and boyish, winning ways, his gay _insouciance_, andlight-hearted mirth, made her heart throb with quickened beats of pain.All these years--these weary years--she had never met any one likehim--never any one whom she could compare with him. People had oftentold her that he was not specially clever, that his talents were by nomeans of a first-class order; but she had never believed them. To herfond fancy he was the embodiment of every manly gift and beauty; evenDorothy, with all her love for her husband, would have marvelled atAlthea's infatuation.
And now Everard's daughter was under her roof, and the knowledge thatthis was so had driven the sleep from her eyes, and filled her with astrange restlessness. Waveney's smile, and the turn of her head, andsomething in her voice, recalled Everard. More than once that eveningshe had winced, as some familiar tone brought him too vividly beforeher.
Waveney's artless confidence had given her food for thought. She hadlong known the hard fight that Everard Ward was waging, in his attemptsto keep the wolf from the door. On more than one occasion her secretbeneficence had lightened his weight of care. If Everard had guessed whowas the real purchaser of some of his pictures, he would not havepocketed the money quite so happily; but Althea kept her own counsel.
"If I could only be his guardian angel!" she had said, in her girlishmisery; and no purer wish had ever been expressed by woman's lips; insome ways she had been Everard Ward's good angel all these years.
Still she had never realised the extent of his poverty until Waveney hadtold her about the purchase of "King Canute."
A friend of Mr. Ingram's wanted a historical picture, and it was sofortunate that he took a fancy to "King Canute!"--he had actually paidfive-and-twenty guineas, and they had paid off the disagreeable butcher;and now father would have the new great-coat that he wanted so badly.
Waveney had said all this with girlish frankness, as she and her newfriend had paced up and down the garden path in the September darkness;but Althea had made no answer. She only shivered a little, as though shewere cold; and a few minutes later she proposed to return to the house.
"It is a beautiful evening, but we must not forget that it isSeptember," she had observed. But her voice was a little strained.
No, she had never really realised until that moment how badly things hadgone with him; that mention of the great-coat had effectually opened hereyes. And then, as though to mock her, a little scene rose before her--acertain golden afternoon spent in an old studio at Chelsea, whereEverard Ward and a friend had established themselves.
How well she remembered it! and the balcony full of flowers overlookingthe river, with a gay awning overhead.
It was summer time, and she had put on a white gown in honour of theoccasion, and Everard had brought her a cluster of dark, velvety roses."They will give you the colour you need," he had said, looking at heradmiringly; what an ideal artist he had seemed to her in his brownvelveteen coat! The yellow sunshine seemed to make a halo round his fairhair.
"You look like a glorified angel, Ward," his friend had said,laughingly. "What do you say, Miss Harford--would he not do for Ithurielin my picture of Adam and Eve sleeping in Paradise, with the Evil Onewhispering in Eve's ear. Do you remember the passage:
'Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear touched lightly.'
Look here, old man, you must sit for me to-morrow." But Everard had onlygrumbled and looked bored.
In those days great-coats had certainly not been lacking. And as thisthought occurred to her, Althea had shivered and become silent.
About four-and-twenty hours later Mollie received the following letter,which she carried off to her bedroom and read over and over again. Shehad already had the note in which Waveney had described the Cubby-houseand her Pansy Room, and Mollie had certainly not expected another sosoon.
"MY OWN SWEETHEART.--Here I am actually writing to you again. But I knowwhat a long, weary day this has been, and how my sweet Moll has beenmissing me; and I said to myself, 'A letter by the last post will sendher to sleep happily, and make her think that we are not so far apart,after all!' Well, and how do you think I have been spending my first dayof servitude? Why, all by myself on the common; and if you had beenthere it would have been simply perfect; the common is such a beautifulplace, and it stretches away for miles. But you will be saying toyourself, 'Is this the way Miss Harford's reader performs her duties?'My dear child, I have not seen my Miss Harford to-day. At breakfasttime, Miss Doreen told me that her sister had had a bad night, and thatshe was suffering great pain in her eyes. 'It is so severe an attack,'she explained, 'that she cannot bear a vestige of light, and readingwould drive her distracted. Her maid Peachey is looking after her, andmost likely by evening the pain will have worn itself out.' And then sheadvised me to take a book out of the library and sit on the common, asshe would be absent the greater part of the day. It was rather abusiness choosing a book, but I took 'Ayala's Angel' at last, as itlooked amusing, and angels always remind me of my Mollie. There, is thatnot a pretty speech?
"The two little Yorkshire terriers accompanied me--Fuss and Fury--theyare such dear little fellows, and it was just lovely! There was a littlegreen nook, with a comfortable bench, a little way back from the road,and there I spent the morning. Miss Doreen was still at the House, so Ihad luncheon alone, and afterwards I went out in the garden. The twoshop-girls were there; they had hammock chairs under a tree. The tall,pale girl was working, and the other was reading to her. I stopped tospeak to them, and then I found a delightful seat in the kitchen garden.It was so warm and sunny that you would have thought it was August.Mitchell came to tell me when tea was ready, and now I am up in my PansyRoom, writing to you. There is a pillar box quite near, and when I havefinished it I shall slip out and post it." And then a few lovingmessages to her father and Noel closed the letter.