What Necessity Knows by Lily Dougall (read aloud .TXT) 📖

suffering had been of his own making or hers. She was not now engaged in an exercise of repentance; compunction, if she felt it, came to her in a nervous tremor, a sob, a tear, not in intelligible thought. Her memory gave her pictures, and the rest was feeling--dumb, even within. She crouched upon the floor and leaned her head against the bedside. Dry, trembling sobs came at intervals, passing over her as if some outside force had shaken and left her again; and sometimes, in the quiet of the interval, her lips smiled, but the darkness was around. Then, at length, came tranquillity. Her imagination, which had been strained to work at the bidding of memory, in weariness released itself from hard reality, and in a waking dream, touched, no doubt, into greater vividness by hovering hands of Sleep, she found temporary rest. Dreams partake of reality in that that which is and that which might be, are combined in their semblance of life. Eliza saw the home she had so long hated and lived its life once more, but with this difference, that she, her new present self, was there, and into the old life she brought perforce what knowledge of the world's refinements she had gained in her year of freedom. The knowledge seemed to her much more important than it was, but such as it was, she saw it utilised in the log house, and the old way of life thereby changed, but changed the more because she, she the child Sissy, reigned there now as a queen. It was this idea of reigning, of power, that surely now made this dream--wild, impossible as she still felt it to be--pleasant. But, as she pondered, arranging small details as a stimulated imagination is wont to do, she became gradually conscious that if love were to reign long, the queen of love would be not only queen but slave, and, as by the inevitable action of a true balance, the slave of love would be a ruler too. This new conception, as it at first emerged, was not disagreeable. Her imagination worked on, mapping out days and months to her fascinated heart. Then Sleep came nearer, and turned the self-ordered dream into that which the dreamer mistook for reality. In that far-off home she saw all the bareness and roughness of the lonely life which, do what she would, she could not greatly alter; and there again Bates kissed her; she felt his touch in all its reality, and in her dream she measured the barrenness of the place against the knowledge that her love was his life.

The soul that lay dreaming in this way was the soul of a heavy-limbed, ungracious woman. She lay now on the floor in ungainly attitude, and all the things that were about her in the darkness were of that commonest type with which ignorance with limited resource has essayed to imitate some false ideal of finery, and produced such articles as furniture daubed with painted flowers, jute carpets, and gowns beflounced and gaudy. Yet this soul, shut off from the world now by the curtain of sleep, was spoken to by an angel who blended his own being into recollections of the day, and treated with her concerning the life that is worthy and the life that is vain.

Eliza awoke with a start. She raised herself up stiff and chilly. She looked back upon her dream, at first with confusion and then with contempt. She lit her lamp and the present was around her again.

"No, I will not go," she said to herself. The words had been conned in her fit of rudeness to Sophia Rexford that day, but now they had a wider meaning.

All sweet influences sent out from Heaven to plead with human hearts withdrew for the time, for--such an awful thing is life--we have power to repulse God.


CHAPTER XVI.

Robert Trenholme was still obliged to rest his sprained ankle, and was not yet going out, but an opportunity was afforded him of meeting his friendly neighbours, at least the feminine portion of them, in company, sooner than he anticipated.

The day before the college reassembled it happened that the sewing-circle connected with the church met at Mrs. Rexford's house. The weather was unusually warm for the season; the workers still preferred to sit out of doors, and the grass under the tree at the front of the house was their place of meeting. About a dozen were there, among whom Mrs. and Miss Bennett were conspicuous, when Mrs. Brown and her daughter drove up, a little belated, but full of an interesting project.

"Oh, Mrs. Rexford," they cried, "we have just thought of such a charming plan! Why not send our carriage on to the college, and beg Principal Trenholme to drive back here and sit an hour or two with us? It's so near that, now he is so much better, the motion cannot hurt him; this charming air and the change cannot fail to do him good, so confined as he has been, and we shall all work with the more zeal in his presence."

The plan was approved by all. If there were others there who, with Sophia Rexford, doubted whether greater zeal with the needle would be the result of this addition to their party, they made no objections. They could not but feel that it would be a good thing for the invalid's solitude to be thus broken in upon, for, for some reason or other, Trenholme had been in solitude lately; he had neither invited visitors nor embraced such opportunity as he had of driving out.

Trenholme answered this invitation in person. The motherly members of the party attended him at the carriage door when he drove up, and, with almost affectionate kindness, conducted his limping steps to a reclining chair that had been provided. His crutch, and a certain pensive pallor on his countenance, certainly added to his attractions. Even Sophia Rexford was almost humble in the attentions she offered him, and the other maidens were demonstrative. In spite of such protestations as he made, he was enthroned, as it were, in the most comfortable manner. Fur sleigh robes were spread on the grass for a carpet, and the best of them was used as a rug about his feet.

The majority of women are best pleased by the company of a man whom other men admire. Trenholme had never descended to being, even in leisure hours, a mere "ladies' man"; if he had been that he would not have had his present place in this company. Yet he was not bored by finding himself the only man among so many women; he knew most of these women, their faults and their worthiness, far too well not to be at ease with them, even if he had troubled to give a second thought to their largess of kindliness. He had responded to their unexpected call to meet them together because he had something to say to them, and he said it that afternoon in his own time and in his own way. Had he needed to borrow dignity to sustain their jubilant welcome, his purpose would have lent it to him, and, for the rest, all his heart was overshadowed and filled with the consciousness of Sophia Rexford's presence. He had not seen her since the night in which they had walked through midnight hours together. He could not touch her hand without feeling his own tremble. He did not look at her again.

It was a pretty scene. The women, on their carpet of faded ox and buffalo skins, were grouped on chairs and cushions. The foliage of the maple tree above them was turning pink and crimson, shedding a glow as of red curtains, and some of its leaves were already scattered upon the ragged grass or on the shelving verandah roof of the wooden farmhouse. The words that fell in small talk from the women were not unlike the colour of these fading leaves--useless, but lending softness to the hour.

"And _your_ sewing-party will quite bear the palm for this season, Mrs. Rexford, quite the palm; for no other has been honoured by the presence of the Principal."

It was Mrs. Bennett who spoke; her upright carriage, thin nose, and clear even voice, carried always the suggestion of mild but obstinate self-importance.

The birdlike little hostess, confused by the misapplied praise, remonstrated. "'Tis Mrs. Brown," cried she, "who bears the palm."

Here the younger ladies, to whom nature had kindly given the saving sense of humour, laughed a little--not too obviously--in concert with the man thus lauded.

Then they all fell to talking upon the latest news that Chellaston could afford, which was, that a gentleman, a minister from the south of Maine, had arrived, and by various explanations had identified the old preacher who had been called Cameron as his father. It seemed that the old man had long ago partially lost his wits--senses and brain having been impaired through an accident--but this son had always succeeded in keeping him in a quiet neighbourhood where his condition was understood, until, in the beginning of the previous winter, the poor wanderer had escaped the vigilance of his friends. It was partly on account of the false name which had been given him that they had failed to trace him until the circumstances of his tragic death were advertised.

"The son is culpable. Mad people should be shut up where they can do no mischief." About half the ladies present joined in this comment.

Mrs. Rexford looked round uneasily to see that her young daughter Winifred had not joined the party. Indiscreet usually, she was wonderfully tender in these days of Winifred.

"I am not sure that if he had been my father I would have shut him up." Trenholme spoke and sighed.

"If he had been my father," Sophia cried vehemently, "I would have gone with him from village to village and door to door; I would rather have begged my bread than kept him from preaching. I would have told the people he was a _little_ mad, but not much, and saner than any of _them_."

There was enough sympathy with Sophia's vivacity among her friends to make it easy to express herself naturally.

"What is one false opinion more or less?" she cried. "Do any of us imagine that _our_ opinions are just those held in heaven? This old man had all his treasure in heaven, and that is, after all, the best security that heart or mind will not go far astray."

The youngest Miss Brown was sitting on the fur rugs, not very far from Trenholme. She looked up at him, pretty herself in the prettiness of genuine admiration.

"It is such a pity that Miss Rexford is sitting just out of your sight. You would be lenient to the heresy if you could see how becoming it is to the heretic."

But Trenholme was not seen to look round. He was found to be saying that the son of the late preacher evidently held his father in reverence; it seemed that the old man had in his youth been a disciple and preacher under Miller, the founder of the Adventist sect; it was natural that, as his faculties failed, his mind should revert to the excitements of the former time.

Mrs. Bennett had already launched forth an answer to Sophia's enthusiasm. She continued, in spite of Trenholme's intervening remarks. "When I was a girl papa always warned us against talking on serious subjects. He thought we could not understand them."

"I think it was good advice," said Sophia with hardihood.

"Oh yes, naturally--papa being a dean--"

Trenholme