Books: Herb of Grace

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Elizabeth smiled happily when Dinah told her this.

"I am glad Dr. Hewlitt said that, Die. I do love to take care of
him; it is the only thing I can do for David now."

"Father," she said to him one day--for when they were alone she
always called him by that name--"I think you have still some work to
do before your rest time comes. You are getting better, are you
not?"

Then he looked at her with sad wistfulness.

"I think I am not worthy to go yet," he returned humbly. "I must do
my Master's work as long as He gives me strength to do it. Oh,
Elizabeth, they are all there--all but Theo and I--David's mother,
and Alice, and Magdalene, and our little Felicia, and now David has
joined them in that heavenly mansion."

"But you will go too, dear, when the Master says, 'Go up higher,'"
whispered Elizabeth.

Then the slow tears of age gathered in Mr. Carlyon's eyes. "Yes--
yes, I know it; but the flesh is weak, Elizabeth. Pray for me that I
may have patience;" and then he rested his gray head against her as
she knelt beside him, as though the burden of that sorrow were too
heavy for him to bear.

Malcolm was in the churchyard that sunshiny April day when they
buried David in the tranquil spot that he had chosen for his last
resting-place. Not only the people of Rotherwood, but friends from
Staplegrove and Earlsfield, and from the villages for miles round,
were gathered there--for the young clergyman had been much beloved.
Very near the newly-made grave was a tiny grassy mound where little
Kit lay; and at Malcolm's side stood a small, shabbily-dressed man,
with pale watery blue eyes and an air of extreme dejection,
nervously fumbling with the crape band on his hat. Malcolm had just
laid a little spray of violets and lilies of the valley on the
mound, as they waited for the funeral procession.

"She was fond of flowers, Caleb."

"Ay, that she was, sir," brightening up. "Kit loved everything that
was bright and pretty, bless her dear heart! I hope they'll give her
lots of flowers where she's gone, and that they will let her pick
them for herself. You mind her last words to me, Mr. Herrick--'Good-
bye, dad, I am a-going to be an angel, and I mean to be a real
splendid one,' and all the time her poor throat would hardly let her
speak."

"Poor little soul," murmured Malcolm compassionately; for Kit had
suffered greatly in her heroic childish fashion. "Hush, here they
come, Caleb."

Malcolm grew quite white when he saw Elizabeth looking like a widow
in her deep mourning and crape veil, leaning on Mr. Carlyon's arm.
She had chosen the two hymns that David's favourite choir-boys were
to sing--"For all the saints who from their labours rest," and "How
bright those glorious spirits shine." They were singing the last
when the breeze caught Elizabeth's veil and blew it aside, and he
had a glimpse of her face. The beauty of her expression--its patient
sadness, its calm faith--moved him strangely. "He is not here," it
seemed to say--"he has gone to a world where there are no more
sorrow and sighing, and God shall wipe away all tears." And then the
boys' voices rang sweetly through the churchyard:

"'Midst pastures green He'll lead His flock,
Where living streams appear;
And God the Lord from every eye
Shall wipe off every tear."

Malcolm lingered behind until the crowd had dispersed, and then he
and Caleb looked down at the flower-decked coffin. Loving hands had
lined the walls of the grave with grasses and spring flowers, Lent
lilies and blue hyacinths, until it looked like a green bower decked
with blossoms. Countless wreaths and crosses and rustic bunches of
flowers lay on the grass waiting until the grave was filled. Malcolm
looked at them all before he went back to town; but all that evening
the remembrance of Elizabeth's rapt, uplifted look remained with
him.

"She did not know I was there," he said to himself. But he was
wrong. The very next evening he had a note from Dinah.

"Elizabeth wants me to thank you," she wrote, "for your lovely
cross. She thought it so kind of you to be there with us. We both
saw you. Was it not all peaceful and beautiful? Next Thursday
Elizabeth is going to Stokeley with Mr. Carlyon. He is better, but
still very weak and ailing, and she dare not leave him to Theo. When
I am alone, will you come down for a night? it would be such a
comfort to talk to so kind a friend." And then when Malcolm read
this he made up his mind that he would go to the Wood House as soon
as Elizabeth had left for Stokeley.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

TANGLED THREADS

God has furnished us with constant occasions of bearing
one another's burdens. For there is no man living
without his failings, no man that is so happy as never
to give offence, no man without his load of trouble.

A loving heart is the great requirement.
--Teaching of Buddha.

Cedric had spent the Easter vacation with Malcolm at Cheyne Walk.
Malcolm had previously sounded Dinah before he gave the invitation,
and found that she fully appreciated the thoughtfulness that
prompted it. "It is so like your usual kindness, dear friend," she
wrote. "You felt, as we do, that the Wood House would be too quiet
and dull just now for Cedric. It is so much better for him to be
with you. Indeed, I shall not mind being alone; and when Cedric goes
back to Oxford you will run down to see me as you promised."

Malcolm was relieved to find a great improvement in Cedric. Though
his love-affair had ended so disastrously, he had achieved his pet
ambition, and had been in the winning boat in the Oxford and
Cambridge boat-race. The excitement and months of training had done
him good morally and physically, and though he was still depressed
and melancholy, and had by no means forgotten Leah, he showed
greater manliness and self-control, and Malcolm's influence was
again in the ascendant.

Malcolm took him to Queen's Gate and introduced him to his mother
and Anna. He had previously acquainted his mother with the story of
his unfortunate infatuation for Leah Jacobi. To his surprise she was
deeply interested, and begged to be allowed to tell Anna.

"Anna cares so much more for unhappy people," she said. "You will
see how kind she will be to the poor fellow."

In her way Mrs. Herrick was kind too. Malcolm, who knew young men
were seldom welcome at 27 Queen's Gate, was secretly amazed at the
graciousness with which Cedric was received.

Mrs. Herrick's stoicism was not proof against the lad's handsome
face and deep melancholy. Her manner softened and grew quite
motherly; and as for Anna, Malcolm took her to task at last, when he
found that Cedric was in the habit of going over to Queen's Gate at
all hours in the day.

Anna thought Malcolm was serious, and flushed up in quite a
distressed manner at his bantering tone.

"Mother asked him," she said, defending herself quite anxiously. "It
is so dull for him at Cheyne Walk while you are in town, and so
mother said he could come here to luncheon whenever he liked."

"That was kind of her," returned Malcolm; "but as for dulness, there
is not a more jovial old fellow than Goliath of Gath. He and Verity
would look after him right enough during my absence. Cedric used to
be quite chummy with them when he was with me before."

"Yes, I know, dear, but Mr. Templeton says things are so different
this time. He likes the Kestons tremendously, but somehow he says he
does not feel up to the studio life. I know what he means, Malcolm,"
rather shyly--"when one is unhappy one must choose one's own
companions."

"And so Cedric prefers being here, and talking to you about his
troubles." Perhaps Malcolm's tone was slightly mischievous, for Anna
blushed violently.

"Oh, Malcolm, surely you understand," she returned nervously. "Don't
you see, Mr. Templeton knows we are sorry for him, and he is
grateful for our sympathy, and he likes to come and talk to us. He
made me feel quite bad yesterday. I could hardly sleep for thinking
of all he went through, and thinking of the death of that poor Mr.
Carlyon. He does seem so sorry for his sister, though he declares
that he never thought him good enough for her. That is how people
talk," went on Anna, frowning thoughtfully over her words; "they
will judge by outward appearance, as though anything matters when
two people love each other. Mr. Templeton has been talking so much
about his sister Elizabeth that he quite makes me long to see her,
but all the same he seems to care most for his elder sister."

"I believe he does," returned Malcolm; "but then she has taken the
place of a mother to him. Anna, dear, I was only in jest. I am
really very grateful to you and my mother for making Cedric so happy
and at home. I do quite understand, and I believe the society of two
such good women will do much for him. Like the rest of us, he has
found out that you are a friend born for adversity--a veritable
daughter of consolation," and Malcolm's words made Anna very happy.

When Cedric returned to Oxford for his last term, Malcolm paid his
promised visit to the Wood House; but he only stayed two nights. The
place was too full of painful associations. Elizabeth's presence
haunted every room, the emptiness and desolation of the house
oppressed him like a nightmare, and though Dinah's gentleness and
tact made things more bearable during the day, at night he found
himself unable to sleep; and Dinah, who read his weary look aright,
forbore to press him to remain. "It is not good for him to be here,"
she said to herself; "he is so kind and unselfish that he will not
spare himself, but I will not ask him to come again," and Dinah kept
her word.

But they had much to discuss during those two days. There was now no
longer any talk of the Civil Service Examination for Cedric. At the
end of June he was to go abroad for six or eight months. A friend of
Malcolm's, a young barrister, who had also been crossed in love--a
sensible, straightforward fellow--was to accompany him. "He is sure
to like Dunlop," Malcolm observed, as he and Dinah paced the terrace
together in the sweet spring sunshine. "Charlie is a good-hearted
fellow, and one of the best companions I know, though he is a bit
down in the mouth just now, poor old chap."

"I think you said the lady jilted him?" asked Dinah sympathetically.

"Yes, and he is well rid of her, if we could only get him to believe
that. She was a handsome girl--I saw her once--but she came across
an American millionaire, and sent Charlie about his business. Oh, he
will get over it fast enough," as Dinah looked quite sorrowful;
"when a woman does that sort of thing, she just kills a man's love.
Of course he must suffer a bit--his pride is hurt as well as his
heart--but in two or three years he will fall in love again, and
will live happy ever after."

"Oh, how I hope Cedric will care for some nice girl by-and-bye,"
exclaimed Dinah earnestly; but Malcolm only smiled.

"You need have no doubt of that, my dear lady," he returned; "but
you must give him time to be off with the old love. That is why I am
so anxious that he and Miss Jacobi should not meet. You tell me that
she and Mrs. Richardson return to Sandy Hollow early in June?"

"Yes; Mrs. Godfrey told us that."

"Then the sooner he is out of England the better. In London one is
never sure of not coming across people." And then he rapidly
sketched out the details of the proposed trip, which was to include
Germany, Switzerland, the Austrian Tyrol, the Italian Lakes, and
probably Greece and Constantinople. Cedric had a great desire to
visit the Crimea and the shores of the Bosphorus, and to see
something of Eastern life. In all probability Christmas and the New
Year would be spent in Cairo. "We had better leave Dunlop to work
out details," continued Malcolm, "as money or time seem no object.
You may as well give them a long tether. Change of scene will do
Cedric a world of good, and when he is tired of wandering he will
settle down more happily. Very likely by that time he will have some
idea of what he wants to do;" and Malcolm's sound common-sense
carried the day.

Dinah spoke very little of her sister. She was well, she said in
answer to Malcolm's inquiries--Elizabeth was so strong that her
health rarely suffered; but she was grieving sorely for David. "Mr.
Carlyon is better," she continued. "Elizabeth is the greatest
comfort to him. She goes with him when he visits the sick, and sits
beside him when he writes his sermons. Indeed, Theo says they are
never apart. Theo is very much softened and subdued by her brother's
death," went on Dinah. "I think Elizabeth's influence and example
will do good there. I believe that, with all her faults, Theo
Carlyon is really a good-hearted woman."

Malcolm paid a flying visit to Oxford soon after he got back to
town--somehow movement seemed necessary to him in those weary,
restless days--and he took Mr. Dunlop with him, and had the
satisfaction of seeing that Cedric appeared to like him at once.

"He does not seem to stand on tiptoe and look over a fellow's head,
don't you know," observed Cedric. "He meets one on equal terms,
though he is ten years older. He is a chip of your block, Herrick,
and I expect he is a good fellow too"--and all this speech did
Malcolm retail to Dinah in his next letter.

Cedric spent three or four days at Cheyne Walk before he started for
the Continent, and again most of his time was devoted to his friends
at 27 Queen's Gate.

Malcolm was secretly glad that he was in such safe hands, for, as
the time of Cedric's departure drew near, he could not divest
himself of an uneasy fear that all their precautions might be
unavailing, and that, when they least expected it, he and Leah
Jacobi would come face to face. He knew that she and her new friend
Mrs. Richardson were now settled at Sandy Hollow for the summer, and
that Mrs. Richardson came frequently to town for sight-seeing or
shopping expeditions.

Malcolm little knew what good reason he had for his fears.

On Cedric's last day in Cheyne Walk, Mrs. Herrick proposed that he
should drive with her and Anna to Pall Mall to see some pictures
that were being exhibited. She would leave them at the gallery for
an hour, and call for them when she had done her shopping. Malcolm
had promised to be there at the same time, and they would all go
back together to Queen's Gate for the remainder of the day. It so
happened that Mrs. Richardson had planned one of her favourite
shopping expeditions for the same day, and in the course of the
afternoon the hansom she had chartered drew up at a shop exactly
opposite the gallery, where at that very moment Anna, Cedric, and
Malcolm were coming down the staircase to join Mrs. Herrick, who was
waiting for them in her carriage.

Leah, who had not recovered her normal strength since her attack of
influenza, was excessively tried by all the noise and bustle of the
West End, and begged to remain in the hansom while Mrs. Richardson
finished her purchases. When Mrs. Richardson came out of the shop a
quarter of an hour later, the handsome carriage with its pair of bay
horses had driven off, and Leah was leaning back in the hansom
looking white as death, with a pained, startled expression in her
beautiful eyes.

Mrs. Richardson told the man to drive to the station. Then she took
the girl's hand kindly. "What is it, my dear?" she said in a
motherly voice. "Are you ill, or has something frightened you?" but
it was long before Leah could gasp out her explanation.

"She had seen him, and he looked quite bright and happy, and he was
talking to a fair haired-girl with a sweet face, and Mr. Herrick was
with them;" but poor Leah could say no more, for the jealous pain
seemed to choke her. That was the way he had smiled at her, and now
she was forgotten, and this other girl had taken her place!

Mrs. Richardson, with all her eccentricities, had a warm, true
heart, and she was very patient and tender with the poor girl.

But late that night, as she sat in her dressing-room, there was a
timid knock at her door, and Leah entered in her white wrapper, with
all her glorious dark hair streaming over her shoulders; but her
eyes were swollen with weeping.

"I felt I must come and speak to you or I could not sleep!" she
exclaimed in her deep voice; and kneeling down by her friend--"Oh, I
have been so wicked! but I will try to be good now."

"Tell me all about it, dearie," returned Mrs. Richardson in her
kind, comforting voice; and she drew the dark head to her shoulder,
and a sort of wonder filled her eyes as she saw the glossy lengths
of hair that swept the floor.

To an onlooker Mrs. Richardson might have seemed a somewhat
grotesque figure in her quilted magenta silk dressing-gown, with her
gray fringe pinned up by her maid in little twists and rolls, but
her honest eyes beamed with kindness and sympathy.

"Oh, I have been so wicked!" repeated Leah. "All these months I have
been praying that he might not suffer as I have been suffering, and
that in time he might forget me and be happy; and yet, because my
prayer has been answered, and that girl is helping him to forget, I
felt as though I hated her;" and then she hid her face in the folds
of the gaudy dressing-gown and shed tears of bitter shame and self-
loathing.

"My dear, if you cry so you will make yourself ill," observed Mrs.
Richardson soothingly. "You have been sorely tried, you poor child,
but you are not wicked; on the contrary, I think few girls have
behaved so well. Do not call yourself names, dearie; Mrs. Godfrey
and I both think you good, and we mean to do our best to make you
happy."

"Yes, and I am so grateful to you both, you dear, dear friends," and
Leah raised her tear-stained face and kissed her with all the warmth
of her loving nature. What was it to her that Mrs. Richardson was an
odd-looking, eccentric old lady, whose curled gray fringe and gay
attire scarcely harmonised with her homely, weather-beaten features;
to Leah her face was transfigured by the loveliness of a kind and
tender nature. "I think I saw her as the angels did," she said long
years afterwards to one who had served for her as Jacob did for his
beloved Rachel; "for I loved every line of her dear homely face. Oh,
how she mothered me, who had never known mother love, and how good
and patient she was with me in my bad times! If God had not taken
her, I could never have left her--never!" For when Mrs. Richardson
died some years later, her hand was locked in that of her adopted
daughter.

Leah drooped for some time after this encounter. Then, as the summer
went on, she recovered her spirits gradually; new duties and
interests demanded her attention, and in the wholesome and active
life led by the mistress of Sandy Hollow she found plenty to
distract her sad thoughts.

Mrs. Richardson was a great gardener, and on warm days she spent
most of her time in the open air; they breakfasted under a spreading
chestnut, and often dined in foreign fashion on the terrace facing
the sunset.

When Malcolm went down to the Manor House in August before he
started for Norway, he walked across to Sandy Hollow with Mrs.
Godfrey. They found Mrs. Richardson sitting in a shady retreat, with
all her various pets round her. Leah was gathering flowers in the
lower garden, she said. She received Malcolm very kindly, for he was
one of her favourites, and talked to him a great deal about the
girl--of her sweet temper, her docility, and her patience.

"She has heard nothing of that wretched brother of hers," she
continued. Then Malcolm shrugged his shoulders; he could give her
information on that subject, he said drily--at least a score of
begging letters had reached him and Cedric from New York, and had
been consigned to the flames. Saul Jacobi was evidently playing his
old tricks and living on his wits; he was utterly irredeemable. Hugh
Rossiter always prophesied that he would never die in his bed; and
this prediction was unfortunately verified some three years later,
when, in a drunken brawl, a tipsy sailor lurched up against him one
dark night and pushed him over the quay. No one heard his cry for
help for the oaths and curses that were filling the air; neither was
his body found until the next day. Strange to say, it was Hugh
Rossiter who identified it; and it was he who later on brought Leah
a pathetic little proof that Saul had not wholly forgotten his
sister.

In the pocket of his shabby old coat--how shabby and how ragged it
was Hugh never ventured to tell her--there was a cheap little photo
of Leah, taken when she was eighteen, and in the first bloom of her
young beauty; and on the soiled envelope was written, "My little
sister Leah," and the date of her birth. For no nature is wholly
evil and irreclaimable, and perhaps, in spite of his tyranny and
cruel tempers, there was a spark of affection in the man's heart for
the young sister dependent on him. Leah always believed this, and
she wept the saddest, tenderest tears over the little photo. "My
poor Saul," she said, "his nature was strangely warped, and he did
not know how to speak the truth, and he could be hard and cruel--as
I know to my cost--but there were times when he was very good to
me;" and so even Saul Jacobi had one human being to mourn for him.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE NEW CURATE-IN-CHARGE

While I? I sat alone and watched;
My lot in life, to live alone
In my own world of interests,
Much felt but little shown.

Yet sometimes, when I feel my strength
Most weak, and life most burdensome,
I lift mine eyes up to the hills,
From whence my help shall come.
--CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Malcolm sat for some time talking to the two ladies; then he made
an excuse and set off in search of Leah. He was well acquainted with
the grounds of Sandy Hollow, and could have found his way
blindfolded to the lower garden.

It was a quaint old plaisance shut in with high walls, which were
covered with fruit trees, where downy peaches, and nectarines, and
golden apricots, and big yellow plums nestled their sun-kissed
cheeks against the warm red bricks. In the oddly-shaped beds all
manner of sweet growing things seemed to jostle each other--not
forming stately rows, or ordered phalanx, or even gay-patterned
borders after the fashion of modern flower-beds, but growing
together in the loveliest confusion--peonies and nasturtiums, sweet-
peas and salvias; and everywhere crowds of roses--over arches,
climbing up walls, hanging in festoons over the gateway, long rows
of Standards guarding the path like an army of beauteous Amazons;
while all day long the heavy brown bees hummed round them, and
filled their honey-bags with rifled sweets.

There was a small green bench placed invitingly in a shady corner,
where Leah had seated herself to rest after her labours. Malcolm
thought that her figure gave the finishing touch to the picture. She
wore a white dress and a large shady hat, and a basket of Marshal
Niel roses was in her lap; but when she caught sight of the visitor
she rose so hastily that the basket was upset and the roses strewed
the ground at her feet. Malcolm felt concerned when he saw how pale
she had grown, and how she was trembling from head to foot, but he
thought it better to take no notice and to give her time to recover
herself.

"Have I startled you?" he said lightly. "Let me pick up your roses
for you. May I have this bud for myself?" showing her his spoil.
Then, when the basket was full again, he sat down beside her; but it
was Leah who broke the silence. She had not regained her colour, and
her voice still trembled a little.

"I did not know you were in the neighbourhood," she faltered, "and
it startled me so to see you at the gate. I have not been strong
since the influenza, and even a little thing like that brings on
palpitation; but you must not think that I am not glad to see you."

"Thank you," returned Malcolm in a pleasant, friendly voice. "I only
arrived at the Manor House last evening, so you see I have lost no
time in coming over to Sandy Hollow. I wanted to see for myself how
you were. You are rather too thin and unsubstantial-looking, Miss
Jacobi;" but all the time he was saying to himself that he had never
seen her look more lovely.

"What does it matter how one looks?" she returned indifferently.
"You are thinner too, Mr. Herrick; but then you work so hard. Do you
know"--and here her voice changed--"that I saw you a few weeks ago.
You did not see me, and I could not speak; you were with some
friends." Leah's manner was so significant and pregnant with meaning
that Malcolm gazed at her inquiringly.

"I do not remember; I have so many friends," he observed in a
puzzled tone.

"You had been to see those French pictures in the new gallery," she
returned, "and a lady was waiting for you in her carriage." Then a
sudden light broke in upon Malcolm.

"It must have been my mother!" he exclaimed, and then he stopped a
little awkwardly, for of course he remembered now; but she finished
his sentence quite calmly.

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