The Farringdons Read online

  CHAPTER II

  CHRISTOPHER

  And when perchance of all perfection You've seen an end, Your thoughts may turn in my direction To find a friend.

  There are two things which are absolutely necessary to the well-being ofthe normal feminine mind--namely, one romantic attachment and onecomfortable friendship. Elisabeth was perfectly normal and extremelyfeminine; and consequently she provided herself early with these twoaids to happiness.

  In those days the object of her romantic attachment was her cousin Anne.Anne Farringdon was one of those graceful, elegant women who appear somuch deeper than they really are. All her life she had been inspiringdevotion which she was utterly unable to fathom; and this was still thecase with regard to herself and her adoring little worshipper.

  People always wondered why Anne Farringdon had never married; andexplained the mystery to their own satisfaction by conjecturing that shehad had a disappointment in her youth, and had been incapable of lovingtwice. It never struck them--which was actually the case--that she hadbeen incapable of loving once; and that her single-blessedness was dueto no unforgotten love-story, but to the unromantic fact that among herscore of lovers she had never found a man for whom she seriously cared.In a delicate and ladylike fashion she had flirted outrageously in hertime; but she had always broken hearts so gently, and put away thepieces so daintily, that the owners of these hearts had never dreamed ofresenting the damage she had wrought. She had refused them with such aworld of pathos in her beautiful eyes--the Farringdon gray-blue eyes,with thick black brows and long black lashes--that the poor souls hadnever doubted her sympathy and comprehension; nor had they the slightestidea that she was totally ignorant of the depth of the love which shehad inspired, or the bitterness of the pain which she had caused.

  All the romance of Elisabeth's nature--and there was a great deal ofit--was lavished upon Anne Farringdon. If Anne smiled, Elisabeth's skywas cloudless; if Anne sighed, Elisabeth's sky grew gray. The mere soundof Anne's voice vibrated through the child's whole being; and everylittle trifle connected with her cousin became a sacred relic inElisabeth's eyes.

  Like every Methodist child, Elisabeth was well versed in her Bible; but,unlike most Methodist children, she regarded it more as a poetical thanan ethical work. When she was only twelve, the sixty-eighth Psalmthrilled her as with the sound of a trumpet; and she was completelycarried away by the glorious imagery of the Book of Isaiah, even whenshe did not in the least understand its meaning. But her favourite bookwas the Book of Ruth; for was not Ruth's devotion to Naomi the exactcounterpart of hers to Cousin Anne? And she used to make up long storiesin her own mind about how Cousin Anne should, by some means, lose allher friends and all her money, and be driven out of Sedgehill and awayfrom the Osierfield Works; and then how Elisabeth would say, "Entreat menot to leave thee," and would follow Cousin Anne to the ends of theearth.

  People sometimes smile at the adoration of a young girl for a woman, andthere is no doubt but that the feeling savours slightly of school-daysand bread-and-butter; but there is also no doubt that a girl who hasonce felt it has learned what real love is, and that is no small item inthe lesson-book of life.

  But Elisabeth had her comfortable friendship as well as her romanticattachment; and the partner in that friendship was Christopher Thornley,the nephew of Richard Smallwood.

  In the days of his youth, when his father was still manager of theOsierfield Works, Richard had a very pretty sister; but as EmilySmallwood was pretty, so was she also vain, and the strict atmosphere ofher home life did not recommend itself to her taste. After many quarrelswith her stern old father (her mother having died when she was a baby),Emily left home, and took a situation in London as governess, in thehouse of some wealthy people with no pretensions to religion. For thisher father never forgave her; he called it "consorting with children ofBelial." In time she wrote to tell Richard that she was going to bemarried, and that she wished to cut off entirely all communication withher old home. After that, Richard lost sight of her for many years; butsome time after his father's death he received a letter from Emily,begging him to come to her at once, as she was dying. He complied withher request, and found his once beautiful sister in great poverty in aLondon lodging-house. She told him that she had endured great sorrow,having lost her husband and her five eldest children. Her husband hadnever been unkind to her, she said, but he was one of the men who lackthe power either to make or to keep money; and when he found he wasforedoomed to failure in everything to which he turned his hand, he hadnot the spirit to continue the fight against Fate, but turned his faceto the wall and died. She had still one child left, a fair-haired boy ofabout two years old, called Christopher; to her brother's care sheconfided this boy, and then she also turned her face to the wall anddied.

  This happened a year or so before the Miss Farringdons adoptedElisabeth; so that when that young lady appeared upon the scene, andsubsequently grew up sufficiently to require a playfellow, she foundChristopher Thornley ready to hand. He lived with his bachelor uncle ina square red house on the east side of Sedgehill High Street, exactlyopposite to the Farringdons' lodge. It was one of those big, bald houseswith unblinking windows, that stare at you as if they had not anyeyebrows or eyelashes; and there was not even a strip of greenerybetween it and the High Street. So to prevent the passers-by fromlooking in and the occupants from looking out, the lower parts of thefront windows were covered with a sort of black crape mask, which puteven the sunbeams into half-mourning.

  Unlike Elisabeth, Christopher had a passion for righteousness and forhonour, but no power of artistic perception. His standard was whetherthings were right or wrong, honourable or dishonourable; hers waswhether they were beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant.Consequently the two moved along parallel lines; and she moved a greatdeal more quickly than he did. Christopher had deep convictions, but wasvery shy of expressing them; Elisabeth's convictions were notparticularly deep, but such as they were, all the world was welcome tothem as far as she was concerned.

  As the children grew older, one thing used much to puzzle and perplexChristopher. Elisabeth did not seem to care about being good nearly asmuch as he cared: he was always trying to do right, and she only triedwhen she thought about it; nevertheless, when she did give her attentionto the matter, she had much more comforting and beautiful thoughts thanhe had, which appeared rather hard. He was not yet old enough to knowthat this difference between them arose from no unequal division ofdivine favour, but was simply and solely a question of temperament. Butthough he did not understand, he did not complain; for he had beenbrought up under the shadow of the Osierfield Works, and in the fear andlove of the Farringdons; and Elisabeth, whatever her shortcomings, was aprincess of the blood.

  Christopher was a day-boy at the Grammar School at Silverhampton, a fineold town some three miles to the north of Sedgehill; and there and backhe walked every day, wet or fine, and there he learned to be a scholarand a gentleman, and sundry other important things.

  "Do you hear that noise?" said Elisabeth, one afternoon in the holidays,when she was twelve and Christopher fifteen; "that's Mrs. Bateson's pigbeing killed."

  "Hear it?--rather," replied Christopher, standing still in the wood tolisten.

  "Let's go and see it," Elisabeth suggested.

  Christopher looked shocked. "Well, you are a horrid girl! Nothing wouldinduce me to go, or to let you go either; but I'm surprised at yourbeing so horrid as to wish for such a thing."

  "It isn't really horridness," Elisabeth explained meekly; "it isinterest. I'm so frightfully interested in things; and I want to seeeverything, just to know what it looks like."

  "Well, I call it horrid. And, what's more, if you saw it, it would makeyou feel ill."

  "No; it wouldn't."

  "Then it ought to," said Christopher, who, with true masculine dulnessof perception, confounded weakness of nerve with tenderness of heart.

  Elisabeth sighed. "Nothing makes me feel ill," she replieda
pologetically; "not even an accident or an after-meeting."

  Christopher could not help indulging in a certain amount of enviousadmiration for an organism that could pass unmoved through such physicaland spiritual crises as these; but he was not going to let Elisabeth seethat he admired her. He considered it "unmanly" to admire girls.

  "Well, you are a rum little cove!" he said.

  "Of course, I don't want to go if you think it would be horrid of me;but I thought we might pretend it was the execution of Mary Queen ofScots, and find it most awfully exciting."

  "How you do go on about Mary Queen of Scots! Not long ago you werealways bothering about heathen goddesses, and now you have no thoughtfor anything but Mary."

  "Oh! but I'm still immensely interested in goddesses, Chris; and I dowish, when you are doing Latin and Greek at school, you'd find out whatcolour Pallas Athene's hair was. Couldn't you?"

  "No; I couldn't."

  "But you might ask one of the masters. They'd be sure to know."

  Christopher laughed the laugh of the scornful. "I say, you are a dufferto suppose that clever men like schoolmasters bother their heads aboutsuch rot as the colour of a woman's hair."

  "Of course, I know they wouldn't about a woman's," Elisabeth hastened tojustify herself; "but I thought perhaps they might about a goddess's."

  "It is the same thing. You've no idea what tremendously clever chapsschoolmasters are--much too clever to take any interest in girls' andwomen's concerns. Besides, they are too old for that, too--they aregenerally quite thirty."

  Elisabeth was silent for a moment; and Christopher whistled as he lookedacross the green valley to the sunset, without in the least knowing howbeautiful it was. But Elisabeth knew, for she possessed an innateknowledge of many things which he would have to learn by experience. Buteven she did not yet understand that because the sunset was beautifulshe felt a sudden hunger and thirst after righteousness.

  "Chris, do you think it is wicked of people to fall in love?" she askedsuddenly.

  "Not exactly wicked; more silly, I should say," replied Chrisgenerously.

  "Because if it is wicked, I shall give up reading tales about it." Thiswas a tremendous and unnatural sacrifice to principle on the part ofElisabeth.

  Christopher turned upon her sharply. "You don't read tales that MissFarringdon hasn't said you may read, do you?"

  "Yes; lots. But I never read tales that she has said I mustn't read."

  "You oughtn't to read any tale till you have asked her first if youmay."

  Elisabeth's face fell. "I never thought of doing such a thing as askingher first. Oh! Chris, you don't really think I ought to, do you? Becauseshe'd be sure to say no."

  "That is exactly why you ought to ask." Christopher's sense of honourwas one of his strong points.

  Then Elisabeth lost her temper. "That is you all over! You are the mosttiresome boy to have anything to do with! You are always bothering aboutthings being wrong, till you make them wrong. Now I hardly ever think ofit; but I can't go on doing things after you've said they are wrong,because that would be wrong of me, don't you see? And yet it wasn't abit wrong of me before I knew. I hate you!"

  "I say, Betty, I'm awfully sorry lo have riled you; but you asked me."

  "I didn't ask you whether I need ask Cousin Maria, stupid! You know Ididn't. I asked you whether it was wrong to fall in love, and then youwent and dragged Cousin Maria in. I wish I'd never asked you anything; Iwish I'd never spoken to you; I wish I'd got somebody else to play with,and then I'd never speak to you again as long as I live."

  Of course it was unwise of Christopher to condemn a weakness to whichElisabeth was prone, and to condone one to which she was not; but no manhas learned wisdom at fifteen, and but few at fifty.

  "You are the most disagreeable boy I have ever met, and I wish I couldthink of something to do to annoy you. I know what I'll do; I'll go bymyself and see Mrs. Bateson's pig, just to show you how I hate you."

  And Elisabeth flew off in the direction of Mrs. Bateson's cottage, withthe truly feminine intention of punishing the male being who had daredto disapprove of her, by making him disapprove of her still more. Herprogramme, however, was frustrated; for Mrs. Bateson herself intervenedbetween Elisabeth and her unholy desires, and entertained the latterwith a plate of delicious bread-and-dripping instead. Finally, thatyoung lady returned to her home in a more magnanimous frame of mind; andfell asleep that night wondering if the whole male sex were as stupid asthe particular specimen with which she had to do--a problem which haspuzzled older female brains than hers.

  But poor Christopher was very unhappy. It was agony to him when hisconscience pulled him one way and Elisabeth pulled him the other; andyet this form of torture was constantly occurring to him. He could notbear to do what he knew was wrong, and he could not bear to vexElisabeth; yet Elisabeth's wishes and his own ideas of right were by nomeans always synonymous. His only comfort was the knowledge that hissovereign's anger was, as a rule, short-lived, and that he himself wasindispensable to that sovereign's happiness. This was true; but he didnot then realize that it was in his office as admiring and sympathizingaudience, and not in his person as Christopher Thornley, that he wasnecessary to Elisabeth. A fuller revelation was vouchsafed to himlater.

  The next morning Elisabeth was herself again, and was quite ready toenjoy Christopher's society and to excuse his scruples. She knew thatself of hers when she said that she wished she had somebody else to playwith, in order that she might withdraw the light of her presence fromher offending henchman. To thus punish Christopher, until she had foundsome one to take his place, was a course of action which would not haveoccurred to her. Elisabeth's pride could never stand in the way of herpleasure; Christopher's, on the contrary, might. It was a remarkablefact that after Christopher had reproved Elisabeth for some fault--whichhappened neither infrequently nor unnecessarily--he was always repentantand she forgiving; yet nine times out of ten he had been in the rightand she in the wrong. But Elisabeth's was one of those exceptionallygenerous natures which can pardon the reproofs and condone the virtuesof their friends; and she bore no malice, even when Christopher had beenmore obviously right than usual. But she was already enough of a womanto adapt to her own requirements his penitence for right-doing; and onthis occasion she took advantage of his chastened demeanour to inducehim to assist her in erecting a new shrine to Athene in the wood--whichmeant that she gave all the directions and he did all the work.

  "You are doing it beautifully, Chris--you really are!" she exclaimedwith delight. "We shall be able to have a splendid sacrifice thisafternoon. I've got some feathers to offer up from the fowl cook isplucking; and they make a much better sacrifice than waste paper."

  "Why?"

  Christopher was too shy in those days to put the fact into words;nevertheless, the fact remained that Elisabeth interested himprofoundly. She was so original, so unexpected, that she was continuallyproviding him with fresh food for thought. Although he was cleverer atlessons than she was, she was by far the cleverer at play; and though hehad the finer character, hers was the stronger personality. It wasbecause Elisabeth was so much to him that he now and then worried hereasy-going conscience with his strictures; for, to do him justice, theboy was no prig, and would never have dreamed of preaching to anybodyexcept her. But it must be remembered that Christopher had never heardof such things as spiritual evolutions and streams of tendency: to himright or wrong meant heaven or hell--neither more nor less; and he wasoverpowered by a burning anxiety that Elisabeth should eventually go toheaven, partly for her own sake, and partly (since human love isstronger than dogmas and doctrines) because a heaven, uncheered by thepresence of Elisabeth, seemed a somewhat dreary place wherein to spendone's eternity.

  "Why do feathers make a better sacrifice than paper?" repeatedChristopher, Elisabeth being so much absorbed in his work that she hadnot answered his question.

  "Oh! because they smell; and it seems so much more like a realsacrifice, somehow, if it smells."


  "I see. What ideas you do get into your head!"

  But Elisabeth's volatile thoughts had flown off in another direction."You really have got awfully nice-coloured hair," she remarked, Chrishaving taken his cap off for the sake of coolness, as he was heatedwith his toil. "I do wish I had light hair like yours. Angels, andgoddesses, and princesses, and people of that kind always have goldenhair; but only bad fairies and cruel stepmothers have nasty dark hairlike me. I think it is horrid to have dark hair."

  "I don't: I like dark hair best; and I don't think yours is half bad."Christopher never overstated a case; but then one had the comfort ofknowing that he always meant what he said, and frequently a good dealmore.

  "Don't you really, Chris? I think it is hideous," replied Elisabeth,taking one of her elf-locks between her fingers and examining it as ifit were a sample of material; "it is like that ugly brown seaweed whichshows which way the wind blows--no, I mean that shows whether it isgoing to rain or not."

  "Never mind; I've seen lots of people with uglier hair than yours."Chris really could be of great consolation when he tried.

  "Aren't the trees lovely when they have got all their leaves off?" saidElisabeth, her thoughts wandering again. "I believe I like them betternow than I do in summer. Now they are like the things you wish for, andin the summer they are like the things you get; and the things you getare never half as nice as the things you wish for."

  This was too subtle for Christopher. "I like them best with the leaveson; but anyhow they are nicer to look at than the chimneys that we seefrom our house. You can't think how gloomy it is for your rooms to lookout on nothing but smoke and chimneys and furnaces. When you go to bedat night it's all red, and when you get up in the morning it's allblack."

  "I should like to live in a house like that. I love the smoke and thechimneys and the furnaces--they are all so big and strong and full oflife; and they make you think."

  "What on earth do they make you think about?"

  Elisabeth's gray eyes grew dreamy. "They make me think that the BlackCountry is a wilderness that we are all travelling through; and over itthere is always the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire bynight, to tell us which way to go. I make up tales to myself about thepeople in the wilderness; and how they watch the pillar, and how itkeeps them from idling in their work, or selling bad iron, or doinganything that is horrid or mean, because it is a sign to them that Godis with them, just as it used to be to the Children of Israel."

  Christopher looked up from his work. Here was the old problem: Elisabethdid not think about religion half as much as he did, and yet the helpfuland beautiful thoughts came to her and not to him. Still, it wascomforting to know that the smoke and the glare, which he had hated,could convey such a message; and he made up his mind not to hate themany more.

  "And then I pretend that the people come out of the wilderness and go tolive in the country over there," Elisabeth continued, pointing to thedistant hills; "and I make up lovely tales about that country, and allthe beautiful things there. That is what is so nice about hills: youalways think there are such wonderful places on the other side of them."

  For some minutes Christopher worked silently, and Elisabeth watched him.Then the latter said suddenly:

  "Isn't it funny that you never hate people in a morning, however muchyou may have hated them the night before?"

  "Don't you?" Rapid changes of sentiment were beyond Christopher'scomprehension. He was by no means a variable person.

  "Oh! no. Last night I hated you, and made up a story in my own mind thatanother really nice boy came to play with me instead of you. And I saidnice things to him, and horrid things to you; he and I played in thewood, and you had to do lessons all by yourself at school, and hadnobody to play with. But when I woke up this morning I didn't care aboutthe pretending boy any more, and I wanted you."

  Christopher looked pleased; but it was not his way to express hispleasure in words. "And so, I suppose, you came to look for me," hesaid.

  "Not the first thing. Somehow it always makes you like a person betterwhen you have hated them for a bit, so I liked you awfully when I wokethis morning and remembered you. When you really are fond of a person,you always want to do something to please them; so I went and toldCousin Maria that I'd read a lot of books in the library withoutthinking whether I ought to or not; but that now I wanted her to saywhat I might read and what I mightn't."

  This was a course of action that Christopher could thoroughly understandand appreciate. "Was she angry?" he asked.

  "Not a bit. That is the best of Cousin Maria--she never scolds youunless you really deserve it; and she is very sharp at finding outwhether you deserve it or not. She said that there were a lot of booksin the library that weren't suitable for a little girl to read; butthat it wasn't naughty of me to have read what I chose, since nobody hadtold me not to. And then she said it was good of me to have told her,for she should never have found it out if I hadn't."

  "And so it was," remarked Christopher approvingly.

  "No; it wasn't--and I told her it wasn't. I told her that the goodnesswas yours, because it was you that made me tell. I should never havethought of it by myself."

  "I say, you are a regular brick!"

  Elisabeth looked puzzled. "I don't see anything brickish in saying that;it was the truth. It was you that made me tell, you know; and it wasn'tfair for me to be praised for your goodness."

  "You really are awfully straight, for a girl," said Christopher, withadmiration; "you couldn't be straighter if you were a boy."

  This was high praise, and Elisabeth's pale little face glowed withdelight. She loved to be commended.

  "It was really very good of you to speak to Miss Farringdon about thebooks," continued Christopher; "for I know you'll hate having to askpermission before you read a tale."

  "I didn't do it out of goodness," said Elisabeth thoughtfully--"I did itto please you; and pleasing a person you are fond of isn't goodness. Iwonder if grown-up people get to be as fond of religion as they are ofone another. I expect they do; and then they do good things just for thesake of doing good."

  "Of course they do," replied Christopher, who was always at sea whenElisabeth became metaphysical.

  "I suppose," she continued seriously, "that if I were really good,religion ought to be the same to me as Cousin Anne."

  "The same as Cousin Anne! What do you mean?"

  "I mean that if I were really good, religion would give me the same sortof feelings as Cousin Anne does."

  "What sort of feelings?"

  "Oh! they are lovely feelings," Elisabeth answered--"too lovely toexplain. Everything is a treat if Cousin Anne is there. When she speaks,it's just like music trickling down your back; and when you do somethingthat you don't like to please her, you feel that you do like it."

  "Well, you are a rum little thing! I should think nobody ever thought ofall the queer things that you think of."

  "Oh! I expect everybody does," retorted Elisabeth, who was far toohealthy minded to consider herself peculiar. After another pause, sheinquired: "Do you like me, Chris?"

  "Rather! What a foolish question to ask!" Christopher replied, with ablush, for he was always shy of talking about his feelings; and the morehe felt the shyer he became.

  But Elisabeth was not shy, and had no sympathy with anybody who was."How much do you like me?" she continued.

  "A lot."

  "But I want to know exactly how much."

  "Then you can't. Nobody can tell how much they like anybody. You do asksilly questions!"

  "Yes; they can. I can tell how much I like everybody," Elisabethpersisted.

  "How?"

  "I have a sort of thermometer in my mind, just like the big thermometerin the hall; and I measure how much I like people by that."

  "How much do you like your Cousin Anne?" he asked.

  "Ninety-six degrees," replied Elisabeth promptly.

  "And your Cousin Maria?"

  "Sixty."

  "And Mrs. Bate
son?"

  "Fifty-four." Elisabeth always knew her own mind.

  "I say, how--how--how much do you like me?" asked Christopher, with somehesitation.

  "Sixty-two," answered Elisabeth, with no hesitation at all.

  And Christopher felt a funny, cold feeling round his loyal heart. Hegrew to know the feeling well in after years, and to wonder howElisabeth could understand so much and yet understand so little; but atpresent he was too young to understand himself.