CHAPTER II

An Old Friend

I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me. _Macbeth._

BETTY stood on a green lawn surrounded by a tangled belt of shrubs and trees. It was a fresh bright spring morning. Blackbirds and thrushes were lifting up their sweet voices in song; the scent of primroses and other spring flowers was in the air, which had that intoxicating life-giving effect that a bright May morning only can give.

Betty glanced at the old vicarage which for the time had become her home. It was a low long grey stone building with casement windows and thatched roof. The walls were covered with creepers—jasmine and clematis, roses and wisteria, vied with one another in clustering round the windows; low beds of daffodils and narcissus edged the gravel walk. The lilacs and laburnums lightened a somewhat dark shrubbery. Between the sprouting chestnuts and elms at the end of the drive peeped the old church tower. Betty glanced at one window darkened by closed shutters. It was only nine o'clock. Her mother was not up. Molly and she had had an early breakfast, and Molly was now making acquaintance with store cupboards and pantries. For the next hour or two she was free; for who would stay indoors to watch their maids unpacking, when the young world outside was so entrancing? Not Betty. She danced over the lawn and down the drive with a song on her lips and in her heart.

"Oh, it is lovely! Lovely! And this is only the beginning of it!"

They had arrived the night before. It had not taken long to formulate their plans and carry them out. And, strangely enough, a vicarage had been found in the very place that Betty had proposed visiting again. The vicar had a delicate wife, and had taken her abroad, leaving his parish to the care of his curate, who lodged in the very farmhouse that the little Stuarts had visited when children.

Betty opened the little wicket-gate that led into the churchyard, pausing as a flood of memories came rushing uppermost. How little changed it was! Perhaps smaller than she remembered it, and more crowded with green graves; the rooks on the top of the old elms did not seem quite so near to heaven as they did in days gone by. When she opened the heavy oak door, and found herself inside the darkened church, it seemed a little dustier and stuffier than it used to be. But when she made her way with soft footsteps up the aisle and saw again the monument of little Violet Russell, it did not disappoint her. The pure, sweet outline of the small figure was all that could be desired, and though the afternoon sun was not streaming through the stained window above, the light seemed to gather round the beautiful bit of sculpture, and make it stand out conspicuously in its dusky surroundings.

Memory took Betty back to when she had her first vision of it, and she smiled when she thought of how much it had meant to her. She looked up at the window, and at the group of little children clustering round their Saviour's knee. A shadow passed over her sensitive face.

"I almost wish I were a child again," she said. "I was so sure then of His love."

She turned and made her way to the organ, that organ which under the influence of Nesta Fairfax's fingers had sent away a little child sobbing her heart out with unexpressed longing. To her delight she found it unlocked.

"Oh, I wish I could get a blower! I will try. I must see if I can make it sound as it used to do in my ears."

She left the church hastily, and entered the nearest cottage. A fresh-faced young woman was cleaning up her kitchen.

"A blower, miss?" she said in reply to Betty's request. "I hardly know if there's any one free. The boys and girls be to school, the lads at work. The schoolmaster plays on a Sunday, and his eldest boy do blow for him."

"Is there no old man?" asked Betty. "Is the old sexton still alive? I used to know him when I was a child."

"Bless ye, miss, old Reuben be dead this ten year. 'Tis John Smith be the sexton now, an' he be one of Farmer Gadd's hands at present. Wonder now if Mat Lubbock might oblige ye? He be quite blind from a blasting mishap, and he be a strong fellow too. He works at baskets and such like; but there be not much call for 'em, and he idles away most o' his days. He be just comin' down the road, miss. Would you like to put it to him?"

Betty stepped out into the road, and met the man described. He was a fine, strong-looking fellow, with a powerful face, but an unpleasant smile came to his lips when Betty made her request.

"Church be not much in my line, mum. It and I be as far as east from west. 'Tis all rotted foolery; an' I don't care who hears me say it!"

The fierceness with which he uttered the last sentence startled Betty. For a moment she felt inclined to give it up; then her beloved music conquered.

"I should be so grateful if you could oblige me this once," she said sweetly. "I will not keep you long."

Mat tapped his stick impatiently on the road. Then he said, in a surly tone,—

"If you be put about this mornin' for some 'un, I'll oblige ye, but never agen!"

"Thank you!" said Betty with delight. "Can you follow me? Do you know the way?"

"I should be a born fool if I didn't," was the gruff retort. "I were bell-ringer for eight year or more."

"That was before your accident?"

"You're right there! Not likely I'd give a helpin' hand after! I'd cut the cursed bells wi' pleasure if I could. Don't know which be worst, the parson's clapper or theirn! I go two mile every Sunday to get out o' hearin' o' them!"

Betty could think of nothing to say to this character. She judged that it was his trouble that had made him bitter. He followed her into church without another word, groped his way up to the organ, and began to blow with dogged energy.

Betty was soon lost in her music. She was delighted with the full sweet tone of the instrument, and woke up with a start at last, to find that she had been playing nearly an hour.

She apologised to her blower; but he cut her short, and tramped out of the church muttering as he did so,—

"I'll never do it agen!"

And Betty sauntered back to the house, a happy light shining in her eyes. She stood for a moment gazing again at the green meadows and woods in the distance, and then at the fresh foliage around her. Then her gaze went upwards to the blue sky above.

"It is 'so' beautiful!" she murmured. "I shall never feel discontented here."

Mrs. Stuart adapted herself with great ease to her quiet surroundings. She would lie on the couch in the vicarage drawing-room by the open window, with her books and correspondence by her side. Sometimes she would take a short walk round the old-fashioned garden leaning on Molly's arm. In the evenings after dinner the girls would play and sing to her, or read aloud from the current periodicals of the day. A few days after their arrival the curate called. He was a thin, nervously strung man of scholarly tastes. Mrs. Stuart found him a ready and appreciative listener; and he was fascinated and charmed by the society of a well-read, cultured woman. They gradually dropped into discursive arguments, which wearied and bored Molly, but which interested Betty. She would sit in the recess of the farthest window, and listen eagerly to the conversation.

One evening they were talking about the laws of compensation.

"I believe our joys and sorrows are pretty equally divided," said Mr. Benson. "I grant you that some appear to suffer more than others, but if their life—the inner one as well as the outer one—were to be mapped out before us, we should see they had their enjoyments in proportion. Those who have the greatest capacity for trouble have also the greatest capacity for joy. The deepest natures feel the most."

Mrs. Stuart shook her head.

"You do not see the pathos and tragedy of life in these small country villages. Your country people live in a placid happy groove. It is the starving panting struggling population of our big towns that experience the full burden and toil of life. I have cases before me of two generations reared and bred in dogged sullen misery, Ishmaels—every one's hand raised against them; hopelessness and helplessness written on the features of the tiny children, hatred of all, and bitterness against their fate, on the features of their elders."

"I have only been curate here for five years, and yet in this tiny village alone, amongst those who appear to you to live in a placid happy groove, I have buried three who literally died of broken hearts. I could count five on my fingers who carry about with them a load too heavy to speak about; and there is not a single family which has been exempt from trouble in some shape or form.

"One poor man I have on my heart at present. He was our village Hercules—as handsome a fellow as you could wish to see. He married the sweetest girl in the neighbourhood, and had a baby boy he worshipped. He was a mason, and in superintending some blasting operations one day was blinded in an explosion. His wife, in bad health at the time, received such a shock when he was carried home to her that she died within twenty-four hours from the effects of it. When he recovered his health, he devoted himself more than ever to his boy.

"One day he took him down to the river with him. The child fell in, and though the father dashed after him, he failed to rescue him, owing to his blindness. He used to be one of our bell-ringers, and a regular communicant, now I cannot get him to enter the church. He cannot see the mercy of God in his affliction. It has embittered and spoiled his life."

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Stuart. "His is a sad case. I see you believe that trouble is equally distributed."

"And joys also," Mr. Benson said, a light coming over his face.

But Betty listened no more. She slipped out of the room with unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

"Oh, poor man!" she repeated. "Poor man! How I wish I could comfort him! How I should love to be somebody's comforter! But I feel it must be the most difficult thing in the world to do. Sympathy isn't comfort, though a good many people think it is. If you cannot alter the facts of trouble—the cause of it, I suppose I mean—you cannot comfort."

Betty's heart seemed weighed down by another's sorrow as she walked in the evening sunshine along the garden paths. Life was full of perplexities to her at present. Shadows were continually crossing her sensitive little soul, but they only served to make the sunshine brighter when it came.

The next day was Sunday. Molly and she went to church together, and their fair fresh young faces attracted much attention amongst the village congregation. Betty enjoyed everything—the music, the service, the sermon, and her surroundings. There was an open window close to her, and a blackbird sang with his whole heart from a lilac-bush outside. The song and the scent of the lilac sent a throb of joy through her. If, as Molly expressed it, little things upset her, little things also delighted her, and she came out of church in radiant spirits.

At the gate Molly stopped to give a message to Mr. Benson from her mother.

Betty went out into the green lane, and began picking some budding hawthorn from the hedge. Hearing steps behind her, she looked up, and confronted a tall, grey-haired man. The colour rushed into her cheeks; though it was many years since she had seen him, his face was engraved on her memory. Impulsively she put out her hand.

"I am sure you must be Mr. Russell."

For an instant he looked astonished, as he raised his hat.

"Ah," said Betty, with a little droop in her smiling lips, "I have been forgotten. You do not remember me. I saw you in London the year after we were at the farm, and that must be quite fourteen years ago."

A light came into Mr. Russell's eyes.

"Surely you cannot be little Betty Stuart? And yet you must be. Your eyes have not changed."

He was shaking her warmly by the hand, and enquired how she came to that part again.

Betty told him briefly. He listened to her rather dreamily.

"Fourteen years seem such a little bit of my life," he said. "But it is such a big piece in yours. It seems only the other day that my sweet little child friend was here, stealing into the life of an embittered man, and softening and charming him by her quaint earnestness of sympathy and purpose. Now she is no more. She is dead and gone. A fragrant memory is all that is left me."

Betty felt rather embarrassed.

"You only liked the child," she said, somewhat wistfully; "I cannot count upon your friendship now?"

He looked at her, and a smile came to his lips.

"My mind must be readjusted," he said. "But you are a fashionable young lady now. My Betty was always in cotton frocks and sun-bonnets. It will take time for the two to merge into one."

Betty laughed merrily. Then, in her most winning way, she laid her hand on his arm.

"I am your little friend still, if you will have me; and though I have grown, I really do not feel so very different from what I did when I was here before."

"'The little odd one,'" said Mr. Russell musingly, as he looked her up and down.

"And I feel 'odd' still," asserted Betty stoutly. "Quite 'odd' enough to be very disappointed that one of my old friends is looking at me so disapprovingly."

Mr. Russell smiled again.

"You are fast stealing your way back into that old man's preserves. Is your mother well enough to receive visitors? May I come and renew my very slight acquaintance with her?"

"I am sure she will be very pleased to see you," said Betty, in a sedate tone; then, turning to Molly, who was approaching them, she said,—

"Molly, do you remember Mr. Russell when we were at Brook Farm with nurse that summer? I have had to introduce myself, for he did not know me."

"We looked for you in church," said Molly, smiling as she shook hands; "but as we were seated in the very front pew, it was difficult to see anybody. I don't think I should have recognised you; but then you were always Betty's friend, not mine."

"And what has become of your brother, the sturdy pickle? And the two roly-poly boys who always followed his lead?"

"Oh, Douglas is in the army. He is in the Artillery, and went to India last autumn. Bobby and Billy are both middies now. They are still inseparable, and have had the good fortune to get appointed to the same ship, which is cruising about the Mediterranean at present. Betty and I feel very dull without the boys. Do come and see mother, Mr. Russell! She is an invalid at present, but not too ill to see friends. We are at the vicarage. I think mother will be wondering where we are, Betty. We must go."

Molly moved away with a sweet grace, and Betty followed her a little reluctantly.

"Do you ever wish yourself a child again, Molly?" she asked, as they walked up the vicarage drive together.

"No," said Molly decidedly; "grown-up people are much more interesting. There are so many possibilities for them. Children have such a narrow outlook."

Betty did not answer. She had expected a great deal from this meeting with her old friend, and she had found it distinctly disappointing.

"I think people liked me better as a child than they do now," she mused, a little sadly. "I expect I have grown up very uninteresting. I don't seem to make half so many friends as Molly does."

Mrs. Stuart expressed herself quite willing to see Mr. Russell when he called.

"I remember him," she said; "for his sculpture was in the Academy for some years. Did he not take you as his model, Betty?"

"Yes," said Molly; "with her dog. Don't you remember, Betty? Have you been to see his grave? I wonder if it has been touched, or whether it is still at Brook Farm. We ought to go and see Mrs. Giles, ought we not?"

"I mean to go this afternoon," said Betty decidedly.

"You had better not go alone," said her mother. "I shall be lying down for an hour or two, and shall want neither of you."

So a little later the two girls walked down to the old farm, and were welcomed delightedly by Mrs. Giles.

"Us have often talked of you—John and me—but really you have grown such grand young leddies, I can hardly believe you be the fly-away children us had here so many year ago! Miss Molly, I might aknowed you, for your face be the same sweet smiling one, but Miss Betty she do look different. I mind her little dark curly head, and her mischievous ways, and the way she were wrapped up in that poor little dog of hern!—Yes, Miss Betty, his grave is still in the orchard, and 'tis a beautiful ornament. Many's the gentry that I've taken to see it, and they all do say that for a stone dog it be wonderful life-like!"

She led the way into the orchard as she spoke; and Betty was soon standing on the spot that was associated with the biggest tragedy in her child life. She looked at the rusty iron railing and the little stone monument with pathetic interest.

"How do you feel?" Molly asked, with a little mischief in her eyes. "I remember you said you were broken-hearted at the time, but it seems a very small sorrow now, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does—comparatively," Betty admitted slowly; "but I haven't forgotten it."

She stayed there after Molly had wandered away round the flower garden with Mrs. Giles; and her thoughts went backwards with a bound.

"What a funny little thing I was! How important and grand I felt, in spite of all my broken-heartedness, when I was told it was my bit of tribulation! How near heaven I felt then! As if I were quite fit and ready to be translated at once! I don't feel half so near it now, and yet I want to be. I don't know what I want exactly, but I'm not satisfied, my life seems so empty. Molly is so entirely content. When she isn't occupied with her own love-affairs, she is quite absorbed with inventing some for her heroines. And she and mother are all in all to each other. I wonder if there is a corner for everybody in this world, for somehow I don't think I have found mine!"

She gave herself a little shake presently, which was a trick of hers, saying to herself as she ran away to find Molly,—

"I will 'not' be always thinking about myself and my feelings!"

And she chattered away to Mrs. Giles so merrily for the rest of the time that they were there, that that worthy woman remarked to her husband afterwards,—

"They be two beauties, John, but Miss Betty be as giddy as ever she were, her tongue have the same saucy turn to it, and her eyes be twinkling with mischief all the while. 'Tis Miss Molly that will take the prize, I'm thinking. Her voice and smile be just queenly!"