CHAPTER V

The Red Manor

His home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. J. MONTGOMERY.

ABOUT a week later, Mr. Russell drove Mrs. Stuart and the two girls to the Red Manor to lunch. Betty was very quiet, and her old friend rallied her on her loss of spirits.

But if her tongue was still, her eyes were busy. As they drove up an old chestnut drive, with long sweeps of green lawn on either side, she noted every tree and flowering shrub they passed. She felt an intense interest in the Red Manor and its master. She could not get him out of her thoughts. The house itself, with its Elizabethan turrets and gables, its casement windows, and glowing weather-beaten walls, charmed her.

Gerald was on the steps to welcome them, and by his side were two handsome deerhounds. As Betty glanced shyly at him, again she wondered if the past might have been a bad dream. He looked so strong, so self-contained, so free from anxious thought or care. He led them into a square hall which seemed abounding in antiquities, but withal had a very habitable and cosy look about it. Large pots of geraniums and hydrangeas lightened up its sombreness, and the sunshine streamed freely through an old stained window on the staircase. The drawing-room was rather stiff and decorous, but rare old china and paintings adorned its walls, and four large windows looked over an expanse of wooded park and hills.

They lunched in the dining-room, a handsome oak-panelled room, with family portraits hanging on its walls. Gerald was a delightful host, and though the conversation was carried on chiefly between Mrs. Stuart and himself, Betty and Molly enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Afterwards he took them to his library, and here Mrs. Stuart became completely absorbed in looking over the many rare and valuable works on the shelves.

"This is where I live," he said, smiling, as he turned to the girls. "If I had only this one room, I could be content for the rest of my life."

Mrs. Stuart looked up from a book of which she had taken possession.

"There is no sense of loneliness amongst books," she said.

"But it is a one-sided companionship," said impulsive Betty. "Books talk to me, but I can't talk back; that is what I should want—some one to talk to!"

"Don't you ever feel lonely here, Mr. Arundel?" asked Molly.

"I never have yet," he replied, passing his hand caressingly across some of his calf-bound favourites.

Then a shadow fell across his face.

"It is all part and parcel of my life. I have loved it too much. As a little chap at school I was a puzzle to many, because I would spend my holidays alone here, in preference to visiting some cousins of mine in London. That is one thing I shall look back to with thankfulness hereafter—that I made the best use of the opportunities that were given to me, of spending all the time I could here."

His tone vibrated with earnestness and feeling.

Again Betty wondered at his words. She wandered round the room whilst he and her mother pored over his books. One of the deerhounds followed her. She laid her hand on his head. "I wonder how much you know, or how little?" she said softly, under her breath. "Do you ever sit beside your master when he is going through a bad time? Do you stuff your nose into his hand and assure him of your love and faithfulness?"

Floy, the hound, looked at her with intelligent eyes, but only wagged his tail in response.

Then Betty walked to the window, and as she looked out upon the sweep of green turf and grand old trees, with a few cattle grazing in the distance, and then again at the comfortably furnished library within, with its lounge chairs and every convenience for writing or reading, she announced in a dreamy tone,—

"If I were the mistress of this house, I should be perfectly happy."

Mrs. Stuart looked up with a little consternation in her eyes. Gerald laughed aloud.

"And which room would you make your headquarters?" he asked.

Betty was so utterly unconscious that she had said anything at all peculiar, that she continued in the same tone, "I should use them all; but I would come in here when I wanted to think and be good."

"And would that be often?"

"Sometimes it would."

"We must not monopolise your time too much," said Mrs. Stuart, rising from her seat. "I think you said you would like to show us round the house, so shall we make a move? I cannot tell you how I envy you such a library. I think, with Betty, that I should spend a good bit of my time here, were it mine."

Gerald led them up the old staircase to the music-room.

"This is where I fancy you would be found oftenest," he said, turning to Betty, with an amused sparkle in his eyes.

"Yes—what a lovely piano! May I try it? But an organ is what I love. Ah, you have one over there!"

"It has never been touched since my mother died," said Gerald gravely. "She used to play on it. I am afraid it may be out of repair. Would you like to try it?"

Betty shrank back and shook her head.

"Oh no; it would be—be sacrilege. You must keep it from being touched by any one else. She must have been fond of music?"

"Very fond. She handed on the love of it to me, but not the power of execution."

"That is sometimes the better gift of the two," said Mrs. Stuart. "An appreciative soul has the power of bringing more happiness to others, I think, than mere talent and execution. Genius is apt to be very selfish and autocratic in its demands."

"And the world wants more sympathy and appreciation than genius," said Gerald musingly; "and that is in a beggar's power to give."

"And the moral is," broke in Betty, with twinkling eyes, "that no one need live in vain."

Gerald looked at her.

"I wish all would believe that, Miss Betty. It would save many from despair."

Betty did not reply, but a thoughtful look stole into her pretty eyes.

They soon wandered out into the grounds. Molly was busy peopling every nook and corner with her imaginary heroes and heroines. To her, Gerald was "copy,"—nothing more. His house, his lands, were interesting to her from that view alone. She lived in a land of dreams at present, which the quiet seclusion of the country vicarage only served to foster and encourage. Betty's quick eager eyes were everywhere. She loved the old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the walled kitchen gardens, the roses on the terraces, and the quaint old summer-houses in unfrequented spots; but through it all, the master, with his hidden trouble, stood persistently forward in her thoughts. She listened to his conversation with her mother with wonder and increasing interest. How much he seemed to know! How every subject interested him! What a busy useful life he seemed to lead!

Just before the carriage came round to take them home, Betty caught sight of her organ-blower leaving the stable yard.

"Do you know Mat Lubbock?" she asked.

"Indeed I do, and feel an intense pity for him."

"But," said Betty, a little pucker settling between her eyes, "pity does him no good. Everybody pities him. I want to do more than that for him!"

Gerald looked at her with a grave smile.

Mrs. Stuart was resting on an old stone seat by the hall door. Molly was carefully wrapping a shawl round her. For a moment Betty was alone with her host.

"What do you want to do for him?" he asked.

"Oh, I want to comfort him, to make him pleased and satisfied with life."

"That can be done, but not by you or me."

Gerald spoke with a far-away look in his eyes.

"I don't think any one can do it," said Betty, with a little sigh.

'There was silence for a minute, then very slowly, almost under his breath, Gerald said,—

"'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him.'"

A light came into Betty's face. She looked up at her companion with a radiant smile, though a rush of feeling had almost brought tears to her eyes.

"That is from the Bible," she said, "but I don't remember where it comes. It is lovely. And it is true. Oh, Mr. Arundel, make him believe it!"

She turned away. The carriage was at the foot of the steps, and not another word passed between them.

When Betty went to her room that night, she took out her Bible, and began to search for the verse that Gerald had quoted to her.

With the help of her Concordance, she found it.

"I knew it would be in Isaiah," she mused. "He is always so comforting; and I am glad that Mr. Arundel is a good man, for he will know where to get comfort himself. I wonder that he has such a trouble, if he is good, or rather that he feels it so. But I suppose he wouldn't be human if he didn't feel. He would be a stoic!"

She repeated the verse over to herself.

"I shall certainly say it to Mat next time I see him. It can't do him harm, and it may do him good."

But it was some days before she saw her blower. Mrs. Stuart had one of her bad attacks, and the two girls were anxious and engrossed with her. When she rallied and came downstairs again, she was difficult to please, and though Molly never incurred her displeasure, Betty did, and was too young and impatient to realise that her mother's irritation was due to weakness of nerves and bad health.

"Can you not keep still, Betty?" Mrs. Stuart demanded sharply one afternoon, as she was wandering about the drawing-room touching things with restless fingers, and singing softly to herself.

Betty dropped into a chair at once.

"I'm sorry, mother; I wasn't thinking."

"A restless woman is my special aversion," went on Mrs. Stuart irritably. "Why cannot you have the repose of manner that Molly has? It is so ill-bred to be constantly fidgeting. I have seen you entertain visitors in the same excited jerky state."

"I can't be an exact duplicate of Molly," said Betty, a little hotly, "and I shouldn't like to be if I could. She is distinctly heavy sometimes."

"Disparaging others does not excuse yourself. It is want of occupation that is your failing. Molly is never idle; you are perpetually so."

Betty began to feel that this was unjust. She had stayed in with her mother to let Molly have a drive with Mr. Russell, who had in reality called to take her out. But Molly had been tied to the house for several days, and she persuaded her to go in her stead.

Mrs. Stuart was glad, for Molly's sake, that she had gone, but she found Betty a poor substitute.

"I haven't anything to do now," said Betty, "because I am sitting with you. You don't like me to write your letters for you, and you won't let me read to you. I have finished my work. Would you like me to play, to you?"

"No, thank you. My head is not in a fit state to stand it."

There was silence. Then Mrs. Stuart continued,—

"You are always so ready to excuse yourself, Betty, that you will never learn to remedy your faults. You are wasting your life at present. You have no pursuits, no resources. I have given you a good education, but you seem to have derived no benefit from it. When I was your age I was the secretary of an essay society, the treasurer for our local Girls' Friendly Society, and founder of a small Workmen's Club. You seem to take no interest in anything."

"I hadn't much chance in town to do anything but go to stupid 'At Homes' and evening parties," said Betty. "I want to find something to do, but I can't bear writing. I like to be out of doors always. I wish I could live my life in a gipsy camp, and have perpetual summer."

"You only think of life as it may affect yourself," said her mother severely. "It seems impossible to instil the sense of responsibility into your motives. I often wonder if any forces will make you see differently, or if you will drift into an aimless, discontented woman, who will live and die a slave to her self-indulgence and indolence."

Betty's lower lip drooped. An overwhelming sense of her own shortcomings seized her. Her mother's plain speaking always had the result of depressing her. It never stimulated her.

Mrs. Stuart continued for some minutes in the same strain, and then Molly's entrance set Betty free, and she rushed out of doors with a sore heart.

"Mother always scolds me so. She only likes Molly. I never please her. I am a dead failure, and I am good for nothing. Oh, what was I made for? And how is it I seem to have missed my vocation? I should like to leave home altogether, and go thousands of miles away to the other end of the globe, and never come back again till I had become a brilliant success. Men do that. They have been dunces at schools, and have been plucked in exams., and sent down from college; and then they go abroad, and the ne'er-do-weels turn into millionaires, or governors or presidents of some colony; and they come home in triumph, and everybody worships them. But girls can't do that kind of thing. I am one too many in our family. I always felt I was. I wonder—"

She was leaning over a stile in the meadows as she mused, and a look up into the deep blue sky formulated the thought.

"I wonder what God means me to do with my life. I wish He would show me. I do believe I am His child. In a kind of way I have always tried to serve Him, and I do love Him; but my life is full of faults, and I am always forgetting. Mother is hopeless about me. I wonder if God is!"

Betty's eyes were filling with tears.

A brisk "Good afternoon" made her start.

Gerald Arundel was behind her, waiting to pass.

She hastily brushed away her tears, and spoke in an extra cheerful tone, "Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Arundel. Where are you going? May I come with you?"

[Illustration: BETTY WAS LEANING OVER A STILE IN THE MEADOWS AS SHE MUSED.]

Then, as she met a surprised look in his eyes, she laughed confusedly.

"Of course, that's a thing I should not have said—at least, not to you. Mr. Russell would have understood. I want some one to talk to dreadfully."

Gerald smiled at her, and there was something in his smile that seemed to warm her heart.

"I shall be delighted to talk to you," he said. "Shall we walk down to the village? I want to see an old woman who has applied for a vacant place in my almshouses."

"Oh, have you an almshouse? How delightful! I always think I should like to end my days in one. They are so restful."

"Don't you think that depends on the inmates?"

"No; because they are always old, and they all sit by their fires with their cups of tea on the hob, and knit and nod by turns."

"I wish you would visit mine, and see if they come up to your expectation."

"Tell me where they are, and I will go at once," cried Betty enthusiastically. "I was just feeling how empty my life was, and wishing for something to do."

"I think you would find it too far to walk; it is a good three miles."

"Perhaps I had better not go to-day. Mother will wonder where I am."

Silence fell upon them as they trod the green meadow together, then Gerald broke it,—

"What has happened to take away your sunshine to-day?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I last saw you, you were the personification of sunshine; now—"

"Ah, yes," interrupted Betty; "I know I am dull and doleful. It is from thinking over my failings. I am no good to any one. I am not wanted at home, and I am not wanted away from it. And I sometimes long to be a real help to some one."

Gerald did not speak, but it was not want of sympathy that kept him silent. The wistful hesitation in her tone vibrated through him.

She added, with an attempt at playfulness,—

"So if you come across an empty corner that you think I might fill, I wish you would let me know."

Gerald gazed down upon her with a strange look in his eyes.

"And if I did, would you promise to fill it?"

Betty shook her head, and laughter came to her lips.

"It must be the right corner," she said; "a corner that would fit me, and that I could fill satisfactorily. I have always felt an odd one left out in the cold, a 'puss' trying to get in at some corner, but never succeeding."

Gerald caught the infection of her bright face, and smiled.

"I will remember," he said simply.

Silence again. Talkative as Betty usually was, she did not break it. A restfulness stole into her heart as she paced by Gerald's side. She felt small and childish beside him, but was content to have it so. His quiet strength was brought into greater prominence thereby. They had reached the village, and when Gerald turned in at a small cottage, Betty wished him good-bye.

"I wish I could offer to drive you over to the almshouses," he said, as he held her hand for a moment in his; "but I am going up to town almost immediately on business. Ask Mr. Russell to take you. My old women will be enchanted to see you, for they love visitors."

Betty's face brightened.

"I shall like to see them."

"May a comparative stranger offer you a bit of advice?"

"Of course; what is it?"

"If you are feeling that your life is empty, fill it with others' interests. We are all stewards entrusted with gifts to pass on."

"Thank you, Mr. Arundel."

Betty said no more, but walked away very soberly.

"What a good man he is! I wish I were like him! How I wonder what his secret trouble is! His face is different from most people's. He knows how to screen his soul from public view, but sometimes when he speaks, as he did just now, one gets a glimpse of it. I wonder if I am a steward. I must think it out, but I don't believe that I have any gifts to pass on."