CHAPTER IV.

THE FEAST IN THE GARRET.

"We fell to work and feasted like the gods, Like laborers, or like eager workhouse folk At Yule-tide dinner; or, to say the whole At once, like tired, hungry, healthy youth." _Jean Ingelow._

Queenie, absorbed in the themes she was correcting, was not aware of Cathy's absence from the room.

As she toiled on, correcting faulty grammar and replacing obnoxious terms, she was consumed with terrible anxiety. Emmie's thin white face came between her and the page. "What can I do to save her from this life?" was her one inward ejaculation.

She rose quite exhausted with the mental strain when her work was finished. The great stone hall with its one lamp looked dreary enough as she traversed it; all manner of weird shadows lurked in the corners of the landing-place. A rising wind moaned in the ivy outside, and shook the bare branches of the trees till they creaked under it; the moon slid wildly through the black clouds. Queenie thought of Emmie with a little shiver of apprehension, and hurried on.

"Here I am. Are you tired of waiting for me?" she exclaimed, in a tone of enforced cheerfulness, almost before she opened the door; and then she started back, and a little cry of surprise and pleasure broke from her lips at the changed aspect of the garret.

The scene was certainly unique.

The rickety table, covered with an old red shawl of Queenie's, was drawn close to the bed; two candles, one green and the other yellow, burnt cheerily in two broken medicine bottles; a few late-blooming roses in a soap-dish gave an air of elegance to the whole. A bottle of ginger wine, and various delicacies in the shape of meat pies, tarts, and large sticky Bath buns, were tastefully arranged at intervals, flanked by a pocket corkscrew, a pen-knife, tumbler, and small tin plate.

Emmie, propped up with pillows and huddled up in a warm plaid belonging to Cathy, regarded this magnificent feast with bright-eyed astonishment; she clapped her hands at the sight of her sister.

"Oh, Queenie, I am so glad you have come. Everything is ready now, only Cathy has gone down to fetch something; she has been planning this delightful surprise all day. Is it not kind of her?"

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves, so I had better make my appearance," interposed a laughing voice, at which Queenie turned hastily round.

"Oh, Cathy, Cathy, whatever should we do without you!" she cried, looking gratefully at her friend.

Cathy's eyes grew a little moist, and then she broke into a low musical laugh delicious to hear.

"Have I not done it well?" rocking herself with merriment. "Not a creature suspects anything. I shall go down presently and pretend to eat supper. Are not those candles lovely, Queenie? they make this dismal old room quite cheerful. There, wrap yourself up in my sealskin, while I help Emmie."

"Isn't it lovely!" sighed Emmie, in a tone of such heartfelt happiness, that Cathy hugged her on the spot. The cakes, the meat pie, the ginger wine seemed enchanted food to her; the roses, the colored candles, were perfectly radiant in her eyes. "It is just like a fairy story. You are our good fairy, Cathy," she cried; "I am sure I love you next best in the world to Queenie."

"How I wish Garth could see us!" laughed Cathy. She had enveloped herself in an old grey plaid, and had put one of the roses in her hair, and with her dark hair and eyes looked not unlike a gipsy. "Langley would be dreadfully shocked, but Garth would laugh first and lecture afterwards."

"You are always talking about Garth; I wish I could see him," sighed Emmie. "You never make us see him, Cathy."

Cathy pondered a moment. "It is not easy to describe people with whom you live; one is afraid of being too much prejudiced in their favor. I don't think I am wrong in calling Garth handsome, because every one says so."

"Every one is sure to be right," put in Queenie, quietly. She did not like to betray her interest, but she had always longed to be able to picture Garth. "He is tall," she hazarded, rather timidly.

"Yes, tall and fine-looking. He is eight-and-twenty, you know: he has a nice thoughtful face, rather pale; and his mouth is very firm, and shuts tightly, only the moustache hides it; and his eyes are blue-grey, just the colour I like for a man, and they look kind and gentle; and then he looks so good, as though he could never do anything wrong or mean.

"He must be a nice man," exclaimed Emmie, enthusiastically. "Then he is not like you, Cathy?"

"No," she returned, regretfully; "Langley and I are alike, only Langley is older and worn-looking; she is two years older than Garth, just thirty in fact, quite an old maid," continued the girl of eighteen, in a tone of profound pity.

"I don't think people of thirty ought to be considered quite middle-aged," remonstrated Queenie, who had long ago achieved her twentieth year.

"Not some people perhaps, but Langley looks dreadfully old; one can't tell how it was that she was considered so handsome. Her features are good, but she looks so thin and worn, and she is paler than I am, and her hair is turning grey. Langley is very nice, and good to us all, but I sometimes think that she leads too dull a life; Garth often says so. I know he will be glad that I am to go home next quarter."

"Oh, Cathy, however shall we be able to endure this place without you?" interposed her friend.

Emmie had waxed drowsy with comfort, and was dozing placidly, and the two girls had curled themselves up for warmth on the bed. Cathy had disappeared for a short time, and had come back with the announcement that the Ogre and Griffin were still out, and the other governesses at supper.

"My having a bedroom to myself makes it easier to evade rules," explained Cathy. "I have put the bolster and some clothes in the bed, and drawn the counterpane well over them, and Mademoiselle will just peep in and think I am asleep. Oh, what fun it is! How many suppers have we had in this old garret?"

"We shall soon have seen the last of them," returned Queenie, sorrowfully. "I can't bear to think of your going away."

"Poor old Queen!" responded her friend, affectionately. "It is very sad, leaving you and Emmie behind in this mouse-trap of a place. When I go home I mean to talk to Garth and Langley about you. Langley is so good, she is sure to invite you and Emmie for the summer holidays."

"Oh, Cathy, do you think so? do you really think so?" and Queenie almost gasped with surprise and joy. To take Emmie into the country again, to see the little pinched face grow round and blooming in the fine moorland air, to watch her gathering wild-flowers, or scrambling through woods, could it ever come true? For the first moment Queenie forgot everything but her little sister; the next her cheek flushed crimson--she would see Cathy's home and Garth.

"Do you really, really think it will come true?"

"True! of course it will. Garth and Langley never refused me anything, and when I tell them about you and Emmie they will be wild to know you. What walks we will have! I must show you Hepshaw Abbey, and I must bribe Garth to drive us to Karlsmere; it is such a lovely lake. And then we can go and see the King of Karldale."

"See whom?" inquired Queenie, in some perplexity.

"Oh, a friend of ours, who is called by that name; he is a gentleman farmer, and lives near the head of the lake. His real name is Harry Chester, but he is always called the King of Karldale. I am very fond of Harry."

"Indeed," with a slight stress.

"He is such a dear good fellow. I wish I could like his wife half as well."

"Oh, he is married," with a shade of disappointment in her voice.

"Married! very much so, poor fellow, and I don't think he quite likes it. She does not exactly henpeck him, but she is a fine lady, and worries him into doing things he does not like, such as taking her to Paris, and giving her expensive dresses. I am afraid she spends a great deal too much money, and that troubles Harry."

"He should keep her in order then."

"I think he tries; but Gertrude has a will of her own. She frets if he refuse to humour her, and as she is very delicate, and the doctors look very gravely at her sometimes, he is afraid not to give her her way. He sometimes talks to Langley, and she always takes Gertrude's part; why I don't know, for no one else likes her."

"How nice to know people, and to get interested in their lives," sighed the poor recluse. "You have made me quite long to know all the people in your neighbourhood, especially Mr. Logan and his sister."

"Dear Miss Cosie, how she will pet you; and you will be great friends with Mr. Logan. Do you know," in a puzzled voice, "I don't seem to get on with Mr. Logan as well as I did; he gave me lectures last holidays, and I became a little shy of him."

"And yet you are not one to mind any amount of scolding."

"Of course not, when I don't care about the people who give the scolding; but that is just it. Mr. Logan looks at one so benevolently, and yet his eyes seem to read you through and through; and then he goes on in that mild voice of his, till Miss Catherine, as he calls her, either makes a fool of herself or runs out of the room."

"But he has no right to lecture you," indignantly.

"Ah, has he not!" sighed Cathy, and the dark, brilliant eyes looked very serious for a moment. "He says we girls at the present day have such a low standard of right that we never rise above medium goodness, and are too easily satisfied with ourselves. He is always saying we have no great saints now-a-days, and that there can be no St. Augustines without Monicas."

"It is very true."

"Oh, he is such a good man, he makes one feel ashamed of one's self. When he talks one forgets his patched coat and plain face and bald head. I used to laugh when he pushed his spectacles up in that droll way, but somehow nothing seems odd about him now."

"And he is not married?"

"No, he is an old bachelor, and Miss Cosie keeps his house. I don't think he has ever been in love; Miss Cosie said so one day; he has never been able to find a woman with a sufficiently high standard, I suppose. Even Langley would not suit him, though I believe he thinks very highly of her; they have such long, serious talks. Queenie, do you recollect remarking one day that I never used slang now?"

"To be sure I do."

"Well, he cured me."

"Oh, I can comprehend the purport of the lectures now."

"Yes, he gravely remonstrated with me one day. 'Miss Catherine,' he once said, 'does it never strike you to inquire if the high-born ladies of old time ever talked slang?'"

"Well, I hope you answered him properly."

"No, I was very saucy; I told him I had no doubt they were often 'awfully jolly,' and were fast and slow and spoony no end like other people, and some of the men dreadful duffers and cads."

"Cathy, how could you?"

"My dear, it was the last outburst. Before an hour was over I was fairly crushed, and took a private vow never to utter anything but the purest English ever afterwards. It was very hard at first, and I had to inflict dreadful pinches on myself, and put endless pennies in the poor's box, before I could remember; but I am cured since."

"Yes, and it is such an improvement; I feel very much obliged to Mr. Logan."

"I took my revenge though," returned Cathy, looking a little guilty; "I went away without bidding him good-bye."

"That was hardly kind."

"So he said. I was very remorseful, and wrote him a penitent little note a week afterwards. The letter I got in return made me feel very small."

"I dare say he forgave you."

"Dear old Saint Christopher, I know he did; but he was terribly hurt; Langley told me so. I often think we are 'old men of the mountain' to ourselves. How one longs sometimes to throw off one's self and one's faults!"

"You have less than any one I know," returned Queenie, who had a warm admiration for the daring and generous-hearted girl.

"You are wrong," returned Cathy, humbly; "Mr. Logan knows me best. I do want to be true, as true as I know how to be. I think I hate conventional shams as much as he does; it is this want of truth in the world that appals one."

"And the lack of kindness," put in Queenie, who had seen the darker side of human nature.

"No, indeed there is plenty of kindness in the world. You have grown misanthropic with hard usage; you will change your mind when you come among us."

"Yes, you must make allowances for me," she said, somewhat sadly; "I have been too much in contact with coarse, selfish minds to judge leniently. Cathy, how can women be so censorious to their own sex? how can they oppress and grieve a little child in the way Miss Titheridge and Fraulein oppress Emmie?"

"It is too bad; but I think Miss Titheridge is obtuse; she does not understand Emmie."

"Do you not think she is changed?" whispered Queenie, with a glance at the sleeping child. "She has grown thinner and paler, and her eyes are so hollow. Caleb noticed it last week."

"She is growing, and needs care," was the compassionate answer, as Cathy rose and folded the shawl closer round the sleeper.

"Care! that is just what she does not get. Oh, Cathy, I think poor mamma would have broken her heart if she had known what was in store for us; she was so fond of Emmie."

"Hush, dear," for Queenie had covered her face with her hands, and was weeping bitterly now. "We will not talk any more; you are weary and over-tasked. You are very brave, my Queen, and seldom break down, but you are too tired to cry to-night."

"Yes, it is wrong of me, but yet it has done me good," she whispered, after a short interval.

They were still sitting together, hand in hand. The green candle had burnt out, but the pink one still burnt cheerily; one or two of the roses had withered; the fragments of the feast still reposed on the old red shawl; the moonbeams stole through the uncurtained window, and played fitfully on the uneven floor; a little pale face slept peacefully under the old wrapper.

By and bye, when Cathy had left her, Queenie lay down, and drew the warm, sleeping child to her arms. The moon had come out from behind the clouds now; the stream of pale, silvery light flooded the room; a perfect halo shone round Emmie's fair hair. Queenie shivered, and gave a faint sob as she saw it.

"She is paler and thinner," she said to herself. "Cathy noticed it, and so did Caleb. They are killing her by inches, and yet they will not see; they are straining her mind and body, and neither will bear it. Oh, mamma, mamma, she would be better off with you; but I cannot spare her, I cannot spare Emmie!"

"Are you awake, Queenie? Oh, I have had such a beautiful dream. I was in a strange place, and mamma came to me, looking so kind, just like her old self, only grander; I think she had a crown on her head; and she took me in her arms and kissed me, just as she used to do, and told me to be good and patient, and to do as you told me, and that she loved us both."

Sleep on, little comforter, in the arms that hold you so lovingly. The strain is lessened, the weary oppression gone. The child's dream, so lovingly told, has brought healing to the weary sister. The unseen guardian watched over them both, the message of love had come to her too, and in this fond belief Queenie fell asleep.