CHAPTER VI.

QUARRINGTON COTTAGE.

"THEODOSIA, my dear—"

"Well?" said Theodosia tartly.

She was a pretty woman still, though over thirty-five in age, tall and fair—but the fine eyes which carefully avoided meeting those of her husband were not happy, and her whole air expressed intense ennui.

Certainly, the outside world looked cheerless. Snow had fallen heavily throughout the preceding day, and threatening clouds hovered still over a white landscape. Theodosia Bryant hated country at the best of times, and country lanes, immediately after a snowfall, are scarcely at their best.

"The post has come in."

"The post! And to think of the beloved rat-tat of the London postman, ten times a day!" sighed Theodosia. "However, one may be thankful to be not utterly cut off from the rest of the world, I suppose. I wasn't sure whether we might not have come to that. Anything for me?" She shot an uneasy side-glance at Dr. Bryant. He had a handsome face, calm and firm, framed in abundant grey hair.

"Two for you. None from Brighton for me."

"Did you expect to hear? I didn't," said Theodosia, reddening slightly.

"My dear, what can you know of people whom you have never seen?"

"They seem to have put you to trouble without much compunction."

"Some mistake, probably. But I shall write at once to Felix."

Dr. Bryant passed into his study, where indeed he spent the main portion of his days. He was not by nature a sociably inclined man, and since his marriage—only two years earlier—he had not become more sociable. The study grew dearer, the drawing room grew less attractive.

Not that he did not love this wife of his—the first he had ever had, though he was not her first husband. He had been thoroughly in love with the winning and graceful widow, who met him always with sweet smiles and engaging looks. And although, after the honeymoon, smiles and engaging looks became more and more rare, he was not a man to change quickly. He loved still, but he no longer enjoyed her society to the same extent as before.

Theodosia Wells had married Dr. Bryant, not because she really loved him, though his face and manner had both a certain power over her, but because she lacked the means of livelihood, and because she had a keen eye to the future of her boy, her only child. She would have endured a much worse husband than Dr. Bryant, if thereby she might secure an easy future for Keith. And "endurance" is hardly the word to employ with respect to Dr. Bryant. If endurance really were needed, it was because she failed to appreciate him, not because he failed towards her in either appreciation or duty.

How much money Dr. Bryant might possess, Theodosia had not known with any accuracy, in the days when he sought and won her, and perhaps she overestimated the amount. Still she had known him to be comfortably off, and to be free from family burdens. So much the better for Keith. Dr. Bryant had lived in Quarrington Cottage for nearly a quarter of a century, yet Theodosia, had not had the smallest doubt that, when she should become his wife, she would be able to dislodge him. She was not going to be buried in the country. The Cottage must be let or sold, and they would reside in London.

Disappointment awaited Theodosia. She found Dr. Bryant yielding and compliant on minor points. Elderly bachelor though he had been, he placed household arrangements in her hands, let her do and manage as she chose, and seldom interfered outside his proper masculine province. But when she began to press for a change of residence, the desire was at once met by resistance. Quarrington Cottage was his home, and in that home, he meant to live and die.

"Anything else, but not that," he said, when she urged her wish.

"Anything that I don't want, but not what I do!"

"My dear, I told you plainly what manner of home I had to offer, and in accepting me, you accepted it. Then was the time to protest; not now."

Theodosia did not quickly give up hope. She argued and coaxed, worried and pleaded, sulked and wept, by turns; but all efforts were met by a placid and inviolable determination. Gradually she became convinced that, do and say what she might, here was her home during the term of her husband's life.

Uninviting though the prospect might seem to one of Theodosia's tastes, she had no wish to quarrel with that husband. She liked and admired him personally, almost loved him; and she wished to have a strong hold upon him, for the sake of Keith. What money he possessed, he was not bound to leave to his little step-son. She was not much better informed now than before her marriage, as to its precise amount: for he seldom spoke of money matters, and she was too proud to ask. But she had learnt that he had or might have other relatives, near of kin though long estranged; also that he had grieved much over the long estrangement, and that he often craved to hear something of his sister's children, if they still lived.

"But he shall do nothing for them, while I have a voice in the matter," she resolved.

Fresh disappointment awaited her. A letter one day came from his niece, the only surviving child of his only sister, and he showed it at once to Theodosia, with his punctilious frankness. He might have, and of necessity, he did have interests apart from his wife, because she could not or would not enter into them, but he had not intentionally any secrets from her.

"Absurd!" Theodosia said, as she gave it back. "Miss Anderson has no right to appeal to you now, after all these years. It is perfectly ridiculous. And a step-brother and step-sister into the bargain. Does she coolly expect you to adopt them all? As if you had not enough to do with your money."

"Quarrington Cottage would hold them all, and not crowd us, my dear. But the boy can make his own way. Cecilia and Lettice must come, of course." He dwelt upon the word "Cecilia" affectionately, feeling that she belonged to him.

"Come here! For how long, pray?"

"So long as they need a home. I fear it may not be very long for poor Cecilia, judging from what she says—but you see she begs us on no account to let a word of this reach Felix or Lettice. You need not look anxious, Theodosia,—" a very gentle manner of characterising the expression on her face. "I have means enough. Your comforts will not be affected. At the most, it means only laying by less."

Theodosia at once thought of Keith's future.

"And I am to have no voice in the matter. I am to have these strangers forced upon me—a vulgar disagreeable woman, for aught we know, and a great rough girl, to knock about my little delicate Keith. If I had guessed two years ago what I was going in for—"

"Nay, Theodosia! Better not to say what you will regret by-and-by."

Theodosia, in no mood for self-restraint, broke into angry remonstrances, and bitter accusations of his indifference to her happiness. She had a sharp tongue, and that hour she gave it fall swing. Doctor Bryant listened with a pained look, but by no means with the air of one willing to yield. He met her anger gravely, and spoke with his usual calm kindness; but his resolution did not falter. Theodosia's passion was like the sea breaking over a rock.

At the end of the interview, Dr. Bryant simply said, "Now I must write to catch the post. When you have had leisure for thought, you will view the matter differently. I shall answer for your welcome, as well as for my own."

The different view was slow in developing.

For two days Theodosia had hardly a pleasant word or look for her husband: and Dr. Bryant, without remonstrance, retired more than usual to the solitude of his study.

When Cecilia's answer arrived, he as usual handed it to his wife, observing, "They will come, as soon as my niece is able to travel."

Theodosia noted the gleam of pleasure in his eyes; and she woke up suddenly to a fresh aspect of the question. To repel her husband by persistent ill-humour would simply mean to thrust him under the influence of Cecilia Anderson. This would not do. If Cecilia were a designing woman, what might she not effect? Theodosia thought again of Keith, and for Keith's sake she mastered herself, managed to smile, and inquired Cecilia's age.

Dr. Bryant seemed agreeably surprised. "That is right, my dear. I knew I could depend upon your kind feeling, when it should come to the point," he said. "I am not sure about the age. Some years over thirty, I imagine, and the child she speaks of as fifteen—young for that. Not too old to be something of a companion for Keith; and you and Cecilia will be friends."

"Thanks!" Theodosia could not control her scorn.

"You will arrange everything comfortably for them—south aspect, and so on. Yes, it must be a room with south aspect."

"Not the best spare room! There is no other, except at the top of the house."

"An attic bedroom! For my only niece!" Dr. Bryant looked at his wife in astonishment.

Theodosia swallowed something with difficulty. "I certainly did not mean to give Miss Anderson the best spare room!"

Dr. Bryant was silent, and by his silence won the day. Theodosia again came to the conclusion that her wisest course—for Keith's sake—was to conciliate him, even at the cost of her best spare room. "But as for being friends! Faugh!" she said scornfully. "I am very much obliged to Maurice."

With the Thursday, on which Cecilia and Lettice were expected, came heavy snow. "Of course they would not come in such weather," Theodosia declared.

"Of course they will send me word, if they give it up," Dr. Bryant answered. He was in a state of unwonted restlessness all day, and ordered the pony-trap to be in readiness, despite the storm, to take him to Bristol station. If they arrived, he could obtain there a closed fly.

Not long before he meant to start, Theodosia took a look, in passing, out of the hall-window, and saw a telegraph messenger approach. She opened the door herself, received the telegram, paid the extra fee, and passed on to the drawing room.

The address was to "Mrs. Bryant."

"Odd!" Theodosia said, as she stood gazing. "What should make them put my name? Perhaps they think my husband would be off by this time! And if he were—as if I should be in any suspense! Why didn't they send it earlier?" A wave of indignant disgust towards the Andersons swelled in her breast. "Why should I trouble myself to open it? What do I care for those people? . . . Maurice is infatuated . . . Let him go, and have his drive for nothing! . . . What harm? . . . It will make him think less of them, perhaps!" Such half-formed ideas flashed through Theodosia's mind; and before she knew whither they tended, or what was the actual form of the temptation, she had tossed the yellow envelope upon the blazing fire. One little flash of flame, and only a curling shred remained.

Then fear seized her. Suppose her husband should find out what she had done! Suppose, later, hearing that a telegram had been despatched, he should trace its receipt to her! Suppose—"But what nonsense! It was to me, not to him. I do not know who it was from, or what it said. I can say that I have heard nothing, and that there was no telegram for him."

She tried to put aside the uncomfortable recollection, watched Dr. Bryant off on his snowy drive, and spent the afternoon in a state of mingled remorse and irritation. Her dislike of the Andersons was enhanced by the fact that she had, in a sense, done something to injure them.

When Dr. Bryant returned, chilled, disappointed, and plainly hurt, she found not the slightest difficulty in showing exactly the same indignation which she might naturally have shown, if no telegram had been sent.

"And after all, I do not know that it was from them," she said again in self-excuse, when her husband had gone off, with a mild, "Tut, my dear! Things are not so bad as that. I shall hear to-morrow."

But the next morning arrived, and when the postbag was brought in, Dr. Bryant found no letter from Brighton. As related, he came at once to tell his wife. After which he retreated anew to his study, and wrote the short letter which reached Felix on the afternoon of Saturday.

Theodosia watched him disappear, then threw herself back with a profound sigh. "I only hope something may have happened to prevent their coming altogether. Too good to be true, I am afraid. But to be boxed up here, in this wretched place, with people that I know I shall detest—"

"Mamsie!" a small voice said, and a little boy in knickerbockers entered. He had Theodosia's pretty complexion, and his hair hung still in long curls, over a lace collar. Theodosia's face softened at the sight of him. All her tenderness went out towards this child; a lovable boy by nature, but systematically spoilt.

"Come here, my sweet! What has Keith been doing?" He was six years old, but she had not yet learnt to drop the baby style of speech; and there was still a babyish intonation in his little high-pitched voice.

"Mamsie, nurse said I wasn't to come; but I would. I knew you wouldn't mind."

"Mamsie is always glad to have her boy; always!" as Keith sprang upon her.

"It's as snowy as can be. Such a lot of white. Mamsie, what does father mean. He says I'm to have a jolly new playfellow."

"You don't want a playfellow, do you? You are quite happy with Mamsie, and nurse, and all the pets."

"Ah, but I should like a boy!"

"But this isn't a boy. It is only a girl—a big dull girl, twice as old as you."

"Twice six is twelve."

"Clever boy! Well, she is fifteen—a great deal more than twice as old. No companion for you, and much too big to play games. She will only be in the way."

"I don't want a girl. If it was a boy, I should like it."

"Ah, it isn't a boy. Only a girl, and a tiresome grown-up lady, who is ill, and who will give no end of trouble, and not like the least noise. You will have to creep up and downstairs like a mouse now."

"Mamsie, don't you like them to come?"

"I hate it, Keith." Theodosia hid her face. "I can't bear to have them here. It makes me miserable. But you mustn't tell father, because he would be so vexed."

"No, I won't. And I shall hate them too." Keith doubled his little fist. "I won't like them, and I won't play with the little girl; and I'll make lots of noise; and I won't care what nobody says. Mamsie, I wish you wouldn't cry! Why do you? Why mayn't I tell father you don't like them? Why must they come, Mamsie?"

Quarrington Cottage stood alone near the middle of a long lane, over two miles from the outskirts of Bristol. There was a village less than half-a-mile off—"the village" to the neighbourhood. It was not peculiarly pretty country, even in summer, being somewhat too flat, though distant hills might be seen: and now, under a sheet of snow, it was monotonous. But Dr. Bryant never found it monotonous, never wearied of the quiet. He was always happy in the country, always miserable in a town. Health and spirits failed him immediately, under the oppression of a crowd of human beings, while to his wife such a crowd was a very elixir of delight.

Still, Dr. Bryant had made no secret of these his tastes before marriage. Theodosia knew, or she might have known, all about the matter. He attempted to hide nothing; and if she failed to understand, the fault lay in her own dulness of perception. To some extent she had understood, for she had professed to agree with him, and had expatiated on the delights of getting away from town into country; only she had failed to emphasise the fact that it was getting away which she liked, and by no means remaining. Dr. Bryant loved his country home all the year round, in all seasons, and in all weathers. Theodosia liked a country-house—including plenty of guests—for a few weeks in summer or autumn. These diverse views had not been sufficiently weighed before marriage: or if Theodosia had recognised them, she had reckoned too much on her own influence, too little on the steadiness of Dr. Bryant's will.

A harder fiat could hardly have been uttered, than that which kept Lettice in her own room, and away from Cecilia. She did not see any need for the prohibition. In matters of health, many people are apt to count themselves worse than they are, a few to count themselves better than they are; and Lettice belonged to the minority. True she felt desperately tired: her head ached, and exertion was a struggle: but what of all that? What did it matter—what did anything matter—side by side with the fact that Cecilia wanted her? By nature patient and enduring, as regarded any bodily discomfort of her own, she was neither patient nor enduring when withheld from doing the will of one whom she loved.

Submission to the Divine Will was as yet an unknown element in the life of Lettice. Because she passionately loved her sister and brother, she would have done aught, borne aught for them. Because she did not love God, His Will was not dear to her: and she chafed against it. Not worry herself! They might tell her not to do so, but how could she obey when she thought of Cecilia, ill and among strangers, parted from Felix, and craving the younger sister who might not go to her?

"Keep that child quiet for two or three days," had been the doctor's order on the morning after their arrival. "A sensitive child—the strain has been too severe, and she is ripe for pretty nearly anything. No; I don't think she'll be ill, if we take her in hand at once: but she must rest. How old do you say? Nearly sixteen! She doesn't look more than fourteen. Well, the two are best apart for a few days. Unless what?—Yes, of course—if Miss Anderson were taken suddenly worse—but I must leave that to your discretion. At present she will have all she needs in your care and your sister's. The child could do nothing further. You are good Samaritans to take them both in, after this fashion. It is the sort of Christianity which a man respects."

After the first day or two, Lettice was allowed to dress, and to sit in a cosy arm-chair near the window, looking out upon a garden, which in summer was lovely, and which even in winter had some beauty of its own. Lettice could not enjoy that beauty. She could enjoy nothing if she might not go to Cecilia: and at present she was a prisoner in Prue's room. She sat there hour after hour, doing nothing, declining to be interested, going round and round in the same circle of thought. Always, how was Cecilia? what was Cecilia doing? did Cecilia miss her greatly? And might she soon be with Cecilia? She could not acquiesce in her deprivation. Her eyes were intent ever upon the door, her ears were intent for footsteps beyond the door. At this rate she was not likely to recover tone and strength quickly. Prue coming in on the fourth morning, with the usual remark, "Not yet," met a face of despair which went to her heart.

"Why, Lettice, poor child, you don't mind so very much," she said, sitting down by her side. "It is only for a day or two, I hope. You must try to be brave."

Lettice held her fast. "Oh, I don't know how. If only I needn't wait! I do want to see Sissie."

"It is dull for you here, I am afraid."

"O no; I don't mind being dull. I only want to go in and kiss Sissie."

"Miss Anderson seems really a little better, I hope."

"But if—if—" Lettice could not go on.

"Yes, I understand. I asked the doctor about that. If Miss Anderson should be taken worse, you should be called."

"Promise!" whispered Lettice.

"I do promise, so far as is in my power. But this is only to comfort you. We think she is doing well. I told her the doctor forbad your coming. She seemed to think it was on her account, and I said no more. She would be unhappy to think that you were not well."

"But it's nothing. I'm only tired. People must be tired. If only I needn't keep away from her."

"Lettice, do you never pray?"

The question came unexpectedly, and struck home. She had been asked almost the same before—"Do you often pray?" But Prue asked, "Do you never pray?"

"I don't know," she said faintly, with a dim sense that the short form which she sometimes, not always, repeated at night, was scarcely what Prue meant.

"I think you ought to begin now. Sissie needs your prayers. If you were with her, you could do little—nothing more, perhaps, than Bertha and I can do. But God can do everything. He has all power in heaven and earth. Why do you not ask Him to take care of her for you, and to make her well again, if it is His will to do so?"

Lettice kept these words in mind. "She is in good hands," Mr. Kelly had said: and now Prue added, "God can do everything." Then the two questions came up, side by side: "Do you often pray?" "Do you never pray?" The two voices chiming in together, with another addition from Prue: "Why do you not ask Him to take care of her for you?" The rest of the sentence floated away unheeded: for what was the use if Cecilia could not get well?

Clasping her hands, she tried to carry out Prue's advice. "Please take care of Sissie; take care of Sissie; O please take care of her!" were the only words which would occur, but Lettice repeated them again and again, and a soft sense crept over her, that the petitions were surely heard. It was Lettice's first lesson in real prayer.

"I've been—trying—" she whispered that night, when Prue bent over her.

"Trying?"

"Trying to do—what you said . . . Don't you know? . . . You asked if I ever—ever—"

"Ever prayed?"

"Yes. And—I have been trying—really! . . . Mr. Kelly asked me once—if I didn't often do it. I don't often—but—"

"But you will begin now. You will do it often from to-day. Mr. Kelly was right," murmured Prue. "He—was he a kind friend to you, Lettice?"

"He got the work for Felix, and he used to come and see Sissie. I don't think Sissie liked him much."

"And you—did you like him?"

Prue blamed herself for letting the conversation drift in this direction; yet perhaps enough had been said in the other direction. "O yes—I liked sometimes," Lettice answered. "He told me to write and tell him how Sissie was. And he said if we were in trouble, I must let him know."

Lettice shut her eyes, and Prue asked no more. Why, indeed, should she?