THE PARISH TRILOGY - Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, The Seaboard Parish & The Vicar's Daughter. George MacDonald
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placed here, she is not really, not seriously, spoiled after all. I assure you I have the greatest regard for, as well as confidence in, my friend Judy."
Ethelwyn—Miss Oldcastle, I should say—gave me such a pleased look that I was well recompensed—if justice should ever talk of recompense—for my defence of her niece.
"Will you come with me?" she said; "for I fear our talk may continue to annoy Mr Stoddart. His hearing is acute at all times, and has been excessively so since his illness."
"I am at your service," I returned, and followed her from the room.
"Are you still as fond of the old quarry as you used to be, Miss Oldcastle?" I said, as we caught a glimpse of it from the window of a long passage we were going through.
"I think I am. I go there most days. I have not been to-day, though. Would you like to go down?"
"Very much," I said.
"Ah! I forgot, though. You must not go; it is not a fit place for an invalid."
"I cannot call myself an invalid now."
"Your face, I am sorry to say, contradicts your words."
And she looked so kindly at me, that I almost broke out into thanks for the mere look.
"And indeed," she went on, "it is too damp down there, not to speak of the stairs."
By this time we had reached the little room in which I was received the first time I visited the Hall. There we found Judy.
"If you are not too tired already, I should like to show you my little study. It has, I think, a better view than any other room in the house," said Miss Oldcastle.
"I shall be delighted," I replied.
"Come, Judy," said her aunt.
"You don't want me, I am sure, auntie."
"I do, Judy, really. You mustn't be cross to us because uncle has been cross to you. Uncle is not well, you know, and isn't a bit like himself; and you know you should not have meddled with his machinery."
And Miss Oldcastle put her arm round Judy, and kissed her. Whereupon Judy jumped from her seat, threw her book down, and ran to one of the several doors that opened from the room. This disclosed a little staircase, almost like a ladder, only that it wound about, up which we climbed, and reached a charming little room, whose window looked down upon the Bishop's Basin, glimmering slaty through the tops of the trees between. It was panelled in small panels of dark oak, like the room below, but with more of carving. Consequently it was sombre, and its sombreness was unrelieved by any mirror. I gazed about me with a kind of awe. I would gladly have carried away the remembrance of everything and its shadow.—Just opposite the window was a small space of brightness formed by the backs of nicely-bound books. Seeing that these attracted my eye—
"Those are almost all gifts from my uncle," said Miss Oldcastle. "He is really very kind, and you will not think of him as you have seen him to-day ?"
"Indeed I will not," I replied.
My eye fell upon a small pianoforte.
"Do sit down," said Miss Oldcastle.—"You have been very ill, and I could do nothing for you who have been so kind to me."
She spoke as if she had wanted to say this.
"I only wish I had a chance of doing anything for you," I said, as I took a chair in the window. "But if I had done all I ever could hope to do, you have repaid me long ago, I think."
"How? I do not know what you mean, Mr Walton. I have never done you the least service."
"Tell me first, did you play the organ in church that afternoon when—after—before I was taken ill—I mean the same day you had—a friend with you in the pew in the morning ?"
I daresay my voice was as irregular as my construction. I ventured just one glance. Her face was flushed. But she answered me at once.
"I did."
"Then I am in your debt more than you know or I can tell you."
"Why, if that is all, I have played the organ every Sunday since uncle was taken ill," she said, smiling.
"I know that now. And I am very glad I did not know it till I was better able to bear the disappointment. But it is only for what I heard that I mean now to acknowledge my obligation. Tell me, Miss Oldcastle,—what is the most precious gift one person can give another?"
She hesitated; and I, fearing to embarrass her, answered for her.
"It must be something imperishable,—something which in its own nature IS. If instead of a gem, or even of a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving, as the angels, I suppose, must give. But you did more and better for me than that. I had been troubled all the morning; and you made me know that my Redeemer liveth. I did not know you were playing, mind, though I felt a difference. You gave me more trust in God; and what other gift so great could one give? I think that last impression, just as I was taken ill, must have helped me through my illness. Often when I was most oppressed, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' would rise up in the troubled air of my mind, and sung by a voice which, though I never heard you sing, I never questioned to be yours."
She turned her face towards me: those sea-blue eyes were full of tears.
"I was troubled myself," she said, with a faltering voice, "when I sang—I mean played—that. I am so glad it did somebody good! I fear it did not do me much.—I will sing it to you now, if you like."
And she rose to get the music. But that instant Judy, who, I then found, had left the room, bounded into it, with the exclamation,—
"Auntie, auntie! here's grannie!"
Miss Oldcastle turned pale. I confess I felt embarrassed, as if I had been caught in something underhand.
"Is she come in?" asked Miss Oldcastle, trying to speak with indifference.
"She is just at the door,—must be getting out of the fly now. What SHALL we do?"
"What DO you mean, Judy?" said her aunt.
"Well you know, auntie, as well as I do, that grannie will look as black as a thunder-cloud to find Mr Walton here; and if she doesn't speak as loud, it will only be because she can't. I don't care for myself, but you know on whose head the storm will fall. Do, dear Mr Walton, come down the back-stair. Then she won't be a bit the wiser. I'll manage it all."
Here was a dilemma for me; either to bring suffering on her, to save whom I would have borne any pain, or to creep out of the house as if I were and ought to be ashamed of myself. I believe that had I been in any other relation to my fellows, I would have resolved at once to lay myself open to the peculiarly unpleasant reproach of sneaking out of the house, rather than that she should innocently suffer for my being innocently there. But I was a clergyman; and I felt, more than I had ever felt before, that therefore I could not risk ever the appearance of what was mean. Miss Oldcastle, however, did not leave it to me to settle the matter. All that I have just written had but flashed through my mind when she said:—
"Judy, for shame to propose such a thing to Mr Walton! I am very sorry that he may chance to have an unpleasant meeting with mamma; but we can't help it. Come, Judy, we will show Mr Walton out together."
"It wasn't for Mr Walton's sake," returned Judy, pouting. "You are very troublesome, auntie dear. Mr Walton, she is so hard to take care of! and she's worse since you came. I shall have to give her up some day. Do be generous, Mr Walton, and take my side—that is, auntie's."
"I am afraid, Judy, I must thank your aunt for taking the part of my duty against my inclination. But this kindness, at least," I said to Miss Oldcastle, "I can never hope to return."
It was a stupid speech, but I could not be annoyed that I had made it.
"All obligations are not burdens to be got rid of, are they?" she replied, with a sweet smile on such a pale troubled face, that I was more moved for her, deliberately