Marshall Emma
Salome
"Miss Wilton?" asked a voice, so pleasant and gentleman-like in its tones that Salome was reassured. "I was coming to call on Mrs. Wilton. I am Philip Percival. At your brother's entreaty, and not wishing to press too hardly on him, I consented to see you first, as he tells me his mother is in such delicate health that excitement might hurt her. Is that true?"
"Yes, quite true," Salome said; but she was shivering with nervousness, and her voice trembled.
"We had better walk up or down the road," Philip Percival said; "you will take cold. It is a most unpleasant business, Miss Wilton; but I honestly think the only hope of saving your brother is to deal openly with you. He has deceived me so grossly, and you cannot wonder that I am indignant. He represented to me that his mother and sisters were in great difficulty, and that if I lent him the money for a month he could repay it with interest. It was foolish of me to be taken in. I was completely taken in. He has a winning, plausible manner; and he is treated so roughly by some of the clerks who resent the airs he gives himself, that I tried the more to befriend him. I have had a nice reward!"
"I am so sorry," Salome said. "I want to beg you to wait a little while, and perhaps I shall be able to pay you. Mother has no money, I know, just now; and it is not only on that account I do not like to ask her, but because it will grieve her so much to hear of Raymond's deceit. She loves him so dearly, and it would be such a shock to her. Do you think you could wait?"
Philip Percival looked down on the little slight figure in its sombre dress with very different feelings to what he had expected. "My eldest sister will make it all right, if you will see her," had conveyed to his mind the idea of a woman of mature years – not of a young girl, who ought to have been sheltered by Raymond's care, not exposed by him to this painful revelation.
"Could you wait?" Salome repeated; and as she spoke two people coming down the road passed her and Philip Percival.
"Salome, is that you?" It was Mrs. Atherton's voice. "Good-night;" and then, as Salome scarcely responded to the greeting, Mr. and Mrs. Atherton passed on.
"Whom could Salome Wilton be talking to so earnestly?" Mrs. Atherton said as they walked away. "It was not one of her brothers."
"No; I think not. You had better speak to her about it. It is far too late for her to be walking here alone with a young man."
"It is very strange. I cannot understand it," Mrs. Atherton said. "Yes; I will speak to her to-morrow. She is such a quiet child, every day I know her and watch her I love her better. I cannot understand it," Mrs. Atherton repeated.
"Yes; I will wait till Christmas for your sake," Philip said. "I see how painful your position is, and I feel indignant with your brother for placing you in it. He ought never to have sent me here. But lest you should think I love money for its own sake, I want to tell you that we are very poor. My father is paralyzed, and my mother gives lessons in music. I have been working hard to save enough money to help my brother to live on his scholarship at Oxford, if, as we hope, he takes one. Also, I am able, by strict economy, to get a few things which brighten my mother's life a little. I don't say this to make you think it is wonderful or praiseworthy. I hope you will not misunderstand me."
"No indeed," Salome said earnestly, looking up at the face she could but dimly see, – "no indeed. I think you are brave and good; and, please, do not give up poor Raymond. Perhaps he may get wiser and more used to this great change in his life."
"Let us hope so, for your sake as well as his own. And now, shall I see you home?"
"Oh no, no; it is quite near – at the end of the road. Good-bye, and thank you very, very much."
Philip Percival stood watching the retreating figure as it went swiftly down the road and was soon lost to sight in the gathering darkness.
"His sister, his eldest sister," he said – "a mere child; but what a world of resolution in her face!"
It would not have been Salome had she not dropped something in her flight. Philip saw something white on the road, and picking it up, found it was Salome's pocket-handkerchief. He was irresolute for a moment whether to follow her with it or keep it. He decided on keeping it; and putting it into his coat pocket, walked quickly away in the opposite direction to Elm Cottage.
CHAPTER XIII
HARD TIMES
RAYMOND WILTON came back from dining with his uncle in a very amiable mood; and when he could get a word with Salome, and found that he was relieved from the immediate pressure of debt, he seemed as unconcerned as if he had never been in debt at all. He did not ask many questions about the interview with Philip Percival, catching at the most important part as Salome said, —
"Yes; he promised to wait till Christmas. That is not long, Raymond."
"Oh, well, something will turn up by then, and Uncle Loftus says it is possible there may be a little money coming in. The creditors are going to accept seven shillings in the pound; and if it were not for that hateful bank and its cheating, we should do. Anyhow, I am easy for the present, thanks to you, Sal; I shall not forget it, I can tell you."
"Raymond," Salome said in a low voice, "I wish you would go to church on Sunday mornings, and try to think more of what God wishes us to do."
"All right, Salome; but you know I am not fond of preaching."
"Dear Ray," said Salome earnestly, "I am sure I am not fit to preach to you or any one, only I do feel sure that if we ask God to keep us safe, He hears us, and will not forsake us, if we are really sorry, and determined to try to please Him."
"These are old-fashioned notions, Sal," said Raymond carelessly; "but you are a good little thing, and I daresay it would be better for me if I were more like you."
That was all Salome could get out of Raymond; and, chilled and disappointed, she felt, as many of us have felt, that it was no use trying to help people like Raymond, still less to expect anything from them.
But for the present there was a calm. Raymond went off in good time to Harstone. He spent the evening at home; and his mother was quite cheered about him, saying several times to Salome, "I thought, for my sake, Raymond would turn over a new leaf."
Meantime Reginald worked hard at his papers, and was steadfast in his work, fighting his way in the form, step by step, always a hard matter at a new school for the first term.
Salome saw him going on diligently and steadily, and longed for a word of praise for him. But it often happens that there is more joy in the mother's heart over signs of amendment in one child who has given her trouble and anxiety than in the persistent well-doing of those who never cause her uneasiness. This is nothing new. Was it not so in the days when divine lips told the story of the lost piece of silver and of the wandering sheep? Will it not be so to the end of time?
Salome lived for the next few days in constant excitement about the postman. Every time his knock was heard her heart would give an answering thump, and she would go out into the passage to take the letters. But Messrs. Bardsley and Carrow made no sign. A week passed; and one afternoon, when she went out to meet the postman, and eagerly took the letters from his hand, she came suddenly on Mrs. Atherton.
The rosy flush and the excitement of her manner were not lost on Mrs. Atherton, nor that she hastily thrust one letter into her pocket, and answered Mrs. Atherton's question as to whether she would like to see the Review she had brought in a confused manner, not even asking her to come in, and standing with Ada's foreign letter in her hand, twisting it nervously in her fingers.
"Shall I come in and see Mrs. Wilton?" Mrs. Atherton asked.
"Oh yes; please come in," was the reply; "but mamma is not downstairs to-day, so we have no fire in the drawing-room. I sit in the dining-room when mother is not well. She has a bad cold and head-ache. Please come in, Mrs. Atherton."
Salome preceded Mrs. Atherton into the dining-room, which Hans and Carl had combined to make very untidy by cutting up newspapers for the tail of a kite bigger than themselves, which Frank Pryor had in leisure moments made for them, with the assurance that "he" would carry a tail that would reach pretty near as far as Harstone Abbey Church. All these untidy scraps were on the floor, and one end of the table was even in a worse condition. Papers, books, pens, and ink were in a state of confusion impossible to describe. By the papers, and engulfed by them as they surged on every side, was a little work-basket, stuffed so full that the lid refused to think of closing, and out of which peeped a curious medley of articles too numerous and varied to mention.
"I am sorry to bring you in here," Salome began. "The children have nowhere else to play. They are gone now to help Ruth to make some tea-cakes. Please sit down."
Mrs. Atherton subsided into a chair, and then laughing, said, —
"I am sitting on some property, I think," and rising, she drew from under her a box of tools, from which Hans had been using the hammer.
"How dreadfully careless and naughty of the children!" Salome exclaimed. "I am so sorry. I do wish I were neat and tidy like Ada, who never left anything in the wrong place in her life."
"It is never too late to mend," said Mrs. Atherton with a smile. "I have not seen you for a week, except in church. I have been so busy; and every week and every day we get nearer to Christmas, the pressure grows greater. I wanted to ask you if you would come over to the vicarage and help me with some work."
"I work so badly," Salome said, "but I will do all I can."
"It is very easy, humble sort of work," Mrs. Atherton said, – "sewing strings on skirts, and buttons on aprons and pinafores, for Christmas presents in the parish, you know. Will you come in to-morrow afternoon for an hour or two?"
Salome promised; and then conversation seemed to flag, as it always does when something is on the mind of one of those who are trying to keep it up without alluding to that "something."
At last Mrs. Atherton rose to go away, when, taking Salome's hand in hers, she held it for a moment, and said, —
"My dear child, I have not seen you since we met you on the Whitelands Road. It was very late for you to be out alone, and with a stranger."
Salome's colour rushed to her face, and was of course misunderstood.
"You are so young, my dear," Mrs. Atherton said; "and I daresay, living in the country, you have often been out late in your own grounds and village. But here it is different. And you were talking and walking with a gentleman. Was he an old friend?"
"No," said Salome, "oh no; I had never seen him before. Oh, please do not ask me any more questions."
The look of distress on Salome's face touched Mrs. Atherton.
"My dear child," she said tenderly, "if you were my own daughter, I should say what I now say. Do not think that I interfere unduly, but let me earnestly advise you not to place yourself in the same position again. Will you promise?"
Salome was silent. How could she promise, when once more she must meet Philip Percival and tell him if she had succeeded in getting the money or not? Perhaps she might write to him, but somehow she felt it would be better to see him.
Mrs. Atherton waited, as if for an answer; and as none came, she dropped Salome's hand, and turned away.
"Do kiss me again," Salome said. "And do trust me. I thought, and I still think, I was doing right that evening."
"Well, my dear child," said Mrs. Atherton, kissing her affectionately, "I hope it will prove so. Give my love to your mother. I will come in again very soon."
Salome ran upstairs with Ada's letter, and hastily putting it on the table by her mother's side, went down again to read her own letter. It was from Bardsley and Carrow. Her hands trembled with excitement as she tore open the envelope and read: —
"Dear Madam, – We return the manuscript of 'Under the Cedars,' with thanks for allowing us to peruse it. We regret that it is not suited for publication in our series of stories for the young. – We remain your obedient servants,
"J. A. Bardsley and Carrow."
"Everything is a disappointment! Everything fails!" exclaimed Salome. "It is no use trying to do anything. Mrs. Atherton suspects me of I don't know what; and I was only trying to save mother from pain. But Raymond may go his own way now. I can do nothing for him. Why should my life be so different to other girls? Ada is happy at Cannes, having all she can wish for. Then there are the girls at Edinburgh Crescent going out to-night to a fancy-dress dance, and to-morrow to some other party, and next week to the school concert; and here am I, trying to be of use, and yet I cannot even succeed in that, and everything is so wretched and miserable. I saw Mrs. Atherton looking round on this untidy room. The children are really the greatest bother;" and Salome snatched up the tail of the kite, newspapers and all, with no gentle hand; and by so doing, the string, which was twisted in one of the corners of her old writing-folio, brought the whole down – cloth, work-basket, and all.
"What a horrid fire! and what a mess! Really this isn't very inviting," said Reginald, as he came in from football, and, covered with mud and scratches, threw himself into the chair Mrs. Atherton had occupied.
"Where's mother?" he asked. "Is her cold worse? I say, Salome, I was chosen to play in the second fifteen instead of a fellow who is ill. I have had a glorious run for once. Sal, what's the matter?"
Salome was fairly crying now.
"It is all so miserable and uncomfortable, Reg; and look here."
She handed him the letter as she spoke.
"What a jolly hand!" Reginald exclaimed. "Who is it from?"
"It's about my story. Of course it is returned."
"Oh, well, try somebody else. There's heaps of other publishers; or, if that doesn't do, write another tale."
"It's very easy to talk like that, Reg. You don't seem to care."
"Yes; I do care very much. Where's the manuscript?"
Then it flashed across Salome for the first time that the manuscript had not arrived with the letter.
"Why, the manuscript is not come after all. Perhaps it is lost. I daresay it is lost. It does not matter."
The entrance of Stevens settled this matter. "The postman came back with this parcel, Miss Salome. He forgot to deliver it. What is it?"
"Oh, it is mine. It is all right. Give it to me, Stevens."
"What a state the room is in! Well, for your own comfort's sake, I think you might keep it tidier, Miss Salome. You would be ever so much more comfortable. – O Master Reg, what boots! Well, I don't know how the mud is to be got off. You must remember there's no one but me to do everything, except the old lady, who is not one to put herself out of the way to help anybody – not she."
"Well, I'll clean my own boots, if that's all," said Reginald. "I don't care what I do. I'll clean the knives too, and learn to make you a gown, if it will please you, Stevie." And Reginald sprang up, took Stevens round the waist, made her pirouette round the table with him, and then, having left dabs of clay and mud off his boots all over Mrs. Pryor's red drugget, vanished.
Stevens straightened her cap, and pulled down her white apron, and said breathlessly, —
"What a boy it is! But I would sooner, fifty times over, have a bright happy nature like his, than one that can only mope and look miserable."
"I am miserable," said poor Salome, "so I can't help looking miserable."
"Well, there's many that are worse off than you, my dear. Ruth Pryor has been telling me of a family of little children left without father or mother. The Pryors supply them with bread; and this morning, when Frank went with the loaves, he found the eldest child, scarce twelve years old, with the little ones all crying round her, and her mother only buried a month ago; and now the father was taken in a fit, and went off before the doctor could get to him."
It was the reverse of the picture to that over which Salome had been brooding, – her cousins' gaieties; Ada's happiness amongst flowers, and music, and sunshine; the lives of her old neighbours at Maplestone – the De Brettes, and the Fergusons, and many others – riding, dancing, and enjoying themselves. Stevens's words were of use. The old message seemed to be whispered to her soul: "Let patience have her perfect work." "Trust in the Lord, and be doing good … verily thou shalt be fed."
It is not the perfect work of patience when trials are fretted at, and, as it were, resented; not the perfect work of patience when we tell ourselves we have borne a great deal, and are wonderfully brave, and that no one half appreciates us or all we do and endure. Ah no! The stuff of which the hidden saints of God are made is different to this. Theirs is the patience of Christ's faithful ones who can smile under the smart, and be tender and gentle to others even while the sword is piercing their own souls.
The child of whom I write was very young, and no wonder that she failed at times. The burden laid on her was heavy; and I cannot be surprised that Mrs. Atherton's misapprehension was hard to bear, and that the honest and pure desire to save her mother and her brother should be the cause of her kind friend thinking less highly of her than before made it doubly bitter. Then the story, on which she had built so many hopes, copied so carefully, kept free from blot or stain, – it was hard to see it again, the familiar words looking up at her as she scanned them with tear-dimmed eyes; the headings to the chapters, the little bits of verse or hymn, so carefully chosen. All in vain all her trouble, all her pains. And if no one took her story, and paid her for it, how should she be able to satisfy Philip Percival at Christmas?
The tangle of her life looked more bewildering than ever, and the child-heart within her was sick and sore with disappointment – a form of trial which the young find harder to meet than the old, because they have not the experience of past disappointments to guide them, and do not know how the sting is often taken away, as we live to say and to feel, "It was far better as it was, though I could not see it at the time."
Mrs. Wilton's cold proved a severe one, and she had to keep her bed for several days, and Salome did not find time to go over to the vicarage. Mrs. Wilton needed a great deal of attention, and Dr. Wilton came every day to see her.
The holidays began. It was getting near Christmas, and there was an ever-increasing dread in Salome's mind about the money. It seemed strange to her that Raymond did not appear to concern himself about it. He was in excellent spirits, and altogether more agreeable than before the revelation about his debts. They hung like a fetter round his sister. And there was no news of "Under the Cedars," which had gone forth again to try its fate – this time with far different feelings, and with very little hope of success, instead of a great deal.
"Something must be said to Mr. Percival, Raymond, about the money. He said he would wait till Christmas, but not longer. Shall I write to him?"
"Oh no; don't remind him of it. I see him every day, and he can ask me if he chooses."
But Salome was not to be satisfied. "As I promised to do something about it by Christmas, I must tell him how it is."
"How what is?"
"Why, Raymond, I thought, I hoped I might get something for some work I did, and then I could have paid Mr. Percival half perhaps."
"Work! what sort of work?"
"Oh, you must not ask. I will tell you some day perhaps."
"Don't bother yourself, Sal. Percival can wait. He is all right now with me, and I think he is a good fellow after all. I want awfully to get to St. Clair's for Christmas. He has asked me, which is awfully kind of him. You remember he was the fellow who travelled with us on that wretched journey."
"Yes, I remember; but I don't think you can go, Raymond. It is such a long journey for two days."
"I shall ask for an extra day. Old Warde is very civil to me now. It is better to keep up with friends worth having, like St. Clair. Mother thinks so."
Salome was silent. She thought it wiser to say nothing.
There was a bright service in St. Luke's Church every Wednesday evening; and on the Wednesday before Christmas, as Salome was coming out of the church, scarcely two hundred yards from Elm Cottage, she heard a voice near her say, —
"Miss Wilton."
She started, and turning quickly, said, —
"I wanted to see you, Mr. Percival. I cannot do what I promised, and I – I hardly like to ask it, but could you wait till Easter?"
"Yes," was the reply. "I can and will wait. I came here on purpose to say so."
"How kind of you! Mr. Percival, is – do you think my brother is getting on better at the office?"
"I hope so," was the answer.
"He is there in better time of a morning, isn't he?" asked Salome anxiously.
Again the answer came guardedly, —
"I think so."
"Mother has been so ill lately, and quite confined to her room. Raymond has been much more attentive to her lately."
"I am very glad to hear it. I hope you will be at rest about the money. Good-night."
Then he was gone. And Salome ran quickly across the road to the gate of Elm Cottage, saying to herself, "Surely Taylor and Darte will take my story, they are so long in replying, and that is a good sign. Bardsley and Carrow were only a week. Oh, perhaps by Easter it will be all right, and I shall be able to repay Mr. Percival. How kind he is! I do like him."
