Chapter XIV: Battling Towards the Shore

"I see but cannot reach, the height
That lies for ever in the light;
And yet for ever, and for ever
When seeming just within my grasp,
I feel my feeble hands unclasp
And sink discouraged into night!"
LONGFELLOW.

HONOR'S return was the next event. She came, feeling a rush of affection for everyone and everything that made her home, and was disappointed to receive several small checks. In the first place, she found that Miss Paton, who had gone to visit her mother, had taken her old bedroom, preferring it to the one allotted to her. If there was anything that Honor loved and prized in the way of possessions, it was her books and the various knick-knacks that were scattered about in her room, most of which were mementoes of friends and places. These were no longer there, but distributed promiscuously through the house, and some of her childish books had been given to the village library.

"I feel as if I had died and come to life again," she said passionately to her stepmother. "Do you never expect me to step into my place again at home?"

"You are making a fuss about nothing," said Mrs. Broughton indifferently. "Anna took your room as she found it nearest to the children, and more convenient in many ways. You are not leaving Mrs. Montmorency, are you? And for the time you are here, you can collect all your own things round you and be happy. I thought we had managed it all beautifully, but nothing that I ever do pleases you. I miss Anna dreadfully, and only let her go because we thought that you and she might clash together. You are so very difficult to deal with."

So Honor said no more, and the warm, clinging grasp of her little sisters, and their enthusiastic reception of her, more than compensated for the momentary bitterness. Her father, too, brightened up, and showed his quiet appreciation of her in many ways.

"But, oh, Pauline," Honor confided, as she was sitting with her one afternoon, "if you only saw the state of the linen cupboard and the children's clothes! Miss Paton hates mending, and it is all given to our poor little housemaid, who has no time for sewing, and so it goes undone. The drawers and cupboards in the house are in chaos. But no one seems to mind, and life goes on just the same. They get on just as well without me."

"Would you like to come home again?" Pauline asked.

Honor's eyes filled with tears.

"It is the children. I miss then every day of my life. And I have a horrid jealous feeling about this Anna Paton who is usurping my place. My stepmother quotes her on every occasion against me. And she said this morning that you were very fond of her, and that she adores you."

Pauline laughed.

"Oh, Honor, dear, don't make yourself out a smaller nature than you are. You are not vexed because I am friendly with her?"

"No, I don't think I am."

Honor spoke reluctantly.

"She is a girl I pity very much," Pauline said seriously. "She has had hard bits in her life, and she has got soured in consequence. But she told me the other day she was going to tackle disagreeables instead of edging round them, so let us hope that she may tackle the mending before your next visit home."

"You make everyone want to be better," said Honor with a wistful smile. "I wish, I wish I had a sunshiny temperament like yours; or even like Audrey, who has no home now, and is working for her living. She is bubbling over with life and spirits. I haven't laughed so much for a long time as I did yesterday when she was telling me about her small boys."

"Audrey has her grey days as well as you," said Pauline. "Tell me about your life in Scotland."

"I like it better than London. Mrs. Montmorency is not coming to England till the spring. It is a very quiet, monotonous life, but I like some of the people about. There is an old lady who is blind living close to us, and she has three brothers all living with her; one is lame, the other is deaf, and there is only one with his faculties sound. But they are all quite happy and cheerful; the deaf one is a great fisherman, and the lame one drives a motor; and the strong one is a great gardener and sportsman. I go and read to the old lady sometimes when I can be spared. Then I like the young clergyman and his wife, though they are quite of the farming class. But they are simple and good. Isn't it strange? There isn't a child in the neighbourhood. Everyone is very old, or else they have no family."

"I suppose if you found a child to befriend, you would be quite happy."

"No child could be like my own small sisters." And then eagerly she began to repeat some of their quaint sayings.

And Pauline wondered when she left her, if she would ever taste the joys of motherhood, or if her natural shyness and unattractiveness would be bars in the way.

When the two boys came home from school, Honor's time was fully occupied. She threw herself into church matters with a heartiness that was not usual, and talked with such animation and pleasure to Mr. Danby that Audrey laughingly remarked to Mrs. Daventry that a match might come off between them.

"It would be the making of Honor; she really would make any man's home comfortable; she has all the qualities for it. And he would be such a nice, cheerful little husband."

"You seemed to think the other day that he liked Pauline too well."

"But he isn't half good enough for her. Now Honor is quite different."

"Poor Honor!" said Mrs. Daventry, with pity in her tone. "She is not one of the world's favourites, but I can't help thinking that she may astonish us all one day."

"Would you like to see us all married?" Audrey asked a little mischievously.

"I think I am old-fashioned enough to do so," was the response, "if I could be assured that your marriages would be happy ones. But a disastrous marriage is worse than death, to my mind."

"I am nearly certain that I shall never marry," said Audrey decidedly. "As one gets older, one has higher ideals for a husband. Most men would bore me after a few months of them."

"Don't lower your ideals," said Mrs. Daventry earnestly, "and never think of a man who will not help you heavenwards."

Something in her tone kept Audrey silent.

It was a quiet Christmas, but a happy one. And on Christmas Day, Pauline, at her mother's request, accepted Mrs. Daventry's invitation to dinner.

Mr. Danby dined with them, too, and Mrs. Daventry did not know which of the girls she admired most—Pauline in an old brown velvet gown, which, with some real lace and some violets at her breast, gave her a regal appearance, or Audrey in her black gown and Christmas roses, which formed such an admirable background to her sparkling, animated face.

For the time being, Audrey had laid aside her anxious thoughts, and was the life of the party. A nephew of Mrs. Daventry's, a London barrister, had unexpectedly turned up, and being a music lover, and possessing a very mellow tenor voice, the piano was in great requisition after dinner. He asked his aunt afterwards how she had managed to produce two such charming women.

"I'm in love with them both," he said. "I only wish I had not to return to town to-morrow. The golden-haired one is superb—she inspires one! And the grey-eyed, bewitching Audrey makes me long to carry her off to church and marry her straight away!"

"They are both too good for you," responded his aunt. "Life is not the playtime to either of them that it is to you."

Her nephew laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"At all events, they cloak their earnestness with a good bit of sweetness and gaiety. And I am getting old and grey, aunt. I shall soon be wanting an arm-chair by a fireside, and a home and a wife."

As Pauline and Audrey separated that night, Pauline said:

"Are things going better with you, Audrey, dear?"

"They are, and they aren't," said Audrey, looking into Pauline's shining eyes with steady frankness. "I'm slowly getting a firmer hold of God's reality and omnipotence, and a surer belief in the Bible itself, but at the same time a sinking conviction of my own worthlessness, which is not exhilarating. Have I been very frivolous to-night? It is so pleasant to be able to be oneself, and not to have a consciousness that one is a teacher and trainer, and must be always minding the proprieties! Oh, dear! Pauline, I wish the time was not flying so fast! I feel I would like this visit of mine to last for ever."

Pauline went home to brighten her mother's sick-room with an account of her evening.

Mr. Danby walked home with her, and Mrs. Erskine, hearing it, said rather sharply:

"I hope you are not getting to care for that little man, Pauline. He seems to be always hovering about you."

"Why, mother, dear, he is not at all that sort, I assure you. We are simply acquaintances. I don't think he has a thought beyond his music and his lectures."

"Well, don't take too much interest in his hobbies, for he is only an organist, and ought to be kept in his place."

"He is a gentleman, mother. You would know that at once if you were to speak to him."

"That I shall never do," said Mrs. Erskine, a little bitterly; "my society now is entirely limited to doctors, whom, as a race, I despise."

Pauline did not see Audrey again for some time. Mrs. Erskine was not so well, and Pauline was confined to the house altogether.

The New Year came in; Honor went back to Scotland, and Audrey at last came to Pauline in desperation as the holidays were nearly over.

"What am I to do? I lie awake at night wondering what will happen. I can't go back as I am, Pauline. I won't be there training and teaching those boys when I am so unsettled in my own mind."

"Write to Dr. Vernon; tell him exactly what you feel, and let him decide."

And this is what Audrey did. She received a reply by return of post.

"MY DEAR MISS HUME,

"You must come back to us. I am quite sure that you will do as well for the small boys this term as you did last. I did not mean to frighten you. I'm only covetous that my teachers should be one and all able to train for eternity as well as for this life. You say you are anxious for more light. It will be given you. Some of us grow slowly, and it is generally deeper and surer work when such is the case. Let me know your train on Thursday.—Yours truly,—

"E. VERNON."

"I said I wouldn't come back," mused Audrey. "But he always gets his way. It is easiest for me to return. I wish—I wish I was more like him. He is so strong and so sure!"

She left Mrs. Daventry with mixed feelings of regret and content.

The "backwater," as she still called it, was very dear to her in many ways. But the still, quiet days chafed her active spirit.

And when she returned to the busy, cheery work of school life, she realised afresh how much she loved it. The beginning of a term was always an extra busy time for the doctor, and Audrey did not see him to speak to alone for some weeks.

Then one day, she was getting a book out of the library when he came in. He did not notice her for some minutes as he was too much engrossed in looking up a book of reference himself. But when he did, he said pleasantly:

"You are a great reader, Miss Hume, are you not?"

"Yes; I love it," said Audrey quickly. "I have always longed for books more than anything else, and I have been kept so short of them all my life."

"Do you read without discrimination?"

"I hope not."

"I try," said Dr. Vernon slowly, gazing round at the book-lined walls, "to give my pupils information of the right sort. I suppose you realise you can have the other? There are many minds in the world and many books. As the man thinks and lives, so he writes, and some books have caused more misery in young lives than the worst of companions could do. I found a book on the cricket ground the other day that I would be sorry to see in my library. I fancy you know it. 'Life from My Outlook.'"

"How did you know it was I who left it there?" asked Audrey, astonished. "It was lent to me, but it was very careless of me to leave it about."

"Very careless," said the doctor gravely. "Unlabelled poison is always dangerous."

"It's rather clever," said Audrey dubiously.

"To the would-be sceptic, perhaps. I happen to know the man who wrote it, and his life had been in accordance with his teaching. Once grant that the ego within us is as powerful as God Himself—nay, that it is God—then any form of vice or selfish gratification can be indulged in with impunity."

"I don't like the book," said Audrey thoughtfully, "but it is humorous and discerning, and the writer expresses what one thinks, and yet what one cannot put into words."

"It's clever trash," said the doctor shortly.

Then he turned to Audrey earnestly.

"Don't feed your soul on such stuff as that. And if you have imbibed the poison, let me recommend an antidote—"

"Is it poison?"

"Well, we will call it a dangerous drug. I dabbled once with medicine, and there are certain drugs that first soothe, then partially paralyse if continued in. Have you read many such books?"

"No, frankly, I have not. I read that last term, but turned up a passage in it again. I don't like it; but I love knowledge of all sorts. It is fascinating."

"Does such reading feed the spiritual part of you?"

"It perplexes me. I was very troubled last term, but I see things clearer now, only when I think I am getting a clearer grasp of things, a torrent of doubts assails me. I am, as the Bible puts it, like 'a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.'"

"If you want an intellectual grasp of Christianity, I have a good many books in my private library that might suit you. I believe in both head and heart being satisfied. Come across now, and I will lend you a few."

Audrey followed him.

"I wish," he said abruptly, "that when people take to reading all the objections against our faith, they would, with all fairness, read the defence of it. They never get as far as that. I have some very good little volumes of the recent Bampton lectures. Have you ever read any of them?"

"No," said Audrey, "I am afraid I am so ignorant that I do not know what they are. They are lectures delivered at Oxford, are they not?"

"Yes. John Bampton endowed them for the purpose, in the words of his will, 'of confirming and establishing the Christian Faith.' Eight lectures are delivered every year, and printed afterwards, and some of them are splendid."

He took her into his study.

"These will strengthen your faith intellectually," he said. "But you will find that the satisfaction of your intellect is not sufficient."

He gave her half a dozen books written by modern exponents of the doctrine and truth of Christianity. And Audrey took them gratefully and departed.

For the next week or two she read and digested them; and her uneasy questionings were answered and satisfied. When she eventually took them back to him, she said:

"It has been cold, hard conviction, Dr. Vernon, but I suppose it is good to have a firm foundation. It has left me where I was. I love the thought that is brought out in nearly all the books, the knowledge of a personal God, and the union with Him. But I cannot seem to get into touch with God. I worship Him, I pray to Him, but He is to me my Creator and the Sovereign Ruler of the World."

Audrey spoke earnestly, and for one moment Dr. Vernon looked at her without speaking. Then he opened a small, well-worn Bible which always lay on the corner of his writing-table.

He opened it and asked her to read a certain verse to which he pointed her.

Audrey read it:

"'As many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons
of God.'"

"That is what you need," he said. "Leave all your doubtful points of doctrine and theology, and open your heart simply and unreservedly to the One—the only One—who has the power to give you what you need. He will explain Himself and His love. You want to take your place as a child—a daughter of God. The reception of the Saviour is the condition. That will give you the power to become one, and when you are in His family, the knowledge of your Father, and your Father's will, will grow deeper and stronger every day. Remember! 'Without Me ye can do nothing.' The death of Christ was necessary for your redemption and forgiveness, it was also necessary for perfect union. It is an invisible union, but ask those who have walked longest with God whether it is not a very real and a happy one."

Audrey said nothing, but as she walked across the quadrangle by herself, she determined that she would not rest till she had satisfied her heart as well as her head. And as she mused upon Pauline's advice, and then Mrs. Daventry's, and now Dr. Vernon's, she wondered at the similarity of it all. They all urged her to take the Bible as her standpoint, and to seek to know God herself without taking men's views, or men's doctrines.

"God must be a personal God to me," was her inward cry, and she went back to study her Bible afresh. She took the verse which Dr. Vernon pointed out, and with the help of her Concordance, she looked out all the passages about receiving Christ. When she came to the third chapter of Revelation and the twentieth verse,—

"'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock,'"

she went down on her knees, and this was how she prayed:

"O Lord, I am an utter failure; I have doubted Thee and Thy Word. I want the peace of forgiven sin. I want Thy death on the cross to mean all the world to me. Come into my heart and cleanse it, and abide with me, and teach me how to know Thee better, and believe in Thy love."

In after years, Audrey looked back to that prayer as the turning-point in her life. But at the time, she hardly realised any difference in her feelings. It was very slow and gradual work with her, here a little and there a little, but unconsciously, she began to grip hold, and keep hold of some of the facts of eternity.

She tried not to be continually dissecting herself. And Pauline was delighted to receive the following letter from her:

"MY DEAREST PAULINE,

"I know you are longing for a letter, and I have no excuse, for my evenings are practically my own. But I have been spending them lately with books, books, books. Dr. Vernon has lent me some, and they have done me real, solid, and I hope lasting good, for they are replies to the scepticism of the present day. I like them because they are all modern, and deal with modern topics, and they are not too heavy and long, like 'Paley.' I read them and believe what they say; their evidence is so strong, but—religion wants heart knowledge as well as head. You have all told me so. And this I am trying to get. A Christian's life is an anomaly without Christ within. I have come to see this. That simple verse still rings on in my ears, 'Without Me ye can do nothing.'

"I feel as if I am preaching a sermon—but I'm so interested and anxious about it all, that I must write it to you. From one point to another I got led to, 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.' And then, Pauline, I felt He was still outside my life, but not so far away as I had thought. He was on the very edge of it, and it was He who wanted to come to me. He was not waiting for me to come to Him. It was a tense moment. And I think, I hope I opened the door of my heart.

"I have a few rare moments of bliss now, when I almost realise the house is tenanted at last by its rightful Owner. But then, again, the feeling goes. And I am still being more or less tossed by the waves, or, as the Bible puts it, 'a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.' Yet I have a firm conviction that my tossing is not taking me out to sea, but to a certain, sure harbour, and when I land and 'know' I am safe, I will be sure to let you know. Until then, pray for me.

"My small boys still engross much of my time. I have lost two of my favourites this term. They have gone into the junior school. You would laugh to see their embarrassment when they pass me in the playing fields in company with their new chums. They get scarlet, either cap me abruptly, and go on talking fast and furiously—or they pretend they don't see me. It's almost as if I were a family nurse, which is a being that is, of course, beneath contempt in a schoolboy's eyes!

"How is your mother? And your dear self?

"Write to me soon.

"Your loving,

"AUDREY."