Chapter XXIII: A Baby's Lifework

"And was it meet, thou tender flower, on thy young life to lay
Such burden, pledging thee to vows thou never canst unsay?
What if thou bear the Cross within, all aching and decay?
And 'twas I that laid it on thee—what if thou fall away?
Such is Love's deep misgiving when, stronger far than Faith,
She brings her earthly darlings to the Cross for Life and Death."
KEBLE.

IT was a sweet morning in early June.

Honor sat in Miss Selkirk's drawing-room by the open window. Her baby was in her lap, but she was stitching busily. Miss Selkirk was gardening outside, and Fay was pretending to help her by carrying away the weeds that she was rooting up from her rose beds.

Honor heard their voices, and smiled at Miss Selkirk's grave, matter-of-fact replies to Fay's erratic remarks.

"I'm not putting the weedses on the bonfire, you know. I'm poking them down a deep hole with their heads topsy-turvy, 'acause I don't want to hurt the poor fings, and they will grow down to New Zealand, perhaps, and then they'll come out the right way up, and I dessay there's many poor children will be glad of some weeds in their gardings where they haven't any grass. Do you know, Aunt Marget, there's places where daddy has been that never grows no weeds nor nuffin'? It's all sand and sand and sand."

"That is desert," announced Miss Selkirk. "New Zealand has quite as much grass as England."

"Has it? I like sand better than earth, don't you? 'Acause it never muddies you. And in Heaven, you know, the paths are made of sugar, no sand or muddy earth at all. At least, I fink it is Heaven, or else it's Fairyland. And now I'll go and help dear Isaacs to clean his harness. Garding is tarsome when I feels so hot."

She was off in a minute. Miss Selkirk looked in at the drawing-room window.

"There speaks her father," she said with her little bitter smile. "Alick would never continue doing anything that was irksome to him."

"Fay is very young yet," said Honor apologetically.

"Not too young to be trained in habits of steadfastness of purpose and self-denial."

Honor made no answer.

Then Miss Selkirk continued at her rose beds. And when her task was finished, she came into the drawing-room and stood looking down upon the sleeping baby in silence.

"Do you mean him to be a second Alick?" she asked.

"I shall not train him as Alick was trained," said Honor firmly. "Will you never make allowances for him, Margaret?"

"I know you think me hard, but he made my mother suffer, and I can never forget that our old home is in the hands of strangers. There was no need to sell it. Mother saved all her life, and denied herself and us many pleasures, so that Alick should come into his inheritance unencumbered by debt. And that is how he repaid her! Sold every bit of it, with some of our priceless pictures and china, and has squandered the money away on himself and his pleasures."

Honor looked down upon her boy very thoughtfully. Then a pink flush came into her cheeks, making her look almost pretty. She looked up at Miss Selkirk with a sudden inspiration.

"And his son, Margaret, shall buy that inheritance back. I mean it. God willing, I will train him and teach him towards that end. It will be his lifework. He shall bring back the old home to the Selkirks, and you and I shall live to see it. I was thinking over his name—I want to call him Victor. There is so much in a name; it will give him hope from the beginning. And that is everything. If a child is taught from his infancy that with God's help he can overcome, if he feels that he is meant to be a victor over adverse circumstances, over trials, over temptations, he will have courage and energy and hope, which is half the battle."

Miss Selkirk was astonished at the enthusiasm in the quiet Honor's voice, but she was touched to the depths of her soul. She placed her hand gently on the baby's head.

"If he succeeds in righting what his father has done, he will have my blessing now. Name him Victor, if you like. His father will not object, I know. There was one Victor in our family many years ago."

"I know. It is the name of one of the miniatures over the mantelpiece," said Honor, pointing to them. "That is what made me think of it. I think of so much as I sit and work here. I have all my life been so fond of children that I can hardly believe I have now actually one of my own. I want to make no mistakes in his training. I shall give him to God, and I believe God will take him. His dedication will be no light matter to me. I shall surround him with love, but from the first, I shall make a strong point of self-denial, even self-sacrifice; only I shall hope that love to God and love for his fellow-creatures will be his motive power. He is a boy—not a girl. I want him to grow up an upright, steadfast, courteous gentleman, in the true sense of the word. And he shall reclaim his inheritance, if he works hard all his life to do it."

Honor spoke as if she were inspired, and Miss Selkirk's cold face kindled and quickened at her words.

"I shall hold you to your vow," she said; "and I will do all in my power to help you in such a purpose."

The two women looked down upon the child then in silence. The first gleam of hope dawned in the rugged Scotswoman's eyes. Both she and the mother let their thoughts run on to the future, when this atom of humanity would be a power for good in the world. Miss Selkirk saw her old home redeemed. Farther than that her thoughts did not go. Honor saw a strong, honourable man influencing many for good, and using his hardly earned inheritance as a trust from God.

And the baby boy slept on, unconscious of the part which he was ordained to play.

As the spring deepened into summer, Honor regained her health and strength. She insisted upon taking the needlework with which her friend in London supplied her. When Alick's remittance came at last, it was only twenty pounds, and he did not say when he could send her any more.

She wrote and told him of the birth of her boy. But he was not a good correspondent, and it was a long time before she heard. Then his letter was affectionate but vague.

"I am glad you are near Margaret. She will look after you, but I quite see with you that you ought to be in a home of your own. Get a cheap furnished cottage. There are plenty of them; and then, when I can, I'll join you. Don't expect too much from me. Several of my speculations have failed. I'm an unfortunate beggar. Hope your son has been born under a lucky star; his father wasn't. Kiss my girlie for me, and tell her that I had a sledge ride yesterday drawn by six Eskimo dogs. I'll send you a ten-pound note next time I write, but don't know when that will be."

Honor read this with a smile and a sigh. Miss Selkirk did not ask to see it, but when Honor handed her the twenty pounds, she refused to take a penny.

"It will just clothe you and the children. What a foolish girl you were to marry him!"

She would not hear of her leaving her.

"No; we have fitted in together very well. I was getting morose and selfish. I like to have you with me. I know it is bad for Alick, but I cannot help that. I don't think he would send you any more if you were starving."

It was in June that Honor received a letter from her father, saying that his wife was going away for three weeks to visit a cousin, and she had suggested that Honor should come to the Rectory and look after things while she was away. He told her that Mrs. Broughton would arrange for the nursery governess to have her holiday at the same time. Honor's eyes brightened. The thought of seeing her father and small sisters in such a way filled her with delight.

Miss Selkirk marvelled at her. She had heard a good deal about the Rectory household.

"Do you realise," she said, "that you have now two children of your own to look after? How can you take charge of that household without the governess or your stepmother to help you?"

Honor laughed.

"I shall find it nothing—nothing at all! Love makes all things easy, Margaret."

"They only ask you when they want to make use of you," said Miss Selkirk.

But she made no further objections, and saw Honor comfortably off in the train from Exeter.

It was a very happy home-going to Honor, as happy as her former visit had been miserable. Her three little sisters welcomed Fay warmly, but insisted upon her prefixing "Aunt" to their respective names. They adored the baby, and clung round Honor's skirts as of old. Fay was at first a little jealous.

"She's my mother, and belongs to me. You talk me down, and I don't like it."

"She belongs to us; we knewed her before you was born," argued Chatty.

"She's our sister," said Minnie; "that's much more close than a stepmother."

"Hush! Hush!" cried Honor. "I won't have quarrelling. We all belong to each other."

It was not long before Pauline came round to see her. She found her in the Rectory garden, surrounded by the children.

"Why, Honor, this is like old times!" said Pauline as she kissed her affectionately.

"Yes, isn't it? We are going to have tea out here. Father will be in directly. He is visiting a sick parishioner. Now, Pauline, look at my boy."

The young mother held out her baby, and Pauline took it into her arms with tender, adoring eyes. As she stood there in the sunlight in her white linen gown, looking down upon the infant, Honor said earnestly:

"Oh, Pauline! If an artist could paint you! You look—well, almost like the Virgin and Child. Oh! You ought to be a mother! You are more fit for it than I!"

"The same Honor as ever!" said Pauline, smiling at her. "Always underrating yourself. Has your marriage not taught you differently?"

Victor began to whimper. Honor took him back, then reseated herself under an old chestnut tree, and pulled forward a chair for Pauline.

"Talk to me," she said. "I seem to have had no one to whom I could confide for years. I have longed for you so much, Pauline! No; I'm not fit to be a mother. When my boy grows up, he'll think nothing of me—no one does. I don't often think of myself, but I've been doing it to-day. Even father said this morning, when Lady Marion Burke wrote a note saying she was coming to see him to-morrow to talk over the school treat and prizes:

"'Dear, dear! I wish Emily was at home. I don't know how we shall manage. She generally stays to tea, and I'm always glad of a woman to discuss things with her.'

"I suggested I should be here, and he said:

"'Yes, yes, I know, my dear; but you never could entertain like Emily—you haven't the manner.'

"I suppose it is manner that I want. But all my life I have been so accustomed to be considered a nonentity that I shall never be anything else."

"You are a married woman now," said Pauline brightly.

"I know, but I don't feel I have the position of one—no home, my husband away, and no money. There, Pauline! I'm telling you what I can tell no one else! I'm simply a dependent on Miss Selkirk at present. Alick is very badly off. It is very strange, but when I married him I never thought I should have money troubles again. I took it for granted that he had plenty. He hasn't enough to give us a home; and it is not only myself that has to be provided for, but two children. Sometimes my heart sinks within me. Why are things so different from what we expect?"

Pauline was silent, and Honor continued:

"I look back now and see the mistake I made. God moved too slowly for me, and I thought I would manage better. Wasn't it strange? But at the very time I was making up my mind that they had filled up my place at home, and would never want me any more, Miss Paton was just leaving, and father was writing me a letter to tell me they wanted me back again. Pauline, if I had got that letter a day sooner, I should not have married."

"You told me you were trying to alter your eastern path a little," said Pauline slowly. "I did feel for you so much, but I think if you had waited, you would have had more sunshine."

"I have been waiting for sunshine all my life," said Honor, a hint of passion in her tone. "I know now that I shall never get it—only gleams—and it is always, 'always' tempered with east wind."

Then, after a pause, she added:

"I must speak out to you, Pauline; you don't know the infinite relief of it. I am so bitterly disappointed that I can influence my husband so little. It was my one hope. He really did want me, and I thought that perhaps I could lead him to value heavenly things more and earthly things less. Instead of which, I seem to have lost a good deal of my own faith and trust in God, and he has not changed in the least. I have not the personal or spiritual power to influence a man for good. I see it now. It's all so different—so very different—from what I thought."

"Well, Honor dear, remember Christian in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He took a by-path, and got into the clutches of Giant Despair, but he found his way back to the right path again, and you can follow his example."

"Yes," said Honor, softly; "I have come back, but there are some things that one cannot undo. There is my baby, Pauline. How will he grow up? Why should I think he will be different from his father? Why should I hope that I can train him for heaven when his father may wish to train him for earth? It is true I have prayed—I have dedicated him to God—but I have had terrible doubts lately that perhaps God will use him to be my punishment.

"And now, when I am with you, I begin to feel that perhaps the vow I made about making him win back the inheritance which his father has sold may be wrong. I ought to be training him for his heavenly inheritance instead. May I tell you about it, and about Miss Selkirk?"

Poor Honor! Always naturally morbid and over-conscientious, she was pouring out to Pauline now all the doubts and fears of her timid heart. Pauline listened to the story of Knockaburn, of Alick's youth and manhood, and she did not know which she pitied most—the sister or the brother. When Honor had finished speaking, she said gently:

"Honor, dear, you say you have learnt not to go in front of God. Leave the future—even the matter of Knockaburn. Personally, I feel that it would give a boy an impetus for work and self-denial that would be good for him; but he is a baby at present. Train him to serve and love God first of all—that is all you have to think about at present. If your life is right with God, I think you are bound unconsciously to influence your husband and children for good. Why should God use your child to punish you?"

"Oh!" cried Honor. "God used Absalom to punish David, and Jacob's sons to punish him. I went against God like Balaam when I married—I know I did."

"But if you did, walk humbly now, and trust God as your loving Father, remembering that—

"'All things work together for good to them that love God.'

"Whatever comes to you will come from a Father's hand. And I don't think that hand will be ever too heavily laid upon you."

Tears welled up in Honor's eyes.

"Oh! I like to think of a parent's love now I have a child of my own. You have done me a lot of good, Pauline. I have a great deal to thank God for. And don't think that my husband is unkind or neglectful of me. He is not that. He has never said one cross word since we have been married. I think I can bear the separation better than most women could. You see, a child is all in all to me—more than fifty husbands. I am not the girl to attract and keep men's attentions and affections. I mean, they like me more for what I do than what I am. You understand the difference, don't you? I know my husband has a sincere regard for me, and he is faithful to me. He never would be otherwise. But, as I told his sister, men's society is more to him than women's, and I know his Bohemian love of wandering will keep him away from me the greater part of our lives. If I had a little home of my own, I should be content and happy, but then that would be too much of a southern aspect for me—wouldn't it?"

She ended up with a little laugh, but Pauline felt near to tears, the pathos of it touched her so.

"I'm sure," Honor persisted, "I thrive best in a cutting wind, and, as you say, I do get the sun with it. Now tell me about our southern pilgrim. Where is she?"

"Amabel? She had her baby a month or two ago. She writes very happily, but her husband tells her mother that the doctor advises her coming home for a year, and he is going to try and send her with the child this coming autumn."

"I should like to see her again. She is such a sunny-hearted creature that I wonder how she will bear the separation from her husband."

"She will feel it, but the joy of being with her parents will be compensation. I'm afraid I must be going, Honor, dear. Will you come round and see me if you can? Perhaps it is selfish to ask it, for you must have your hands full."

"I love managing a house," said Honor. "Of course I will. There does not seem half so much to do as there used to be. This Mr. Danby seems to do all the outside work. I hear he has started a village cricket club."

"Yes; he is very keen about it. It is the thin edge of the wedge to establish a workmen's club before next winter sets in. He is a great favourite with the villagers."

"I should think so. Old Mary White came up to see me this morning. I gave her some of baby's clothes to wash, and she said: 'We do be hopin' Mr. Danby will be getting a wife soon. There be only one woman good enough for him hereabouts, and he do see her pretty constant.' I thought I must tell you."

Pauline laughed merrily.

"He is a pleasant acquaintance," she said. "He has brightened up some of my dull days for me."

"I should have thought from your face that you never could have a dull day," said Honor.

"Ah! This is one of my brightest days. Good-bye, dear. I haven't seen your little stepdaughter. She is so engrossed in her play."

Honor called Fay, who was busy at the other end of the lawn with her little sisters, having a dolls' tea-party in a very earwiggy, tumbledown summer-house.

She came flying across the grass.

"Yes, mummie, do tell me what you fink. Won't black tea make my children see ghosteses? Daddy always says it will."

"Shake hands with this lady, darling. She is my greatest friend, and loves little children."

Fay put out her hand and looked up a little shyly through her tangle of golden curls into Pauline's smiling face. She was kissed at once.

"Will you be friends with me?" asked Pauline.

"Oh, yes; I isn't not friends with no one except the devil, and God tells me to have nuffin' to do with him at all."

"Then you must come and see me in my little house one day when mother has time to bring you."

Fay lifted up her face and spoke in a penetrating whisper.

"And we'll leave those chillen behind," pointing to Honor's little sisters. "They rather crowd me about, you know. I feel too full of them when they're round me. And fancy! Isn't it 'strordinally? They don't know anything 'bout the world. I telled them little England was just a speck outside the land on the water. That's what it looks like to God or to anybody standing at the top o' the world. Daddy 'splained it to me, and Minnie said that England was the biggest country on earth. It's rubbis' and nonsense, and so we kicked each other, but we're very dear friends now."

As she bounded away, Pauline looked at Honor with sparkling eyes.

"There's a streak of sunshine you have with you perpetually, Honor!"

"Yes, indeed; but, Pauline, she was my temptation. I would never have married if it had not been for her."

Pauline walked home wondering if Honor's rash step was going to cost her dear, or whether it would ennoble and strengthen her character. She saw a great deal of her during her visit home.

And when the last days came, and Honor was bidding her good-bye, she said to her:

"Keep up your heart, Honor. I believe, if you will trust and not be afraid, God has some good things in store for you."

"When I look at you and realise what your life is and yet how happy and courageous you are, I determine to follow your example," said Honor. "I am going back to Miss Selkirk's stronger in every way for seeing you. But, oh, Pauline I—don't laugh—you must marry and have children of your own!"