Chapter VIII: People's Rights

_June 22nd, Saturday._

YESTERDAY I could not get hold of Millicent, but to-day I made her come out for a walk. She said she could spare half-an-hour. And as soon as we were outside the town, I asked her point-blank what she had meant.

"Had we not better drop the subject?" she enquired. "If I say anything at all, I must say what I really think, and you will be annoyed."

"No, I will not. I want to know what you have in your mind, and what has been said to you about me."

She repeated, "Said to me" in such a puzzled voice, that I saw I had been mistaken.

"I thought my uncle or aunt might have told you—"

"About your home affairs? Not a word. Why should they? Was it likely? I only know what you have told me yourself."

"Oh, well; then I don't mind. And I want to know how you think I am to blame. What have I done that is wrong?"

I half thought she would try to shirk giving an answer, but she did not.

"Perhaps there has been a want of right feeling."

"What sort of right feeling?" I really did try not to speak curtly.

"The Miss Friths are older than you. And you tell me yourself that they have a right to settle things as they choose—in your home, I mean. You have not the right. If you always remembered this, would it not make a great difference?"

"But that is just what is so horrid."

"Does the horridness matter, if one 'ought?'"

After a minute, she added, "Is it not a matter, really, of 'rendering to all their due'? Perhaps you have not been careful enough to render to the Miss Friths their due—their rights in the house."

"Everybody is always thinking about their rights."

"Do you think so? But, Rhoda, yesterday you never said one word about their rights. It was all about your own rights. I could not help fancying that if only you thought a little more about their rights, they would probably think a great deal more about yours."

I felt angry again. Millicent may have said what was true, but it is one thing to see for oneself where one is in the wrong, and quite another to be told of it, especially by a mere girl. But I had invited her to speak out, so what could I say?

We walked on solemnly for some minutes, without a word, going through a small copse. Millicent waited to pick a flower now and then. And as we came near the further side, she suddenly stopped short. I was in front, and I had just turned back to examine something, so I saw the change in her face. I could not help seeing. She is almost always pale, but in a moment, she grew quite white, as white as a sheet.

"Why, Millicent,—" I said. And then I knew from her manner that she did not mean to be questioned. Not merely that she did not want to be, but that she "would not" be. I knew it would be quite useless to ask anything.

"Do you want any blue-bells, Rhoda?" she asked, and she stooped to pick two or three, and held them out. She seemed to have forgotten that she had offended me.

I took them, and said, "Thank you," and we moved on again, a good deal more slowly than before.

Millicent looked like one in a dream.

When we came to the border of the copse, where it was bounded by a low hedge and a shallow ditch, I noticed a young man walking briskly along in the field, just beyond the ditch. His back was nearly toward us, but he had passed close by the moment before, and if we had walked a very little faster, we should have met him. Did Millicent want to miss him? That thought sprang up first.

"Who is it?" I asked. "A friend of yours?"

And as she did not answer instantly, I said—"It looks rather like that photo,—your friend, Mr. Derwentwater!"

I think I did see a sort of likeness, but what made me think of Mr. Derwentwater was not that; it was the look in Millicent's face.

"Yes," she said, in an undertone.

"I" had not spoken in an undertone; on purpose, I am afraid; and I laughed now, and said:—"How funny of you! One would think you didn't care to see him."

The young man must have heard my voice or my laugh, for he glanced round, and then he came striding back over the rough clods, and leaped hedge and ditch together, in one bound.

"Why, Millicent!"

She put out her hand quietly, with a—"How do you do?" Not as if she were especially delighted to see him.

"I'm at the Park,—got there late last night. You knew I meant to come, didn't you? All quite well at the Rectory? I am coming round to see you by-and-by."

"Not to-day, I think."

"Why not?"

"I'm too busy."

He made an impatient movement. "Always too busy where I am concerned."

Millicent looked a little reproachful. "I have work to do for my father."

"And you cannot put that off?"

"No."

"Short and sweet!" muttered Mr. Derwentwater.

He had not so much as seen me yet, he was so full of Millicent.

And she had forgotten to introduce us,—unless she did not mean to do so. I kept quite still, rather to one side of them both. At first sight, he did not seem to me so handsome as I had thought him in the photograph: but it is a nice frank taking face; and he is tall and well-made,—I should think thoroughly manly.

"Well—no use coming, if you will not see me. I am engaged all to-morrow. Come, Millicent,—think better of it. For old friendship's sake."

A sorrowful look crept into her face, and she shook her head.

"If you cannot—or will not—there is nothing more to be said."

"I don't think I can." The words were so low I could hardly catch them.

"When 'may' I come, pray?"

"Any time that you like, of course."

"Take my chance, you mean,—to find everybody free except yourself."

"The boys will want their old playfellow," she answered, trying to smile.

"Good-bye!" he said abruptly. And in a moment he was gone, over hedge and ditch, and disappearing in the distance with great strides.

Millicent stood perfectly still, gazing on the ground, as if she had forgotten where she was and all about me. I waited for some seconds, and then patience failed.

"So that is Mr. Derwentwater!"

She gave a start, and began to walk along the muddy grass-path, just within the hedge. I could see the muscles round her mouth working.

"So that is Mr. Derwentwater!" I said again, for I wanted to make her speak. There was just room for me to keep by her side.

"Yes!"

"He is nice-looking."

"Yes."

"Why wouldn't you let the poor man call to-day, when he wanted it so much?"

"I—" and a pause—"could not."

"He looked so dreadfully disappointed. Almost angry with you."

"Yes."

"Millicent, do you like making people angry?"

"No."

"You did not particularly want to vex him?"

"I don't know."

Something in her voice, quiet as it was, and something in the way she stumbled against a tree-root, made me look more closely; and I saw her eyes to be full. Then she did care, really. It was not that she did not care.

"Millicent, look at me," I entreated, but she kept her head fixedly turned away. "Millicent, don't be so shut-up, dear! Why don't you tell me about it? I cannot help seeing. How can I? If you like him, and he likes you, why must you treat him so cruelly? And I see that he does like you."

"It is not cruelty." She turned and faced me with a desperate effort; I am sure it was a desperate effort, for her lips were white, though the tears were gone in a moment, and she looked straight in my face, with her most determined air. "Rhoda, you ought to understand better, without so much explaining. Ernest is very—a very nice fellow—but it is not—not that!"

"Are you sure?"

"I know what I am talking about, of course. He cares for all of us. And he thinks he has a right to come in and out,—like a brother—as often as he chooses. I have to be careful. It is not as if—as if my mother were here. You must not make things harder for me, by—"

"By what?"

"By noticing and talking,—when I do not wish. You ought to understand better. Of course I have home duties to attend to. I cannot put them aside. If he is vexed, I cannot help it."

"But if you do not mind, and if it is all right, what makes you look like this?"

"Like what?" She spoke quite sharply, and took me by surprise. "How do I look?"

"Only as if you were not happy."

"I am quite happy. You talk nonsense, Rhoda. If you are always fancying things, it will be disagreeable, and I shall not like to be with you." Then her manner changed, and she looked at me gently, with a kind of apology. "I ought not to be cross; you don't mean to be unkind, I know. It is only that you don't understand."

"But I do understand," I said. I was more vexed with that, than with her speaking for once sharply.

"No, you don't, and I do not see how you can. You are years and years younger than me," and she laughed. "But all the same, I ought not to be so cross. I'm tired to-day,—rather,—and that makes things seem more than they are really."

"Were you tired when we started?"

"Yes." But a little faint flush came, and she did not lift her eyes.

"If only I could help you in some way!"

"You can't. There is no help wanted,—none at all. People have to be tired sometimes. It is just a part of one's life."

And after that, she would say no more about Mr. Derwentwater.

_June 23rd, Sunday._

I have come across a short sentence to-day, in a small book which lies on the side-table in my room. I cannot get the sentence out of my head. It makes me think of what Millicent said about my home troubles yesterday, and the time before. This is it:—

"Self-love leads us to do certain things because we choose them for ourselves, although we would not do them at another's bidding, or from mere obedience. If things are our own originating we like them, but not when they come through other people. Self is for ever seeking self, self-will and self-love; but if we were perfect in the love of God, we should prefer to obey, because in obedience there is more of God and less of self."

Is that why I so hate to be told things, or to be reminded of my duties by the girls,—just because I think so much of myself? What a horrid mean reason! Yet I am afraid it is true. Has not my mother said as much to me more than once? It isn't so much that I mind doing the things themselves, but I do detest to be obliged to do them because Juliet or somebody says I ought.

Of course, if I really and truly wanted above all things to do what is right, it would make no difference at all whether I was told or was not told of it by anybody else. I should only be grateful to anybody who would remind me.

That is—if I were humble. I know I am not. I never made any pretence to be humble.

And I am sure Juliet is not. Juliet humble!! I could laugh at the idea.

But then, as Millicent says, I have not to answer for Juliet. I only have to answer for myself. And "I" am not humble. And "I" do not care most and first and best of all for doing the things that are right. And I am afraid I do care most and first and best for doing what pleases myself.

That at least I have learnt by being away from home, and having time to think, and seeing what Millicent is. Yes,—I do believe it is seeing what Millicent is, more than anything else, that has shown me a little of what I am in myself.

I don't mean that I think Clarissa and Juliet were right, or that they could not have been kinder; but still I "do" see that I have been in the wrong.

If I could but get rid of this SELF in my life! I begin to see the need. I begin to see that the mischief lies there. And I begin to see what a horrid mean thing it is to be always thinking about Self,—always putting Self first,—always ready to take offence about Self. Yes, it is just that. Whatever I do, I cannot forget myself. The Self clings about me like a leech.

Properly, I suppose, it is not Self, but the love of Self, which has to be got rid of.

_June 29th, Saturday._

I do not often write so much at one time in my journal as in those two long entries, a week and more ago. And on reading them through, I am not pleased with myself. It seems to me that I was too meddling, and did not think enough of Millicent's feelings. I should not like anybody to say this to me, but I can say it to myself. I can see my own faults, I hope, when I have done wrongly.

Millicent really had some reason to be vexed with me; but except for that one moment, when she spoke rather sharply, I do not think she was. At least, she has been just the same as usual since.

I have not once met Mr. Derwentwater at the Rectory. And from something that slipped from Mr. Farrars yesterday, I almost think he has not been there at all. Mr. Farrars spoke in what seemed to me a rather puzzled tone. Millicent is so very very quiet and shut-up and reserved, that I am positively quite provoked. Why should she not treat me as a friend, and speak out? I am sure, if she were in my place and I were in hers, I would just tell her everything about it. And she "might" do the same to me now.

_July 1st, Monday._

Mr. Derwentwater is coming to dinner this evening.

I am glad, because I want to see for myself whether he cares for Millicent,—I mean whether he cares in "that" sort of way. I feel more and more sure that Millicent cares for him. Perhaps she feels that she could not well be spared from her home, as things are now, and so will not let herself think about marrying. Of course, it is not as if there were a second daughter old enough to manage. But still, it does seem such a pity! I wonder if it is that. If it were, would not Mr. Farrars see, and would he not keep her from sacrificing herself?

When uncle Basil came in, and said he had asked Mr. Derwentwater to dinner, aunt Marian at once said,—"Then we will have Millicent and Mr. Farrars too."

But Millicent has declined the invitation. Mr. Farrars is engaged, and for herself, she simply says she "cannot be spared."

Aunt Marian made a queer little shake of her head over the note, as if she understood more than lay on the surface.

And I found myself saying,—

"Do you like Mr. Derwentwater?"

"Very much. Most people do."

"And he is a great friend of the Farrars'?"

"No doubt. Also he is a great friend of mine."

"Of yours!"

"You think me too old, of course," she said in her quick way: for that was exactly what I did think. "Too old, and too crooked, and too helpless. You need not say 'O no,' for in a sense, it may be true. Yet friendship is not a matter of age-equality, or of what one calls 'suitability.' Ernest Derwentwater does not seem to find me too old. And cannot you imagine what a freshness his young face brings into my life?"

I said,—"Yes." And I wondered whether I might not bring some freshness into it too. Somehow, I have not thought of that before, in coming here. Does aunt Marian like to have me for her own sake, or is it only all for my sake,—because she wants to do me good? I do not much like being done good to. Does anybody? If I thought I were a comfort to her, things would seem different.

"And if I cannot bring freshness into his life?—But why should I?" she went on musingly. "He does not need it. If I cannot bring him that, I may bring him something better. Yes, he and I are friends. He has a good many friends, and he would not hesitate to rank this helpless little me among them."

"Why do some people make so many more friends than others do?" I wanted to know whether she thought that I was not liked generally.

"Some are more lovable than others," she said at once. "And some have wider sympathies; and some have more power to enter into others' interests. In the truest friendships, there is much more of giving out than of taking in. Some do not seem to have room in their hearts for more than a few friends, and then they must be content with the few. But the larger the heart, the more love it has to pour out, and the wider may be the range of friendships."

"I shouldn't like to tell my secrets to a great many people."

"Your secrets!" And how she did laugh. "You child! I am forgetting that you are hardly out of the schoolroom. Telling one's secrets is a very minute part of friendship. If you had said, 'listening to others' troubles,'—but I suppose the telling comes first. I 'have' seen it last through life, with a stunted nature."

"But if one friend tells her troubles, the other must listen." I thought I "had" aunt Marian there.

"That is a mere incident," she said, and she laughed again. "It is not the essence of friendship."

In the end, I had had no answer to either question that I wanted to ask. There is no getting aunt Marian to the point, any more than Millicent, if she does not choose.