Chapter XIV

THERE was one relative of the late Mrs. Fereday with whom Dr. Crawford had always kept up a friendly though rather desultory intercourse. This was the Rev. Walter Steyne, younger brother of the gentleman who inherited the entailed estates at the death of Mrs. Fereday's father. He was rector of Hillstead Magna, a village about twenty miles from Shelverton, and possessed in addition to his living some private means, a delicate wife, and a large family, of whom his daughter Grace was the eldest. This girl had not been specially called after Mrs. Fereday, for the Christian name common to both had been borne by some feminine Steyne in each generation for ages past.

She had often visited at Steynes-Cote when a child, and was a great favourite with the Feredays, whom she was accustomed to call "aunt" and "uncle," though Mrs. Fereday was really her father's first cousin. There were no little Steynes at Hillstead when Andrew Crawford was sent for to be the adopted son at Steynes-Cote, and it was chiefly during his college course and absence in India that the two or three eldest amongst the rectory children came to stay at Shelverton with the Feredays.

Since Dr. Crawford's marriage, there had been no visiting between the families, though he and Mr. Steyne met occasionally, and exchanged friendly letters at rather long intervals. The chief reason for the suspension of Grace's visits to Steynes-Cote was owing to the fact that the girl's presence was almost indispensable at home. Within the last five years, her mother's delicacy had increased to such a degree that she was wholly confined to the house during the winter, and, at best, able to take only a small share in the management of her family.

Hillstead people were continually saying what a truly providential arrangement it was that the rector's eldest child was a girl. "If it were not for Miss Grace, what would become of all those little ones?" was a common question, and it was one which often recurred to the minds of both father and mother.

It is surely the exception to find unanimity in village female society, but there were no two opinions in Hillstead parish as to the merits of the rector's daughter. Yet, many a motherly heart, felt deeply for the girl and the parents, while thanking God for so precious a gift, sighed at the thought that Grace was growing old far too soon.

That Grace Steyne did wonders in her character of deputy-mother, there could be no doubt, also that her being the eldest was a great blessing in a family containing a disproportionate number of boys. But whether the girl felt this arrangement quite satisfactory for herself is somewhat questionable. To be the eldest of nine when one is just fifteen, and to act as the mother's deputy in every department of household management from that age to one's twentieth birthday, is not always a matter for self-gratulation.

Such a position may be invaluable, as tending to encourage domesticity of character, and is certain to give an amount of experience in the management of children which nothing else but actual motherhood can furnish. Indeed, as was Mrs. Crawford's case, it is possible to be a real mother without fulfilling many of a mother's duties.

Still, it is possible to have too much experience even of a good thing, or it may be too wide, when compared with the time spent in acquiring it. Young shoulders may be over-weighted and young hearts feel very heavy, whilst the heads and hands belonging to them are taking the work of old ones. The fact that they have won the unlimited confidence of all around them does not always compensate the young folks for the loss of a large share of girlish enjoyments.

If such thoughts passed through Grace Steyne's mind, she did not put them into words, but showed a brave front and a cheery face to all lookers-on. She knew that one of her mother's greatest troubles came from the thought that her darling child had far too much work and too little relaxation. She noticed how the invalid's eyes would follow her wistfully, as if in dread that the girl's strength and courage might alike give way.

But Grace did not complain. She returned the anxious look with a smile which gave renewed confidence and comfort to her mother's heart. She made time from household calls and on the busiest days to tell Mrs. Steyne all that was going on outside, and when, by her humorous way of putting things, she beguiled the invalid into a laugh, she went away feeling abundantly rewarded.

Children are always harder to manage when the presence of an invalid renders quiet essential in a house; and to secure this Grace Steyne's ingenuity was often strained to the utmost. Happily, she was a famous tale-teller, and many a time she succeeded in coaxing the smaller fry to give up an hour and go to bed so much sooner, on condition that she would sit in the large night nursery and tell tales for their benefit.

Then, when the last young head rested peacefully, Grace would steal to the little chamber she called her own, and, kneeling there, cry to her Father in heaven to give her strength according to her day, and enable her to persevere in the path of duty, to put self aside and care for others.

Only the pale moon and the silent stars which peeped through the uncurtained window knew of these brief moments of solemn heart-crying to God. Only these and the walls of the little room, if they could have had ears to hear and tongues to repeat, would have been able to report concerning the girl's struggles against the natural longings of youth for the simple pleasures from which she was almost wholly debarred.

The girl needed a brave heart and a brave face, for her daily life was one battle-field. With her bright temperament, vigorous health, strong sense of humour, and love of the beautiful, it did seem hard to be chained down, as it were, to this unvarying round of household duties. To see other girls going off to the tennis parties to which she had also been invited, and to have to shake her head when they dropped in at the rectory to say, "Do come for once, Gracie," required no little courage. To do it without a look of discontent, and even to jest over her disappointment, required more still.

"Cannot be done," Grace said, on one such occasion which must be chronicled. "Watty has torn his everyday jacket almost to ribbons, and must remain in 'durance vile' until I have mended it."

"Let him put on another; I am sure he has more than one jacket," cried the girls in chorus.

"He has two. The boys all have the same allowance—one for Sundays, one for week-days, and I am glad they have no more, or I might sometimes be tempted to put off the mending; then think what the accumulation would be!"

"Gracie, do come. Let Watty pay the penalty this time. It will teach him a lesson. He is always tearing his clothes, and it is really too bad to keep you stitch, stitching, to mend them on such a perfect day as this, and when everybody wants you to come out."

"Unfortunately everybody here wants me to stay in, and there is not only Watty's jacket, but a perfect pile of things on the nursery table with holes shouting to be mended, for washing and ironing days are just over."

"I will stay and help you," said one of the callers, resolutely putting down her racquet.

"Thank you a thousand times, Nelly, but you shall do no such thing. Even with your help, if I could allow a crack tennis player to make such a sacrifice, we could not finish the mending to-night. You would be missed; I shall not, for I am such a shocking player that every one fights shy of me as a partner."

"That is because you get no practice. You would play well directly if you had a fair chance."

"Perhaps I might, perhaps not. At any rate I cannot play fit to be seen now, and it is now that you are anxiously looked for at Hazelcourt. So good-bye, girls; you are only hindering my work, and keeping Watty without his jacket."

Thus Grace dismissed her visitors, and turned resolutely indoors, without even waiting to respond to the backward glances, honestly regretful ones, which were cast on her retreating figure, as she walked quickly towards the house. To her credit be it spoken, she did not keep Watty a prisoner any longer than was absolutely necessary for the repair of his damaged garment.

Grace knew that the child was longing to be set free. Nature out of doors was calling to him with a hundred voices, and human nature was specially represented by a group of small boy companions who kept casting furtive glances along the path, whilst they awaited with more or less impatience, the deliverance of their captive chum, the knight of the tatters.

The lads were going on a blackberrying expedition, and as Grace handed Watty his garment, it was with small hope that it would come back without additional rents after such an excursion. And yet the girl could sympathize with the child's impatience, for Nature was appealing to her as well as to Watty just then—nature within her own breast—youthful nature, that all a woman's sober work could not stifle or uproot.

As the swift-flying needle brought together the frayed edges, Grace's thoughts followed the friends who had reluctantly left her at the rectory gate. In fancy, she saw them welcomed on their arrival at Hazelcourt, and heard inquiries and regrets on account of her own absence. She wondered whether a certain masculine brow would be clouded for just a little while, because she was not there. Or would its owner be angry instead of sorry, and put down her absence to determined avoidance of himself?

He was only a guest at Hazelcourt, and she knew that his visit was drawing to a close. Probably this tennis party would be her last opportunity of seeing him, and, in spite of her being the worst lady player in Hillstead Magna, she had meant to go. Everybody could not play at once, and the girls who were willing to look on were not always the least acceptable guests at parties of the kind.

Grace had found looking on very pleasant indeed the last time she was at Hazelcourt, for the visitor aforesaid, though as good a player as she was a bad one, had been seized with a desire to watch the game in her company, instead of taking part in it. And he had walked home with her through the dewy lanes in the early evening, talking pleasantly by the way, and making it longer than was really needful by unreasonable dawdling.

Then, when Grace asked if he would come into the rectory and see her father, because he kept lingering at the gate as if he expected such an invitation, he promptly accepted it, and spent a full hour with her parents, who enjoyed his bright companionship almost as much as she had done on the homeward way.

Grace said to herself that this acquaintance with a neighbour's guest would be only a passing affair. The young man would go away, and no doubt forget the people whom he had met during an idle month at Hazelcourt. But whilst he remained, he was a great acquisition to Hillstead society. He was well-born, well-educated, had been, for his age, a great traveller, and could talk about so many places and things which Grace had often vainly longed to see.

He was rich, too, though from his simple, unaffected tastes and ways no one would have thought so; or at least village minds would not, for simple folk who have spent their lives within a narrow circle generally imagine that the possession of wealth must be associated with much external display.

Yet, though the acquaintance with this young stranger would prove of a transitory character, Grace Steyne did feel that she should like to have as much pleasure out of it as possible. She did wish to be at the tennis party, and thought she might be spared to go. She had even risen an hour earlier than usual to forecast her work, and make sure of going with a clear conscience and a sense that nothing would be left undone in the meanwhile.

Then everything had gone against her. That tiresome Miss Barber had come to speak to the rector about the clothing club, and he being from home, Grace, to save her mother from the infliction, had endured two hours of wearisome talk, the substance of which might have been given in ten minutes. Other unexpected calls had taken her from work that must be done, so that when the time came, Grace had to send away her friends without her, and submit to the disappointment as best she might.

We have seen how she acted, and that she dismissed her girl friends with a smile and a jest, mended Watty's jacket without scolding him or boxing his ears for having torn it, and next set to work with a will to lessen the big pile of articles that needed, some a few stitches or an odd button, others a good hour's work, before they could be laid away ready for use.

A very prosaic occupation was this of darning and patching. But taking all the circumstances into consideration, it had its poetic side. The girl had fought a pretty tough battle with herself. Every feeling of her young nature, with its capacity for enjoyment, its longing for fellowship with other young life, and that special little secret hidden far down in the very depths of her innocent heart, had pleaded against the stern call of present duty on that bright afternoon. And yet one brief prayer had gone up from her heart to God, "Help me to do right at any cost!"

Who, looking at the calm face, or receiving a pleasant answer from the girl's lips, could have guessed what a real trial it had been to her to give up the visit to Hazelcourt? But Grace Steyne was just the one not only to bear pain, but so to hide what she endured that others might not guess its existence, and thus be grieved for her sake.

Nobody living, not even Mrs. Prattely, could have called Grace "poor thing!" or even "poor girl!" She might be over-worked and over-weighted in that busy house, where every one referred to her as its presiding genius, but no person could have used terms of pity which savoured of contempt when alluding to the rector's brave daughter.

Tea was over, the younger fry, including Watty, were all in bed, and Grace was still bending over her work by lamplight, when she heard steps and voices on the gravel outside. Masculine voices, one of them her father's, were coming nearer, and Grace's cheek flushed and paled as the second fell on her ear. It seemed so like that to which she had listened with more pleasure than she durst confess to herself, during her last walk home from Hazelcourt.

"I must be mistaken," thought Grace, pausing in her work to listen more attentively.

But her mother prevented this by saying, "Grace dear, your father is bringing some one home with him. Is there anything in the house for supper if the visitor should stay?"

No chance for the girl's thoughts to dwell on anything which savoured of life's poetry. She must turn from the household clothing to its commissariat department, and speculate as to the possibility of bringing in the mere scrap of cold meat left from dinner in a presentable form.

Grace's guess as to the personality of the coming visitor was set at rest by his entrance with her father. At sight of him, she ceased to hope that he would not stay to supper, despite the fact that there was next to nothing in the larder, for he was the individual who had occupied the largest share in her thoughts that afternoon—Mr. Carnelly.