CHAPTER XX.
A REMARKABLE FACT.
A silence followed. I need hardly say we had listened intently. During the
story my father had scarcely interrupted the narrator. I had not spoken a
word. She had throughout maintained a certain matter-of-fact, almost cold
style, no doubt because she was herself the subject of her story; but we
could read between the lines, imagine much she did not say, and supply
color when she gave only outline; and it moved us both deeply. My father
sat perfectly composed, betraying his emotion in silence alone. For myself,
I had a great lump in my throat, but in part from the shame which mingled
with my admiration. The silence had not lasted more than a few seconds,
when I yielded to a struggling impulse, rose, and kneeling before her, put
my hands on her knees, said, "Forgive me," and could say no more. She put
her hand on my shoulder, whispered. "My dear Mrs. Percivale!" bent down her
face, and kissed me on the forehead.
"How could you help being shy of me?" she said. "Perhaps I ought to have
come to you and explained it all; but I shrink from self-justification,--at
least before a fit opportunity makes it comparatively easy."
"That is the way to give it all its force," remarked my father.
"I suppose it may be," she returned. "But I hate talking about myself: it
is an unpleasant subject."
"Most people do not find it such," said my father. "I could not honestly
say that I do not enjoy talking of my own experiences of life."
"But there are differences, you see," she rejoined. "My history looks to me
such a matter of course, such a something I could not help, or have avoided
if I would, that the telling of it is unpleasant, because it implies an
importance which does not belong to it."
"St. Paul says something of the same sort,--that a necessity of preaching
the gospel was laid upon him," remarked my father; but it seemed to make no
impression on Miss Clare, for she went on as if she had not heard him.
"You see, Mr. Walton, it is not in the least as if, living in comfort, I
had taken notice of the misery of the poor for the want of such sympathy
and help as I could give them, and had therefore gone to live amongst them
that I might so help them: it is quite different from that. If I had done
so, I might be in danger of magnifying not merely my office but myself. On
the contrary, I have been trained to it in such slow and necessitous ways,
that it would be a far greater trial to me to forsake my work than it has
ever been to continue it."
My father said no more, but I knew he had his own thoughts. I remained
kneeling, and felt for the first time as if I understood what had led to
saint-worship.
"Won't you sit, Mrs. Percivale?" she said, as if merely expostulating with
me for not making myself comfortable.
"Have you forgiven me?" I asked.
"How can I say I have, when I never had any thing to forgive?"
"Well, then, I must go unforgiven, for I cannot forgive myself," I said.
"O Mrs. Percivale! if you think how the world is flooded with forgiveness,
you will just dip in your cup, and take what you want."
I felt that I was making too much even of my own shame, rose humbled, and
took my former seat.
Narration being over, and my father's theory now permitting him to ask
questions, he did so plentifully, bringing out many lights, and elucidating
several obscurities. The story grew upon me, until the work to which Miss
Clare had given herself seemed more like that of the Son of God than any
other I knew. For she was not helping her friends from afar, but as one of
themselves,--nor with money, but with herself; she was not condescending to
them, but finding her highest life in companionship with them. It seemed at
least more like what his life must have been before he was thirty, than any
thing else I could think of. I held my peace however; for I felt that to
hint at such a thought would have greatly shocked and pained her.
No doubt the narrative I have given is plainer and more coherent for the
questions my father put; but it loses much from the omission of one or two
parts which she gave dramatically, with evident enjoyment of the fun that
was in them. I have also omitted all the interruptions which came from her
not unfrequent reference to my father on points that came up. At length I
ventured to remind her of something she seemed to have forgotten.
"When you were telling us, Miss Clare," I said, "of the help that came to
you that dreary afternoon in the empty house, I think you mentioned that
something which happened afterwards made it still more remarkable." "Oh,
yes!" she answered: "I forgot about that. I did not carry my history far
enough to be reminded of it again.
"Somewhere about five years ago, Lady Bernard, having several schemes on
foot for helping such people as I was interested in, asked me if it would
not be nice to give an entertainment to my friends, and as many of the
neighbors as I pleased, to the number of about a hundred. She wanted to
put the thing entirely in my hands, and it should be my entertainment, she
claiming only the privilege of defraying expenses. I told her I should
be delighted to convey _her_ invitation, but that the entertainment must
not pretend to be mine; which, besides that it would be a falsehood, and
therefore not to be thought of, would perplex my friends, and drive them to
the conclusion either that it was not mine, or that I lived amongst them
under false appearances. She confessed the force of my arguments, and let
me have it my own way.
"She had bought a large house to be a home for young women out of
employment, and in it she proposed the entertainment should be given: there
were a good many nice young women inmates at the time, who, she said, would
be all willing to help us to wait upon our guests. The idea was carried
out, and the thing succeeded admirably. We had music and games, the latter
such as the children were mostly acquainted with, only producing more
merriment and conducted with more propriety than were usual in the court or
the streets. I may just remark, in passing, that, had these been children
of the poorest sort, we should have had to teach them; for one of the
saddest things is that such, in London at least, do not know how to
play. We had tea and coffee and biscuits in the lower rooms, for any who
pleased; and they were to have a solid supper afterwards. With none of the
arrangements, however, had I any thing to do; for my business was to be
with them, and help them to enjoy themselves. All went on capitally; the
parents entering into the merriment of their children, and helping to keep
it up.
"In one of the games, I was seated on the floor with a handkerchief tied
over my eyes, waiting, I believe, for some gentle trick to be played upon
me, that I might guess at the name of the person who played it. There
was a delay--of only a few seconds--long enough, however, for a sudden
return of that dreary November afternoon in which I sat on the floor too
miserable even to think that I was cold and hungry. Strange to say, it
was not the picture of it that came back to me first, but the sound of my
own voice calling aloud in the ringing echo of the desolate rooms that
I was of no use to anybody, and that God had forgotten me utterly. With
the recollection, a doubtful expectation arose which moved me to a scarce
controllable degree. I jumped to my feet, and tore the bandage from my
eyes.
"Several times during the evening I had had the odd yet well-known feeling
of the same thing having happened before; but I was too busy entertaining
my friends to try to account for it: perhaps what followed may suggest the
theory, that in not a few of such cases the indistinct remembrance of the
previous occurrence of some portion of the circumstances may cast the hue
of memory over the whole. As--my eyes blinded with the light and straining
to recover themselves--I stared about the room, the presentiment grew
almost conviction that it was the very room in which I had so sat in
desolation and despair. Unable to restrain myself, I hurried into the back
room: there was the cabinet beyond! In a few moments more I was absolutely
satisfied that this was indeed the house in which I had first found refuge.
For a time I could take no further share in what was going on, but sat down
in a corner, and cried for joy. Some one went for Lady Bernard, who was
superintending the arrangements for supper in the music-room behind. She
came in alarm. I told her there was nothing the matter but a little too
much happiness, and, if she would come into the cabinet, I would tell her
all about it. She did so, and a few words made her a hearty sharer in my
pleasure. She insisted that I should tell the company all about it; 'for'
she said, 'you do not know how much it may help some poor creature to
trust in God.' I promised I would, if I found I could command myself
sufficiently. She left me alone for a little while, and after that I was
able to join in the games again.
"At supper I found myself quite composed, and, at Lady Bernard's request,
stood up, and gave them all a little sketch of grannie's history, of which
sketch what had happened that evening was made the central point. Many
of the simpler hearts about me received it, without question, as a divine
arrangement for my comfort and encouragement,--at least, thus I interpreted
their looks to each other, and the remarks that reached my ear; but
presently a man stood up,--one who thought more than the rest of them,
perhaps because he was blind,--a man at once conceited, honest, and
sceptical; and silence having been made for him,--'Ladies and gentlemen,'
he began, as if he had been addressing a public meeting, 'you've all heard
what grannie has said. It's very kind of her to give us so much of her
history. It's a very remarkable one, _I_ think, and she deserves to have
it. As to what upset her this very night as is,--and I must say for
her, I've knowed her now for six years, and I never knowed _her_ upset
afore,--and as to what upset her, all I can say is, it may or may not ha'
been what phylosophers call a coincydence; but at the same time, if it
wasn't a coincydence, and if the Almighty had a hand in it, it were no more
than you might expect. He would look at it in this light, you see, that
maybe she was wrong to fancy herself so down on her luck as all that, but
she was a good soul, notwithstandin,' and he would let her know he hadn't
forgotten her. And so he set her down in that room there,--wi' her eyes
like them here o' mine, as never was no manner o' use to me,--for a minute,
jest to put her in mind o' what had been, and what she had said there, an'
how it was all so different now. In my opinion, it were no wonder as she
broke down, God bless her! I beg leave to propose her health.' So they
drank my health in lemonade and ginger-beer; for we were afraid to give
some of them stronger drink than that, and therefore had none. Then we had
more music and singing; and a clergyman, who knew how to be neighbor to
them that had fallen among thieves, read a short chapter and a collect or
two, and said a few words to them. Then grannie and her children went home
together, all happy, but grannie the happiest of them all."
"Strange and beautiful!" said my father. "But," he added, after a pause,
"you must have met with many strange and beautiful things in such a life as
yours; for it seems to me that such a life is open to the entrance of all
simple wonders. Conventionality and routine and arbitrary law banish their
very approach."
"I believe," said Miss Clare, "that every life has its own private
experience of the strange and beautiful. But I have sometimes thought that
perhaps God took pains to bar out such things of the sort as we should be
no better for. The reason why Lazarus was not allowed to visit the brothers
of Dives was, that the repentance he would have urged would not have
followed, and they would have been only the worse in consequence."
"Admirably said," remarked my father.
Before we took our leave, I had engaged Miss Clare to dine with us while my
father was in town.
