Chapter XX “Keep It Up, It Answers Very Well.”
A few days after Mrs. Franklyn’s funeral, Monica Beauchamp, looking very fresh and dainty in a pretty linen frock and straw hat was walking up the shady road leading from the town to The Cedars, Mr. Howell’s residence.
She had never yet paid the visit she had promised on the day she sprained her ankle, so Monica had coaxed her grandmother into dropping her in the town, that afternoon, while she drove on to pay a call at a little distance in the country. For some time a plan had been forming in the girl’s mind, and a visit to Mrs. Howell was necessary before it could be put into execution.
“I hope Mrs. Howell will be in,” she said to herself, as she entered the white gates, and walled up the beautifully kept drive, “and I almost hope that Lily will be out,” she added; for upon the only occasion she and Lily had met since the unhappy affair at school, the latter had passed Monica with no attempt at recognition, beyond an ugly scowl. At the time (it was before she went to Sandyshore) Monica had felt very much inclined to return the scowl with interest, except that she considered Lily utterly beneath contempt. But lately she had had very different feelings towards her would-be injurer, and it was chiefly on her account that she was so anxious to pay her mother a visit.
Mrs. Howell being at home, Monica was ushered into a huge and magnificently furnished drawing-room, decorated lavishly with plush hangings, of decidedly gay hues, and was warmly welcomed by her hostess, who was delighted to see her.
A quarter of an hour passed pleasantly in chatting over the sprained ankle, long since well, and the holiday she had enjoyed so much, and then Monica broached the subject uppermost in her mind.
“Mrs. Howell,” she began diffidently, for she was not quite sure how her proposal would be received, “did Lily tell you all about the examination affair?”
“Well, my dear, by degrees we got to know the rights of it, though she would not tell us till her pa threatened to punish her, if she didn’t speak out. He was in a great taking when the notice came that she wasn’t to go back no more, and he packed her off to stay with his step-sister, a very strict woman, and poor Lily has had a very rough time of it. She only came back yesterday, and wouldn’t have done then, only for her aunt being took ill; for it was her pa’s intention to let her bide there some months. Now he talks of sendin’ her to boardin’-school, but where to he hasn’t no idea. All our plans for her schoolin’ was upset-like, you see, my dear, by that notice, and her pa was terrible annoyed to think it all came about through her trying to do you a bad turn. For, to tell the truth, my dear,” Mrs. Howell rambled on garrulously, “he thinks a sight of you, does Bob. He would have wrote to apologise, but he couldn’t get Lily to say she was sorry, nohow. Oh! dear me, what trouble that girl has caused us, and ’twill be far worse when she comes ’ome from boardin’-school.” And the poor woman whimpered distressingly.
“Don’t cry, dear Mrs. Howell,” said Monica gently; “perhaps she won’t have to go away to school at all. Would you like her to go back to the High School if she could? Do you think she would go?”
“Oh, my dear, there’s no chance!” was the dismal reply, as Mrs. Howell wiped her florid face with a tiny muslin handkerchief; “they wouldn’t take her back now. I only wish they would. I know Lily would be delighted really, although she’s said times and times that she’d rather die than ever go there again.”
“Well, don’t tell her, please, in case it falls through, but grandmother thinks I might write to Miss Buckingham, and perhaps she would overlook it this once and let Lily go back.” Monica spoke earnestly, and there was no hint of pride in her tones, neither did she say that it had taken a good deal of persuasion to get Mrs. Beauchamp to consent to let her write on her school-fellow’s behalf.
“Oh, Miss Beauchamp, my dear, if you only would!” ejaculated Mrs. Howell, delight and incredulity struggling for the mastery in both tones and countenance. “But it does seem strange that you that’s been injured should be the one to do us a good turn. I can’t think why you should!” And she looked searchingly into the flushed face opposite her, as if she would find the motive written upon it.
Monica was sorely tempted to make just a mere commonplace reply, but she summoned up all the courage she could, and gave Mrs. Howell the real reason, realising that this was an opportunity afforded her of witnessing to her new Master.
“I don’t know whether you know Him, dear Mrs. Howell,” she said, a trifle nervously, but with intense earnestness, “but while I was away I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour, and He has forgiven me so much, that I can’t help forgiving everybody else. And I think He told me to show Lily how I feel, by trying to do this. Oh, I do hope Miss Buckingham will make it right! I almost think she will.”
“Oh, my dear, my dear!” said Mrs. Howell, tremulously, in her eagerness clutching hold of Monica’s hands; “you’ve found some One I’ve been wanting for years! My heart’s just breaking for want of peace.”
And in very simple fashion, for it was all such new and unaccustomed work to her, Monica tried to feed this hungry, longing soul with the Bread of Life. She felt so helpless, but trusting to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, she repeated a great deal of the sermon which she would never forget; and Mrs. Howell seemed to literally drink it all in.
“God bless you, my dear,” she murmured, as Monica at length rose in haste, having discovered that the time arranged for her to meet the carriage was already past—“God bless and reward you for all you’ve done. I’ve been a sinful woman, all my life, but please God this shall be the beginning of better things.”
Monica hurried down the hill, a song of thanksgiving in her heart, and a happy smile flickering about her lips. How delightful this new life was! Not for anything would she go back now to the careless, thoughtless days of the past, when she had given others such endless trouble, and been so discontented and miserable herself. She felt as if she loved everybody, that beautiful September day, and as if it would be impossible ever to displease any one again.
But, alas! a rude stare, without a trace of recognition in it, from the object of her solicitude, with whom she came suddenly face to face as she turned a corner, and upon whom she bestowed a radiant smile, and cordial “How do you do, Lily?” sent her on the rest of her way with a small cloud in her hitherto cloudless sky, and a nasty little feeling of wounded pride endeavoured to make itself felt. However, she consoled herself with the thought that Lily would soon have cause to think differently of her, and hastened to the place where she had promised to wait for the carriage.
But, unfortunately, it was just the other way round! The carriage, with Mrs. Beauchamp in it, had been waiting some time for Monica, and her grandmother greeted her with words of displeasure.
“I am very much annoyed, Monica; you are fifteen or twenty minutes behind time,” she said severely. “Richards has been driving up and down, up and down, all that time, lest the horses should take cold; they were so very warm. It was very thoughtless indeed of you, to keep me waiting like this.”
“I am very sorry, grannie,” was all Monica said, as she seated herself beside her grandmother in the landau; and it spoke volumes for her that her voice was gentle, and her look penitent. Monica of old would not have answered thus, and Mrs. Beauchamp knew it, and thoroughly appreciated the change, although she said nothing. Indeed, silence reigned during the drive, and it was not until they were in the drawing-room after dinner that Mrs. Beauchamp enquired the result of Monica’s visit.
“You might as well write to Miss Buckingham this evening, if you are still anxious to do so,” she said, when she had heard what Mrs. Howell said; “there is no time to spare, as the letter will have to be forwarded to wherever she is spending her holidays.”
And Monica gladly fetched her writing-case, and began to write what proved to be a very difficult epistle. Her pen had to be nibbled thoughtfully many times before the letter was accomplished, and then the result was not all that the writer could wish. She was rather afraid that Mrs. Beauchamp would ask to see it before it went; but, fortunately, just as Monica had signed her name, in school-girl calligraphy, at the end of perhaps the most tidy letter she had ever written, the old lady roused up from the little doze in which she had been indulging, and bade Monica hasten, or she would lose the post.
“I have just finished, grannie,” and as Monica laid down her pen, Harriet came to say that Richards was waiting for the letters.
“Have you any to send to-night, grannie? No? Then there is only this one, Harriet,” and Monica breathed a sigh of relief as she shut up her writing-case and prepared to read to her grandmother.
Not the most agreeable of tasks was this; for Mrs. Beauchamp considered that it was “improving” for her granddaughter to read aloud for at least half an hour every evening. Monica was not a very fluent reader, so that she was continually being pulled up for leaving out commas, or for emphasising quite the wrong word. The interruptions would have been very trying if the book had been even the least bit interesting, but as it really seemed to have been chosen for its dryness and dullness, Monica did not mind. However, she tried her hardest, nowadays, to read carefully, and with a fair amount of expression, and she was far less often interrupted than she used to be. She did want to be what Marcus Drury called a “whatsoever” Christian.
“You really begin to read quite nicely, Monica,” her grandmother said approvingly, as she finished a chapter, and was told that would do for that evening. “Your father would be greatly pleased with the improvement there has been in you lately.”
Tears of joy sprang to Monica’s eyes, as she put the book away, and then stooped and gave the old lady a “good-night” kiss.
“What has made the difference in you, Monica?”
And for the second time that day the young girl answered radiantly, but humbly, “The Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Little Elsa said that was what it was,” muttered Mrs. Beauchamp under her breath, as she toyed nervously with her eye-glasses. “Well, child, keep it up, it answers very well,” she added, in a louder tone.
“It would be no use for me to try to keep myself, grannie dear,” was the stammering reply, “for I should do something wrong directly, but when I let Jesus hold me tight, then it is all right.”
Mrs. Beauchamp made no answer, and, after waiting a moment or two, Monica slipped off, fearful lest she had offended her grandmother.
But the old lady sat thinking deeply for a long, long time—thinking of the past when she was a girl of Monica’s age, and with as headstrong a nature as hers—thinking of her married life, when her whole time and thought had been given to the things of this world—thinking of the unrestful, unsatisfying present, and of the dark, dark future stretching out beyond.
“Little Elsa told me, once, that she prayed God every day to bless me,” she murmured, while a tear trickled slowly down her cheek. “God bless the child... and me, too!”
A week elapsed before any reply came to Monica’s letter, and she began to be afraid that Miss Buckingham would not make known her decision before it was too late, for the school reopened in another few days. However, one morning, the long-looked-for letter arrived, and the girl’s heart was overjoyed when she found that her request had been granted, and that Lily Howell would be allowed to re-attend the school if she wrote an apology for her past conduct, and sent it to the head-mistress without delay. Miss Buckingham added that it had been a matter of regret with her, that one of her scholars should have had to leave the school under such circumstances, so that if Lily were really penitent, the past should be overlooked; more especially as the girl she had endeavoured to injure had taken upon herself the task of interceding for her.
“I wish she hadn’t put that last bit in,” mused Monica, “because that will very likely offend Lily more than ever, because she will hate to think she owes anything to me. However, I can’t help that; I have done what seemed right, and I must just leave the result, and I am dreadfully afraid she won’t apologise. Well, I’ll do as grannie suggests—just send Miss Buckingham’s letter to Mrs. Howell, and then wait to see what happens.”
A little note, badly expressed and ill-spelt, but breathing gratitude in every line, from Mrs. Howell, was all that Monica received, and in it there was only a hope expressed that Lily would send the apology, but no certainty. So she had to be patient, and wait a little longer.
Meanwhile, she kept the matter quite secret, not even breathing a word of it to Olive, for she thought, and very wisely, that if the whole affair fell through, it would be much better for no one to have known anything of it. But Monica was not very clever at keeping a secret, and if she had seen much of the Franklyns the probability is, that in a moment of forgetfulness she would have divulged it. However, the girls met but seldom during the days that elapsed between Mrs. Franklyn’s funeral and the school reopening.
Once, when Monica was in Osmington, she ran up against Amethyst Drury, and, as they were talking, Mr. Howell’s motor car passed them, reminding the younger girl of his daughter.
“I saw Lily the other day, Monica, and she wouldn’t look at me. She walked by just as proud as Lucifer. The idea! As if we were all to blame, and she was innocent! I’m awfully glad she won’t be at school any more.”
“I daresay we should feel pretty much as she does, Thistle, if we were in her place,” was Monica’s reply; “she can’t enjoy herself much.”
“Quite as much as she deserves,” said Amethyst, with decision; “horrid cheat!”
“Oh, Thistle!” Monica’s tone was reproachful.
“Well, I ought not to have said that, I know,” said Amethyst penitently, “but I don’t like her; do you, Monica?”
“I am afraid I can’t say I really like her,” Monica confessed honestly; “but still she may be sorry inside, you know, and, perhaps, if we had been kinder to her at first, she would have been nicer to us now. I mean she would feel that we did not think the very worst of her,” added Monica, a trifle lamely. She knew what she meant herself, but had difficulty in expressing it.
“I am afraid the worst is about right,” was Amethyst’s sententious answer, as they parted. And Monica could not help wondering just what the girls, as a whole, would say, if Lily should reappear at the High School again.