CHAPTER XXVI.

WE ENJOY A DECEITFUL CALM.

The harmonious relations between uncle Bryan and Jessie which my birthday seemed to have inaugurated continued for more than a fortnight, a result entirely due to Jessie's untiring efforts to conciliate him, and to 'keep him good,' as she expressed it. On the day following that on which I came of age, he showed symptoms of irritability at the tenderness into which he had been betrayed--for that undoubtedly was the light in which he viewed it; he had a suspicion that he had been played upon, and he was annoyed with himself for his weakness. Having, I doubt not, thought the matter well over during the night, and having quite made up his mind to vindicate himself, he came down in the morning more than usually morose and reserved, and received Jessie's affectionate advances in his coldest and most repellent manner. But Jessie would not permit him to relapse into his old cross humour; she charmed it out of him by a display of wonderful submission and tenderness, and by answering his snappish words with gentleness. In this way she disarmed him, and he, after some resistance, and with a singular mixture of pleasure and ungraciousness in his manner, allowed himself to be beguiled by her. The truth of the proverb that 'a soft answer turneth away wrath' was never better exemplified. If, when she had wooed him into a kinder mood, she had shown any signs of triumph, her influence over him would have come to an end immediately; he watched furtively for some such sign, and detecting none, resigned himself to this new and pleasant beguilement. Whether Jessie's conduct sprang from impulse or reason, she could not have behaved more wisely.

My mother was greatly rejoiced, and told me from day to day all that passed between these opposite natures. That the links of home love which bound us together were being strengthened was a source of exceeding delight to her.

'And it is all Jessie's doings, mother.'

'It is, my dear. I scarcely believed her capable of so much gentleness and submission.' (Here I thought to myself, 'I believe no one but I knows of what Jessie is capable.') 'When your uncle is most trying----'

'As he often is,' I interrupted, 'and without cause.'

'Well, my dear, if you will have it so. When he is most trying, she is most gentle, and she wins him to her side almost despite himself. And, Chris, I really think he likes it.'

'Who would not,' I exclaimed, 'when wooed by Jessie?'

'It is in her power,' said my mother, with a sweet smile of acquiescence, 'to make a great change in him. There is an undercurrent of deep tenderness in your uncle's nature, and Jessie is reaching it by the most delicate means. If she will only have patience! for it will take time, my dear.'

But these fair appearances were treacherous. Neither my mother nor I saw the clouds that were gathering, and when the storm burst I was impressed by the unhappy conviction that I, and I alone, was the cause. How little do we know of the power of light words lightly spoken! But for certain inconsiderate words which I had used, there would certainly have been sunshine in our house for a much longer time. As it was, this better aspect of things was destined soon to come to an end, and to come to an end in a way which introduced not only a more bitter discord between Jessie and uncle Bryan, but imbued us insidiously with a want of faith in one another. The storm broke suddenly, and without forewarning to uncle Bryan and my mother. But in the mean time the harmony was almost perfect. Jessie, when she went to bed, no longer parted from uncle Bryan with a careless 'Good-night,' but kissed him regularly every morning and every night, and he submitted to the caress without, however, inviting it by look or word. But even that wonder took place on a certain evening when Jessie, with a touch of her old ways upon her, wished us all good-night in a careless tone, and without kissing uncle Bryan. She opened and closed the door, but did not leave the room, and placed her fingers on her lips with a bright eager look in our direction, warning us not to betray her. Uncle Bryan's back was towards us, and he made no motion at first. Jessie stole quietly behind his chair, and stood there in silence. Presently, uncle Bryan turned his head slowly to the door, with something of a yearning look of regret in his face, and at the same instant Jessie's arms were round his neck, and her lips were pressed to his.

'Don't be angry with me,' she said.

'Angry, Jessie! I thought you had forgotten me. But you are as full of tricks as Puck was.'

'I can't help it, uncle Bryan. Good-night!'

'Good-night, my dear.'

And Jessie went to bed with a very light heart, and left light hearts behind her. It was apparent that these enchanting ways were pleasant to uncle Bryan, and I told Jessie so.

'It softens him, Jessie.'

'It takes a long time to soften a rock,' she observed, with a thoughtful smile.

'If anybody can do it, you can, Jessie.'

'You think nothing but good of me, Chris.'

'I only say what I feel. And you really want uncle Bryan to love you?'

'Yes--more than I can say--and I can scarcely tell why.'

'Except,' I said, with a foolish hesitation, 'that you like to be loved by everybody.'

'Perhaps it is because of that, Chris. I _do_ like everybody to love me. It is much nicer so.'

If I wanted any consolation I supplied it by observing: 'To be sure, there are different kinds of love.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Jessie tantalisingly. 'Is it like uncle Bryan's sugar, of different shades and different degrees of sweetness? Some of it tastes very sandy, Chris.'

'Ah, now you are joking, Jessie!'

'I am not in a joking humour. I want to speak seriously. Chris, I have sometimes wondered that you have never asked me questions about myself.'

'In what way, Jessie?'

'About myself, before I came here. When one likes any one very much, one is naturally curious to know all about one.'

'I had my reasons, Jessie. When you first came, mother wished me not to ask you any questions. She said it would be like an attempt to steal into uncle Bryan's confidence. He might have secrets, she said, which he would not wish us to know.'

'Secrets!' she mused. 'What can I have to do with them? And yet, it is strange, now I think about it.'

'I should like you to tell me all about yourself,' I said; 'it doesn't matter now that you have spoken of it first yourself.'

'I was thinking of a secret that I have, Chris.'

I composed myself to receive her confidence.

'But I don't know what it is myself, yet. It is in a letter; perhaps----'

'Well, Jessie?'

'Perhaps nothing. It is only a letter that I am not to open until I am eighteen years of age. That will not be long, Chris. We will wait until then, and then I will tell you all I know. Let us blow it away till that time comes.' She blew a light breath. 'I wanted to make you a present on your birthday, but I did not have money enough then. Shall I give it to you now?' I held out my hand eagerly, and Jessie took from her pocket a small card-box. 'It is in this. What do you think it is?' I made a great many guesses, but she shook her head merrily at all of them. 'I went to look at it every day in the shop-window, afraid that some one might buy it before I had saved up money enough.'

I opened the box, and took from it a small silver locket, heart-shaped, with the words engraven on it, 'To Chris, with Jessie's love.' Unspeakable happiness dwelt in my heart as I gazed upon the emblem. As I held it in my hand tenderly, it seemed to me a living link between Jessie and me--an undying assurance of her love. Nothing so precious had ever been mine. My looks satisfied Jessie, and she clapped her hands in delight.

'So you like it, Chris?'

'I will never, never part with it, Jessie. But I want a piece of ribbon; may I have that piece round your neck?

'Take it off yourself, Chris.'

What a bungler I was, and how long it took me to remove the piece of simple ribbon, need not here be described. I know that while my trembling fingers were about her neck, Jessie, in reply to a look, said, 'Yes, you may, Chris;' and that I kissed her.

'And now, Chris,' she said, 'I want to speak to you about something that is troubling me very much. When you said the other night that uncle Bryan was an atheist, were you in earnest?'

'I said what I believed,' I answered with an uneasy feeling.

'And he _is_ an atheist?'

'I am afraid he is, Jessie.'

'Has he ever told you so?'

'Oh, no; there are some things that one scarcely dares to speak of.'

'That is if one is weak and a coward. I am not that, and I don't think you are, Chris. Then I suppose you have never spoken to uncle Bryan about religion?'

'Not a word has ever passed between us upon religious matters.'

'An atheist is a person who does not believe in God, is he not, Chris?'

I was sensible that the discussion of so solemn a subject might lead to grave results, and I wished to discontinue it; but Jessie said:

'Don't be weak, Chris; I think I ought to know these things, and if we can't speak together in confidence, no two persons in the world can. Of course I can easily find out what I want to know; Gus West will tell me everything; but I came to you because we are nearer to each other.'

'Nearer and dearer, Jessie.'

'Yes, Chris; and now tell me what you know.'

I told her all that I knew concerning atheism, and all that I knew concerning uncle Bryan in connection with it. 'When I was a boy, Jessie, scarcely a week after we came to live with uncle Bryan, I heard him say that life was tasteless to him, and that he believed in nothing. I thought of it often afterwards.'

'Life was tasteless to him _because_ he did not believe in anything; that is the proper view to take of it. If a person does not believe in anything, he cannot love anything. Can you imagine anything more dreary than the life of a person who does not love anybody, and who has nobody to love him? I can't. A person might as well be a stick or a stone--better to be that, for then he couldn't feel. But the words that uncle Bryan used may not have meant what you suppose, Chris.'

'They came in this way, Jessie. On the first Sunday we were here, mother asked uncle Bryan if he was going to church. He said that he never went to church. Mother was very sorry, I saw, but she did not say anything more. On that same night, uncle Bryan was reading a book, and he read aloud some passages from it. Mother asked him what was the name of the book, and he answered, _The Age of Reason_. When he laid the book aside, mother took it up, and looked at it; and then she sent me upstairs for the Bible. That was all; but I didn't quite know what was the real meaning of it until a long time afterwards, when I found out what kind of a book _The Age of Reason_ is.'

'Tell me what it is.'

'It is a book written by an atheist for atheists; it might almost be called the Atheist's Bible, Jessie.'

'And did you never speak to your mother about uncle Bryan's religion?

'I have tried to, but mother is like me; there are some things she does not like to speak of.'

'And this is one of them,' said Jessie, following out her train of thought; 'and out of your love for her, when she said, "Let us talk of something else, my dear," you have talked of something else.'

'That is so, Jessie. It is almost as if you overheard what we said.'

'It is easy to see into your mother's heart, Chris. She did not like to speak about uncle Bryan's religion, because she loves him, and because she wants you to love him. Now, if it had been anything that would have made uncle Bryan stand out in a good light, she would have encouraged you to speak about it.'

'That is true enough, Jessie.'

'Chris, your mother is all heart.'

'She is everything that is good, if you mean that?'

'I do mean that; she is the best, the sweetest, the dearest woman in the world. Ah, if I were like her! But I am very, very different. What I say and what I think comes more often out of my head than out of my heart. Chris, it is impossible for an atheist to be a good man!'

I saw the pit we were walking into, but I had not the skill to lead Jessie away from it.

'A man who does not believe in God,' she exclaimed, 'cannot believe in anything good. No wonder that he is what he is. I am not satisfied--I am not satisfied! It is shocking--shocking to think of!' She shook her head at herself, and I listened to her words in no pleasant frame of mind. She was showing me an entirely new phase in her character. It was Jessie reasoning, and reasoning on the most solemn of subjects. 'Why,' she continued, 'God made everything that's good, and if uncle Bryan is an atheist, he is a bad man. And yet your mother loves him.'

'That she does, Jessie, with all her heart.'

'She couldn't love anything that's bad. If you were an atheist, Chris, I should hate you.'

'Thank God, I am not, Jessie; even if I were, you could make me different. But I don't like to hear you speak like this,' I said, reproaching myself bitterly for having been the cause of this conversation; for when I had told Jessie that uncle Bryan was an atheist I had spoken with a full measure of dislike towards him. 'Mother does not reason as you do. After all, I may be mistaken, Jessie, and we maybe doing him a great injustice. I know so much that is good of him--more than you possibly imagine.'

And then I told her what, from a false feeling of shame, I had hitherto withheld from her--the story of my mother's hard battle with the world when we came to London, and of uncle Bryan's noble behaviour to us when we were sunk in the bitterest poverty.

'All the time I have known him, Jessie, I have never known him to be guilty of an unjust action. He is as upright and honest a man as ever lived. Can such a man be a bad man?'

'Upright, honest, and just!' she repeated my words in a musing tone. 'It is an enigma.'

'He would die,' I continued warmly, 'rather than be guilty of a mean action. Now that we are speaking of him in this way, I am ashamed of myself for ever thinking ill of him. Mother was right, from the very first--she was right about him, as she always is about everything. If he were not so hard----But you don't know what trials he has gone through in his life.'

'Do you?'

'I know some of them, but I am pledged not to speak of them to any one--not even to you. One thing happened to him--never hint, for my sake, Jessie, that you even suspect it--one thing happened to him so terrible and so dreadful that it is no wonder he is hard and cold and morose. Many and many a time mother has entreated me to be kind and charitable in my thoughts towards him, and instead of doing so I have repaid all his kindness by the basest of ingratitude.'

'How have you done that, Chris?'

'By saying anything to you to cause you to dislike him. Ah, you may shake your head, but it is so, Jessie. If he were in my place, and I in his, he would come to me and ask me to forgive him; but I haven't the courage and fearless heart that he has, and I shouldn't know how to do it without giving him pain.'

I was really very remorseful, and sincerely so; but Jessie said nothing to comfort me.

'Have I had no reason of my own, until the last few days, to dislike him? Has he behaved quite kindly to me? Chris, is it possible that I am wrong in nearly everything that I have done? How many times have I tried to conciliate him, and how many times has he answered me with unkind words! There is some reason for it--there is some reason for it.'

'And yet remember, Jessie,' I said, without thinking, 'that he has given you a home, as he gave one to us, never asking for a return--never expecting one.'

Her face turned scarlet.

'Would _he_ have said that?' she asked, and left me without another word.