Chapter 34

UNDER AN UMBRELLA.

Mrs. Barclay returned to her own room, and Mr. Dillwyn was forced to follow her. The door was shut between them and the rest of the household. Mrs. Barclay trimmed her fire, and her guest looked on absently. Then they sat down on opposite sides of the fireplace; Mrs. Barclay smiling inwardly, for she knew that Philip was impatient; however, nothing could be more sedate to all appearance than she was.

"Do you hear how the wind moans in the chimney?" she said. "That means rain."

"Rather dismal, isn't it?"

"No. In this house nothing is dismal. There is a wholesome way of looking at everything."

"Not at money?"

"It is no use, Philip, to talk to people about what they cannot understand."

"I thought understanding on that point was universal."

"They have another standard in this family for weighing things, from that which you and I have been accustomed to go by."

"What is it?"

"I can hardly tell you, in a word. I am not sure that I can tell you at all. Ask Lois."

"When can I ask her? Do you spend your evenings alone?"

"By no means! Sometimes I go out and read 'Rob Roy' to them. Sometimes the girls come to me for some deeper reading, or lessons."

"Will they come to-night?"

"Of course not! They would not interfere with your enjoyment of my society."

"Cannot you ask Lois in, on some pretext?"

"Not without her sister. It is hard on you, Philip! I will do the best for you I can; but you must watch your opportunity."

Mr. Dillwyn gave it up with a good grace, and devoted himself to Mrs. Barclay for the rest of the evening. On the other side of the wall separating the two rooms, meanwhile a different colloquy had taken place.

"So that is one of your fine people?" said Miss Charity. "Well, I don't think much of him."

"I have no doubt he would return the compliment," said Madge.

"No," said Lois; "I think he is too polite."

"He was polite to grandmother," returned Charity. "Not to anybody else, that I saw. But, girls, didn't he like the bread!"

"I thought he liked everything pretty well," said Madge.

"When's he goin'?" Mrs. Armadale asked suddenly.

"Monday, some time," Madge answered. "Mrs. Barclay said 'until Monday.' What time Monday I don't know."

"Well, we've got things enough to hold out till then," said Charity, gathering up her dishes. "It's fun, too; I like to set a nice table."

"Why, grandmother?" said Lois. "Don't you like Mrs. Barclay's friend?"

"Well enough, child. I don't want him for none of our'n."

"Why, grandmother?" said Madge.

"His world ain't our world, children, and his hopes ain't our hopes--if the poor soul has any. 'Seems to me he's all in the dark."

"That's only on one subject," said Lois. "About everything else he knows a great deal; and he has seen everything."

"Yes," said Mrs. Armadale; "very like he has; and he likes to talk about it; and he has a pleasant tongue; and he is a civil man. But there's one thing he hain't seen, and that is the light; and one thing he don't know, and that is happiness. And he may have plenty of money--I dare say he has; but he's what I call a poor man. I don't want you to have no such friends."

"But grandmother, you do not dislike to have him in the house these two days, do you?"

"It can't be helped, my dear, and we'll do the best for him we can. But I don't want _you_ to have no such friends."

"I believe we should go out of the world to suit grandmother," remarked Charity. "She won't think us safe as long as we're in it."

The whole family went to church the next morning. Mr. Dillwyn's particular object, however, was not much furthered. He saw Lois, indeed, at the breakfast table; and the sight was everything his fancy had painted it. He thought of Milton's

"Pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, stedfast, and demure"--

only the description did not quite fit; for there was a healthy, sweet freshness about Lois which gave the idea of more life and activity, mental and bodily, than could consort with a pensive character. The rest fitted pretty well; and the lines ran again and again through Mr. Dillwyn's head. Lois was gone to church long before the rest of the family set out; and in church she did not sit with the others; and she did not come home with them. However, she was at dinner. But immediately after dinner Mrs. Barclay with drew again into her own room, and Mr. Dillwyn had no choice but to accompany her.

"What now?" he asked. "What do you do the rest of the day?"

"I stay at home and read. Lois goes to Sunday school."

Mr. Dillwyn looked to the windows. The rain Mrs. Barclay threatened had come; and had already begun in a sort of fury, in company with a wind, which drove it and beat it, as it seemed, from all points of the compass at once. The lines of rain-drops went slantwise past the windows, and then beat violently upon them; the ground was wet in a few minutes; the sky was dark with its thick watery veils. Wind and rain were holding revelry.

"She will not go out in this weather," said the gentleman, with conviction which seemed to be agreeable.

"The weather will not hinder her," returned Mrs. Barclay.

"_This_ weather?"

"No. Lois does not mind weather. I have learned to know her by this time. Where she thinks she ought to go, or what she thinks she ought to do, there no hindrance will stop her. It is good you should learn to know her too, Philip."

"Pray tell me,--is the question of 'ought' never affected by what should be legitimate hindrances?"

"They are never credited with being legitimate," Mrs. Barclay said, with a slight laugh. "The principle is the same as that old soldier's who said, you know, when ordered upon some difficult duty, 'Sir, if it is possible, it shall be done; and if it is impossible, it _must_ be done!'"

"That will do for a soldier,", said Dillwyn. "At what o'clock does she go?"

"In about a quarter of an hour I shall expect to hear her feet pattering softly through the hall, and then the door will open and shut without noise, and a dark figure will shoot past the windows."

Mr. Dillwyn left the room, and probably made some preparations; for when, a few minutes later, a figure all wrapped up in a waterproof cloak did pass softly through the hall, he came out of Mrs. Barclay's room and confronted it; and I think his overcoat was on.

"Miss Lois! you cannot be going out in this storm?"

"O yes. The storm is nothing--only something to fight against."

"But it blows quite furiously."

"I don't dislike a wind," said Lois, laying her hand on the lock of the door.

"You have no umbrella?"

"Don't need it. I am all protected, don't you see? Mr. Dillwyn, _you_ are not going out?"

"Why not?"

"But you have nothing to call you out?"

"I beg your pardon. The same thing, I venture to presume, that calls you out,--duty. Only in my case the duty is pleasure."

"You are not going to take care of me?"

"Certainly."

"But there's no need. Not the least in the world."

"From your point of view."

He was so alertly ready, had the door open and his umbrella spread, and stood outside waiting for her, Lois did not know how to get rid of him. She would surely have done it if she could. So she found herself going up the street with him by her side, and the umbrella warding off the wind and rain from her face. It was vexatious and amusing. From her face! who had faced Sharnpuashuh storms ever since she could remember. It is very odd to be taken care of on a sudden, when you are accustomed, and perfectly able, to take care of your self. It is also agreeable.

"You had better take my arm, Miss Lois," said her companion. "I could shield you better."

"Well," said Lois, half laughing, "since you are here, I may as well take the good of it."

And then Mr. Dillwyn had got things as he wanted them.

"I ventured to assume, a little while ago, Miss Lois, that duty was taking you out into this storm; but I confess my curiosity to know what duty could have the right to do it. If my curiosity is indiscreet, you can rebuke it."

"It is not indiscreet," said Lois. "I have a sort of a Bible class, in the upper part of the village, a quarter of a mile beyond the church."

"I understood it was something of that kind, or I should not have asked. But in such weather as this, surely they would not expect you?"

"Yes, they would. At any rate, I am bound to show that I expect them."

"_Do_ you expect them, to come out to-day?"

"Not all of them," Lois allowed. "But if there would not be one, still I must be there."

"Why?--if you will pardon me for asking."

"It is good they should know that I am regular and to be depended on. And, besides, they will be sure to measure the depth of my interest in the work by my desire to do it. And one can do so little in this world at one's best, that one is bound to do all one can."

"All one can," Mr. Dillwyn repeated.

"You cannot put it at a lower figure. I was struck with a word in one of Mrs. Barclay's books--'the Life and Correspondence of John Foster,'--'Power, to its very last particle, is duty.'"

"But that would be to make life a terrible responsibility."

"Say noble--not terrible!" said Lois.

"I confess it seems to me terrible also. I do not see how you can get rid of the element of terribleness."

"Yes,--if duty is neglected. Not if duty is done."

"Who does his duty, at that rate?"

"Some people _try_," said Lois.

"And that trying must make life a servitude."

"Service--not servitude!" exclaimed Lois again, with the same wholesome, hearty ring in her voice that her companion had noticed before.

"How do you draw the line between them?" he asked, with an inward smile; and yet Mr. Dillwyn was earnest enough too.

"There is more than a line between them," said Lois. "There is all the distance between freedom and slavery." And the words recurred to her, "I will walk at liberty, _for I seek thy precepts;_" but she judged they would not be familiar to her companion nor meet appreciation from him, so she did not speak them. "_Service_," she went on, "I think is one of the noblest words in the world; but it cannot be rendered servilely. It must be free, from the heart."

"You make nice distinctions. Service, I suppose you mean, of one's fellow creatures?"

"No," said Lois, "I do not mean that. Service must be given to God. It will work out upon one's fellow-creatures, of course."

"Nice distinctions again," said Mr. Dillwyn.

"But very real! And very essential."

"Is there not service--true service--that is given wholly to one's needy fellows of humanity? It seems to me I have heard of such."

"There is a good deal of such service," said Lois, "but it is not the true. It is partial, and arbitrary; it ebbs and flows, and chooses; and is found consorting with what is not service, but the contrary. True service, given to God, and rising from the love of him, goes where it is sent and does what it is bidden, and has too high a spring ever to fail. Real service gives all, and is ready for everything."

"How much do you mean, I wonder, by 'giving all'? Do you use the words soberly?"

"Quite soberly," said Lois, laughing.

"Giving all what?"

"All one's power,--according to Foster's judgment of it."

"Do you know what that would end in?"

"I think I do. How do you mean?"

"Do you know how much a man or a woman would give who gave _all_ he had?"

"Yes, of course I do."

"What would be left for himself?"

Lois did not answer at once; but then she stopped short in her walk and stood still, in the midst of rain and wind, confronting her companion. And her words were with an energy that she did not at all mean to give them.

"There would be left for him--all that the riches and love of God could do for his child."

Mr. Dillwyn gazed into the face that was turned towards him, flushed, fired, earnest, full of a grand consciousness, as of a most simple unconsciousness,--and for the moment did not think of replying. Then Lois recollected herself, smiled at herself, and went on.

"I am very foolish to talk so much," she said. "I do not know why I do. Somehow I think it is your fault, Mr. Dillwyn. I am not in the habit, I think, of holding forth so to people who ought to know better than myself."

"I am sure you are aware that I was speaking honestly, and that I do _not_ know better?" he said.

"I suppose I thought so," Lois answered. "But that does not quite excuse me. Only--I was sorry for you, Mr. Dillwyn."

"Thank you. Now, may I go on? The conversation can hardly be so interesting to you as it is to me."

"I think I have said enough," said Lois, a little shyly.

"No, not enough, for I want to know more. The sentence you quoted from Foster, if it is true, is overwhelming. If it is true, it leaves all the world with terrible arrears of obligation."

"Yes," Lois answered half reluctantly,--"duty unfulfilled _is_ terrible. But, not 'all the world,' Mr. Dillwyn."

"You are an exception."

"I did not mean myself. I do not suppose I do all I ought to do. I do try to do all I know. But there are a great many beside me, who do better."

"You agree then, that one is not bound by duties _unknown?_"

Lois hesitated. "You are making me talk again, as if I were wise," she said. "What should hinder any one from knowing his duty, Mr. Dillwyn."

"Suppose a case of pure ignorance."

"Then let ignorance study."

"Study what?"

"Mr. Dillwyn, you ought to ask somebody who can answer you better."

"I do not know any such somebody."

"Haven't you a Christian among all your friends?"

"I have not a friend in the world, of whom I could ask such a question with the least hope of having it answered."

"Where is your minister?"

"My minister? Clergyman, you mean? Miss Lois, I have been a wanderer over the earth for years. I have not any 'minister.'"

Lois was silent again. They had been walking fast, as well as talking fast, spite of wind and rain; the church was left behind some time ago, and the more comely and elegant part of the village settlement.

"We shall have to stop talking now," Lois said, "for we are near my place."

"Which is your place?"

"Do you see that old schoolhouse, a little further on? We have that for our meetings. Some of the boys put it in order and make the fire for me."

"You will let me come in?"

"You?" said Lois. "O no! Nobody is there but my class."

"You will let me be one of them to-day? Seriously,--I am going to wait to see you home; you will not let me wait in the rain?"

"I shall bid you go home," said Lois, laughing.

"I am not going to do that."

"Seriously, Mr. Dillwyn, I do not need the least care."

"Perhaps. But I must look at the matter from my point of view."

What a troublesome man! thought Lois; but then they were at the schoolhouse door, the wind and rain came with such a wild burst, that it seemed the one thing to do to get under shelter; and so Mr. Dillwyn went in with her, and how to turn him out Lois did not know.

It was a bare little place. The sanded floor gave little help or seeming of comfort; the wooden chairs and benches were old and hard; however, the small stove did give out warmth enough to make the place habitable, even to its furthest corners. Six people were already there. Lois gave a rapid glance at the situation. There was no time, and it was no company for a prolonged battle with the intruder.

"Mr. Dillwyn," she said softly, "will you take a seat by the stove, as far from us as you can; and make believe you have neither eyes nor ears? You must not be seen to have either--by any use you make of them. If you keep quite still, maybe they will forget you are here. You can keep up the fire for us."

She turned from him to greet her young friends, and Mr. Dillwyn obeyed orders. He hung up his wet hat and coat and sat down in the furthest corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. Lois and her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which was too small to prevent every word they spoke from being distinctly heard by the one idle spectator. A spectator in truth Mr. Dillwyn desired to be, not merely an auditor; so, as he had been warned he must not be seen to look, he arranged himself in a manner to serve both purposes, of seeing and not seeing.

The hour was not long to this one spectator, although it extended itself to full an hour and a half. He gave as close attention as ever when a student in college he had given to lecture or lesson. And yet, though he did this, Mr. Dillwyn was not, at least not at the time, thinking much of the matter of the lesson. He was studying the lecturer. And the study grew intense. It was not flattering to perceive, as he soon did, that Lois had entirely forgotten his presence. He saw it by the free unconcern with which she did her work, as well as in the absorbed interest she gave to it. Not flattering, and it cast a little shadow upon him, but it was convenient for his present purpose of observation. So he watched,--and listened. He heard the sweet utterance and clear enunciation, first of all; he heard them, it is true, whenever she spoke; but now the utterance sounded sweeter than usual, as if there were a vibration from some fuller than usual mental harmony, and the voice was of a silvery melody. It contrasted with the other voices, which were more or less rough or grating or nasal, too high pitched or low, and rough-cadenced, as uncultured voices are apt to be. From the voices, Mr. Dillwyn's attention was drawn to what the voices said. And here he found, most unexpectedly, a great deal to interest him. Those rough voices spoke words of genuine intelligence; they expressed earnest interest; and they showed the speakers to be acute, thoughtful, not uninformed, quick to catch what was presented to them, often cunning to deal with it. Mr. Dillwyn was in danger of smiling, more than once. And Lois met them, if not with the skill of a practised logician, with the quick wit of a woman's intuition and a woman's loving sympathy, armed with knowledge, and penetration, and tact, and gentleness, and wisdom. It was something delightful to hear her soft accents answer them, with such hidden strength under their softness; it was charming to see her gentleness and patience, and eagerness too; for Lois was talking with all her heart. Mr. Dillwyn lost his wonder that her class came out in the rain; he only wished he could be one of them, and have the privilege too!

It was impossible but that with all this mental observation Mr. Dillwyn's eyes should also take notice of the fair exterior before them. They would not have been worthy to see it else. Lois had laid off her bonnet in the hot little room; it had left her hair a little loosened and disordered; yet not with what deserved to be called disorder; it was merely a softening and lifting of the rich, full masses, adding to the grace of the contour, not taking from it. Nothing could be plainer than the girl's dress; all the more the observer's eye noted the excellent lines of the figure and the natural charm of every movement and attitude. The charm that comes, and always must come, from inward refinement and delicacy, when combined with absence of consciousness; and which can only be helped, not produced, by any perfection of the physical structure. Then the tints of absolute health, and those low, musical, sensitive tones, flowing on in such sweet modulations--

What a woman was this! Mr. Dillwyn could see, too, the effect of Mrs. Barclay's work. He was sure he could. The whole giving of that Bible lesson betrayed the refinement of mental training and culture; even the management of the voice told of it. Here was not a fine machine, sound and good, yet in need of regulating, and working, and lubricating to get it in order; all that had been done, and the smooth running told how well. By degrees Mr. Dillwyn forgot the lesson, and the class, and the schoolhouse, and remembered but one thing any more; and that was Lois. His head and heart grew full of her. He had been in the grasp of a strong fancy before; a fancy strong enough to make him spend money, and spend time, for the possible attainment of its object; now it was fancy no longer. He had made up his mind, as a man makes it up once for all; not to try to win Lois, but to have her. She, he saw, was as yet ungrazed by any corresponding feeling towards him. That made no difference. Philip Dillwyn had one object in life from this time. He hardly saw or heard Lois's leave-takings with her class, but as she came up to him he rose.

"I have kept you too long, Mr. Dillwyn; but I could not help it; and really, you know, it was your own fault."

"Not a minute too long," he assured her; and he put on her cloak and handed her her bonnet with grave courtesy, and a manner which Lois would have said was absorbed, but for a certain element in it which even then struck her. They set out upon their homeward way, but the walk home was not as the walk out had been. The rain and the wind were unchanged; the wind, indeed, had an added touch of waywardness as they more nearly faced it, going this way; and the rain was driven against them with greater fury. Lois was fain to cling to her companion's arm, and the umbrella had to be handled with discretion. But the storm had been violent enough before, and it was no feature of that which made the difference. Neither was it the fact that both parties were now almost silent, whereas on the way out they had talked incessantly; though it was a fact. Perhaps Lois was tired with talking, seeing she had been doing nothing else for two hours, but what ailed Philip? And what gave the walk its new character? Lois did not know, though she felt it in every fibre of her being. And Mr. Dillwyn did not know, though the cause lay in him. He was taking care of Lois; he had been taking care of her before; but now, unconsciously, he was doing it as a man only does it for one woman in the world. Hardly more careful of her, yet with that indefinable something in the manner of it, which Lois felt even in the putting on of her cloak in the schoolhouse. It was something she had never touched before in her life, and did not now know what it meant; at least I should say her _reason_ did not know; yet nature answered to nature infallibly, and by some hidden intuition of recognition the girl was subdued and dumb. This was nothing like Tom Caruthers, and anything she had received from him. Tom had been flattering, demonstrative, obsequious; there was no flattery here, and no demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. It was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most subtle incense of worship one human spirit can render to another; which the one renders and the other receives, without either being able to tell how it is done. The more is the incense sweet, penetrating, powerful. Lois went home silently, through the rain and wind, and did not know why a certain mist of happiness seemed to encompass her. She was ignorant why the storm was so very beneficent in its action; did not know why the wind was so musical and the rain so refreshing; could not guess why she was sorry to get home. Yet the fact was before her as she stepped in.

"It has done you no harm!" said Mr. Dillwyn, smiling, as he met Lois's eyes, and saw her fresh, flushed cheeks. "Are you wet?"

"I think not at all."

"This must come off, however," he went on, proceeding to unfasten her cloak; "it has caught more rain-drops than you know." And Lois submitted, and meekly stood still and allowed the cloak, very wet on one side, to be taken off her.

"Where is this to go? there seems to be no place to hang it here."

"O, I will hang it up to dry in the kitchen, thank you," said Lois, offering to take it.

"_I_ will hang it up to dry in the kitchen,--if you will show me the way. You cannot handle it."

Lois could have laughed, for did she not handle everything? and did wet or dry make any difference to her? However, she did not on this occasion feel like contesting the matter; but with unwonted docility preceded Mr. Dillwyn through the sitting-room, where were Mrs. Armadale and Madge, to the kitchen beyond, where Charity was just putting on the tea-kettle.