CHAPTER XIV

AT THE DEANERY

“This _is_ delightful!” Sydney cried, as she sat down beside the bright fire in the pretty bedroom near Katharine’s, which had been allotted to her at the Deanery. “It is quite too lovely of you to ask me, and it is quite too lovely of them to let me come! I never thought I should be allowed to, and Lady Frederica said ‘No’ at first, and I mustn’t go visiting because of not being ‘out’; but St. Quentin stood by me, and said everyone had holidays at Christmas-time, and I _should_ go if I wanted. You can guess how much I did want; even now it seems too good to be true!”

“Well, I am very pleased to have you, dear,” Katharine said, smiling across at the girl, “though I wish it were for longer than two days. There is so much I want to hear. I miss the calisthenic class now that there are Christmas holidays for everybody. How did you spend Christmas, and how is your cousin?”

“I hoped he might be better because he didn’t seem getting worse,” Sydney said a little sadly; “but Dr. Lorry doesn’t seem to think so. He says St. Quentin must get weaker, and that it is only his splendid constitution makes him fight so long.”

There was silence for a few minutes in the pretty room.

“Well, you haven’t told me yet how you spent Christmas?” Katharine asked, rousing herself with an effort.

“Sir Algernon was with us——” began Sydney, but was interrupted.

“Whom did you say?”

“Sir Algernon Bridge; he is a friend, I think, of Cousin St. Quentin’s.”

“And he is at the Castle now? Sydney dear, promise me, don’t have more to do than you can help with that man!”

Sydney hardly knew the quiet girl; her eyes were flashing, and there was a bright colour in her face.

“I can’t bear him!” she said; “and I don’t see a great deal of him—at least, I did not, but since Christmas Day he has been more with Miss Osric and me.”

“Have as little to do with him as possible,” said Katharine earnestly. “Your cousin ought not to allow him to be with you. I will tell you something about him, Sydney, and then you will see what I mean.”

She played nervously for a minute with the fire-screen on her knee, then began, speaking low.

“It is a story about a girl, not very much older than you are, whose life was spoiled because she listened to him. This girl cared for a man very much indeed, and he cared for her; only she would not be engaged, because the man did not care enough to give up his faults and extravagances for her sake.

“But she did care, more than you can understand! Sir Algernon knew her, and one day he asked her to marry him. She said ‘No,’ of course, and he was angry, for he guessed about this other man.... Then—I don’t know how to tell you, Sydney dear—a very dreadful thing happened.... The man she cared for was suspected of doing an exceedingly dishonourable action. The girl was away from home when this—thing—happened, so she knew nothing till she came back. The first thing she did when she heard, was to snatch up pen and paper and write a letter to the man she loved, telling him that she did not believe a word against him, and only cared for him more if possible than she had done before....”

“That’s the kind of thing you would have done!” cried Sydney; “please go on. Wasn’t the man very, very pleased to get the letter?”

Katharine knelt down to stir the fire, although it did not stand in any need of stirring.

“She never sent the letter, Sydney dear.... She had just addressed it when Sir Algernon came in. He told her he had come to ask for her advice. He had had a letter, seeming to come from some poor woman in distress, he said, and asking for his help. Knowing the girl was interested in such cases, he asked her if she would read the letter, and tell him if she thought the case one suited for his help....

“Of course the girl said ‘Yes,’ and he gave her a dirty envelope, looking very carefully inside it first, she saw, though she hardly noticed at the time. He told her, as he gave it to her, that she would need to read it very carefully and slowly, as the woman was exceedingly illiterate.... It was written in a cramped, odd hand-writing, but it was quite correctly spelled. When the girl had read about half, she saw that the letter was from no poor woman ... but from the man she cared for, and oh, Sydney! it seemed to show beyond possibility of doubt that he was guilty of this dreadful meanness in which the girl had refused to believe.... Sir Algernon pretended to be dreadfully distressed when the girl gave him back the half-read letter, and said he must have put this by mistake into the wrong envelope, and he never should forgive himself, for he had promised to suppress the man’s letter, because they had been friends. And the girl thought he was very generous!

“When he had gone, she put that loving letter in the fire, and wrote another to the man she loved, not mentioning the letter she had seen, but merely saying that she never wished to see or hear of him again! I think, even then, she half hoped for some explanation from him, but none came. She was very miserable, Sydney.”

“I think she deserved to be!” Sydney cried. “Why, if she really cared for the man, how could she help believing in him?—all the more if things went against him. I don’t believe she loved him!”

She wondered as she spoke why her friend looked so white, even in the dancing fire-light.

“She did care, but not enough,” said Katharine Morrell, and there was a pause.

“Did she ever get to know?” asked Sydney, after waiting in vain for her to go on.

“Yes, by-and-by, when she had thought about it more, and grown older, and heard more about Sir Algernon. She felt sure then that the man she loved was innocent of that dishonourable action: that he could not have been guilty of it. And she guessed that Sir Algernon had given her the note to read on purpose that she might act as she did. He had set a trap for her, but she would not have fallen into it if she had only had more love and trust and patience.”

“When she knew, did she write to the man and tell him?” Sydney questioned earnestly.

“No, dear, she couldn’t. The man had given up caring, for one thing, you see. No, that is the end of the story! I am afraid there is no ‘lived happily ever after’ to finish this. I only tell you of it, because I want you to be warned against Sir Algernon.” There was a silence in the pretty room; then Katharine rose a little wearily. “Good-night, dear; don’t be worried by that girl’s story, which is all past and gone. Only be warned, as I wish she had been warned, against Sir Algernon.”

Sydney thought a good deal of Katharine’s words during the busy, happy day which followed, when she seemed plunged back for the time being into the merry Sydney of home. There was a Christmas-tree at the Hospital, and Sydney went with her friend and helped her take round the presents to the patients, and made the acquaintance of Miss Osric’s father, and enjoyed herself exceedingly.

And next day Miss Morrell entertained all the women of her working-party at the Deanery, and Sydney and the little cousin Sylvia helped to wait on them at tea and amuse them. Sydney quite made friends with a gentle-faced woman, whose smile made her think a little bit of mother’s, and sat beside her talking to her for a great part of the evening.

“Yes, this sewing-party it were Miss Morrell’s plan, miss,” said Mrs. Carter, “and many’s the times as we’ve blessed her for it. You see, miss, most of us here went out to service that early as we hadn’t time to learn more sewing than the roughest kind, and patterns and things of that kind don’t come much in the way of poor folk. Well, Miss Morrell she knew that, so she went and learned herself how to make gowns and underwear and children’s clothes and such-like, and then she has a working-party once a week for to learn us. And we sits in her own morning-room, with all her pretty things about, for all the world as if we was ladies, and she has the rolls of stuff down cheaper from the big shops than we can buy it, and lets us pay as we can. And she cuts out the things for us, and learns us all about the making of ’em, talking or reading to us in between, very sweet. And by-and-by we has tea; all served very dainty, with Mr. Tomkins, the footman, handing round as polite as anything. I can tell you, miss, it makes a real rest for us to sit and work in that there pretty room, and it makes a sight of difference, too, to the way that we dress the children. Why, mine was turned out as neat and nice as anything, though I say it as shouldn’t, all through last winter, and at half the cost of dressing ’em in them shop-made things, as comes all to pieces before you know where to have ’em. Miss Morrell, she don’t hardly let nothing interfere with our sewing-party. She’s a real young lady, she is, bless her!”

“Katharine,” said Sydney that evening, when the guests had departed, “I wish I were half as good as you are. Don’t you sometimes find that work-party a great bother?”

“Oh, of course it is a little inconvenient sometimes,” she said; “but the women are so nice and so grateful, and one is so glad to have something one can do for them oneself. Papa is always very good in letting me relieve special cases of trouble, but it is _his_ money, not mine, you see. The best kind of giving is what one gives oneself, don’t you think? And most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing else.”

Sydney took these words home with her next day, when reluctantly she had bade good-bye to Katharine, and been put by the silver-haired Dean into the charge of Miss Osric, who had come to Donisbro’ to fetch her.

“Most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing else.”