CHAPTER IV. AN INVITATION FROM SQUIRE DERRICK. As the summer advanced, Helen’s spirits rose. She was not the pale, plaintive woman that Rhoda had found on her return from London. Her beauty brightened visibly, and more than one neighbour remarked that it was a sin and a shame for such a pretty creature to be tied up to a man who was nothing but a cross to her. Perhaps Helen herself was of the same opinion. The baby was given up more and more to Rhoda’s care, while its mother went freely to the villagers’ houses. She was one of those women to whom admiration is as necessary as their daily food. Her pleasure in her own loveliness amused while it saddened her cousin. There was something in it that seemed akin to the delight of a child in its fine clothes. They had their first disagreement at the end of August. There was an early harvest that year. In the southern counties most of the wheat was cut and stacked before September set in. The crops were plentiful, and there was rejoicing on all sides. But it was not always the right kind of rejoicing. “It’s a strange way that some folks have got of thanking the Lord of the harvest,” remarked Farmer Farren one day. Father and daughter stood side by side, leaning against the garden wall; for it was evening, and the farmer’s work was done. Just before he spoke, some drunken shouts disturbed the quiet air. Labourers were roystering in the village tavern, and many a wife’s temper was sorely tried that night. “O Uncle, I am glad you don’t think it’s wrong to dance!” cried Helen, coming suddenly out of the house. “Here’s good news! Squire Derrick is going to give a feast in his park next Friday. I know that John can’t go, because of his sprained ankle; but William Gill will drive us to the park in his chaise. There’ll be room for Rhoda and me and Mrs. Gill.” “But, Helen, I don’t go to merry-makings,” said Rhoda, gravely. Helen’s face clouded like that of a disappointed child. “O Uncle, would there be any harm in my dancing?” she asked. “No harm exactly, my girl,” responded the farmer uneasily, as he picked a piece of dry moss off the wall. “But even when things are lawful, they are not always expedient. You are a married woman, you see, and your husband’s under a cloud, and miles away—poor fellow!” “Ah!” sighed Helen, “I’m always doomed to suffer for his sins! I thought that perhaps a little bit of fun would help me to forget my troubles.” Poor Helen was still grovelling at the foot of her mountain. Large tears stood in her soft eyes. The farmer gave her a quick glance, then looked away, and busied himself with the little cushion of moss that still lay in his broad palm. At heart he was more than half a Puritan, and hated jigs and feastings as lustily But for that unfortunate allusion which her father had made to Robert Clarris, Rhoda would have set her face as a flint against going to the fÊte. But his tone of pity stirred up all her old resentment. Why was this young wife, lovely and foolish, left without her lawful protector? Had she not said truly that she was doomed to suffer for his sins? After all, it was scarcely her fault, perhaps, that she was not elevated by her trial. To “erect ourselves above ourselves” is a bliss that we do not all reach. And it is a bliss which bears such a close relationship to pain, that one has no right to be hard on a fellow-mortal who chooses the lower ground. Thoughts like these were passing through Rhoda’s mind, while Helen still wept silently. But it did not occur to Miss Farren that the “If you would promise not to dance, Helen,” she began, hesitatingly. Her father looked up in undisguised astonishment. “Why, Rhoda,” he said, “I didn’t think anything in the world would have made you go!” “O Rhoda, how good of you to give way!” cried Helen, brightening. The farmer said no more. He had a great reverence for his daughter, and would not take the matter out of her hands. But he went indoors with a grave face; and Helen followed him in a flutter of delight. As Rhoda lingered that evening in the dewy twilight, she began to charge herself with cowardice. It would have been hard to have held out against Helen’s desires. And yet—for Helen’s own sake—ought she not to have been firm? Most of us suffer if we stifle our instincts; and hers had told her that this feast was no place for her cousin. “It shall be the last time that I am weak,” she thought, hoping to atone for the present by the future. “I will let her have her way this once, and then I will set myself to guide her in a better path.” The grey, transparent veil of dusk stole down, and the clear stars shone through it. A little wind came creeping up the garden “Where is Rhoda?” she heard her mother say. The jessamine, which grew all over the porch, swung its slender sprays into her face. The sweet, chill blossoms kissed her lips as she passed beneath them; but she went indoors with an unquiet mind. |