"I came for a year, dear Faith—and I ought not to stay much beyond that."
Faith mentally counted the months, in haste, with a pang; but the silence did not last long this time. Her head left its resting place and bending forward she looked up into Mr. Linden's face, with a sunny clear look that met his full. It was not a look that could by any means be mistaken to indicate a want of other feeling, however. One might as soon judge from the sunshine gilding on the slope of a mountain that the mountain is made of tinsel.
"Endecott—is that what has been the matter with you?"
She needed no answer but his look, though that was a clear as her own.
"I could easier bear it if I could bear the whole," he said. "But you can understand that Dr. Harrison's proposal tried, though it did not tempt me."
She scarce gave a thought to that.
"There is one thing more I wanted to ask. Will there be—" she paused, and went on,—"no time at all that you can be here?"
"Dear Faith!" he said kissing her, "do you think I could bear that? How often I shall be able to come I cannot quite tell, but come I shall—from time to time, if I live. And in the meanwhile we must make letters do a great deal."
Her face brightened. She sat quietly looking at him.
"Will that shadow come any more,—now that you have told me?"
"I will give you leave to scold me, if you see it," Mr. Linden said, answering her smile,—"I ought not to be in shadow for a minute—with such a sunbeam in my possession. Although, although!—do you know, little bright one, that the connexion between sunbeams and shadows is very intimate? and very hard to get rid of?"
"Shall I talk to you about 'nonsense' again?"—she said half lightly, resting her hand on his arm and looking at him. Yet behind her light tone there was a great tenderness.
"You may—and I will plead guilty. But in which of the old classes of 'uncanny' folk will you put me?—with those who were known by their having no shadow, or with those who went always with two?"
"So I suppose one must have a little shadow, to keep from being uncanny!"
"You and I will not go upon that understanding, dear Faith."
Faith did not look like one who had felt no shadow; rather perhaps she looked like one who had borne a blow; a look that in the midst of the talk more than once brought to Mr. Linden's mind a shadowy remembrance of her as she was after they got home that terrible evening; but her face had a gentle brightness now that then was wanting.
"I don't know"—she said wistfully in answer to his last words.—"Perhaps it is good. I dare say it is, for me. It is a shame for me to remind you of anything—but don't you know, Endecott—'all things are ours'? both 'things present and things to come?'" And her eye looked up with a child's gravity, and a child's smile.
Bear it alone?—yes, he could have done that—as he had borne other things,—it tried him to see her bear it. It touched him to see that look come back—to see any tempering of the bright face she had worn so long. Faith hardly knew perhaps with what eyes he had watched her through all the conversation, eyes none the less anxious for the smile that met hers so readily; she hardly guessed what pain her bright efforts at keeping up, gave him. To shelter and gladden her life was the dearest delight of his; and just now duty thwarted him in both points. And he knew—almost better than she did—how much she depended on him. He looked down at her for a moment with a face of such grave submission as Faith had never seen him wear.
"My dear little child!" he said. But that sentence was let stand by itself. The next was spoken differently. "I do know it, dear Faith,—and yet you do well to remind me. I need to be kept up to the mark. And it is not more true that each day has sufficient evil, than that each has sufficient good—if it be only sought out. There cannot much darkness live in the light of those words."
"How far have you to go," she said with demure archness,—"to find the good of these days?"
"You are quick at conclusions"—said Mr. Linden,—"how far do you think it is between us at present?"
"Endecott"—she said gravely—"it will never be further!"
He laughed a little—with a half moved half amused expression, wrapping her up like some dainty piece of preciousness. "Because every day that I am away will bring us nearer together? I suppose that is good measurement."
"You know," she said, "you have told me two things to-night, Endecott; and if one makes me sorry, the other makes me glad."
"I was sure of that!—And it is such great, great pleasure to think of the times of coming back—and of leaving you work to do, and of writing to you about it,—and then of finding out how well it is done! You must keep my books for me, Mignonette—mine, I say!—they are as much yours as mine—and more."
"Your books?"—she said with a flush.
"Yes—there are but a few of these that I shall want with me,—the most of my study books I did not bring here."
"But won't you want these with you?"
"As far from that as possible. Do you think you could make up your mind to let me tell Reuben a secret?—and give him a reason for being even more devoted to you than he is now?"
She coloured very brightly again. "I am willing—if you wish it. Why,Endecott?"
"The chief reason is, that I do not wish to lose any of your letters, nor have you lose any of mine. And small postoffices are not so safe as large ones, nor are their managers proverbially silent. I should like to make Reuben a sort of intermediate office."
"And send your letters to him?"
"Yes. Would you mind that?"
"And my letters?"
"And yours in like manner, little Mignonette. He could either enclose them to me, or put them in some neighbouring office,—I think Reuben would enjoy an eight miles walk a day, taken for me. Or you could hide your envelope with another, and let him direct that. You need not be afraid of Reuben,"—Mr. Linden said smiling,—"you might give him forty letters without his once daring to look at you."
"But I thought—you said—he was going to college next summer?"
"That was talked of, but I think he will stay another year at home, and then enter a higher class. It will save expense, and he will be longer with his father. Reuben and I hope to be brother ministers, one day, Faith."
"Do you! Does he!"—said Faith astonished. "That is good! I am glad of it. But what will he do for money, Endecott?"
"We shall see—part of the way is clear, so we may hope the rest will be. Perhaps I may let him do some of his studying with me. Do you think you would object to that?"
"Object to it! How could I? What do you mean, Endecott?"
"O little Mignonette!" he said smiling, "how sweet you are!—and what joy it would be to see you wear the only title I can give you! Don't you know, pretty child, that if I gave Reuben Hebrew you might be called upon to give him—tea!"
Faith's eyes went down and her colour mounted, and mounted. But her next remark was extremely collected. "How good it was Dr. Harrison's money came!"—
"I believe you stipulated that we were to have tea ourselves," said Mr. Linden, "but the question remains whether you would dispense it to any one else."
Faith was only restrained from covering her face again by the feeling that it would be foolish; and withal a little laughter could not be prevented. She did shield one side of her face with her hand, and leaning upon it looked into the fire for suggestions. Finally answered sedately, "I should think you and he might have it together!"
"Have it—yes, if we could get it; but I am ignorant of any but the chemical properties of milk and sugar."
"I thought you said you knew cream when you saw it!" said Faith from behind her shield.
"That is knowing its appearance—not its properties, Miss Reason."
"What does reason want to know more, for a cup of tea?"
"But you have declared once to-night that I am not Reason," said Mr. Linden laughing. "For instance—I once made the sudden acquaintance of a particular person, who made as sudden an impression on my mind,—after those three minutes I should have known her by sight (like cream) to the end of my life. But I went on trying experiments—(as one might taste successive drops of cream) finding out more and more sweetness each time; until (like cream again) I discovered that she was perfectly indispensable to my cup of tea!"
Faith bowed her glad little head, laughing, though feeling much deeper was at work.
"After this," she said, "I shall always be greatly at a loss what you are thinking of when you are looking at me."
"Will your reflections be carried on with such a face?" said Mr. Linden. "Do you remember that afternoon, Faith?—when I so nearly laid hold of you—and you wanted to laugh, and did not dare?"
"What afternoon?"—
"The one wherein I first had the pleasure of seeing you. How demurely you eyed me!—and wondered in your little sensible heart what sort of a person I could possibly be!"
"How did you know I wondered?" said Faith colouring.
"By your very gentle, modest, and fearful examinations, your evident musings over my words, and the bright look now and then that told of progress."
Faith laughed.
"You made me begin to think and wish immediately," she said.—"It was no wonder I wondered."
"Yes, and how I longed to give you your wish, so far as I could,—and how afraid I was to offer my services,—and how you would persist in thanking me for pleasing myself, do you remember, little Sunbeam?—and your fright when I asked about Prescott?"
She looked up with the prettiest, rosiest remembrance of it all; and then her face suddenly changed, and turning from him she shielded it again with her hand, but not to hide the rosy colour this time. Mr. Linden drew her close to him, resting his face upon her other cheek at first without words.
"Dear child!" he said,—"my own little Mignonette!—you must not forget what you said to me,—and you must not forget that I hope to come home quite often. There was a time, when I thought I might have to go away and never have the right to come and see you again. And you must think to yourself—though you will not speak of it to me—that after this bit of time, all our life will be spent together. You need not expect me to wait for anything—not even the cottage you like so much."
She did not answer immediately, as was natural, his last suggestions not being very word-provoking with her. But when she did speak, it was in a clear, cheerful tone.
"I'll bear my part, Endy—I should be very ungrateful if I couldn't. And you can bear your part—I am glad to think of that!—for you are working for a Master that always gives full pay."
"We can always bear God's will," he said, a little gravely,—"it is only our own that points the trial and makes it unbearable."
CHAPTER XIV
Faith had no chance to think that night. She went to sleep conscientiously. And a chance the next morning was out of the question. She dared not come down as early as usual, if her own strength would have let her. The few minutes before breakfast were busy ones; and the few hours after breakfast. Faith went about with the consciousness of something on her heart to be looked at; but it had to bide its time. Her household duties done, her preparations for Mr. Linden being already in advance, she had leisure to attend to this other thing. And alone Faith sat down and looked at it.
It was the first real steady trial her life had known. Her father's death had come when she was too young to feel deeply any want that her mother could not fill. To be away from anything she much loved was a sorrow Faith hardly knew by experience. But a two years' separation was a very, very heavy and sharp pain to think of; and Faith had an inward assurance that the reality would be heavier and sharper than her thoughts beforehand could make it. Perhaps it was too great a pain to be struggled with; for Faith did not struggle—or not long. She sat down and looked at it,—what she had not dared to do the night before;—measured it and weighed it; and then bowed her heart and head to it in utter submission. With it came such a crowd of glad and good things, things indeed that made the trial and were bound up with it,—that Faith locked the one and the other up in her heart together. And remembering too the sunshine of joy in which she had lately lived, she humbly confessed that some check might be needed to remind her and make her know that earth has not the best sunshine, and that any gain would be loss that turned her eyes away from that best, or lessened her sense of its brightness.
So there came no shadow over her at all, either that day or afterwards. The clear light of her face was not clouded, and her voice rung to the same tune. There was no shadow, nor shade of a shadow. There was a little subdued air; a little additional gravity, a trifle more of tenderness in her looks and ways, which told of the simpleness of heart with which she had quietly taken what God gave and was content with it.
To Mr. Linden the trial was not new, and to sorrow of various kinds he was wonted; but it was new to him to see her tried, and to that he found it hard to accustom himself. Yet he carried out his words,—Faith could feel a sort of atmosphere of bright strength about her all the time. How tenderly she was watched and watched over she could partly see, but pain or anxiety Mr. Linden kept to himself. He set himself to work to make her enjoy every minute. Yet he never shunned the subject of his going away,—he let her become used to the sound of the words, and to every little particular connected with it—they were all told her by degrees; but told with such bright words of hope and trust, that Faith took the pain as it were diluted.
Before all this had gone far—indeed not many days after the first telling of his story, Faith had come down as usual one early morning to her work. She had been down about an hour, when she heard the door open and Mr. Linden came in. He had two seconds' view of the picture before she rose up to meet him. There was no lamp yet burning in the room. A fire of good hard wood threw its light over everything, reflected back from the red curtains which fell over the windows. In the very centre of the glow, Faith sat on a low cushion, with her book on a chair. She was dressed exactly, for nicety, as if she might have been going to Judge Harrison's to tea. And on the open pages, and on Faith's bright hair, edging her ruffles, and warming up her brown dress, was the soft red fall of the firelight. She rose up immediately with her usual glad look, behind which lay a doubtful surmising as to his errand. It was on her lips to ask what had brought him down so early, but she was prudently silent. He came forward quick and quietly, according to his wont, not at all as if she were about anything unusual, and giving her one of those greetings which did sometimes betray the grave feeling he kept so well in hand, he brought her back to the fire.
"Little bird," he said, "what straws are you weaving in at present?"
"I don't know. Not any—unless thoughts."
"Will it please you to state what you are doing?"
"I was reading. I had just got to the end of the story of Moses blessing Israel. I was thinking of these words—" and she took up her book and shewed him. "Happy art thou, O Israel, saved of the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency."
"Did you ever look out any of the answering passages in other parts of the Bible?"
"Not often. I don't know them. Once in a while I think of one. And then they are so beautiful!"
Mr. Linden took the book from her hand, turning from place to place and reading to her.
"'Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth forever.' That is what David said,—then hear how Isaiah answers—'Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.'—And again—'Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end.'"
Faith drew a little quick breath.
"Doesn't it seem," she said, "as if words were heaped on words to prevent our being afraid?"
"I think it really is so; till we have a shield of promises as well as protection. After Abraham had gone out of his own country, 'not knowing whither he went', 'the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.' Then David takes that up and expatiates upon it,—finding in it 'both things present and things to come,' dear Faith."
"'For the Lord God is a sun and a shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.'"
She looked down at the words, then up at him with a glad, sunshiny light in her eyes. Her comment on the whole was heartfelt, and comprehensive. "How good it was you came down this morning!"
"Would you like to have me come every morning?"
"Oh how much!—But that's no use, Endecott."
"Why not?"
"I mustn't get to depending upon you too much," she said with a smile.
"What had you been musing about—to make you so glad this morning?" he said looking at her.
"Nothing!—but those passages as you read them one after the other were so beautiful, and felt so strong.—It was a great pleasure to hear you read them,"—she said dropping her voice a little in confession.
"It shall be as you like, darling, about my coming again. But dearFaith, of this other morning work you must let me say a word."
"What, Endecott?"
"You are doing too much."
"No. What makes you think so?"
Significantly Mr. Linden laid his hand on the pile of study books.
"Well?"
"Well.—For the future please to let these gentry rest in peaceful seclusion until after breakfast."
"Oh no, Endy!"
"My dear, I shall have you turning into a moonbeam. Just imagine what it would cost me to call you 'pale Cynthia'!"
"You needn't imagine it, Endecott."
"Only so far as to prevent the reality. Do you know I have been afraid of this for some time."
"Of what?"
"Afraid that you were disregarding the bounds I have laid down for study and the sun for sleep."
"I didn't know you had laid down any bounds," she said gaily again—"and I never did mind the sun."
"Well won't you mind me?" said he smiling. "I have a right to expect that in study matters, you know."
"Don't try me—" said Faith, very winningly, much more than she knew. He stood looking at her, with the sweet unbent expression which was her special right.
"Faith, don't you mean to love to have me take care of you?"
That brought a change of look, and it was curious to see the ineffectual forces gather to veil what in spite of them wreathed in her smile and laid an additional roseleaf upon each cheek. The shy eyes retreated from view; then they were raised again as she touched his arm and said, with a demure softness, "What must I do, Endy?"
"Be content with the old study hours, my dear child. They are long enough, and many enough."
"Oh Endy!—not for me."
"For thee."
Faith looked down and looked disturbed.
"Then, Endecott, I sha'n't be as wise as I want to be,—nor as you want to have me."
"Then you will be just as wise as I want you to be," he said with a smile. "As to the rest, pretty child,—do you mean that my wife shall deprive me of my scholar?"
Faith turned away and said rather quickly, "Endy, how did you know?"
"From some lesson evidence. And I always hear you come down—and whilesI see a face at breakfast which has not lately come from rest."
Faith's secret thought was that it was better than rest. But after folding her hands with a grave face, she looked up at Mr. Linden with a smile which yielded the whole question.
"To prove to you what a naughty child you have been," said Mr. Linden, "I shall give you an increase of outdoor lessons, and take you off on an expedition the first mild day. On which occasion you may study me—if you have any of Miss Essie's curiosity."
"Don't I?" said Faith. "And I am going to do it more. What expedition are you going on, Endecott?"
"Up to Kildeer river—I have business there. Will you trust yourself to me in a boat—if I will let you steer?"
"I'll do anything to go," said Faith. "And I suppose if I steered wrong, the helm would come about pretty quick!" And so ended her last early morning studies.
It was in the afternoon of the same day that Faith put in practice what she had been thinking of when she avowed her determination of further studying Mr. Linden. He had come home from school, and it was the dusky hour again; the pleasant interregnum between day and night when even busy folk take a little time to think and rest. Mr. Linden was indulging in both apparently; he was in one of those quiet times of doing nothing which Faith chose for making any of her very gentle attacks upon him. One seemed to be in meditation now. She stole up behind him and leaned down on the back of his chair, after her wont.
"Endecott"—she said softly.
Faith's voice was in ordinary a pleasant thing to hear; but this name from her lips was always a concretion of sweetness, flavoured differently as the case might be. Sometimes with mere gladness, sometimes with the spirit of fun, often enough with a little timidity, and sometimes with a rose-drop from the very bottom of her heart's well; with various compounds of the same. But this time it was more than timidity; Faith's one word was spoken as from lips that were positively afraid to follow it with others.
"That note," said Mr. Linden smiling, "seems to come from the top of a primeval pine tree—with a hawk in sight! Little bird, will you please come down into the lower regions of air?—where you can be (comparatively) safe."
Faith laughed; but the hawk remained in sight—of her words.
"You said this morning I never asked you any but impossible things."
"Most sorrowfully true!—have you another one ready?"
"If I ask you something possible, what will you do?" she said, softly touching the side of his head with her hand. It was Faith's utmost freedom; a sort of gentle admiring touch of her fingers which the thick locks of hair felt hardly more than a spider's feet.
"That depends so much upon the thing!" he said, half turning to give her the look which belonged to his words. "There are such a variety of ways in which I might deal with it—and with you."
"I am not going to ask you anything but what would be right."
"You do not doubt that my answer will be conformable?"
"Yes I do. It will be your 'right,' but it may not be my 'right,' you know."
"If you get what is not your right, you ought to be contented," saidMr. Linden.
"Now you have turned me and my meaning round! Endecott—you know AuntDilly gave me something?—mayn't I—won't you let me lend it to you?"
Very low and doubtfully the words came out! But if Faith had any more to say, she had little chance for a while. One quick look round at her Mr. Linden gave, but then he sprang up and came to where she stood, lifting her face and giving her her "right" in one sense at least. Other answer he made none.
"Endy—have I asked a possible thing this time?" she said under breath.
"My precious child!—Do you think it possible?"
"It ought to be possible, Endecott." And if ever an humble suggestion of a possibility was made, Faith made it then.
"I shall have to go back to my first answer," said Mr. Linden,—"I have no words for any other. Faith, dearest—don't you know that it is not needful? Will that content you, little sweet one?"
A soft "no."
"Why not?" he said, making good his threat. "What do you want me to have more than I need?"
"I fear the ways you will take to make that true. I should think you might, Endecott!"—The ellipsis was not hard to supply.
"I shall not take any unlawful means—nor any unwise ones, I hope," he said lightly. "What are you afraid I shall do?"
"Get up early in the morning," she whispered.
"But that is so pleasant! Do you suppose I get up late now, little bird?"
"Not late, with breakfast at seven. How early do you?"
"Philosophically early! Do you know you have not had your poem to-day?—what shall it be? sunrise or sunset?"
"Which you please," she said gently, with the tone of a mind upon something else. Mr. Linden looked down at her in silence for a minute.
"Dear Faith," he said, "I told you truly that there is no need. This year's work has done quite as much as I thought it would. What are you afraid of?"
"I am not afraid of much," she said, looking up at him now with a clear brow. "But Endy, I have changed my mind about something. Could you easily come down and read with me a little while every morning?—or are you busy?"
"I am never too busy to spend time with you, my child,—that is one piece of pleasure I shall always allow myself. At what hour shall I come?"
"At six o'clock, can you?" said Faith. "If you gave me a quarter of an hour then, I should still have time enough for breakfast work. This morning I was afraid—but I was foolish. This evening I want all I can get. And when you read me a ladder of verses again," she said smiling, "I shall mark them in my Bible, and then I shall have them by and by—when you are gone."
"Yes, and I can send you more. It is good to go up a ladder of Bible verses when one is afraid—or foolish," he said gently and answering her smile. "One end of it always rests on earth, within reach of the weakest and weariest."
"That is just it! Oh Endy," she said, clasping her hands sadly and wishfully before her and her eyes tilling as she spoke—"I wish there were more people to tell people the truth!"