Miss Fallowfield's Fortune

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Contents

CHAFTEB PAOa

I A Village Dorcas-Meeting ..... 24

II Miss Fallowfield 45

Prologue

On a summer's afternoon, when the world was soma thirty years younger than It is at present, two girls; were sitting at tea in a small lodging-house situated in* an obscure watering-place on the Welsh coast. The room in which they sat was typical of its time and place* It was on the ground floor, and formed part of what was termed by its owner " the dining-room set," which, suite consisted of the said sitting-room and two small bedrooms at the top of the house. True, there was abedroom upon the same floor which, to the lay eye, appeared to belong by right to the dining-room ; but this? was an amateurish way of looking at things, as anyone acquainted with the mysteries of seaside lodgings will at once perceive. It is a fixed rule with all lodging-house keepers that the bedroom attached to the dining-room invariably belongs to the ** drawing-room set,*'' and, like all other great laws of nature, must be respected and obeyed, even though its why and where^ fore remain hidden in obscurity.

This room revelled in the distinction of commanding' what is called a sea-view; that is to say, it did indeed face the direction in which the ocean lay, but as it was upon a somewhat lower level than the road, a sight of the horizon-line was only vouchsafed to such occupants as were tall enough to look over the sloping grass in front of the house and the hedge of tamarisk which formed the boundary of the estate ; and even tall people could only attain this glimpse by standing close to the window upon the tips of their toes.

The interior of the room was dreary in the extreme. The paper — ^a dull red — ^had been still further darkened by some years' exposure to a persistently smoking chimney ; the carpet was perforated by holes which were apt to trip up the unwary, and which were but partially concealed by mats composed of heterogeneous morsels, the original shade and pattern of the carpet being lost in dust and antiquity. The furniture was of that kind which had once obviously been covered with horsehair ; but the horsehair had long been worn out and replaced by a material known as American cloth, which is so slippery in cold weather than one finds it difficult to remain seated, and so adhesive in hot weather that one finds it equally difficult to rise. In addition to the chairs used for sitting at meat, there was one (so-called) easy chair and a sofa; but both these articles of furniture had succumbed to a disease which attacks hardly-worn furniture — a disease which transforms the springs into sinews of iron, strong to resist the advances of all those who wish to sit down thereon.

The chimney-piece was adorned with an ormolu clock (out of which the internals had been removed), flanked on one side by an insufficiently attired china shepherdess, and on the other by a bust of John Wesley. Above it hung a tarnished mirror, which was veiled by a profusion of trailing ivy-leaves cut out of green tissue paper of varying shades. According to the landlady, these ivy-leaves were intended to catch the flies, but how flies could be caught by a substance that neither attracted nor retained, she did not trouble to expound. The fireplace itself was filled with a weird object, somewhat resembling a huge chignon of very coarse grey hair, sparsely sprinkled with threads of gold and silver tinsel.

The only other ornaments in the room were two pictures setting forth respectively the Battle of Armageddon and the Last Judgment — ^inspiring subjects cheerfully portrayed! The former represented a cluster of white-winged, fair-haired young ladies leaning over a battlement and hurling forked lightning at a host of armed and mounted warriors beneath ; and the latter depicted a mountain (suffering apparently from a recent shock of earthquake), clothed on all sides by an extensive cemetery, and crowned with a bevy of white-winged beings similar to those who were throwing the lightning about in the other picture. The earthquake, which had opened a large fissure at the foot of the mountain, had also very much disturbed the cemetery, tossing the tombstones about as if they were spillikins, and evicting the occupants on all sides. A few of the more fortunate of these were being guided up the mountain by a deputation of fair-haired young ladies from the top ; but by far the greater part — including a sprinkling of crowned heads, foremost among whom was his Holiness the Pope — ^were being hustled pell-mell into the abyss by an official armed with a pitchfork.

The two inhabitants of this most unbeautiful " dining-room set" were both young and good-looking. The elder, a girl of about two- or three-and-twenty, was tall and dark, with aquiline features and a fine figure, and would have been extremely handsome had not her face shown unmistakable signs of defiance and dissatisfaction. The younger sister was fair, and bore decided resemblance to those sweet beings in the pictures who hurled the lightning and crowned the mountain tops. Her countenance was smooth and unlined, testifying to one of those happy dispositions which in all circumstances have learnt to be content.

" Oh, Phoebe, Fm sick to death of being poor ! " It was the elder girl who spoke.

"Never mind, Charlotte darling; there are worse things than being poor.*'

"Are there? Well, Fm thankful to say T\e never come across them.''

"Oh, but there are," the fair-haired girl persisted. ** It would be far worse for us if we were ill or ugly or old maids."

" No, it wouldn't ; nothing could be worse for us than our present condition. What is the use of our good looks if we can never dress ourselves properly? What is the use of our health if it is to be wasted upon drudgery? What is the use of our youth if we are never to get any pleasure out of it? I tell you that poverty is a curse which throws a blight upon everything it touches."

Phoebe shook her head. " I don't agree with you at all, Charlotte. Bad dressing matters far less to pretty people than to plain ones ; hard work is much easier for strong folks than for weakly ones; and if your youth has brought you a lover, I don't see that it has altogether been wasted.'*

** And what is the good of a lover if he will never be able to afford to marry you? " asked Charlotte somewhat brutally.

** Lots and lots of good. There's all the fun of the love-making, besides the credit of having got a young man of one's own ; and, besides, we shall afford to marry some day — everybody does sooner or later."

^* Not people as poor as we are."

** Oh, dear, yes ! " retorted the optimistic PhcBbe. '* People quite as poor as we are getting married every day."

** And a nice time they have of it afterwards," was the grim rejoinder.

**They worry along right enough, don't you fear. I can't think why you make such a fuss about our being poor. It is rather horrid, I admit, but it would be far harder if we were old and ugly."

** It will make us old and ugly before our time. Poor people always age far sooner than rich ones."

Phoebe shook her pretty head. ** Not if they've the right sort of complexions. It is your skin far more than your pocket that makes you look old or young; and you and I have both very good skins."

** The worry of making both ends meet is fast scoring lines into mine."

** Then you shouldn't worry so much. I wouldn't get wrinkles into my face for anything." And PhcBbe rose from the table and peeped at herself in the mirror through the overhanging tracery of ivy-leaves, sighing softly with satisfaction at what she saw therein.

Charlotte and PhcBbe Fallowfield were the children of a retired officer, who had no private means, and whose pension naturally did not survive him. Their mother died while they were yet in their infancy; and since their father's death, some few years before this story opens, they had been entirely dependent upon their own exertions for a living. Charlotte was a teacher in a girls' school, and Phoebe a nursery governess in a country clergyman's family. The former was engaged to be married to Herbert Wilson, a clerk in an accountant's office ; and the latter to Derek Silverthome, the happy-go-lucky Irish curate of her employer. But the chance of either of these engagements being brought to a satisfactory conclusion was very remote indeed, owing to the total lack of means on the part of everybody concerned.

These two girls were representatives of a class which merits our profoundest sympathy. Bom of well-bred parents, they possessed all the sensitiveness and refinement of gentle-people, and yet were debarred by the exigencies of their position from indulging in any of the pursuits and delights which gentle-people love. Further, this very sensitiveness and refinement unfitted them for that battle for existence which they were doomed to fight ; and rendered them specially susceptible to the wounds of those slings and arrows which outrageous Fortune had seen fit to hurl at their innocent heads. They were now enjoying their hardly-earned summer hoKday in such a health resort as their very limited means could command. Fhoebe, as usual, made the best of things; but Charlotte's artistic susceptibilities were hurt to the quick by the ugliness and squalor of her surroundings.

"By the way, Charlotte, have you been and said a prayer at Saint Winifred's shrine yet?" asked the younger sister, after she had duly contemplated her own charms in the ivy-mantled looking-glass.

"Saint Winifred's shrine! What is that! Tve never even heard of it.'*

" That's just like you ! You never hear of anything. That comes of being so stuck-up. You should talk to people as I do, and make friends, and you'd hear no end of interesting things."

Charlotte's lip curled scornfully. " Who would care to make friends of such paupers as we are? "

" Lots and lots of people. As I've told you hundreds and hundreds of times, money isn't everything. If only you are pretty, people will like you, however poor you may be."

" Well, I'm not pretty, as it happens. You are.'*

Phoebe looked at her elder sister critically. "Not exactly pretty, perhaps, but decidedly handsome; and I'm not sure whether in the long run handsomeness doesn't wear better than prettiness. It doesn't fade so soon. I'm sure I often envy you the dignified expression of your nose. There's a sort of Boadicean, Roman-eagle look about it which is distinctly impressive, and which will go on impressing after my flowerlike charms have faded into pot-pourri."

'" Never mind my nose ; tell me about Saint Winifred's rshrine."

^^ It is a little shrine on the mountain, quite a long way up, dedicated to Saint Winifred, who was a Welsh lady herself, you know. By the way, I wonder if she wore a tall beaver hat instead of a halo. It would have been rather sweet and patriotic of her if she did."

"But what about her shrine? Is there anything particular to distinguish it that you are 80 anxious for me to visit the sacred spot?'*

** The legend is that if anyone climbs up the moimtain and prays for something at that shrine with their whole heart, that prayer will be granted. The villagers about here go up sometimes and pray for things even now; but hundreds of years ago it was quite a celebrated place, and grand people came from all over the country to offer up their petitions. Kings and queens have been there in their day, and have always had their prayers granted."

Charlotte's dark eyes grew dreamy. "I wonder if it is still true, or if the shrine has lost its power? If I thought it were, I would go up and pray for riches; And I am sure I would pray with my whole heart."

^*Well, I don't mind telling you that I've been," said PhcBbe, waxing confidential. " I went and prayed that Derek and I should soon be able to get married. I thought I'd leave no stone unturned that might Jielp us," she added naively, and with no thought of irreverence.

When tea was over, and Phoebe had gone down to the beach to play with the children of their fellowlodgers, Charlotte set her stem young face to ascend the mountain. Her sister's story about the old shrine had seized hold of her imagination, and she was bent upon trying for herself if it still possessed its miraculous power. Though naturally reserved, she was inwardly exceedingly sensitive to impressions, and anything connected with the unusual or the supernatural had a strong fascination for her. In happier circumstances, where her powers could have had full scope and developed themselves, she would have displayed marked artistic gifts ; but as it was, her whole energy was bent upon the absorbing if uninteresting struggle to earn that daily bread which is absolutely necessary to mere existence.

It was an evening in complete harmony with Charlotte's expedition. Heavy clouds loomed up from the west, chasing each other across the heavens like a procession of war chariots, while below them the sun was slowly sinking to his rest " in a bed of daffodil sky." The sea was disturbed and unrestful, crooning to itself its old, old song in a voice hoarse with the sorrow of the ages, and murmuring its hushed though everlasting defiance against that irresistible decree which has said, " Thus far shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

With a firm yet light step the girl ascended th^ steep mountain path which led to the little shrine. On and on she sped, all her thoughts bent on her errand, until she was suddenly brought to a full stop, in turning a comer, by coming face to face with a very old clergyman leaning upon a stick. He was tall and thin and evidently of great age; his white hair fell in silvery locks upon his shoulders, but his complexion and expression were as pure as those of a little child.

Charlotte drew her slight figure up against the face of the rock in order to allow the venerable stranger room to pass her on the narrow path ; but he made no sign of so doing. On the contrary, he remained standing, looking at the girl with a tender smile which was in itself a benediction, while he said, in the most musical voice she had ever heard:

** Whither away so fast, my daughter? '*

There was no impertinence in the question, it was so gentle, so fatherly. It seemed as if he had the right to ask ; and Charlotte felt constrained to answer :

^ To Saint Winifred's shrme.'*

^ I thought as much ; and, if I read your face aright, my child, you are going there out of no idle curiosity, but with an earnest desire to test the efiicacy of the shrine and the truth of the old legend.*'

**Yes, that is so,*' replied Charlotte simply. Her customary reserve melted like snow in the sunshine of the old clergyman's smile. Then an equally unusual impulse to appeal to him for help seized her, and she asked, " Do you believe it is true? "

" I have lived here for the greater part of a century, my child, and I have known many, many prayers answered that were offered up at Saint Winifred's shrine. It may be that there is still some strange efficacy in the little mountain altar; or it may be — and this I think is the true reading — that those who come to this shrine pray in such faith that it is done unto them even as they wish, since faith is the lever that never fails to move Almighty Power. 'According to your faith so be it unto you,' is the limit which Omnipotence chooses to make unto Itself.'*

** Then you think if I pray for one particular thing at the shrine, believing I shall get it, my prayer really will be answered? " asked Charlotte, her dark eyes ablaze with excitement.

'^ I do ; and, because I think so, I would first have a word with you before you offer up your prayer," replied the old man, seating himself upon a huge boulder that lay hy the path, and motioning to Charlotte to do the same.

She obeyed him without hesitation. There was that in his face which compelled the reverence and submission of all with whom he was brought into contact.

" I was bom in this very neighbourhood some ninety years ago," he began, after they both were seated, " and I have spent the greater part of my life here, and many are the supplications which I have known to be offered up at Saint Winifred's shrine. Some of the suppliants have come back to thank God for having heard and answered their prayers; and some have come back to beseech the Lord to take away from them the very thing for which they once so earnestly entreated Him."

"Then they didn't really know what they wanted when first they prayed ! " exclaimed Charlotte.

"Yes, my child, I think they did. They only did not know what God wanted for them, and they set their own wills before His. And so He gave them up to their hearts' lust, and sent leanness into their souls withal."

" But surely we ought to pray for what we want, ** argued the girl.

** Certainly ; but only if it is in accordance with the Will of God that we shall have it.'*

** And if it isn't in accordance with His Will? "

" Then we should pray that His Will may overrule ours, and that we may find profit by losing of our prayers."

Charlotte shivered slightly, though the evening was warm. " I couldn't pray like that. If I want a thing I do want it, whether it is good for me or whether it isn't ; and if it isn't good for me, I am prepared to take the consequences."

** I see, I see ; many are like that. [And sometimes God is prepared to let them take the consequences, and so learn wisdom. But this is not the most excellent way of learning."

" It is a better way than not getting the thing you want, and spending the rest of your life in kicking against the pricks. I would far rather be unhappy in my own way than happy in anyone else's."

The old clergyman smiled. " You are very young, my child."

**I am twenty-three."

"And I am ninety-three. Seventy years makes all the difference in one's perspective."

"And I want so dreadfully the thing that I do' want!"

** So did I when I was your age ; and I prayed with all my heart for it at Saint Winifred's shrine ; but I also prayed that Grod's Will should overrule mine."

" And what happened? "

** Twenty years later I went back to the shrine and thanked Grod upon my bended knees that He had denied my request."

Again Charlotte shivered. " Twenty yeavs was a long time."

** Not long as compared with ninety, and still shorter as compared with eternity," replied the old clergyman, rising from his seat.

Charlotte rose also. **I think I would just as soon never learn a lesson at all as take twenty years to learn it," she persisted.

" So I thought when I was twenty-three, my daughter ; but I have since learnt otherwise."

" And- 1 am so sure that what I want is the very thing that will make me good as well as happy that I can ask for it with no reservation whatsoever."

*^ I was just as sure seventy years ago." The stranger could be as obstinate as Charlotte. ** Groodbye, my child," he continued, making way for her to pass him on the narrow path; "go forward to offer up your petition, and may God be with you ! But remember that if we set our hearts too much upon anything — ^if we make up our minds that we will have it whether it is in accordance with the Divine Will or not — ^we are sometimes taught wisdom by the bitter experience of having our prayers answered at all costs. Sometimes — I speak with all reverence — it seems to me as if God stood aside and allowed us to have our own way, because we have used the great gift of free-will by preferring it to His. And now good-night."

And without another word the venerable stranger went on his way down the mountain.

Charlotte also pursued her errand, undaunted by the old man's warning.

" I am sure," she argued with herself, " that poverty is not only spoiling my life and destroying my chance of happiness, it is also eating into my character and making me bitter and ill-tempered and morbid. If I were freed from the constant strain of pecuniary anxiety, I believe I could develop into a good as well as a clever woman. The three great duties of life are to serve God, to perfect ourselves, and to help our fellow-creatures; and poverty makes all three impossible. How can one have time to serve God properly if one is compelled to toil from morning to night to earn one's daily bread? How can one perfect one's own character if one is being constantly jarred and fretted by the sordid and squalid worries which invariably follow in poverty's train? And how can one help one's fellow-creatures if one is too poor even to help one's self? I am sure that wealth is the best as well as the happiest thing for me, and I shall pray for it with all my heart, and cheerfully take the consequence of its disabilities — ^if any disabilities there be."

So the girl communed with her own soul until the path she was following came to an end at a small shrine high up on the mountain, a lonely and impressive spot. On the one side of the path a steep precipice went down sheer into the sea, and on the other the black rock rose straight up skywards; and in this rock was carved a little niche holding a roughly hewn image of the patron saint of the shrine. In front of the image was a small stone altar, and below that a large stone, worn flat by the knees of the thousands who, in bygone ages, had offered up their petitions at the wayside altar ; while by its side a pellucid spring bubbled up out of the rock and dashed itself over the precipice in a shower of silvery spray.

On the flat stone, where so many thousands before her had prayed and had not prayed in vain, Charlotte Pallowfield fell upon her knees and besought the God Who had made her for the one gift which He had denied — the gift of worldly possessions. She prayed as she had never prayed before, for the atmosphere of the place lent itself to the spirit of supplication, and gave the impression of being in close touch with the Unseen, Far away from the haunts of men, with no sign of human habitation in sight, and with the impenetrable sky above it and the unfathomable sea below, it seemed cut off from all the habitable parts of the earth — such a spot as that where Moses stood when he hid in the cleft of the rock while the glory of the Lord passed by.

There are many voices in Nature for those that have ears to hear them, and they all call us to different things.

The voice of the forest is the voice of love. Have we not all heard the whispering of the woodland which lures us deeper and deeper into the hidden places, with hinted promises that we shall there at last find our heart's desire? As children we have all felt the fascination of those fairy-tales which told of enchanted castles and spell-bound palaces hidden away in the heart of a wood; and we have all entered into the spirit of the fairy-prince who fought his way through briar and tangle and thorn and thicket t31 at last he discovered the sleeping beauty who awaited him there. And even children of a later growth feel the spirit of that fairy-prince still stealing over them when they stand in the midst of a forest on a summer's day. Then suddenly all the stories of chivalry and romance become possible* Forest lovers may be found resting under any bush, gentle knights may be seen pricking across any glade. Every tree whispers to us its secret magic, every grassy path beckons us to follow it until we find our beloved awaiting us in a banqueting house whereof the beams are of cedar and the rafters of fir. Every pilgrim of life at some time or other passes through Arcady, everyone's path goes by way of the forest of Arden; and even though we may have travelled a long way since then, and our feet be weary and our faces worn, Arden and Arcady come back to us once more when we stand on a summer's day in the heart of a wood.

The voice of the sea is the voice of sorrow — the sorrow of unsatisfied longing, for the sea is never at rest and content ; the sorrow of rebellion, for its breakers are forever hurling themselves in vain against that unseen yet immutable barrier which they may not pass over ; and the sorrow of mortality, for its doom is fixed, and it is written that in the new heaven and the new earth there shall be no more sea. Like its own mermaids, who grieve because they have no souls and therefore are not immortal, the sea is forever bemoaning its finality. It may rage against the children of men when they occupy their business in great waters ; it may carry them up to heaven and down again to the deep till their souls melt away because of their trouble; it may dash them to pieces against the rocks and hide their bodies in its caves, where there is no man to bury them ; yet it knows that in their essence they are greater than itself, and that its conquest over them is only for a time. For when their corruption shall have put on incorruption and their mortality shall have put on immortality, the the sea shall be compelled to give up its dead, and — like death itself — shall at last be swallowed up in victory.

And the voice of the mountains is the voice of prayer^ Over against each other stand the everlasting hills — crag above crag, peak beyond peak, thus forming " the world's great altar stairs, which slope through darkness up to God.'* And some of God's greatest revelations to man have been made upon a mountain. It was upon a mountain that Elijah stood at the mouth of a cave and wrapped his face in his mantle at the sound of the still, small voice ; it was upon a mountain that the favoured Apostles were eye-witnesses of the majesty of their Master, and received the message from the excellent Glory; and it was upon a mountain that the men in white apparel heralded the second coming of Christ to the waiting disciples. Which teaches us that, in accordance with the great doctrine of free-will, man must do his part, feeble though it be, in going forth to meet his God. The Almighty may stoop from heaven to visit the sons of men; but they also must do what they can to rise from earth and meet Him as go PROLOGUE

He comes. Unless they stretch out the hands of faith towards Him, unless they climb the altar stairs that lead to His sanctuary, they will never see the glory of the Lord. Those in the valley may tremble before the sound of the tempest and the earthquake and the fire ; but it is only those who have scaled the mountain that hear the whisper of the still, small voice.'