Abbeychurch; Or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit

'Now, Helen,' said Anne, who had by this time collected her ideas, which had been completely startled by her cousin's avowal of dislike of home, 'I will tell you what I think Mamma would say to you. I think you used to be indolent and waste your senses, but now Dykelands has given you a spur, and you are very much improved.'

'Do you really think so?' interrupted Helen, who had lately felt quite starved for want of praise.

'Yes,' said Anne, 'and so does everyone, and so Lizzie told me.'

'Lizzie?' said Helen; 'I thought she considered me as great a baby as ever.'

'No, no, my dear,' said Anne; 'I will tell you what she said of you. She said you were almost all she could wish in a sister, and that you were quite a reflective creature; and that is high praise from her.'

'Well, if she thinks so,' said Helen, 'she does not shew it; she is always making game of my opinions and feelings.'

'So she does of almost everyone's,' said Anne; 'but that is no proof that she does not love them.'

'And she will never listen to anything that I say, or take interest in anything I care for,' continued Helen.

'Indeed, Helen, you only think so because you do not understand her ways,' said Anne; 'all last month she could think of nothing but the Consecration, and Horace's going to school. Now all that is over and you are quiet again, after we are gone you will get on capitally together.'

'I am sure she contradicts every word I say,' said Helen.

'That is not out of unkindness, I assure you,' said Anne, who unfortunately could not deny that such was the fact. 'She only likes an argument, which sharpens your wits, and does no harm, if both sides are but good-humoured and cheerful. She will find you out in time, and you will understand her better.'

'Oh! Lizzie is delightful when she does not contradict,' said Helen; 'she is cleverer than anyone I ever saw, even than Fanny Staunton, and Papa says her patience and diligence with Horace were beyond all praise; but I can never be clever enough for her to make me her friend.'

'But you do not think people choose their friends only for their cleverness?' said Anne.

'Why, no,' said Helen, 'I do not think they ought, but Lizzie does. You would not be her friend if you were not clever.'

'Well,' said Anne, 'but try and convince her that you can be her friend without being clever, if you will not allow that you are.'

'Oh!' said Helen, brightening up, 'if Lizzie would but make a friend of me, how happy we should be! if she would but talk to me of her own concerns, and listen to mine! But she never chooses to hear me speak of Dykelands.'

'Then,' said Anne, 'you must remember that she has never been there, and does not know the people.'

'Yes,' said Helen; 'but I think that if she had been there, and I at home, I should have listened for her sake, besides that Mrs. Staunton was our own mamma's dearest friend.'

Anne had always thought that her own mother had been Aunt Katherine's dearest friend; but she had forbearance enough to leave the honour to Mrs. Staunton in Helen's imagination, and answered, 'And for that very reason, and for your sake too, Helen, she will delight to hear about Mrs. Staunton when you are quiet together, if you do not give her too much at a time, or talk of Dykelands when she is thinking of something else. Oh yes, Helen, you and Lizzie will be excellent friends, unless you are much more silly than I think either of you.'

Anne smiled so cheerfully, that Helen could not help smiling too; but she would probably have found another sorrow to lament over, if at this moment Dora had not come up to summon them to their early dinner.

Helen felt exceedingly grateful to Anne for having listened so kindly and patiently to her list of grievances. It was the first sympathy, as she considered, that she had met with since she had left Dykelands, and it atoned in her mind for various little thoughtless ways of Anne's, which had wounded her in former years, and which she had not perhaps striven sufficiently to banish from her memory; and this was a great advantage from this conversation, even if she derived no further benefit from it.

On her side, Anne had some thoughts of telling Elizabeth what Helen's feelings really were, in hopes that she might shew a little regard for them; but, sisterless herself, she thought the bond of sisterhood too sacred to be rashly interfered with by a stranger's hand; besides, she considered Helen's complaints as really confidential, if not expressly so, and resolved to mention them to no one but Lady Merton, and to limit her attempts at being useful to bringing the two sisters before each other in their most amiable light, and at any rate to avoid saying anything that could possibly occasion a discussion between them, though she could hardly imagine that it was possible to dislike one of the merry arguments that she delighted in. However, remembering her mother's story of Mrs. Staunton, she decided that though it was a great misfortune for people to have such strange fancies, yet their friends ought to respect them.

CHAPTER VII

As soon as dinner was over, Elizabeth went up to her own room, and was followed in a few moments by Anne, who found her putting on her bonnet and cloak. 'Can you be going out in such weather as this?' exclaimed she.

'Yes,' said Elizabeth; 'I must

"Let content with my fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day."'

'But what are the fortunes which oblige you to go out?' said Anne.

'The fortunes of an old woman to whom Kate or I read every Friday,' said Elizabeth, 'and the fortunes of various young school-children, who must be prepared for Papa or Mr. Walker to catechize in Church on Sunday.'

'Why do not you send Kate or Helen, instead of murdering yourself in the wet?' said Anne.

'Miss Kitty is three inches deep in the mysteries of a spencer, (I do not mean Edmund,)' said Elizabeth, 'and it will not be out of her head these three days, at least not till she has made Mamma's old black satin gown into one after Harriet's pattern; I heard her asking for it as I came up-stairs.'

'And would not Helen go?' said Anne; 'she does not catch cold as easily as you do.'

'Helen has contrived, somehow or other,' said Elizabeth, 'to know no more about the school-children than if they were so many Esquimaux; besides, anyone with any experience of Helen's ways, had rather walk ninety miles in the rain, than be at the pains of routing her out of the corner of the sofa to do anything useful.'

'Indeed,' said Anne, 'I think Helen does wish to make herself useful.'

'I dare say she sits still and wishes it in the abstract, for I think it must be a very disagreeable thing to reflect that she might as well be that plaster statue for any good that she does,' said Elizabeth; 'but she grumbles at every individual thing you propose for her to do, just as she says she wishes to be a companion to Dora and Winifred, yet whenever they wish her to play with them or tell them a story, which is all the companionship children of their age understand, she is always too much at her ease to be disturbed. And now, as she is the only person in the house with whom poor Lucy is tolerably at her ease, it would be cruel to take her away.'

'That is more of a reason,' said Anne; 'what a pity it is that Lucy is so shy!'

'Excessive shyness and reserve is what prevents her mother from being able to spoil her,' said Elizabeth; 'so do not regret it.'

'Still I do not like to see you going out in this way,' said Anne.

'I may truly say that rain never hurts me,' said Elizabeth; 'and if I once let one trifle stop me in these parish matters, I shall be stopped for ever, and never do anything. Perhaps I shall not come back this hour and a half, for old Mrs. Clayton must be dying to hear all about our Consecration, luncheon, dinner, &c., and as she is the widow of the last Vicar, we are in duty bound to be civil to her, and I must go and call upon her. Oh! you poor thing, I forgot how deserted you will be, and really the drawing-room is almost uninhabitable with that Bengal tiger in it. Here is that delightful Norman Conquest for you to read; pray look at the part about Hereward the Saxon.'

Elizabeth would not trust herself to stay with Anne any longer, and ran down-stairs, and might soon be heard putting up her umbrella and shutting the front door after her.

Anne found the afternoon pass rather heavily, in spite of the companionship of William the Conqueror and Hereward the Saxon, of assisting the children in a wet day game of romps, and of shewing Dora and Winifred the contents of the box they had admired the day before. Helen and Lucy were sitting at work very comfortably in the corner of the sofa in the inner drawing-room; Harriet and Katherine very busy contriving the spencer in the front drawing-room, keeping up a whispering accompaniment to the conversation of the elder ladies—if conversation it could be called, when Mrs. Hazleby had it all to herself, while giving Lady Merton and Mrs. Woodbourne an account of the discomforts she had experienced in country quarters in Ireland.

Sir Edward and Mr. Woodbourne were engaged in looking over the accounts of the church in the study, and Fido was trying to settle his disputes with Meg Merrilies, who, with arching back, tail erect, and eyes like flaming green glass, waged a continual war with him over her basket in the hall.

Anne was very glad to hear her cousin's footstep in the hall as she returned. Coming straight to the drawing-room, Elizabeth exclaimed, 'Mamma, did you tell Mrs. Clarke that she might have a frock for Susan?'

'Yes, my dear,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'she asked me yesterday when you were not near, and I told her you would give her one. I thought the child looked very ragged.'

'I suppose she must have it,' said Elizabeth, looking much vexed; 'I told her she should not, a month ago, unless she sent the children to school regularly, and they have scarcely been there five days in the last fortnight.'

'I wish I had known it, my dear,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'you know I am always very sorry to interfere with any of your plans.'

'O Mamma, there is no great harm done,' said Elizabeth. She then went to fetch the frock, and gave it to the woman with a more gentle and sensible rebuke than could have been expected from the vehemence of her manner towards Mrs. Woodbourne a minute before. When this was done, and she had taken off her bonnet, she came to beckon Anne up-stairs.

'So you have finished your labours,' said Anne, taking up her work, while Elizabeth sat down to rule a copy-book for Winifred.

'Yes,' said Elizabeth, '"we are free to sport and play;" I have read to the old woman, and crammed the children, and given old Mrs. Clayton a catalogue raisonnee of all the company and all their dresses, and a bill of fare of our luncheon and dinner, and where everything came from.'

'And yet you profess to hold gossip in abomination,' said Anne.

'Oh! but this is old gossip, regular legitimate amusement for the poor old lady,' said Elizabeth. 'She really is a lady, but very badly off, and most of the Abbeychurch gentility are too fine to visit her, so that a little quiet chat with her is by no means of the common-place kind. Besides, she knows and loves us all like her own children. It was one of the first pleasures I can remember, to gather roses for her, and carry them to her from her own old garden here.'