MERLE'S CRUSADE
CHAPTER I.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
Merle, I may be a little old-fashioned in my notions; middle-aged people never adjust their ideas quite in harmony with you young folk, but in my day we never paused to count fifty at a full stop."
Aunt Agatha's voice startled me with its reproachful irritability. Well, I had deserved that little sarcasm for I must confess that I had been reading very carelessly. My favourite motto was ringing in my ears, "Laborare est orare."
Somehow the words had set themselves to resonant music in my brain; it seemed as though I were chanting them inwardly all the time I was climbing down the steep hill with Christiana and her boys. Laborare est orare. And this is what I was reading on that still, snowy Sunday afternoon: "But we will come again to this Valley of Humiliation. It is the best and most fruitful piece of ground in all these parts. It is a fat ground, and, as you see, consisteth much in meadows, and if a man was to come here in the summertime as we do now, if he knew not anything before thereof, and if he delighted himself in the sight of his eyes, he might see that which would be delightful to him. Behold how green this valley is, also how beautiful with lilies! I have known many labouring men that have got good estates in this Valley of Humiliation."
"Merle," observed Aunt Agatha, a little dryly, "we may as well leave off there, for it seems that you and I are to have our estate among the labouring men in this very valley."
Aunt Agatha was a clever woman, and could say shrewd things sometimes, but she never spoke a truer word than this; but my wits were no longer wool-gathering.
"What a pity you stopped me just then," I remarked, somewhat sententiously; "we have missed the purest gem of the allegory. 'He that is down need fear no fall; he that is low no pride.'" But here a hand was lifted in protesting fashion.
"Put the marker in the page, child, and spare me the rest; that is in favour of your argument, not mine," for a weary discussion had been waged between us for two whole hours—a discussion that had driven Aunt Agatha exhausted to the couch, but which had only given me a tingling feeling of excitement, such as a raw recruit might experience at the sight of a battlefield. Aunt Agatha's ladylike ideas lay dead and wounded round her while I had made that last impetuous charge.
"I am of age, a free Englishwoman, living in a free country, and not all the nineteenth century prejudices, though they are thick as dragons' teeth, shall prevent me, Merle Fenton, of sane mind and healthy body, from doing what I believe to be my duty."
"Humph, I am rather doubtful of the sanity; I always told you that you were too independent and strong-minded for a girl; but what is the use of preaching to deaf ears?" continued Aunt Agatha, in a decidedly cross voice, as she arranged the cushions comfortably.
It was true that I was getting the best of the argument, and yet I was sorry for Aunt Agatha. I felt how I was shocking all her notions of decorum and propriety, and giving pain to the kindest and gentlest heart in the world; but one cannot lead a new crusade without trampling on some prejudices. I knew all my little world would shriek "fie," and "for shame" into my ears, and all because I was bent on working out a new theory. The argument had grown out of such a little thing. I had shown Aunt Agatha an advertisement in the Morning Post, and announced my intention of answering it in person the following morning.
"NURSE.—Can any lady recommend a thoroughly conscientious superior person to take charge of two children, baby eighteen months old? Assistance given in the nursery. Must be a good, plain needlewoman. Prince's Gate, S.W."
To the last day of my life I do not think that I shall ever forget Aunt Agatha's face when she read that advertisement.
"You intend to offer yourself for this situation, Merle—to lose caste, and take your place among menials? It is enough to make my poor brother rise in his grave, and your poor, dear mother too, to think of a Fenton stooping to such degradation." But I will forbear to transcribe all the wordy avalanche of lady-like invective that was hurled at me, accompanied by much wringing of hands.
And yet the whole thing lay in a nut-shell. I, Merle Fenton, sound, healthy, and aged two-and-twenty, being orphaned, penniless, and only possessing one near relative in the world—Aunt Agatha—declined utterly to be dependent for my daily bread and the clothes I wore on the goodwill of her husband and my uncle by marriage, Ezra Keith.
No, I was not good. I daresay I was self-willed, contradictory, and as obstinate as a mule that will go every way but the right way, but, all the same, I loved Aunt Agatha, my dead father's only sister, and I detested Uncle Keith with a perfectly unreasonable detestation.
Aunt Agatha had been a governess all her life. Certainly the Fenton family had not much to boast of in the way of wealth. Pedigree and poverty are not altogether pleasant yoke fellows. It may be comfortable to one's feelings to know that a certain progenitor of ours made boots at the time of the Conquest, though I am never quite sure in my mind that they had bootmakers then; but my historical knowledge was always defective. But a little money is also pleasant; indeed, if the pedigree and the money came wooing to me, and I had to choose between them—well, perhaps I had better hold my tongue on that subject; for what is the good of shocking people unless one has a very good reason for doing so?
My father's pedigree did not help him into good practice, and he died young—a grave mistake, people tell me, for a professional man to commit. My mother was very pretty and very helpless, but then she had a pedigree, too, and, probably, that forbade her to soil her white hands. She was a fine lady, with more heart than head, which she had lost most unwisely to the handsome young doctor. After his death, she made futile efforts for her child's sake, but the grinding wheel of poverty caught the poor butterfly and crushed her to death.
My poor, tender-hearted, unhappy mother! Well, the world is a cruel place to these soft, unprotected natures.
I should have fared badly but for Aunt Agatha; her hardly-earned savings were all spent on my education. She was a clever, highly-educated woman, and commanded good salaries, and out of this she contrived to board and maintain me at a school until she married, and Uncle Keith promised that I should share their home.
I never could understand why Aunt Agatha married him. Perhaps she was tired of the drudgery of teaching; at forty-five one may grow a little weary of one's work. Perhaps she wanted a home for her old age, and was tired of warming herself at other people's fires, and preferred a chimney corner of her own; but, strange to say, she always scouted these two notions with the utmost indignation.
"I married your uncle, Merle," she would say, with great dignity, "because he convinced me that he was the right person for me to marry. I have no more idea than you how he contrived to instil this notion into my head, for though I am a plain body and never had any beauty, I must own I liked tall, good-looking men. But there, my dear, I lived forty-five years in the world without three things very common in women's lives—without beauty, without love, and without discontent." And in this last clause she was certainly right. Aunt Agatha was the most contented creature in the world.
If Uncle Keith—for never, never would I call him Uncle Ezra, even had he asked me as a personal favour to do so—if Uncle Keith had been rich I could have understood the marriage better, being rather a mercenary and far-sighted young person, but he had only a very small income. He was managing clerk in some mercantile house, and, being a thrifty soul, invested all his spare cash instead of spending it.
Aunt Agatha had lived in grand houses all her life, but she was quite content with the little cottage at Putney to which her husband took her. They only kept one servant; but Aunt Agatha proved herself to be a notable housekeeper. She arranged and rearranged the old-fashioned furniture that had belonged to Uncle Keith's mother until she had made quite a charming drawing-room; but that was just her way; she had clever brains, and clever fingers, and to manipulate old materials into new fashions was just play work to her.
But for me, I am perfectly convinced that Aunt Agatha would have called herself the happiest woman in the world, but my discontent leavened the household. If three people