‘I’m not’—Sophy had begun, but the words turned into ‘Am I?’
‘I think you are,’ and with the sweetest of tearful smiles, she put an arm round the no longer resisting Sophy, and laying her cheek against the little brother’s, she kissed first one and then the other.
‘I can’t think why you are so,’ said Sophy, still struggling against the undeserved love, though far more feebly. ‘I shall never deserve it.’
‘See if you don’t, when we pull together instead of contrary ways.’
‘But,’ cried Sophy, with a sudden start from her, as if remembering a mortal offence, ‘you drained the pond!’
‘I own I earnestly wished it to be drained; but had you any reason for regretting it, my dear?’
‘Ah! you did not know,’ said Sophy. ‘He and I used to be always there.’
‘He—?’
‘Why, will you make me say it?’ cried Sophy. ‘Edmund! I mean Edmund! We always called it his pond. He made the little quay for his boats—he used to catch the minnows there. I could go and stand by it, and think he was coming out to play; and now you have had it dried up, and his dear little minnows are all dead,’ and she burst into a passion of tears, that made Maurice cry till Albinia hastily carried him off and returned.
‘My dear, I am sorry it seemed so unkind. I do not think we could have let the pond stay, for it was making the house unhealthy; but if we had talked over it together, it need not have appeared so very cruel and spiteful.’
‘I don’t believe you are spiteful,’ said Sophy, ‘though I sometimes think so.’
The filial compliment was highly gratifying.
‘And now, Sophy,’ she said, ‘that I have told you why we were obliged to have the pond drained, will you tell me what you wanted with baby at Mrs. Osborn’s?’
‘I will tell,’ said Sophy, ‘but you wont like it.’
‘I like anything better than concealment.’
‘Mrs. Osborn said she never saw him. She said you kept him close, and that nobody was good enough to touch him; so I promised I would bring him over, and I kept my word. I know it was wrong—and—I did not think you would ever forgive me.’
‘But how could you do it?’
‘Mrs. Osborn and all used to be so kind to us when there was nobody else. I wont cast them off because we are too fine and grand for them.’
‘I never thought of that. I only was afraid of your getting into silly ways, and your papa did not wish us to be intimate there. And now you see he was right, for good friends would not have led you to such disobedience—and by stealth, too, what I should have thought you would most have hated.’
Albinia had been far from intending these last words to have been taken as they were. Sophy hid her face, and cried piteously with an utter self-abandonment of grief, that Albinia could scarcely understand; but at last she extracted some broken words. ‘False! shabby! yes—Oh! I have been false! Oh! Edmund! Edmund! Edmund! the only thing I thought I still was! I thought I was true! Oh, by stealth! Why couldn’t I die when I tried, when Edmund did?’
‘And has life been a blank ever since?’
‘Off and on,’ said Sophy. ‘Well, why not? I am sure papa is melancholy enough. I don’t like people that are always making fun, I can’t see any sense in it.’
‘Some sorts of merriment are sad, and hollow, and wrong, indeed,’ said Albinia, ‘but not all, I hope. You know there is so much love and mercy all round us, that it is unthankful not to have a cheerful spirit. I wish I could give you one, Sophy.’
Sophy shook her head. ‘I can’t understand about mercy and love, when Edmund was all I cared for.’
‘But, Sophy, if life is so sad and hard to you, don’t you see the mercy that took Edmund away to perfect joy? Remember, not cutting you off from him, but keeping him safe for you.’
‘No, no,’ cried Sophy, ‘I have never been good since he went. I have got worse and worse, but I did think I was true still, that that one thing was left me—but now—’ The sense of having acted a deception seemed to produce grief under which the stubborn pride was melting away, and it was most affecting to see the child weeping over the lost jewel of truth, which she seemed to feel the last link with the remarkable boy whose impress had been left so strongly on all connected with him.
‘My dear, the truth is in you still, or you could not grieve thus over your failure,’ said Albinia. ‘I know you erred, because it did not occur to you that it was not acting openly by me; but oh! Sophy, there is something that would bring you nearer to Edmund than hard truth in your own strength.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Sophy.
‘Did you ever think what Edmund is about now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sophy.
‘I only know that the one thing which is carried with us to the other world is love, Sophy, and love that becomes greater than we can yet imagine. If you would think of Him who redeemed and saved your dear Edmund, and who is his happiness, his exceeding great reward, your heart would warm, and, oh! what hope and peace would come!’
‘Edmund was good,’ said Sophy, in a tone as if to mark the hopeless gulf between.
‘And you are sorry. All human goodness begins from sorrow. It had even to be promised first for baby at his christening, you know. Oh, Sophy, God’s blessing can make all these tears come to joy.’
Albinia’s own tears were flowing so fast, that she broke off to hide them in her own room, her heart panting with hope, and yet with grief and pity for the piteous disclosure of so dreary a girlhood. After all, childhood, if not the happiest, is the saddest period of life—pains, griefs, petty tyrannies, neglects, and terrors have not the alleviation of the experience that ‘this also shall pass away;’ time moves with a tardier pace, and in the narrower sphere of interests, there is less to distract the attention from the load of grievances. Hereditary low spirits, a precocious mind, a reserved temper, a motherless home, the loss of her only congenial companion, and the long-enduring effect of her illness upon her health, had all conspired to weigh down the poor girl, and bring on an almost morbid state of gloomy discontent. Her father’s second marriage, by enlivening the house, had rendered her peculiarities even more painful to herself and others, and the cultivation of mind that was forced upon her, made her more averse to the trifling and playfulness, which, while she was younger, had sometimes brightened and softened her. And this was the girl whom her father had resolved upon sending to the selfish, inconsiderate, frivolous world of school-girls, just when the first opening had been made, the first real insight gained into her feelings, the first appearance of having touched her heart! Albinia felt baffled, disappointed, almost despairing. His stern decree, once made, was, she knew, well-nigh unalterable; and though resolved to use her utmost influence, she doubted its power after having seen that look of decision. Nay, she tried to think he might be right. There might be those who would manage Sophy better. Eighteen months had been a fair trial, and she had failed. She prayed earnestly for whatever might be best for the child, and for herself, that she might take it patiently and submissively.
Sophy felt the heat of the day a good deal, but towards the evening she revived, and seemed so much cheered and refreshed by her tea, that, as the sound of the church bell came sweetly down in the soft air, Albinia said, ‘Sophy, I am going to take advantage of my holiday and go to the evening service. I suppose you had rather not come?’
‘I think I will,’ returned Sophy, somewhat glumly, but Albinia hailed the answer joyfully, as the first shamefaced effort of a reserved character wishing to make a new beginning, and she took care that no remark, not even a look, should rouse the sullen sensitiveness that could so easily be driven back for ever.
Slowly they crept up the steps on the shady side of the hill, watching how, beyond the long shadow it cast