Christian's Mistake by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

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"But why not?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, roused by opposition into
greater obstinacy. "Did we not meet him at the vice chancellor's? And
he told me of two or three houses where we should be sure to meet him
again next week."

"I can not help that, but in my own house I choose my own society."

"Your reasons?" insisted Miss Gascoigne, now seriously angry. "It is
unfair to act so oddly--I must say so ridiculously, without giving a
reason."

Dr. Grey paused a moment, and seemed to ponder before he answered.

"My reason, so far as I can state it, is, that this young man holds, and
puts into open practice, opinions which I wholly condemn, and
consider unworthy of a Christian, an honest man, or even a decent
member of society."

"And, pray, what are they?"

"It is difficult to explain them to a woman. Do not think me hard," he
added, and his eyes wandered round to his wife, though he still
addressed only his sister. "A man may fail and rise again--and we
know Who pitied and helped to raise all fallen sinners. But sin itself
never ceases to be sin; and, while impenitent, can neither be forgiven
nor blotted out. If a man or a woman--there is no difference--came to
me and said, 'I have erred, but I mean to err no more,' I hope I would
never shut my door against either; I would help, and comfort, and save
both, in every possible way. But a man who continues in sin, hugs it,
loves it, calls it by all manner of fine names, and makes excuses for it
after the fashion of the world--the world may act as it chooses toward
him, but there is only one way in which I can act."

"And what is that?" asked Miss Gascoigne, in astonishing meekness.

"I shut my door against him. Not injuring him, nor pharisaically
condemning him, but merely showing to him, and to all others, that I
consider sin to be sin and call it so. Likewise, that I will have no
fellowship with it, whether it is perpetrated by the beggar in the streets
or the prince on the throne. That no consideration, either of worldly
advantage, or dread of what society may say, or do, or think, shall ever
induce me to let cross my threshold, or bring into personal association
with my family, any man who, to my knowledge, leads an unvirtuous
life."

"Which most indecorous fact, as regards Sir Edwin, not only yourself,
but your wife apparently, was quite aware of. Very extraordinary!"

This Parthian thrust was sharp indeed, but Dr. Grey bore it.

"If she was aware of it--which is not at all extraordinary--my wife did
perfectly right in acting as she has done. It only shows, what I knew
well before, that she and her husband think alike on this, as on most
other subjects."

And he held out his hand to Christian. She could willingly have fallen
at his feet. Oh, how small seemed all dreams of fancy, or folly of
passionate youth, compared to the intense emotion--what was it,
reverence or love?--that was creeping slowly and surely into every fiber
of her being, for the man, her own wedded husband, who satisfied at
once her conscience, her judgment, and her heart.

While these two exchanged a hand-grasp and a look--no more; but that
was enough--Miss Cascoigne sat, routed, but unconquered still. She
might have made one more effort at warfare but that Barker
opportunely entered with the evening post-bag.

"Barker!" said Dr. Grey, as the man was closing the door.

"Yes master."

The master paused a second before speaking. "You know Sir Edwin
Uniacke?"

"To be sure, sir," with a repressed twitch of the mouth, which showed
he knew only too much, as Barker was apt to do of all college affairs.

"If he should call again, say the ladies are engaged; but should he ask
for me, show him at once to my study."

"Very well, master."

And Barker, as he went out of the dining-room, broke into a broad grin;
but it was behind the back of the master.

Chapter 11.

_"A warm hearth, and a bright hearth, and a hearth swept clean,
Where tongs don't raise a dust, and the broom isn't seen;
Where the coals never fly abroad, and the soot doesn't fall,
Oh, that's the fire for a man like me, in cottage or in hall._

_"A light boat, and a tight boat, and a boat that rides well,
Though the waves leap around it and the winds blow snell:
A full boat, and a merry boat, we'll meet any weather,
With a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether."_

Sir Edwin Uniacke did not appear again at the Ledge, or not farther
than the hall, where Christian, in passing, saw several of his cards lying
in the card-basket. And, two Sundays, in glancing casually down the
row of strangers who so often frequented the beautiful old chapel of St.
Bede's, she thought she caught sight of that dark, handsome face, which
had once seemed to her the embodiment of all manly beauty. But she
looked steadily forward, neither seeking nor shrinking from
recognition. There was no need. As she passed out of the chapel,
leaning on her husband's arm, the grave, graceful woman, composed
rather than proud, Sir Edwin Uniacke must have felt that Christian
Grey was as far removed from him and the like of him as if she dwelt
already in the world beyond the grave. But this, perhaps, only made
him the more determined to see her.

Now and then, in her walks with Phillis and the children--she now
never walked alone--she was certain she perceived him in the distance,
his slight, tan figure, and peculiar way of swinging his cane, as he
strolled down the long avenues, now glowing into the beauty of that
exquisite May time which Avonsbridge people never weary of praising.

But still, if it were he, and if they did meet, what harm could it do to
her? She could always guard herself by a lady's strongest armor--
perfect courtesy. Even should he recognize her, it was easy to bow and
pass on, as she made up her mind to do, should the occasion arrive.

It never did, though several times she had actually been in the same
drawing-room with him. But it was in a crowded company, and he
either did not see her, or had the good taste to assume that he had not
done so. And Miss Gascoigne, whose eye he caught, had only given
him a distant bow.

"I shall bow, in spite of Dr. Grey and his crotchets," said she. "But I
suppose you are too much afraid of your husband." Christian did not
reply, and the conversation dropped.

One good thing cheered her. Sir Edwin Uniacke remained in
Avonsbridge, and Miss Susan Bennett was still staying, and doing well
in the house of the blind old woman forty miles away.

Shortly her mind became full of far closer cares.

The domestic atmosphere of the Lodge was growing daily more
difficult to breathe in. What is it that constitutes an unhappy
household? Not necessarily a wicked or warring household but still not
happy; devoid of that sunniness which, be the home ever so poor,
makes it feel like "a little heaven below" to those who dwell in it, or
visit it, or even casually pass it by. "See how these Christians love one
another," used to be said by the old heathen world; and the world says
it still--nay, is compelled to say it, of any real Christian home. Alas it
could not always be said of Dr. Grey's.

Perhaps, in any case, this was unlikely. There were many conflicting
elements therein. Whatever may be preached, and even practiced
sometimes, satisfactorily, about the advantages of communism, the law
of nature is that a family be distinct within itself--should consist of
father, mother, and children, and them only. Any extraneous
relationships admitted therein are always difficult and generally
impossible. In this household, long ruled theoretically by Miss
Gascoigne, and practically by Phillis, who was the cleverest and most
determined woman in it, the elements of strife were always smoldering,
and frequently bursting out into a flame. The one bone of contention
was, as might be expected, the children--who should rule them, and
whether that rule was to be one of love or fear,

Christian, though young, was neither ignorant nor inexperienced; and
when, day by day and week by week, she had to sit still and see that
saddest of all sights to a tender heart, children slowly ruined,
exasperated by injustice, embittered by punishment, made deceitful or
cowardly by continual fear, her spirit wakened up to its full dignity of
womanhood and motherhood.

"They are my children, and I will not have things thus," was her
continual thought. But how to effect her end safely and unobnoxiously
was, as it always is, the great difficulty.

She took quiet methods at first--principally the very simple one of
loving the children till they began to love her. Oliver, and by-and-by
Letitia, seized every chance of escaping out of the noisy nursery, where
Phillis boxed, or beats or scolded all day long, to mother's quiet room,
where they always found a gentle word and a smile--a little rivulet from
that

_"Constant stream of love which knew no fail"_

which was Cowper's fondest memory of his mother, and which should
be perpetually flowing out from the hearts of all mothers toward all
children. These poor children had never known it till now.

Their little hearts opened to it, and bathed in it as in a fountain of joy.
It washed away all their small naughtinesses, made them strong and
brave, gradually lessened the underhandedness of the girl, the
roughness and selfishness of the boy, and turned the child Oliver into a
little angel--that is, if children ever are angels except in poetry; but
it is certain, and Christian often shuddered to see it, that mismanagement
and want of love can change them into little demons.

And at last there came a day when, passive resistance being useless, she
had to strike with strong hand; the resolute hand which, as before seen,
Christian, gentle as she was, could lift up against injustice, and
especially injustice shown to children.

It happened thus: One day Arthur had been very naughty, or so his
Aunt Henrietta declared, when Mrs. Grey, who heard the disturbance,
came to inquire into it. She thought it not such great wickedness--
rather a piece of boyish mischief than intentional "insult," as Miss
Gascoigne affirmed it was. The lady had lost her spectacles; Arthur
had pretended deeply to sympathize, had aided in the search; and
finally, after his aunt had spent several minutes of time and fuss, and
angry accusations against every body, he had led her up to the dining-
room mirror, where she saw the spectacles--calmly resting on her own
nose!

"But I only meant it as a joke, mother. And oh! it was so funny!" cried
Arthur, between laughing and sobbing; for his ears tingled still with the
sharp blow which had proved that the matter was no fun at all to Aunt
Henrietta.

"It was a very rude joke, and you ought to beg your aunt's pardon
immediately," said Christian, gravely.

But begging pardon was not half enough salve to the wounded dignity
of Miss Gascoigne. She had been personally offended--that greatest of
all crimes in her eyes--and she demanded condign punishment.
Nothing short of that well-known instrument which, in compliment to
Arthur's riper years, Phillis had substituted for the tied up posy of twigs
chosen out of her birch broom--a little, slender yellow thing, which
black children might once upon a time have played with, and the use of
which towards white children inevitably teaches them a sense of
burning humiliation, rising into fierce indignation and desire for
revenge, not unlike the revenge of negro slaves. And naturally; for
while chastisement makes Christians, punishment only makes brutes.

Almost brutal grew the expression of Arthur's poor thin face when his
aunt insisted on a flogging with the old familiar cane, and after the old
custom, by Phillis's hands.

"Do it, and I'll kill Phillis!" was all he said, but he looked as if
he could, and would.

And when Phillis appeared, not unready or unwilling to execute the
sentence--for she had bitterly resented Arthur's secession from nursery
rule--the boy clung desperately with both his arms round his step-
mother's waist, and the shriek of "Mother mother!" half fury, half
despair, pierced Christian's very heart.

Now Mrs. Grey had a few rather strong opinions of her own on the
subject of punishment, especially corporal punishment. She thought it
degraded rather than reformed, in most cases; and wherever she herself
had seen it tried, it had always signally and fatally failed. At the
utmost, the doubtfulness of the experiment was so great that she felt it
ought never to be administered for any but grave moral offenses--theft,
lying, or the like. Not certainly in such a case as the present--a childish
fault, perhaps only a childish folly, where no moral harm was either
done or intended.

"I didn't mean it! I didn't, mother!" cried the boy, incessantly, as he
clung to her for protection. And Christian held him fast.

"Miss Gascoigne, if you will consider a little, I think you will see that
Arthur's punishment had better be of some other sort than flogging.
We will discuss it between ourselves. Phillis, you can go."

But Phillis did not offer to stir.

"Nurse, obey my orders," screamed Miss Gascoigne. "Take that
wicked boy and cane him soundly."

"Nurse," said Christian, turning very pale, and speaking in an unusually
suppressed voice, "if you lay one finger on my son you quit my service
immediately."

The assumption of authority was so unexpected, so complete, and yet
not overstepping one inch the authority which Mrs. Grey really
possessed, that both sister-in-law and servant stood petrified, and
offered no resistance, until Miss Gascoigne said, quivering with passion.

"This can not go on. I will know at once my rights in this house, or
quit it. Phillis, knock at the study-door and say I wish to speak to Dr.
Grey--that is, if Mrs. Grey, your mistress, will allow you."

"Certainly," said Christian.

And then, drawing Arthur beside her, and sitting down, for she felt
shaking in every limb, she waited the event; for it was a struggle which
she had long felt must come, and the sooner it came the better. There
are crises when the "peace-at-any-price" doctrine becomes a weakness-
-more, an absolute wrong. Much as she would have suffered, and had
suffered, so long as all the suffering lay with herself alone, when it
came to involve another, she saw her course was clear. As Arthur
stood by her, convulsed with sobs crying at one minute, "Mother, it's
not fair, I meant no harm," and the next, clenching his little fist with,
"If Phillis touches me, I'll murder Phillis," she felt that it was no longer
a question of pleasantness or ease, or even of saving her husband from
pain. It became a matter or duty--her duty to act to the best of her
conscience and ability toward the children whom Providence had sent to
her. It was no kindness to her husband to allow these to be sacrificed,
as, if she did not stand firm, Arthur might be sacrificed for life.

So she sat still, uttering not a word except an occasional whisper of "Be
quiet, Arthur," until Dr. Grey entered the room. Even then, she
restrained herself so far as to let Miss Gascoigne tell the story. She
trusted--as she knew she could trust--to her husband's sense of justice
and quick-sightedness, even through any amount of cloudy
exaggeration. When the examination came to an end, and Dr. Grey,
sorely perplexed and troubled, looked toward his wife questioningly, all
she said was a suggestion that both the children--for Letitia had
watched the matter with eager curiosity from a corner--should be sent
out of the room.

"Yes, yes, certainly Arthur, let go your mother's hand, and run up to the
nursery."

But Arthur's plaintive sobs began again. "I can't go, papa--I daren't;
Phillis will beat me!"

"Is this true, Christian?"

"I am afraid it is. Had not the children better wait in my room?"

This order given, and the door closed, Dr. Grey sat down with very
piteous countenance. He was such a lover of peace and quietness and
now to be brought from his study into the midst of this domestic
hurricane--it was rather hard. He looked from his wife to his sister, and
back again to his wife. There his eyes rested and brightened a little.
The contrast between the two faces was great--one so fierce and bitter,
the other sad indeed, but composed and strong. Nature herself, who, in
the long run, usually decides between false and true authority, showed
at once who possessed the latter--which of the two women was the
most fitted to govern children.

"Henrietta," said Dr. Grey, "what is it you wish me to do? if my boy
has offended you, of course he must be punished. Leave him to Mrs.
Grey; she will do what is right."

"Then I have no longer any authority in this house?"

"Authority in my wife's house my sister could hardly desire. Influence
she might always have; and respect and affection will, I trust, never be
wanting."

Dr. Grey spoke very kindly, and held out his hand, but Miss Gascoigne
threw it angrily aside; and then, breaking through even the unconscious
restraint in which most women, even the most violent, are held by the
presence of a man, and especially such a man as the master, she burst
out--this poor passionate woman, cursed with that terrible pre-
dominance of self which in men is ugly enough, in women absolutely
hateful--

"Never! Keep your hypocrisies to yourself, and your wife too--the
greatest hypocrite I know. But she can not deceive me. Maria"--and
she rushed at luckless Aunt Maria, who that instant, knitting in hand,
was quietly entering the room--"come here, Maria, and be a witness to
what your brother is doing. He is turning me out of his house--me,
who, since my poor sister died, have been like a mother to his children.
He is taking them from me, and giving them over to that woman--that
bad, low, cunning woman!"

"Stop!" cried Dr. Grey. "One word more like that, and I _will_ turn
you out of my house--ay, this very night!"

There was a dead pause. Even Miss Gascoigne was frightened.
Christian, who had never in all her life witnessed such a scene, wished
she had done any thing--borne any thing, rather than have given cause
for it. And yet the children! Looking at that furious woman, she felt--
any observer would have felt--that to leave children in Miss
Gascoigne's power was to ruin them for life. No; what must be done
had better be done now than when too late. Yet her heart failed her at
sight of poor Aunt Maria's sobs.

"Oh, dear Arnold, what is the matter? You haven't been vexing
Henrietta? But you never vex any body, you are so good. Dear
Henrietta, are we really to go back to our own house at Avonside?
Well, I don't mind. It is a pretty house, far more cheerful than the
Lodge; and our tenants are just leaving, and they have kept the furniture
in the best of order--the nice furniture that dear Arnold gave us, you
know. Even if he does want us to leave the Lodge, it is quite natural. I
always said so. And we shall only be a mile away, and can have the
children to spend long days with us, and--"

Simple Aunt Maria, in her hasty jumping at conclusions, had effected
more than she thought of--more harm and more good.

"I assure you, Maria," said Dr. Grey with a look of sudden relief, which
he tried hard--good man!--to conceal, "it never was my intention to
suggest your leaving but since you have suggested it--"

"I will go," interrupted Miss Gascoigne. "Say not another word; we
will go. I will not stay to be insulted here; I will return to my own
house--my own poor humble cottage, where at least I can live
independent and at peace--yes, Dr. Grey, I will, however you may try
to prevent me."

"I do not prevent you. On the contrary, I consider it would be an
excellent plan, and you have my full consent to execute it whenever
you choose."

This quiet taking of her at her word--this brief, determined, and
masculine manner of settling what she had no intention of doing unless
driven to it through a series of feminine arguments, contentions, and
storms, was quite too much for Miss Gascoigne.

"Go back to Avonside Cottage! Shut myself up in that poor miserable
hole--"

"Oh, Henrietta!" expostulated Aunt Maria, "when it is so nicely
furnished--with the pretty little green-house that dear Arnold built for
us too!"

"Don't tell me of green-houses! I say it is only a hole. And I to settle
down in it--to exile myself from Avonsbridge society, that Mrs. Grey
may rule here, and boast that she has driven me out of the field--me, the
last living relative of your dear lost wife, to say nothing of poor Maria,
your excellent sister to whom you owe so much--"

"Oh, Henrietta!" pleaded Miss Grey once more. "Never mind her, dear,
dear Arnold."

Dr. Grey looked terribly hurt, but he and Aunt Maria exchanged one
glance and one long hand-clasp. Whatever debt there was between the
brother and sister, love had long since canceled it all.

"Pacify her, Maria--you know you can. Make her think better of all
this nonsense. My wife and my sisters could never be rivals; it is
ridiculous to suppose such a thing. But, indeed, I believe we should all
be much better friends if you were in your own house at Avonside."

"I think so, too," whispered Aunt Maria. "I have thought so ever so
long."

"Then it is settled," replied Dr. Grey, in the mild way in which he did
sometimes settle things, and after which you might just as well attempt
to move him as to move the foundations of St. Bede's.

It was all so sudden, this total domestic revolution, which yet every
body inwardly recognized as a great relief, that for a minute or two
nobody found a word more to say, until Miss Gascoigne, who generally
had both the first word and the last, broke out again.

"Yes, you have done it, and it shall never be undone, however you may
live to repent it. Dr. Grey, I quit your house, shaking the dust off my
feet: see that it does not rise up in judgment against you. Maria--my
poor Maria--your own brother may forsake you, but I never will. We
go away together--tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow," said Dr. Grey. "Your tenants have only just left, and
we must have the cottage made comfortable for you. Let me see, this is
the 8th; suppose we settle that you leave on the 20th of June. Will that
do, Maria?"

As he spoke he took her little fat hand, patted it lovingly, and then
kissed her.

"You'll not be unhappy, sister? You know it is only going back to the
old ways, and to the old country life, which you always liked much
better than this."

"Much--much better. You are quite right, as you always are, dear
Arnold,"

This was said in a whisper, but Miss Gascoigne caught it.

"Ah! yes, I see what you are doing--stealing from me the only heart that
loves me--persuading her to stay behind. Very well. Do it, Maria.
Remain with your brother and your brother's wife. Forget me, who am
nothing to any body--of no use to one creature living."

Poor woman without meaning it, she had hit upon something very near
the truth. It always is so--always must be. People win what they earn;
those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind. Handsome, clever, showy,
and admired, as she had been in her day, probably not one living soul
did now care for Henrietta Gascoigne except foolish, faithful Aunt
Maria.

And yet there must have been some good in her, something worth
caring for, even to retain that affection, weak and submissive as it may
have been. Christian's heart smote her as if she herself had been guilty
of injustice toward Miss Gascoigne when she saw Miss Grey creep up
to her old friend, the tears flowing like a mill-stream.

"No, dear, I shall not stay behind. Arnold doesn't want me. And I have
always put up with you somehow--I mean, you have put with me--we
shall manage to do it still. We'll live together again, as we did for so
many years, in our pretty cottage and garden that dear Arnold gave us,
and I will look after my poultry, and you shall do your visiting. Yes,
dear Henrietta, it will be all for the best. We shall be so independent,
so happy."

Happy! It was not a word in Miss Gascoigne's dictionary. But she
looked with a certain tenderness at the fond little woman who had
loved her, borne with her, never in the smallest degree resisted her
since they were girls together. It was a strange tie, perhaps finding its
origin in something deeper than itself--in that dead captain, whose old-
fashioned miniature still lay in poor Maria's drawer--the fierce,
handsome face, proving that, had he lived, he might have been as great
a tyrant over her as his sister Henrietta. Still, however it arose, the
bond was there, and nothing but death could ever break it between
these two lonely women.

"Come, then, Maria, we shall share our last crust together. You, at least,
have never wronged me. Come away."

Gathering her dress about her with a tragical air, and plucking it, as she
passed Mrs. Grey, as though the possible touch were pollution, Aunt
Henrietta swept from the room; Aunt Maria, after one deprecatory look
behind, as if to say, "You see I can't do otherwise," slowly following.

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