Chapter THREE (3)

"This is no desperate condition to be in either," said Monteath. "I think I could do without the general consolations you speak of. I have been on my sofa here this fortnight, with only one book (which of course you mean to except) and my own mind to draw consolation from, and I have found enough for my need. I expect, however, to be in greater need hereafter."

"Surely not," said Charles. "Surely you have gone through the worst!"

"I know not," said Monteath. "The colour of my whole future life has perhaps been changed by this accident; and I must expect this conviction to come upon me painfully from time to time."

"What do you mean?" said Charles. "The whole colour of your future life! You surely do not mean that you will not marry?"

"That is what I was thinking of, certainly," said Henry, in a very low voice.

"My dear friend," said Charles, "this is the scruple of a sick man's brain. Put it out of your head for the present, I advise you, and I will answer for it that, six months hence, you will feel very differently. The woman would but little deserve you who could raise such an objection; and you have just as much power now as ever to make a wife happy."

Charles wished to turn the conversation, for he saw that his friend was agitated; but he could think of nothing to say at the moment, except about Miss Auchinvole, and that was the only subject which would not do. At length he said, "You must not let me weary you with talking. You know I cannot tell what you are equal to, and Mrs Monteath will never forgive me if I set you back in the least. Had I not better leave you?"

"O no! do not go!" said Monteath; "you do not know how strong I am. I shall sleep in the afternoon, but I hope to have you with me all day besides. I do not scruple saying so, for I cannot conceive that you will find amusement elsewhere in a place like this."

"If I could," said Charles, "I am not much inclined for it to-day. Conversation with a friend is a great cordial in times of anxiety, and I own that I am anxious now."

He said this for the purpose of drawing his friend's attention from a subject which appeared to agitate him too much. Charles was not wrong in expecting his ready sympathy. Isabella's illness was mentioned, and Monteath forgot himself in his anxiety for Charles. He asked many questions about the girls and Alfred.

"How old is Alfred?"

"Nearly eleven."

"What do you intend him for?"

"We have no present intentions about his future destination," said Charles. "He will remain at school till he is fifteen; so we need be in no hurry about it."

"Then your sister will continue on her present plan till that time?"

"Yes," replied Charles; "for Harriet will not be old enough to go out before five years from this time. Isabella wishes to be independent in two years, and I think she will be well qualified; but it will be a grievous thing to Jane to part with her."

"It must, indeed," said Monteath. "You know I have seen your sister Jane, more than once, and she fixed my attention immediately by the way in which she managed those spoiled children of Mrs Everett's. Nobody ever had any control over them but your sister; but they are in much better order than they used to be."

"It gives Jane much satisfaction to think so," said Charles.

"But it must be very discouraging work," said Monteath, "to do her best for them, for half of every day, and to be obliged to surrender them to be spoiled for the other half."

"I should find it so," replied Charles: "but Jane makes as little as possible of discouragements. Her temper used to be an anxious one too: but she has had so much to do and to bear, that she has learned not to look from side to side in hope or fear, but to go on, straight forwards, in the road of duty, whether an easy one or not."

"She is an enviable person then," said Monteath.

"All things are by comparison," said Charles, rather confused when he recollected what he had said about his sister. "I do not mean that she never flags: I was only speaking of her in comparison with myself, and with her former self."

"Nothing but religious principle could enable her to do this," said Monteath. "This is the secret of her superiority, is it not? Without this her trials would have produced depression, instead of renewed energy."

"Certainly," replied Charles. "There are many who pity her under her weight of cares, and who are grieved when they think that she is an orphan, and that she has more arduous duties to perform than many can get through under the guidance and with the assistance of parents or experienced friends. But Jane knows that she is guided, though invisibly, by the best and wisest of Parents, and the Bible is to her as His manifest presence: she has recourse to it on all occasions of difficulty, and can never want confidence or feel forlorn, while such a director is at hand."

"Those whose reason is matured enough, and whose religious affections are cultivated enough to attach their heart and soul to such a guide, may well do without other support," said Monteath. "`The integrity of the upright shall guide them!' But there are few of your sister's age who are thus advanced in the ways of wisdom."

"If so," said Charles, "her superiority is to be ascribed to the peculiar circumstances in which the Father of her spirit has placed her. And, surely, trials which produce such an effect should be endured with submission and remembered with gratitude."

"That comes home to my conscience," said Monteath: "_I_ am now under trial, and such ought to be its effect upon me. But your sister's circumstances have been such as to draw her attention from herself, to carry out her affections and fix them on various objects: but I am afraid the direct tendency of personal suffering is to produce selfishness."

"It may either do that or the reverse, I believe," said Charles: "I have known instances of both. I have heard of a cousin of my mother's, who was a cripple from disease. She passed through life very quietly. She never complained of her deprivations: her temper was placid, and she found employment for her cultivated intellect in studies of various kinds: but nobody was ever the better for them. She did no good, though she never did any harm: she never seemed to love any one person more than another, and of course nobody was particularly attached to her. She lived to the age of sixty, and went on with her own pursuits to the very last, but she left no trace behind her of beneficent deeds, and she lived in the memory and not in the affections of those around her. I have always grieved over the wasted talents of this lady. Half her learning communicated to those less informed than herself, half her time (of which she had abundance) devoted to the assistance of her neighbours, half her affections exchanged with those who were disposed to love her, would have made her wise instead of learned, useful instead of harmless, beloved rather than served, and mourned rather than merely remembered."

"But she could not have been a pious woman," said Monteath. "A life of selfishness is inconsistent with piety."

"Nobody can say that she was not religious," replied Charles; "because nobody knew what she felt and thought: some say that she must have been pious, or she could not have been placid and contented under her deprivations. I should therefore suppose that she had just enough reliance upon Providence to prevent a naturally cheerful mind from being corroded by discontent: but it is easy to see that she had not those comprehensive views, which teach that the very best of selfish pleasures, those of intellectual cultivation, are to be pursued as a means only, not as an end, and that the grand design for which we are created is to diminish continually our concern for ourselves in an increasing love of God and our neighbour."

"I cannot help," said Monteath, "applying cases like these to myself, just now. I want to place as many guides and as many warnings before me as possible. I hope it is not selfish to think of these things with a reference to myself, and to tell you that I do so."

"By no means," replied Charles; "for I imagine that you feel the present time as a kind of crisis in your character. I think you must enter the world from a bed of pain, either better or worse than when you left it, and you are right to make use of all the helps you can."

"Then give me," said Monteath, "some instances of benevolence promoted, of hearts and hands opened by personal suffering. It will do me good to hear them."

Just as Charles was beginning to speak, Mrs Monteath came into the room, and the conversation was turned into a different channel. Charles regretted this, but she had something quite different to ask her son about. The greater part of the day was spent in cheerful chat, and in reading aloud, which Mrs Monteath proposed, that Henry might not exert himself too much in talking. In the evening the young men were again left alone for awhile, and Monteath asked his friend to read a little to him from the Bible. Charles did so with much satisfaction, and after he had done, Henry tried to express to him what comfort and support their religious exercises had afforded him on his night of suffering. Charles rejoiced to hear him say so, but stopped him when he wished to speak of his obligations and his gratitude. They parted for the night with as warm feelings of interest and esteem as one day could produce, and another confirm.

In the morning they met only for a few moments. They agreed to correspond occasionally, and to look forward to a time, not very far distant, when Monteath's visit to London might give them an opportunity of meeting again. Charles then mounted the coach, and sighed when he thought of the friends he had left behind, and of the small number who would greet him with pleasure on his return to London.