Mary H. Debenham

“ And indeed with Angel it was so much more natural to think of other people first that she seemed to feel Godfrey's loss chiefly in the way in which it would affect them all—Cousin Crayshaw, who had had to meet the first shock of the news; poor old Penny; Nancy, who had been his playfellow; Betty above all, who had said she could never bear it if Godfrey died for his country. Poor Betty made such desperate efforts to be brave and unselfish, choked back her tears so manfully, faltered such bold words about their boy having died as he would have wished for King and Country. ”

“ Sit ye down here, Miss Angel, out of the draught. Bless your heart, my dear, where are your roses? But, of course, Patty's just told me the fright you've got about the young gentleman—a little Turk, to be sure; but there, boys will be boys, won't they, and never easy till they're in mischief one way or the other.'
Angel began to answer her, and then suddenly, at the kind hearty words, her composure broke down, and she dropped her face in her hands and cried as Betty had done. ”

“ Crayshaw's post-chaise always arrived on the occasions of his visits to Oakfield. And so she saw the chaise and the horses, and a black box on the top, but it was too dark for even her inquisitive black eyes to get a peep at the travellers. And in the twilight of the October evening the two young aunts were awaiting the nephew who was to be henceforward such a great part of their lives. Angel stood in the cottage porch under a tangle of twining creepers, looking gravely out into the shadows. ”

“ Dear little Aunt Angel, you sha'n't make that face any more for me; you're beginning at the right end of being brave, I suppose. I didn't know before you could be brave, but I thought it was all killing Frenchmen. Tell me something: do women have to do that, what you said about leaving the world better?'
'Oh yes, Godfrey,' whispered Angel. It was easy to talk, she felt, here in the dusk, with the soft cheek pressed against hers. 'Even if they can't do any great work themselves, perhaps they can help those who do.'
'Like you and Aunt Betty and me. ”

“ What do you think makes a brave man?'
'Killing lots of Frenchmen,' said Godfrey promptly.
'Not a bit of it. Now, little maid, what do you say?'
'I think, please sir, that brave men don't mind when Frenchmen kill them, and shoot their legs and their fingers off like Uncle Kiah's.'
'That's nearer the mark, but that's not all. The bravest men are the ones that do what they don't like because it's right, and leave what they do like because it's wrong.'
Godfrey's grave eyes looked up at the gentleman's face as they were used to looking at his Aunt Angel. ”

“ And so the little household at the cottage went back to the quiet life in which Christmas had made such a pleasant break. Angel and Betty read French and history together, and helped Penny in the kitchen, and taught Godfrey, and walked with him, and mended for him and built castles in the air for him when he was in bed and asleep; and Godfrey learnt his lessons and played with Nancy, and spent all the time he could with Kiah, and in the twilight sat crushed up between his aunts in the great arm-chair and talked about what he would do when he was big and a sailor. ”

“ I'm not making light, missy dear, but what can you do more than do your best, and show him what's right and punish him when he's wrong, and say your prayers for him, and love him all you can; but remember all the time that there's One wiser than you loves him better still.'
And here Martha took up the lavender bag and began stitching away at the lilac ribbon binding. But she had to leave off after a minute, for Betty sprang up suddenly and put her arms round her neck and kissed her, and Angel looked at her across the table with earnest, grateful eyes. ”

“ Nancy's eyes opened their very widest. 'But, Miss Betty,' she said, 'I thought aunts were old people.'
'Oh, Nancy!' said Betty, with an air of wisdom; 'you have a very great deal to learn, Nancy, dear. It is not the age that makes the aunt, Nancy, it is the nephew or the niece. And as for being old, Angelica and I aren't so very young. She was sixteen last winter and I am thirteen, and people have done a great deal at thirteen, as you'll learn when you read biography. ”

“ And Angel wondered whether after all it was not surprising but right and natural that the captain should care for such things. Wasn't it the Christmas lesson that the great and the simple lie close together, and that the men who are foremost in the midst of death and danger have room in their hearts for children and flowers and home joys and Christmas games as well? And then Cousin Crayshaw had said he would go, and had declared he had a great respect for Captain Maitland. Altogether, it was the happiest Christmas that the sisters had ever spent at Oakfield. ”

“ It was only a few minutes before the shot came which stretched him, blinded and unconscious, on the deck, but they were the sort of minutes in which a man grows old; and when he came to himself, helpless and weak and bewildered, to be told that Godfrey Wyndham had never been seen since the fight, he felt as if the time before were part of another life. ”

“ And what particular heroes do you want to imitate?'
'I want to be a brave sailor,' said Godfrey promptly, 'like Lord Nelson, and Admiral Collingwood, and most of all Kiah Parker's Captain Maitland.'
'And why "most of all"? I hope you'll be a braver man and a finer fellow than that, young man.'
Godfrey's head only reached about as high as the gentleman's elbow, but he looked at him with as much scorn as if he had been a head taller.
'You don't understand a bit about it,' he said; 'nobody could be a finer fellow than the captain if he tried all his life long. ”

“ Gardeners are useful.'
'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which it has pleased God to call you, Godfrey dear, like the Catechism you were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be, we have to do our best just where we are put.'
'It's getting cold,' said Betty, springing up; 'shall we go down to the Place and see if the cow that was ill is any better? There's time before supper.' So the aunts and the nephew strolled down the road together, forgetting, for the present, the subject of Godfrey's future profession. ”

“ Maitland gave to her friends; there was no one she had been fond of who did not possess several of the little sweet-scented presents. Miss Amelia Crayshaw had had plenty of them, and Angel and Betty had received one each, long ago, one day when they had been to drink tea at the Place with their cousin before Mrs. Maitland died. And as long as they lived the scent of lavender would always bring back to them the old house, and the sunny sloping garden, and the long, low store-room, with its deep window seats and shelves and presses, and Martha stitching away at black muslin and lilac ribbon. ”

“ The sea is all ice, they have frost and snow there always.'
'Dear now, how bad for the early potatoes!' remarked Nancy, 'and as for sowing beans, why you might as well leave it alone. I suppose they just keep the cows on turnips year in, year out, poor things!'
'Cows!' said Godfrey scornfully; 'of course there aren't any cows, only Polar bears prowling on the ice. And there are icebergs, great mountains of ice all blue, and they come crashing together and grinding up the ships, like a great giant's teeth, Aunt Betty says. ”

“ Angel had turned round again before Betty's answer came. She was rather glad the question had not been put to her. Godfrey always would have his inquiries answered, and Angel felt sure he would not like to be told that it was his duty to succour Cousin Crayshaw. She paced up the gravel path and back again with her head bent over her book.
'Scorn no man's love, though of a mean degree,
Love is a present for a mighty king.'
She had got so far when she reached the arbour again, and this time there was a shadow of impatience in Betty's tones. ”

“ Good-night, dear Pete, and thank you very, very much.'
And so came Christmas, the children's festival, touching home life and child life with its great majesty and beauty. Can any one dare to despise simple things and simple souls when all Christendom comes adoring to a poor cradle and angels stoop to sing carols to shepherd folk? Some such thoughts came into Angelica Wyndham's mind when Nancy ran over on Christmas Eve, very eager and excited, with the captain's compliments, and would Mr. Crayshaw and the young ladies and Master Godfrey dine with him next day ”

“ Where have you been?'
'To Farmer White's pond to have a naval battle,' said Godfrey frankly.
'You must never go to that pond alone; it is deep in the middle and very dangerous, and you have disobeyed Aunt Betty. Next time you do it, I—I shall be obliged to whip you.'
Angel's voice faltered, and she turned a little pale as she spoke. In those days most little boys were whipped for disobedience, and Angel had always had a dreadful feeling that she might have to do it some day. ”

“ Nancy cried bitterly when she said good-bye to him, and indeed so did Patty, and I fancy Betty shed a few tears in Miss Jane's arbour, she ran away there in such a hurry after watching the captain start, and came back with such red rings round her eyes. Good-bye is a hard word at any time, and harder still in war time, when it is overshadowed by that unspoken dread lest no future greeting should come in which the parting may be forgotten. As for Godfrey, when the captain was gone he went over to the Place and sat down in the kitchen by the side of Kiah. ”

“ When people begin to be a little brave and good they see better what real courage and goodness mean, and they aren't satisfied with themselves.'
Godfrey had drawn her face down on to the pillow beside him.
'I suppose he knows a great deal about being brave,' he said. 'Do you think he does what he doesn't like when it's right?'
'Yes, Godfrey dear, I expect he does.'
'So do you, don't you? I know you didn't like whipping me; I know what your face is like when things hurt you. ”

“ I should try and make every one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the wisdom you want.'
'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a book—no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all bound the same, and with "By Godfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as Godfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'
'Would that be useful?' asked Godfrey of Angel. ”

“ But Martha Rogers, though she was so big and wise and busy, had that beautiful power, which we must all learn if we are going to be helpful, sympathizing people, of remembering what it was like to be little and shy and stupid, and never talked about it being a waste of time and tears to cry over playthings, or thought that people could be comforted by sweetmeats and advice not to spoil their pretty eyes. ”

“ One day she just hinted at it to Martha Rogers, but Martha didn't think it mattered. She advised Angel not to bother herself and little master too much about small things, which would get clear to him by-and-bye: children thought a many queer things which did no harm. And to herself she said, as Penelope had done, that if Godfrey made no worse mistakes than confusing his gentle young aunt with his angel guardians he would not go very far wrong. And Angel, feeling sure Martha knew best, was content to wait and not trouble about it. ”

“ But then she had never seen Miss Betty look quite like this before, in her black frock and with such a grave look in her merry eyes, a look that was rather sad, and yet, perhaps, more serious than sad, and that somehow made Nancy stop and curtsey and Peter pull off his hat with that sort of shy respect which the most careless among us must pay to a fresh sorrow or loss. But, in spite of her grave look, Miss Betty seemed very pleased to see them.
'Good morning, Pete; good morning, Nancy,' she said. 'How kind of you to come so early! ”

“ She was slow at understanding things, afraid of deciding quickly; would she ever be able to guide any one else? She thought about it that afternoon, when Betty had taken her nephew out for a walk and she was busy darning his stockings. They were in dreadful holes, and Angel, as she sat in the parlour window seat with the basket by her side, remembered what she had heard about the way boys wore out their clothes. It made her think of the plans she and Betty used to arrange in their schooldays for mending Bernard's things and taking care of him when he should come home. ”

“ But there her sentence was cut short by Betty springing up suddenly and flinging both arms round her.
'Angel,' she cried, 'if you talk like that I'll never forgive you. If he can't be good with you to teach him he doesn't deserve to have you for his relation. And you are always to scold me—only it mustn't be when he is there—if I forget about growing up and do stupid things and make myself so that he can't respect me. ”

“ I told you he couldn't be alive when it was a big tree, unless he got as old as the people at the beginning of the Bible.'
'You see, Godfrey dear,' began Angel in her quiet way, 'it is often like that with the good things people do; they don't get all the good of them themselves, but somebody else, perhaps ever so long after, is the happier for what they have done. I think it is rather nice to think of our dear old oak being green and shady year after year, and reminding us that the man who planted it so long ago helped to make Oakfield a little prettier. ”

“ The shadow of the war, the anxiety about the present and fear about the future, must have hung like a cloud over our country in those years, and yet, notwithstanding, life went on quietly in the homes which the great danger was threatening, and people worked and played and laughed, and cared more on the whole about their own small affairs than about the big affairs of Europe. ”