Fantasy Classics: Adela Cathcart Edition – Complete Tales in One Volume. George MacDonald
said the colonel. "I will ask Mr. Bloomfield, the schoolmaster, and his wife, to dine with us. It's no use asking anybody else that I can think of. But they have no family, and I dare say they can put off their own Christmas dinner till to-morrow. They have but one maid, and she can dine with our servants. They are very respectable people, I assure you."
The colonel always considered his plans thoroughly, and then acted on them at once. He rose.
"A capital idea!" I said, as he disappeared. I went up to look for Adela. She was not in the drawing-room. I went up again, and tapped at the door of her room.
"Come in," she said, in a listless voice.
I entered.
"How are you now, Adela?" I asked.
"Thank you, uncle," was all her reply.
"What is the matter with you, my child?" I said, and drew a chair near hers. She was half reclining, with a book lying upside down on her knee.
"I would tell you at once, uncle, if I knew," she answered very sweetly, but as sadly. "I believe I am dying; but of what I have not the smallest idea."
"Nonsense!" I said. "You're not dying."
"You need not think to comfort me that way, uncle; for I think I would rather die than not."
"Is there anything you would like?"
"Nothing. There is nothing worth liking, but sleep."
"Don't you sleep at night?"
"Not well.—I will tell you all I know about it.—Some six weeks ago, I woke suddenly one morning, very early—I think about three o'clock—with an overpowering sense of blackness and misery. Everything I thought of seemed to have a core of wretchedness in it. I fought with the feeling as well as I could, and got to sleep again. But the effect of it did not leave me next day. I said to myself: 'They say "morning thoughts are true." What if this should be the true way of looking at things?' And everything became grey and dismal about me. Next morning it was just the same. It was as if I had waked in the middle of some chaos over which God had never said: 'Let there be light.' And the next day was worse. I began to see the bad in everything—wrong motives—and self-love—and pretence, and everything mean and low. And so it has gone on ever since. I wake wretched every morning. I am crowded with wretched, if not wicked thoughts, all day. Nothing seems worth anything. I don't care for anything."
"But you love somebody?"
"I hope I love my father. I don't know. I don't feel as if I did."
"And there's your cousin Percy." I confess this was a feeler I put out.
"Percy's a fool!" she said, with some show of indignation, which I hailed, for more reasons than one.
"But you enjoyed the sermon this morning, did you not?"
"I don't know. I thought it very poetical and very pretty; but whether it was true—how could I tell? I didn't care. The baby he spoke about was nothing to me. I didn't love him, or want to hear about him. Don't you think me a brute, uncle?"
"No, I don't. I think you are ill. And I think we shall find something that will do you good; but I can't tell yet what. You will dine with us, won't you?"
"Oh! yes, if you and papa wish it."
"Of course we do. He is just gone to ask Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield to dine with us."
"Oh!"
"You don't mind, do you?"
"Oh! no. They are nice people. I like them both."
"Well, I will leave you, my child. Sleep if you can. I will go and walk in the garden, and think what can be done for my little girl."
"Thank you, uncle. But you can't do me any good. What if this should be the true way of things? It is better to know it, if it is."
"Disease couldn't make a sun in the heavens. But it could make a man blind, that he could not see it."
"I don't understand you."
"Never mind. It's of no consequence whether you do or not. When you see light again, you will believe in it. For light compels faith."
"I believe in you, uncle; I do."
"Thank you, my dear. Good-bye."
I went round by the stables, and there found the colonel, talking to his groom. He had returned already from his call, and the Bloomfields were coming. I met Percy next, sauntering about, with a huge cigar in his mouth.
"The Bloomfields are coming to dinner, Mr. Percy," I said.
"Who are they?"
"The schoolmaster and his wife."
"Just like that precious old uncle of mine! Why the deuce did he ask me this Christmas? I tell you what, Mr. Smith—I can't stand it. There's nothing, not even cards, to amuse a fellow. And when my mother comes, it will be ten times worse. I'll cut and run for it."
"Oh! no, you won't," I said. But I heartily wished he would. I confess the insincerity, and am sorry for it.
"But what the devil does my mother want, coming here?"
"I haven't the pleasure of knowing your mother, so I cannot tell what the devil she can want, coming here."
"Humph!"
He walked away.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.
Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield arrived; the former a benevolent, grey-haired man, with a large nose and small mouth, yet with nothing of the foolish look which often accompanies such a malconformation; and the latter a nice-looking little body, middle-aged, rather more; with half-grey curls, and a cap with black ribbons. Indeed, they were both in mourning. Mr. Bloomfield bore himself with a kind of unworldly grace, and Mrs. Bloomfield with a kind of sweet primness. The schoolmaster was inclined to be talkative; nor was his wife behind him; and that was just what we wanted.
"I am sorry to see you in mourning," said the colonel to Mr. Bloomfield, during dessert. "I trust it is for no near relative."
"No relative at all, sir. But a boy of mine, to whom, through God's grace, I did a good turn once, and whom, as a consequence, I loved ever after."
"Tell Colonel Cathcart the story, James," said his wife. "It can do no harm to anybody now; and you needn't mention names, you know. You would like to hear it, wouldn't you, sir?"
"Very much indeed," answered the colonel.
"Well, sir," began the schoolmaster, "there's not much in it to you, I fear; though there was a good deal to him and me. I was usher in a school at Peckham once. I was but a lad, but I tried to do my duty; and the first part of my duty seemed to me, to take care of the characters of the boys. So I tried to understand them all, and their ways of looking at things, and thinking about them.
"One day, to the horror of the masters, it was discovered that a watch belonging to one of the boys had been stolen. The boy who had lost it was making a dreadful fuss about it, and declaring he would tell the police, and set them to find it. The moment I heard of it, my suspicion fell, half by knowledge, half by instinct, upon a certain boy. He was one of the most gentlemanly boys in the school; but there was a look of cunning in the corner of his eye, and a look of greed in the corner of his mouth, which now and then came out clear enough to me. Well, sir, I pondered for a few moments what I should do. I wanted to avoid calling any attention to him; so I contrived to make the worst of him in the Latin class—he was not a bad scholar—and so keep him in when the rest went to play. As soon as they were gone, I took him into my own room, and said to him, 'Fred, my boy, you knew your lesson well enough; but I wanted you here. You stole Simmons's watch.'"
"You had better mention no names, Mr. Bloomfield,"