The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      “It was the answer,” said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, “that’s wot it was.”

      Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.

      “You believe it,” he said.

      “I’m livin’ on believin’ it,” she said confidingly. “I ain’t got nothin’ else. An’ answers keeps comin’ and comin’.”

      “What answers?”

      “Bits o’ work—an’ things as ‘elps. Glad there, she’s one.”

      “Aw,” said Glad, “I ain’t nothin’. I likes to ‘ear yer tell about it. She ses,” to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes—“she ses ‘E’s in the room—same as ‘E’s everywhere—in this ‘ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to ‘Im.”

      “What!” cried Dart, startled again.

      The strange Majestic Awful Idea—the Deity of the Ages—to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure. But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a—a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.

      For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.

      “It’s what the curick ses,” she enlarged radiantly. “Though ‘e don’t believe it, pore young man; ‘e on’y thinks ‘e does. ‘It’s for ‘igh an’ low,’ ‘e ses, ‘for you an’ me as well as for them as is royal fambleys. The Almighty ‘E’s everywhere!’ ‘Yes,’ ses I, ‘I’ve felt ‘Im ‘ere—as near as y’ are yerself, sir, I ‘ave—an’ I’ve spoke to ‘Im.’”

      “What did the curate say?” Dart asked, amazed.

      “Seemed like it frightened ‘im a bit. ‘We mustn’t be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,’ ‘e ses, for ‘e’s a kind young man as ever lived, an’ often ses ‘my dear’ to them ‘e’s comfortin’. But yer see the lidy ‘ad gave me a Bible o’ me own an’ I’d set ‘ere an’ read it, an’ read it an’ learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed—an’ I’d got ter feel like it was someone talkin’ to me an’ makin’ me understand. So I ses, ”T ain’t boldness we’re warned against; it’s not lovin’ an’ trustin’ enough, an’ not askin’ an’ believin’ true. Don’t yer remember wot it ses: “I, even I, am ‘e that comforteth yer. Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an’ the son of man that shall be made as grass, an’ forgetteth Jehovah thy Creator, that stretched forth the ‘eavens an’ laid the foundations of the earth?” an’ “I’ve covered thee with the shadder of me ‘and,” it ses; an’ “I will go before thee an’ make the rough places smooth;” an’ “‘Itherto ye ‘ave asked nothin’ in my name; ask therefore that ye may receive, an’ yer joy may be made full.”’ An’ ‘e looked down on the floor as if ‘e was doin’ some ‘ard thinkin’, pore young man, an’ ‘e ses, quite sudden an’ shaky, ‘Lord, I believe, ‘elp thou my unbelief,’ an’ ‘e ses it as if ‘e was in trouble an’ didn’t know ‘e’d spoke out loud.”

      “Where—how did you come upon your verses?” said Dart. “How did you find them?”

      “Ah,” triumphantly, “they was all answers—they was the first answers I ever ‘ad. When I first come ‘ome an’ it seemed as if I was goin’ to be swep’ away in the dirt o’ the street—one day when I was near drove wild with cold an’ ‘unger, I set down on the floor an’ I dragged the Bible to me an’ I ses: ‘There ain’t nothin’ on earth or in ‘ell as’ll ‘elp me. I’m goin’ to do wot the lidy said—mad or not.’ An’ I ‘eld the book—an’ I ‘eld my breath, too, ‘cos it was like waitin’ for the end o’ the world—an’ after a bit I ‘ears myself call out in a ‘oller whisper, ‘Speak, Lord, thy servant ‘eareth. Show me a ‘ope.’ An’ I was tremblin’ all over when I opened the book. An’ there it was! ‘I will go before thee an’ make the rough places smooth, I will break in pieces the doors of brass and will cut in sunder the bars of iron.’ An’ I knowed it was a answer.”

      “You—knew—it—was an answer?”

      “Wot else was it?” with a shining face. “I’d arst for it, an’ there it was. An’ in about a hour Glad come runnin’ up ‘ere, an’ she’d ‘ad a bit o’ luck—”

      “‘Twasn’t nothin’ much,” Glad broke in deprecatingly, “on’y I’d got somethin’ to eat an’ a bit o’ fire.”

      “An’ she made me go an’ ‘ave a ‘earty meal, an’ set an’ warm meself. An’ she was that cheerfle an’ full o’ pluck, she ‘elped me to forget about the things that was makin’ me into a madwoman. She was the answer—same as the book ‘ad promised. They comes in different wyes the answers does. Bless yer, they don’t come in claps of thunder an’ streaks o’ lightenin’—they just comes easy an’ natural—so’s sometimes yer don’t think for a minit or two that they’re answers at all. But it comes to yer in a bit an’ yer ‘eart stands still for joy. An’ ever since then I just go to me book an’ arst. P’raps,” her smile an illuminating thing, “me bein’ the low an’ pore in spirit at the beginnin’, an’ settin’ ‘ere all alone by meself day in an’ day out, just thinkin’ it all over—an’ arstin’—an’ waitin’—p’raps light was gave me ‘cos I was in such a little place an’ in the dark. But I ain’t pore in spirit now. Lor’, no, yer can’t be when yer’ve on’y got to believe. ‘An’ ‘itherto ye ‘ave arst nothin’ in my name; arst therefore that ye may receive an’ yer joy be made full.’”

      “Am I sitting here listening to an old female reprobate’s disquisition on religion?” passed through Antony Dart’s mind. “Why am I listening? I am doing it because here is a creature who believes—knowing no doctrine, knowing no church. She believes—she thinks she knows her Deity is by her side. She is not afraid. To her simpleness the awful Unknown is the Known—and with her.”

      “Suppose it were true,” he uttered aloud, in response to a sense of inward tremor, “suppose—it—were—true?” And he was not speaking either to the woman or the girl, and his forehead was damp.

      “Gawd!” said Glad, her chin almost on her knees, her eyes staring fearsomely. “S’pose it was—an’ us sittin’ ‘ere an’ not knowin’ it—an’ no one knowin’ it—nor gettin’ the good of it. Sime as if—” pondering hard in search of simile, “sime as if no one ‘ad never knowed about ‘lectricity, an’ there wasn’t no ‘lectric lights nor no ‘lectric nothin’. Onct nobody knowed, an’ all the sime it was there—jest waitin’.”

      Her fantastic laugh ended for her with a little choking, vaguely hysteric sound.

      “Blimme,” she said. “Ain’t it queer, us not knowin’—if it’s true.”

      Antony Dart bent forward СКАЧАТЬ