Part 61 (1/2)
”If he did not, you would not be thinking about him just this minute, I suspect. There's no sense in it, if he does not think about you. He said himself he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
”I wish I could repent.”
”You can, if you will.”
”I can't make myself sorry for what's gone and done with.”
”No; it wants him to do that. But you can turn from your old ways, and ask him to take you for a pupil. Aren't you willing to learn, if he be willing to teach you?”
”I don't know. It's all so dull and stupid! I never could bear going to church.”
”It's not one bit like that! It's like going to your mother, and saying you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any more.”
”I see. It's all right, I dare say! But I've had as much of it as I can stand! You see, I'm not used to such things. You go away, and send Mewks. Don't be far off, though, and mind you don't go home without letting me know. There! Go along.”
She had just reached the door, when he called her again.
”I say! Mind whom you trust in this house. There's no harm in Mrs.
Redmain; she only grows stupid directly she don't like a thing. But that Miss Yolland!--that woman's the devil. I know more about her than you or any one else. I can't bear her to be about Hesper; but, if I told her the half I know, she would not believe the half of that. I shall find a way, though. But I am forgetting! you know her as well as I do--that is, you would, if you were wicked enough to understand. I will tell you one of these days what, I am going to do. There! don't say a word. I want no advice on _such_ things. Go along, and send Mewks.”
With all his suspicion of the man, Mr. Redmain did not suspect _how_ false Mewks was: he did not know that Miss Yolland had bewitched him for the sake of having an ally in the enemy's camp. All he could hear--and the dressing-room door was handy--the fellow duly reported to her. Already, instructed by her fears, she had almost divined what Mr.
Redmain meant to do.
Mary went and sat on the lowest step of the stair just outside the room.
”What are you doing there?” said Lady Margaret, coming from the corridor.
”Mr. Redmain will not have me go yet, my lady,” answered Mary, rising.
”I must wait first till he sends for me.”
Lady Margaret swept past her, murmuring, ”Most peculiar!” Mary sat down again.
In about an hour, Mewks came and said his master wanted her.
He was very ill, and could not talk, but he would not let her go. He made her sit where he could see her, and now and then stretched out his hand to her. Even in his pain he showed a quieter spirit. ”Something may be working--who can tell!” thought Mary.
It was late in the afternoon when at length he sought further conversation.
”I have been thinking, Mary,” he said, ”that if I do wake up in h.e.l.l when I die, no matter how much I deserve it, n.o.body will be the better for it, and I shall be all the worse.”
He spoke with coolness, but it was by a powerful effort: he had waked from a frightful dream, drenched from head to foot. Coward? No. He had reason to fear.
”Whereas,” rejoined Mary, taking up his clew, ”everybody will be the better if you keep out of it--everybody,” she repeated, ”--G.o.d, and Jesus Christ, and all their people.”
”How do you make that out?” he asked. ”G.o.d has more to do than look after such as me.”
”You think he has so many worlds to look to--thousands of them only making? But why does he care about his worlds? Is it not because they are the schools of his souls? And why should he care for the souls? Is it not because he is making them children--his own children to understand him and be happy with his happiness?”
”I can't say I care for his happiness. I want my own. And yet I don't know any that's worth the worry of it. No; I would rather be put out like a candle.”