Part 3 (1/2)
”I refer to the eyes of his soul,” said the old lady sternly.
”I want a story-book.”
”There is the _Dairyman's Daughter_.”
”I have read it, and hate it.”
”I fear, Leticia, that you are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”
Unhappily the sisters very rarely met one another. It was but occasionally that Lady Lacy and Betty came to town, and when they did, Miss Mountjoy put as many difficulties as she could in the way of their a.s.sociating together.
On one such visit to London, Lady Lacy called and asked if she might take Letice with herself to the theatre. Miss Mountjoy s.h.i.+vered with horror, reared herself, and expressed her opinion of stage-plays and those who went to see them in strong and uncomplimentary terms. As she had the custody of Letice, she would by no persuasion be induced to allow her to imperil her soul by going to such a wicked place. Lady Lacy was fain to withdraw in some dismay and much regret.
Poor Letice, who had heard this offer made, had flashed into sudden brightness and a tremor of joy; when it was refused, she burst into a flood of tears and an ecstasy of rage. She ran up to her room, and took and tore to pieces a volume of _Clayton's Sermons_, scattered the leaves over the floor, and stamped upon them.
”Letice,” said Miss Mountjoy, when she saw the devastation, ”you are a child of wrath.”
”Why mayn't I go where there is something pretty to see? Why may I not hear good music? Why must I be kept forever in the Doleful Dumps?”
”Because all these things are of the world, worldly.”
”If G.o.d hates all that is fair and beautiful, why did He create the peac.o.c.k, the humming-bird, and the bird of paradise, instead of filling the world with barn-door fowls?”
”You have a carnal mind. You will never go to heaven.”
”Lucky I--if the saints there do nothing but hold missionary meetings to convert one another. Pray what else can they do?”
”They are engaged in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d.”
”I don't know what that means. All I am acquainted with is the wors.h.i.+p of the congregation. At Salem Chapel the minister faces it, mouths at it, gesticulates to it, harangues, flatters, fawns at it, and, indeed, prays at it. If that be all, heaven must be a deadly dull hole.”
Miss Mountjoy reared herself, she became livid with wrath. ”You wicked girl.”
”Aunt,” said Letice, intent on further incensing her, ”I do wish you would let me go--just for once--to a Catholic church to see what the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d is.”
”I would rather see you dead at my feet!” exclaimed the incensed lady, and stalked, rigid as a poker, out of the room.
Thus the unhappy girl grew up to woman's estate, her heart seething with rebellion.
And then a terrible thing occurred. She caught scarlet fever, which took an unfavourable turn, and her life was despaired of. Miss Mountjoy was not one to conceal from the girl that her days were few, and her future condition hopeless.
Letice fought against the idea of dying so young.
”Oh, aunt! I won't die! I can't die! I have seen nothing of the pomps and vanities. I want to just taste them, and know what they are like.
Oh! save me, make the doctor give me something to revive me. I want the pomps and vanities, oh! so much. I will not, I cannot die!” But her will, her struggle, availed nothing, and she pa.s.sed away into the Great Unseen.
Miss Mountjoy wrote a formal letter to her brother, who had now become a general, to inform him of the lamented decease of his eldest daughter.
It was not a comforting letter. It dwelt unnecessarily on the faults of Letice, it expressed no hopes as to her happiness in the world to which she had pa.s.sed. There had been no signs of resignation at the last; no turning from the world with its pomps and vanities to better things, only a vain longing after what she could not have; a bitter resentment against Providence for having denied them to her; and a steeling of her heart against good and pious influences.
A year had pa.s.sed.