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Carved Cupboard (Dramatic Reading)

<h3> Unrest </h3> 'Thou hast made us for Thyself, And our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.—St. Augustine. Some weeks passed. The girls were perfectly satisfied with their quiet country life. Elfie brightened the whole house with her music and high spirits. Agatha soon found her way to the nearest cottages, and was friends with all the farm labourers who passed by the house, and Gwen tried to manage everything and everybody. Clare shook off her low spirits, but was uncertain-tempered, and would never settle at any occupation for long at a time. Still, she delighted in the country round, and would return from her rambles with her arms full of Nature's treasures, making the little house beautiful with her lovely flowers and greenery. Miss Miller fussed in and out, and was very glad of Agatha's help in parish matters; even unbending so far as to give Elfie permission to play on the organ in church, which, of course, delighted her. Agatha was informed that she could visit as freely as she liked, but that no relief was to be given, except through the vicarage. 'I look after everybody myself. I know the deserving and the undeserving, and they know me! I won't have anything given to my parishioners without my knowledge. My brother leaves it all in my hands.' One afternoon Miss Villars called, and found only Clare at home. She was a sweet-looking, attractive woman, and Clare, with her usual impulsiveness, lost her heart to her at once. She confided to her the history of her engagement, and parting with Captain Knox; and the visit lengthened into nearly an hour before Miss Villars took her leave. Clare went into raptures about her, when talking to her sisters afterwards. 'She is not a bit goody or eccentric, as Hugh hinted. She talked and laughed as naturally as any one; and she has such a lovely face. Dresses very quietly, but with good taste; and is such a graceful woman! She is quite the nicest person I have met for a long time. I am dying to see her in her own home. I am sure it must be a charming one. She drove over in an open carriage with a handsome pair of horses; and has offered to take us for drives whenever we like.' 'We really must afford ourselves a small trap,' said Gwen. 'We cannot do without it in the country. If we had a donkey, it would be better than nothing!' 'I wouldn't go in a donkey-cart,' said Clare, with disdain. 'Then you could stay at home. Agatha, what do you say? We have a stable. How much will it cost, do you think?' When once Gwen took a matter in hand, she generally carried it through; and very shortly after, the sisters were the proud possessors of a little two-wheeled trap, and a small rough pony. This was a great convenience as well as pleasure to them, and when Clare had a fit of the blues, she would go off to Brambleton and do some shopping, and return quite interested and eager to tell all she had seen and heard. She met Miss Villars on one of her expeditions, and she asked her to go and have a cup of tea with her before she returned home. This Clare willingly did. She had not been to the house before, though Agatha and Gwen had; but she found it quite answered her expectations. It was an ideal old-fashioned country house, and Miss Villars was a perfect hostess. She introduced Clare to a delicate-looking girl staying with her: 'This is Miss Audrey Foster, who enjoys the country quite as much as you do.' 'It is paradise to me,' said the girl enthusiastically. 'I am a Londoner, and have never stayed in the country before.' Clare looked at her, and noted that her shabby serge dress and pale pinched face seemed strangely incongruous with her surroundings. But when she had left the room shortly afterwards, Miss Villars said: 'Miss Foster is the eldest daughter of an East End vicar. She has not had a holiday or any change from home since her school-days; and she is mother and governess to five younger brothers and sisters. I hope to send her back a different creature. It is a great pleasure to give pleasure to other people, is it not?' 'I don't think I ever have,' said Clare frankly. 'Ah, well, my circumstances have made it easy for me to do so. My house is too big to live alone in it, and so I have relays of young visitors who need a little brightness in their lives. It is so sad to think of some young lives being cramped and dwarfed by their surroundings; and some natures utterly sink beneath the burden of household cares and anxieties, that ought not to touch them at all in youth.' 'You are very good, Miss Villars, are you not?' Miss Villars laughed brightly. 'Not at all, my dear child. I wish I were.' 'I wish I were too,' said Clare, with sudden impulse. 'You look so happy—I wish I knew your secret.' '"Happy is that people whose God is the Lord,"' said Miss Villars softly. Clare sighed. 'I never have found religion make me happy, Miss Villars.' 'No more have I. It is only the Lord Himself who can do that. Do you know Him as your Friend and Saviour?' Clare had never had such a question put to her before. 'I don't know Him at all,' she said earnestly; 'God seems such a long way off.' 'You know how you can get near Him?' 'By being very religious, I suppose.' 'The Bible doesn't say so. It says this: "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Think that verse over, dear, and look it up in your own Bible.' 'But,' said Clare, hesitating a little, 'I don't think I want to be brought nearer to God. That has no attraction for me.' 'Then you will never know real happiness. Any soul away from its Creator knows no peace.' Clare was silent, and then Miss Foster entered the room again, and the subject was changed; but Clare had plenty of food for reflection as she drove home. It was a lovely afternoon in June—so warm that for once the four sisters were together in the shady verandah outside the drawing-room windows, taking their ease and waiting for their afternoon tea. Agatha was the only one who was doing anything, and she was stitching away at some small garment for one of the farm carter's children. It was a still, drowsy afternoon; the very bees seemed too lazy to hum, and were settling sleepily on the rose bushes close to their hives. 'This is the most sleepy time in the day,' observed Gwen, leaning back in her low wicker chair, her head resting on her arms behind it, 'I could go to sleep in five minutes if I chose; there is not a creature moving for miles round us, I expect.' 'I love the stillness,' said Clare. 'Every one in the country has time to rest. How different it is in London!' 'I think we're all living very lazy lives,' said Elfie, as she picked a climbing rose beside her and placed it in her belt; 'I feel as if every day here is one long holiday!' 'Well, we are not at school,' returned Clare; 'and I beg to state I have not been idle to-day. Attending to the flowers in the house every morning is no joke! I was nearly two hours over them; then I wrote letters and took them to the post before luncheon, and I have been mending a dress, and tidying my cupboards since.' Gwen laughed a little derisively. 'You will never die of hard work, Clare.' 'I think it is harder work doing what I have done, than sitting still in the same chair from ten o'clock to one, and simply reading and writing!' 'Ted was asking for directions in the garden,' said Agatha, looking up; 'but when I peeped inside the study, Gwen, and saw you had one of your writing crazes on, I knew it was no good coming to you.' 'No, he has plenty of work, and I shall be occupied in the morning for some time now.' 'Why have you taken such a fit of it?' asked Clare. 'You're writing as if for your life.' 'I want money,' was the brief reply. 'What for?' 'That I shall not tell you at present. I want it so much, that I am even condescending to write silly stories, which I despise myself for doing.' 'Oh! that will be delightful,' exclaimed Elfie. 'Couldn't you read us one now, to pass the time?' 'I will read you a kind of conundrum I have dashed off this morning to amuse some sentimental goose like Clare!' 'Thank you,' said Clare imperturbably; and when Gwen sauntered into the house to get her manuscript, she said, 'Gwen is preparing some surprise for her family. You mark my words; before long she will unfold a startling plan of action!' Gwen reappeared very soon, and settling herself in her easy chair, began to read in a lazy and slightly mocking tone as follows:— 'The princess walks in her garden alone. Her face is sad, and her steps are slow. She reaches a low moss-covered wall, and leaning upon it gazes dreamily and wistfully upon the busy crowded city below. Sounds of toil and labour meet her ears. The busy multitudes are all engaged in the various occupations of their spheres. And whilst the ringing laughter, the joyous mirth, of some is borne upwards by the breeze, it is mingled with the sobs and bitter weeping of the neglected and oppressed. Stretching out her soft white hands, she clasps them in piteous yearning. '"My soul craves for it," she cries. "Since first I became conscious of its absence I am longing to find it. If I could devote a lifetime to it, and obtain it at last, I should die content!" <HR WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center"> 'She stands in the deepest recess of a lonely forest. Far away from the city, no human habitation is near. Her feet are on the moss-covered ground, soft as velvet to the touch. Above is a canopy of green, through which the pure blue heavens appear, and the rays of the setting sun are giving the stately elms and rugged oaks a golden beauty of its own. She is leaning against a copper beech, and her soft brown hair is kissing the shining bark. Her blue eyes are turned upwards, full of expectancy and hope. She stands like a beautiful statue. A squirrel darts up a tree close by, and rabbits sport amongst the fallen leaves. The birds are carolling forth their evening hymns of praise, and Nature seems to be parading its loveliness. But her face is sorrowful still, and she shakes her head dejectedly. "It is of no avail," she murmurs; "even here in such a scene I cannot obtain my heart's desire! I yearn more for it day by day, and yet with the crushing longing within my breast I seem further away than ever from it!" 'She turns, and retraces her steps to the home of her forefathers. <HR WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center"> 'A luxuriously furnished apartment; cool and refreshing after the glare of the sun outside. The Venetian shutters are closed. Sweet-scented flowers are filling the room with their perfume. The sound of children's happy voices, as they roam through the meadows and play in the new-mown hay, the humming of bees, sipping their honey from the full-blown flowers, come in at the open windows. Upon a couch in the darkest corner of the room lies our princess. She is not asleep; her hands are folded listlessly across her breast, her lips are moving. Now burying her face in the cushions, she exclaims:— '"No, I have it not. Methought I might find it even here. No happiness for me until I experience it All the gold I possess would I gladly give to have the exquisite pleasure of obtaining and realizing it!" <HR WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center"> It is night-time. She stands upon the summit of a hill alone, and her figure looks weird and ghostly in the silver moonlight. Her head is thrown back, her lips parted breathlessly; her whole attitude bespeaks eager and intense expectation. She is waiting and watching for the desire of her heart. 'She overlooks the city, now wrapped in slumber. Green plains stretch away in the dim distance, and the moon throws its light upon her upturned face, making fantastic shadows around her. Hark! From yonder tree the nightingale trills out her midnight song. She listens and does not move, but hears it to the end. It ceases, and the wind rushes through the long grass at her feet, and shakes the leaves above, even venturing with its lawless impudence to buffet her fair brow, and scatter her brown locks across her eyes. A deep sigh escapes from her heaving breast. "It is hopeless. I am well-nigh despairing. Whither shall I go? I will not be conquered. I must find, and will find it soon!" <HR WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center"> 'Again we see her. In a grotto, deep in the heart of the earth. She is seated on a rock, and all is darkness save a faint ray of light that creeps through a small crevice overhead. 'No one is near. No living creature but herself, and she is still seeking and waiting for what she has not found. Water is trickling drop by drop from the moist roof above; the atmosphere is damp and close, yet little she heeds the discomfort of her surroundings, and heavy sighs come from her lips. She looks up at last, then wends her way still further into the innermost recess of the cavern. She stands beneath a deep vaulted roof, in deeper darkness, but in drier atmosphere, and here she pauses, a light coming into her sad blue eyes, and for the first time a smile hovering about her lips. A quiver of excitement, a thrill of suppressed awe vibrates through her nervously strung frame. "At last," she murmurs; "if nowhere else, I shall find it here." 'Her heart throbs violently, and in vain she places her hand upon it to still its beating. Moments pass in anxious hope, then suddenly she sinks to the ground in a passion of sobs and bitter weeping. '"No, no, poor weak fool that I have been," she breaks forth, in disdainful self-contempt; "never in this life shall I obtain it, for outward circumstances influence it little. How vainly deluded I have been hitherto! Little did I imagine that the very longing and craving of my heart for it, would thereby prevent my possessing it!" 'She leaves the cavern, and returns to her home a wiser woman.' Gwen folded her manuscript up quietly, adding indifferently, 'Now what was it she wanted?' 'I should say, "Work,"' remarked Agatha in her matter-of-fact way. 'She seems to have been a most idle young person.' 'Rest and contentment,' murmured Clare, looking at Gwen with dreamy, thoughtful eyes. 'Sleep, perhaps,' suggested Elfie. 'You're all wrong.' 'Tell us then.' 'She wanted silence.' And humming an air, Gwen walked into the house without another word. Elfie began to laugh. 'What a queer subject! Gwen never does write like other people. There is no moral at all.' Neither of the others spoke for a little. Then Agatha said, folding up her work, 'It may take in certain magazines, but I think she writes far better when she keeps to facts, not fancies.' 'It has a moral,' said Clare, looking away over the meadows. 'What is it?' asked Elfie, regarding her curiously. 'Failure is in self, not circumstances!' After which slow denunciation, Clare also moved into the house, and when she reached her bedroom she murmured to herself, 'And I know all my unrest and discontent come from within me. It is not my surroundings. Miss Villars must be right.' <h3> CHAPTER VIII </h3> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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