BERNARDINE PREACHES

AFTER this, scarcely a day passed but Bernardine went to see Mr. Reffold. The most inexperienced eye could have known that he was becoming rapidly worse. Marie, the chambermaid, knew it, and spoke of it frequently to Bernardine.

“The poor lonely fellow!” she said, time after time.

Every one, except Mrs. Reffold, seemed to recognize that Mr. Reffold’s days were numbered. Either she did not or would not understand. She made no alteration in the disposal of her time: sledging parties and skating picnics were the order of the day; she was thoroughly pleased with herself, and received the attentions of her admirers as a matter of course. The Petershof climate had got into her head; and it is a well-known fact that this glorious air has the effect on some people of banishing from their minds all inconvenient notions of duty and devotion, and all memory of the special object of their sojourn in Petershof. The coolness and calmness with which such people ignore their responsibilities, or allow strangers to assume them, would be an occasion for humour, if it were not an opportunity for indignation: though indeed it would take a very exceptionally sober-minded spectator not to get some fun out of the blissful self-satisfaction and unconsciousness which characterize the most negligent of ‘caretakers.’

Mrs. Reffold was not the only sinner in this respect. It would have been interesting to get together a tea-party of invalids alone, and set the ball rolling about the respective behaviours of their respective friends. Not a pleasing chronicle: no very choice pages to add to the book of real life; still, valuable items in their way, representative of the actual as opposed to the ideal. In most instances there would have been ample testimony to that cruel monster, known as Neglect.

Bernardine spoke once to the Disagreeable Man on this subject. She spoke with indignation, and he answered with indifference, shrugging his shoulders.

“These things occur,” he said “It is not that they are worse here than everywhere else; it is simply that they are together in an accumulated mass, and, as such, strike us with tremendous force. I myself am accustomed to these exhibitions of selfishness and neglect. I should be astonished if they did not take place. Don’t mix yourself up with anything. If people are neglected, they are neglected, and there is the end of it. To imagine that you or I are going to do any good by filling up the breach, is simply an insanity leading to unnecessarily disagreeable consequences. I know you go to see Mr. Reffold. Take my advice, and keep away.”

“You speak like a Calvinist,” she answered, rather ruffled, “with the quintessence of self-protectiveness; and I don’t believe you mean a word you say.”

“My dear young woman,” he said, “we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don’t ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don’t even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will be quite content to let people be neglected, lonely, and to die. You will look upon it as an ordinary and natural process.”

She waved her hand as though to stop him.

“There are days,” she said, “when I can’t bear to talk with you. And this is one of them.”

“I am sorry,” he answered, quite gently for him. And he moved away from her, and started for his usual lonely walk.

Bernardine turned home, intending to go to see Mr. Reffold. He had become quite attached to her, and looked forward eagerly to her visits. He said her voice was gentle and her manner quiet; there was no bustling vitality about het to irritate his worn nerves. He was probably an empty-headed, stupid fellow; but it was none the less sad to see him passing away.

He called her ‘Little Brick.’ He said that no other epithet suited her so exactly. He was quite satisfied now that she was not paid for coming to see him. As for the reading, no one could read the Sporting and Dramatic News and the Era so well as Little Brick. Sometimes he spoke with her about his wife, but only in general terms of bitterness, and not always complainingly. She listened and said nothing.

“I’m a chap that wants very little,” he said once. “Those who want little, get nothing.”

That was all he said, but Bernardine knew to whom he referred.

To-day, as Bernardine was on her way back to the Kurhaus, she was thinking constantly of Mrs. Reffold, and wondering whether she ought to be made to realize that her husband was becoming rapidly worse. Whilst engrossed with this thought, a long train of sledges and toboggans passed her. The sound of the bells and the noisy merriment made her look up, and she saw beautiful Mrs. Reffold amongst the pleasure-seekers.

“If only I dared tell her now,” said Bernardine to herself, “loudly and before them all!”

Then a more sensible mood came over her. “After all, it is not my affair,” she said.

And the sledges passed away out of hearing.

When Bernardine sat with Mr. Reffold that afternoon she did not mention that she had seen his wife. He coughed a great deal, and seemed to be worse than usual, and complained of fever. But he liked to have her, and would not hear of her going.

“Stay,” he said. “It is not much of a pleasure to you, but it is a great pleasure to me.”

There was an anxious look on his face, such a look as people wear when they wish to ask some question of great moment, but dare not begin.

At last he seemed to summon up courage.

“Little Brick,” he said, in a weak low voice, “I have something on my mind. You won’t laugh, I know. You’re not the sort. I know you’re clever and thoughtful, and all that; you could tell me more than all the parsons put together. I know you’re clever; my wife says so. She says only a very clever woman would wear such boots and hats!”

Bernardine smiled.

“Well,” she said kindly, “tell me.”

“You must have thought a good deal, I suppose,” he continued, “about life and death, and that sort of thing. I’ve never thought at all. Does it matter, Little Brick? It’s too late now. I can’t begin to think. But speak to me; tell me what you think. Do you believe we get another chance, and are glad to behave less like curs and brutes? Or is it all ended in that lonely little churchyard here? I’ve never troubled about these things before, but now I know I am so near that gloomy little churchyard well, it makes me wonder. As for the Bible, I never cared to read it, I was never much of a reader, though I’ve got through two or three firework novels and sporting stories. Does it matter, Little Brick?”

“How do I know?” she said gently. “How does any one know? People say they know; but it is all a great mystery nothing but a mystery. Everything that we say, can be but a guess. People have gone mad over their guessing, or they have broken their hearts. But still the mystery remains, and we cannot solve it.”

“If you don’t know anything, Little Brick,” he said, “at least tell me what you think: and don’t be too learned; remember I’m only a brainless fellow.”

He seemed to be waiting eagerly for her answer.

“If I were you,” she said, “I should not worry. Just make up your mind to do better when you get another chance. One can’t do more than that. That is what I shall think of: that God will give each one of us another chance, and that each one of us will take it and do better I and you and every one. So there is no need to fret over failure, when one hopes one may be allowed to redeem that failure later on. Besides which, life is very hard. Why, we ourselves recognize that. If there be a God, some Intelligence greater than human intelligence, he will understand better than ourselves that life is very hard and difficult, and he will be astonished not because we are not better, but because we are not worse. At least, that would be my notion of a God. I should not worry, if I were you. Just make up your mind to do better if you get the chance, and be content with that.”

“If that is what you think, Little Brick,” he answered, “it is quite good enough for me. And it does not matter about prayers and the Bible, and all that sort of thing?”

“I don’t think it matters,” she said. “I never have thought such things mattered. What does matter, is to judge gently, and not to come down like a sledge-hammer on other people’s failings. Who are we, any of us, that we should be hard on others?”

“And not come down like a sledge-hammer on other people’s failings,” he repeated slowly. “I wonder if I have ever judged gently.”

“I believe you have,” she answered.

He shook his head.

“No,” he said; “I have been a paltry fellow. I have been lying here, and elsewhere too, eating my heart away with bitterness, until you came. Since then I have sometimes forgotten to feel bitter. A little kindness does away with a great deal of bitterness.”

He turned wearily on his side.

“I think I could sleep, Little Brick,” he said, almost in a whisper. “I want to dream about your sermon. And I’m not to worry, am I?”

“No,” she answered, as she stepped noiselessly across the room; “you are not to worry.”