第92章 Lady Caroline's Dinner (2)

"Yes, but is that the Eric Haeberlein you were named after? Did he really come to London and escape?""There is only one Eric Haeberlein in the world that I know of,"said Erica."But I think, Rose, I was wrong and foolish to mention him.I can't tell you anything about him, and, even if I could, there is my promise to Aunt Isabel.If I am not to talk to you about my father, I certainly ought not to talk about his friends."Rose acquiesced, and never suspected any mystery.She chatted on happily for the rest of the evening, brought down a great collection of old ball-cards, and with a sort of loving recollection described each very minutely, just as some old nurses have a way of doing with the funeral cards of their deceased friends.This paved the way for a spontaneous confession that she really preferred Mr.Torn, the curate of St.Matthew's, to Captain Golightly, though people were so stupid, and would say she was in love with him just because they flirted a little sometimes.Rose had already imagined herself in love with at least a dozen people, and was quite ready to discuss every one of her flirtations, but she was disappointed to find that her cousin was either very reserved on the subject, or else had nothing to say.

Erica sat listening with a sort of wonder, not unmixed with disgust.Perhaps she might have shown her disapprobation had she not been thankful to have the conversation diverted from the dangerous topic; besides, the cruel words were still rankling in her heart, and woven in with Rose's chatter she heard continually, "whose audacity outweighed her modesty." For the first time she fully understood why her father had so reluctantly consented to her scheme; she began to feel the sting which lay beneath the words, the veiled "hints," the implied evil, more wounding, more damaging than an outspoke lie.Now that she understood the ways of society better, she saw, too, that what had seemed to her an unquestionable duty would be regarded as a grave breach of custom and etiquette.

She began to question herself.Had she been right? It mattered very little what the writer of a "society" paper said of her, if she had done the really right thing.What had she done? To save her father's friend from danger, to save her father from unmerited suspicion, she had gone out late in the evening with a man considerably over fifty, whom she had known from her babyhood.He had, it is true, been in the disguise of a young man.She had talked to him on the platform much as she would have talked to Tom, and to save his almost certain detection, had sprung into the carriage, thrown her arms round his neck, and kissed him.HADaudacity outweighed her modesty? Why, all the time she had been thanking God for having allowed her to undertake the difficult task for her father on that particular evening.She had done it in the sight of God, and should she now make herself miserable because the world was wanting in that charity which "thinketh no evil?" No, she had been right of that she was certain.Nevertheless, she understood well enough that society would condemn her action, and would with a smile condone Rose's most outrageous flirtation.

The first week in a new place always seems long, and Erica felt as if she had been away from home for months by the time it was over.

Every one had been very kind to her so far, but except when she was playing lawn-tennis she was somehow far from happy., Her happiest moments were really those which she spent in her own room before breakfast, writing; and the "Daily Review" owed some very lively articles to the Greyshot visit.Beyond a sort of clan feeling for her aunt, and a real liking for Rose who, in spite of her follies, was good-humored and very lovable she had not yet found one point of union with her new relations.Even possible topics of conversation were hard to find.They cared nothing for politics, they cared nothing for science, they were none of them book lovers, and it was against their sense of etiquette to speak of anything but the externals of religion.Worst of all, any allusion to home matters, any mention of her father had to be avoided.Little was left but the mere gossip of the neighborhood, which, except as a social study, could not interest Erica.

Greyshot was an idle place; the church seemed asleep, a drowsy indifference hung about the richer inhabitants, while the honest workers not unnaturally banded themself together against the sleepily respectable church-goers, and secularism and one or two other "isms" made rapid advances.Then sleepy orthodoxy lifted its drowsy head for a minute, noted the evil, and abused Mr.Raeburn and his fellow workers, lamenting in many-syllable words the depravity of the working classes and the rapid spread of infidelity.But nothing came of the lament; it never seemed to strike them that they must act as well as talk, that they must renounce their useless, wasteful, un-Christian lives before they had even a right to lift up their voices against secularism, which certainly did in some measure meet the needs of the people.It never seemed to strike them that THEY were the real promoters of infidelity that they not only dishonored the name of Christ, but by their inconsistent lives disgusted people with Christianity, and then refused to have anything more to do with them.Luke Raeburn, if he pulled down with the one hand, at any rate, tried hard to build up with the other; but the people of Greyshot caused in a great degree the ruin and down fall, and then exclaimed, "How shocking!" and turned their backs, thinking to shift their blame on to the secularist leaders.