Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

83. CHAPTER LXXXIII (continued)

Ernest has often thought about this since. He tried to get the facts out of Susan, who he was sure would know, but Charlotte had been beforehand with him. "No, Master Ernest," said Susan, when he began to question her, "your ma has sent a message to me by Miss Charlotte as I am not to say nothing at all about it, and I never will." Of course no further questioning was possible. It had more than once occurred to Ernest that Charlotte did not in reality believe more than he did himself, and this incident went far to strengthen his surmises, but he wavered when he remembered how she had misdirected the letter asking for the prayers of the congregation. I suppose," he said to himself gloomily, "she does believe in it after all."

Then Christina returned to the subject of her own want of spiritual-mindedness, she even harped upon the old grievance of her having eaten black puddings--true, she had given them up years ago, but for how many years had she not persevered in eating them after she had had misgivings about their having been forbidden! Then there was something that weighed on her mind that had taken place before her marriage, and she should like -

Ernest interrupted: "My dear mother," he said, "you are ill and your mind is unstrung; others can now judge better about you than you can; I assure you that to me you seem to have been the most devotedly unselfish wife and mother that ever lived. Even if you have not literally given up all for Christ's sake, you have done so practically as far as it was in your power, and more than this is not required of anyone. I believe you will not only be a saint, but a very distinguished one."

At these words Christina brightened. "You give me hope, you give me hope," she cried, and dried her eyes. She made him assure her over and over again that this was his solemn conviction; she did not care about being a distinguished saint now; she would be quite content to be among the meanest who actually got into heaven, provided she could make sure of escaping that awful Hell. The fear of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite of all Ernest could say he did not quite dispel it. She was rather ungrateful, I must confess, for after more than an hour's consolation from Ernest she prayed for him that he might have every blessing in this world, inasmuch as she always feared that he was the only one of her children whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then wandering, and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind in fact was reverting to states in which it had been before her illness.