Chapter II: Unwelcome News

THE first day at the farm was one of keen enjoyment to Sara. She was very busy adjusting and arranging things, so as to make every one comfortable in the simple life to which they had come. Mrs. Shiplake was a keen brisk worker, and had enough to do in her part of the farm to keep her busy there all the day. Lacy settled down into her kitchen with great content. Nurse was the only one who had to be kept in a good temper, for she was a Londoner, and missed her town comforts.

Little Oliver was out all day long in his pram or rolling on his crawling rug. He was a fair bonny boy, sweet-tempered and full of spirits. Sara grew fonder of him day by day; and he now welcomed her with a smile and crow of recognition, holding out his dimpled arms to be taken up whenever he saw her.

One day of peace Sara had. And then upon the second morning after their arrival, she got a letter from Mrs. Laird.

"MY DEAREST SARA,

"The blow has fallen, and my fears have been justified. Graham came to me this morning, and told me that he had married Eva quietly in a church in Chester, where she has been staying for the last two months. I asked him why he had concealed his engagement. Eva, of course, had begged him to do so, fearing that I might be upset. I won't write the bitterness that is in my heart. You will feel for me, but I am going to pray hard for the grace that I shall need when I have to receive her as my daughter-in-law. Oh, Sara! I won't reproach you, but it is the losing you that has made him reckless. And Eva has tightened her hold of him, and has never let him go, till she has gained her object. And my son is not happy. There is a harassed look on his face.

"One thing I am determined upon, and that is to find myself a little house, where I can live alone. I have told him to-day, and he is vexed with me, but I mean to be quite firm. He does not like this house and Eva wants to live in the best part of the town, so perhaps till Ina marries, she and I will stay on where we are."

There was a break in the letter here. Then an addition came—

"She has come over this afternoon. Very sweet and gentle, but that she always is. She does not look at all well; she is very thin, and looks ten years older than when I saw her before. I was as kind as I could be, and I am thankful to say she did not stay long. Her little girl is still at a boarding-school. She begged me to forgive the secrecy of their engagement and wedding. 'I wanted to be married very quietly,' she said; 'I have been worried and depressed lately, but I mean to take a new lease of life now. Graham and I have planned out lots of delightful things together.' 'Your husband is a very busy man,' I said; 'this new estate and all the business connected with it entails a lot of arduous work.' And then she laughed.

"'I shall make him play!' she said. And I could not help smiling, though I was nearer tears. Graham is not a man who knows how to take life lightly, and recreation is always difficult to him. Well, my dear Sara, this is my news. My heart seems stunned with it, but I have courage now to face troubles which I could never have faced before.

"Write and tell me all you are doing. I am very angry with your brother for going off and leaving you all alone. How I wish I could see you with your little nephew in your arms! Will you not be photographed and send me a print? I should love to have one of you.

"Yours always lovingly,

"RACHAEL LAIRD."

Sara sat reading this letter at her breakfast. It was placed for her on a round table by the window, where she could look out upon the rich meadowland below her, and feel the sweet scented air fan her cheeks as it came through the open window. She had been rejoicing in this sunny summer's morning a moment or two before. Now as she gazed out with shadowed eyes, there seemed no golden buttercup meadows, no sun sending flickers of colour across the valley down below, no scent of roses and pinks in the borders outside her window. It was a grey hard world she was seeing before her, a dusty monotonous never-ending climb uphill.

Her hand clenched upon the letter, and her lips took a straight firm line. She had had to go through troublous times before in her life, but never yet had any trouble touched her heart as this one was doing now. Her unspoken thought was—

"Why am I punished for acting rightly? Why have I brought punishment and misery upon those I care for, and love? If I had been less single-hearted, less high-principled, if I had followed my heart's desire, and taken the sunny easy path, this would not have happened!"

Then the hard bitterness passed away from her eyes, and they grew misty with tears.

"It does not matter about me, but dear Mrs. Laird! I hoped she was going to enjoy a little sunshine in her old age. It is enough to shake her faith! Oh, how could he! How could he! He has a home and a mother who loves him. He has lived for years in a grey clouded atmosphere, and now that the clouds have gone, he might have been content. I cannot understand it. Surely he is too self-contained, too sane to act on a hot angry impulse. I cannot believe it is I who drove him to it! Poor dear Mrs. Laird! How can I comfort her?"

"If you please, ma'am, can you have baby?"

Sara turned. Nurse stood in the doorway with the laughing crowing child in her arms.

Sara caught hold of him. The touch of his soft baby fingers in her hair, the warmth and sweetness of his little body in her arms, brought a strange comfort to her aching heart.

"Oh, my little Oliver," she murmured, "will you grow up and bring trouble upon those you love, I wonder? Is it in you to bring sadness and tears to one who is weak and helpless and old? But we'll come out into the sunshine, baby, and put dull care away!"

No one seeing Sara a few minutes later as she played with her little nephew upon the sunny grass and pelted him with fallen rose petals, whilst he kicked and laughed with glee, could have imagined that she had just received a death knell to her secret hopes. For in her heart of hearts, Sara had not doubted that sooner or later she and Graham would come together. She had prayed for him earnestly, she felt that like the young ruler in the Gospels he was "not far from the Kingdom of God," but that, like him, he was not willing or ready to cast in his life and lot with his Saviour, and meekly follow Him day by day.

Now she knew that Eva's influence would not bring him nearer the life she coveted for him. And her own life looked bleak and grey before her.

When her hour with her little nephew was over, she went back to the sitting-room, and replied to Mrs. Laird as follows:—

"MY DEAREST MRS. LAIRD,

"Your news perplexes and astonishes me, but do not let it fill you with dismay. In life, to use a common platitude, what can't be cured, must be endured. I love to think that you will not fail your son, and already your courage has risen to the occasion. His welfare is your first thought, I know. Do not blame me for this step which he has taken. Mrs. Jeffery has had a strange hold upon him for a long time. I think it is her weakness and helplessness that appeal to him. He has always been ready to lend his strength to the weak, has he not? And I cannot help feeling that his absolutely unselfish life will mould and influence her character. She may regret the past. In any case, it is buried and done with, is it not? Remember, if I had linked my life to his as you wished, he would not have broken with Eva. Complications might have ensued, and I might have become a jealous miserable wife. God, I am sure, has it all in His Hands to work out as He sees fit. My heart may sometimes misgive me for my decision, my conscience never does. Now, please let this chapter in my life be buried with the others. I cannot and will not speak of it again.

"At present, I am sure you are happy with dear Ina, and when she marries, do you think you could come and pay me a little visit? I think I shall be still here if all goes well. It is not like your hill and lake country, it is like living in one of those pretty pictures we see depicting rural life. The church is just as picturesque as it should be, I see its tower peeping through the elm trees which surround it, and which of course contain a rookery. The rectory is close to it, a cob-walled house with thatched roof very like our farm. There is a mill, and a river, and buttercup meadows, and much pasture land about us. In the distance from my window, I get a glimpse of a stately white house amongst trees, the Hall, Mr. Shiplake tells me. The Squire is very typical of his race, I should think. He hunts in the winter, and is very keen on farming. Mrs. Shiplake tells me he is the cleverest farmer in the county. He is a widower with a grown-up daughter. His son is in the Navy. I don't expect I shall see anything of them.

"I have discovered that there is an old friend of my father's living near this. An Admiral Burke and his wife. They have a pretty place about three miles away. But I am quite content to enjoy the country in solitude. I have books and work, and my darling little Oliver for the comfort and joy of my heart. You inspire me to be photographed. There is a country town four miles away. We will borrow the jingle and drive over one day and see what a country photographer can produce!

"Oh, dear Mrs. Laird, I am chattering away, but I feel for you, how I feel for you! And yet I know God has you in His keeping, and He Himself will guide and cheer you every step of the way.

"Your loving

"SARA."

After sending this cheerful letter, Sara abandoned herself to her feelings, and she had a very miserable day in consequence.

The next day was Sunday, and in the quiet peaceful little church she received the peace of mind and consolation which she so much needed.

The Rector was a middle-aged man with a careworn face, but when he preached, his shining eyes and intensely earnest voice made his congregation realize that his religion was a living vital force within him. Sara was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice any of the congregation. She came home with the Rector's text ringing through her head.

"'One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before.'"

And for the rest of that day a quiet happy light glowed in her grey eyes, as she thought over some of the things which were "before her."

On Monday afternoon Sara was with the baby in the orchard, when Mrs. Shiplake came hurriedly out to her.

"The Rector's wife has called, please ma'am. I showed her into your sitting-room. 'Tisn't often her comes our way. Her 's not one who favours us workin' folk with her visits. But her went so far as to step inside my kitchen and say how clean it looked! I was fair inclined to tell how drab an' dusty I thought her hall when I was left standin' there when I were after arrangin' for my niece's baby's christening! I—"

Sara stopped the breathless flow of talk.

"Will you call nurse, please, Mrs. Shiplake? She is ironing, I believe. She had better come out here. It is a shame to take baby in."

And then with a little sigh, Sara went into the house. She was pale to-day, with dark circles round her eyes, but in her cool linen dress and with her free easy step, and high lift of her head, Sara could not but look a very graceful and attractive woman.

Young Mrs. Peel put out her hand in a very friendly fashion. She looked a mere girl in her short white skirt, showing a good deal of slim ankle. She wore a white panama hat, and soft white silk shirt with pale blue tie. She was a handsome girl, dark-haired and eyed, with warm colour in her cheeks.

"How do you do, Miss Darlington? I know all about you, but never meant to call upon you till I saw you yesterday in church, and then I suddenly wanted to come."

"I don't think I saw you," said Sara, smiling upon her in her usual caressing fashion; "and if I had, I should never have guessed you were the Rector's wife."

"No, I'm generally taken for his daughter, but there's only ten years between us in age. 'An old maid and a baby,' I said to my husband in disgust when I heard you were coming. Last summer Mrs. Shiplake had two artists lodging there, and they were great fun! But you're not an old maid, and you're not a rustic, and in church yesterday, I determined to get my next hat trimmed like yours!"

She laughed, and in sheer sympathy, Sara laughed too.

"That's right. I don't shock you? Of course you'll know without saying that it was before the service began I was thinking such vain thoughts! But I'd better tell you at once that I'm not a model rector's wife. And I told him when I married him that I would not be his curate. If I keep his house, and give him good food, and see that his clothes are mended, and cheer him up when he is downhearted, is not that enough? I don't know why I am running on like this. Now do tell me why you came down to this quiet spot."

"For the same reason that other lodgers have come," said Sara, gaily, "from love of the country, and pure air; and the longing to get out of smoky foggy London."

Mrs. Peel settled herself comfortably into the one easy-chair, and crossed her legs in careless fashion.

"Yes, that was what I felt once. I was born and brought up in a London vicarage; and I used to think the country must be a dream of delight. There were five of us girls. We lived in a high-terraced house, and a backyard by way of a garden. My husband was my father's curate. He worked himself to death nearly, and then when he was told he must get away from town if he wished to live, he was presented with this living, and he asked me to come with him. I saw a photo of the house and garden, and that decided me."

She paused, and looked swiftly across at Sara.

"I don't know why I am talking of my own affairs like this. You won't be interested."

"But indeed I am. I was interested in you the first moment I saw you. It is sweet of you to be so friendly. Please tell me more."

Sara looked as interested as she felt.

The young wife rattled on—

"Well, I came; we had a delicious honeymoon, and then we took possession, and for the first six months it seemed one long battle against dilapidation, bad drains, dry rot, and unwholesome water! Last, but not least, a batch of bills that would have frightened a Croesus. Country servants, oil lamps, rats and mice, a mouldy fusty church which always reeked of damp, and suspicious unfriendly villagers soon cured me of romance. I've lived here for five years, and I hate and detest it!"

She looked frankly rebellious, and yet her youth and beauty and fresh audacity had a rare charm to Sara.

"My dear child," she said, "in another five years, you may learn to love it."

"Never, never! Why was I ever induced to marry a parson? He is too good for me, Miss Darlington, miles too good! He thought he would make me as good as himself, but he couldn't. The continual stream of services worry me; I am a perpetual thorn in his flesh. He is getting like them all, a mere mechanical church machine, going round and round on a treadmill of penance and duty, an austere mystic, and I who am still flesh and blood tied to him by unbreakable bonds, oh, what am I saying? I love him still, of course I do. But I hate visiting the poor, I'm not fit to teach in Sunday school, and there are times when I hate the sound of the clanging church bell.

"The only relief to me is to get up to the Hall. May and I are great friends, but even she thinks I ought to be quite content with my life. As if I could be! We see no one, we go nowhere. In summer we have a few clerical garden parties, and if we are invited to the places round, the county look upon us as quite a different class to themselves.

"'Who is she?' 'Oh, a parson's wife.'

"Interest dies away at once. And of course amongst my kind—other parsons' wives, you know—I'm everything that is shocking. Dear me! I can't conceive what you must think of me talking to you like this! But I don't seem able to help myself!"

She stopped speaking, and looked at Sara with a mixture of defiance and wistfulness in her eyes.

"I am so glad to hear it all, glad to think you will let me into a corner of your life. Now I wish I could help you! But you have youth and health, and love for your husband. Couldn't you try to find the only thing that would make your life a joy to you instead of a burden?"

"What do you mean? What could make stagnation different? Oh, don't let us talk any more about myself! Tell me a little of your history. Do you know that this morning a poisonous little reptile of a creature, a village dressmaker who goes out to work at various parsons' houses, suggested to me that there might be a mystery about you? Such a handsome young lady, and single, and an infant baby! Can't you hear her? I jumped down her throat, and was glad to be able to say that Admiral Burke was a great friend of yours. Has he called yet? He told us that you and your brother were a devoted pair before your brother married. What a sad thing for him to lose his wife and only have this infant in her stead! I wish—"

She stopped and thought better of uttering her wish.

"What are you going to do with yourself here?"

"Read a great deal," said Sara, smiling at her visitor. "Write some letters, and fill up my other time with sewing, and playing with baby. What do you do with yourself? Have you any hobbies?"

"Yes, one. I paint—but not landscapes—figures and miniatures. I believe I could have been an artist, if I had not married. Then I should have been some good. Here I am a failure."

"You musn't say that to me," said Sara, briskly; "failures are such miserably depressing things. Why, you have hope and buoyancy in your face! I should think the villagers love a visit from you, don't they?"

"I hardly ever go near them. I told you, I hate visiting the poor. We haven't an idea in common. I did try to paint one of their children once, and what do you think the mother said after a few sittings? That she wasn't going to have her child tired out, just to bring more money to the rich. She said if she wasn't to be paid for it well, she shouldn't let her come. So I sent the child home at once. I suppose she thought I was going to paint a picture and sell it. I wonder if you would let me sketch you one day? You, and the wonderful baby! I saw you with him in the orchard as I came up the garden. You made quite a picture!"

Sara promised to give her a sitting, and she promptly arranged that she would come over the next day and make a start. Then she got up to go.

Sara asked her to stay to tea, but she said she had promised her husband to be back to tea with him.

"You must come to us. Come to tea with us to-morrow, after I have started my sketch. You see how unconventional I am; I ought to wait till you return my call. But I'm lonely and dull, and the very minute I saw your face, I wanted to know you. And now I'm going, and I've talked, as usual, of nobody but myself, and I know nothing of your interests, your life! You must talk to-morrow and I will listen. Good-bye."

Sara walked down to the garden gate with her visitor, rather breathless at the sudden onslaught which had been made upon her time and interest.

But she had noted the lonely wistful spirit behind the heedless self-centred talk, and her heart warmed to the young wife. She was glad that she had called.

When Mrs. Shiplake came in with the tea, she said—

"Well-a-day, ma'am, you've had Mrs. Peel a long time. Her don't dress or talk or act like our Rector's wife should, do her? Her be but a giddy thoughtless child, an' they say, her leadeth her husband a terrible life!"

"I thought she was a very bright pleasant little person," said Sara. "She is very young certainly, but that is a fault that will mend itself."

She would not discuss Mrs. Peel further with Mrs. Shiplake.

That good woman retired discomfited, but relieved her feelings by taking Lacy into her confidence. And when that worthy heard a list of young Mrs. Peel's indiscretions, she quietly said—

"Then the more she comes here the better, for Miss Darlington will do her good."

And Mrs. Shiplake had not a word to say.