Chapter VI: An Evening Talk

"YOU don't mind sitting up here in the evening, do you?" May asked this question of Sara after dinner the first evening.

They were in the library. The Squire's chair was drawn up to the fire just as when he was there, but Sara noticed that May never sat in it. In the same way, the chair at the head of the dining-table was always there, but it was never used. May drew a low chair up to the fire by Sara's side. It was the first time they had been alone. At May's suggestion the lamps had not been lighted. Only the wax candles on the big carved writing-table gave light besides the fire, but the flames flickered and danced merrily up the wide chimney, and touched with golden sparkles the books in the bookcases, the pictures on the walls, and the handsome copper and silver ornaments about the long room.

"Father and I always sat here after dinner," said May, gently. "And I like to think that his spirit is here still. You will not laugh at me if I tell you something. Yesterday, all day long, I was hunting for an important paper which Mr. Dane wanted. I knew father had had it in his hand in this room the day before—before his accident. I came up here, and I searched everywhere for it. I turned out the drawers in the writing-table, I ransacked the bureau for it, I searched everywhere. And last night as I was sitting here alone, I felt that father was near me. I said out loud:

"'If only you would tell me where you put it!'

"This morning I came here again and had another hunt, and, do you know, when I opened his writing-table drawer—there was the paper just doubled in half on the very top! Now don't you think he came back and put it there himself?"

Sara, looking at May's pale earnest face, could not answer her for a moment, and May, quick to read faces, exclaimed—

"I see you don't believe it. You will say I hadn't looked properly, that it was a coincidence. Well, you can think what you like. But I know, and am perfectly certain, that there was no coincidence about it."

A little silence fell on them. Then May said, abruptly—

"Where is he, Miss Darlington? He was taken so suddenly. He was alive to his finger tips! What an awfully cruel thing death is! How can he be silent towards me if the best part of him is living still. And what is he doing? And what is he thinking? Oh, I wish I knew! I don't doubt where he is! Father was always so very good, though he never talked much. Do you know, he used to read a chapter out of mother's Bible every night before he went to sleep? And I shall never forget his saying to me in this very room the first night after I came home from school:

"'My dear, your mother was a good woman, and she isn't here to teach you. I want you to be like her. Will you always say your prayers and read your Bible in the quiet of your bedroom every day? I promised your mother I would do it, and I want you to do it too.'

"Of course I promised."

"It is a great comfort to have such memories as that," said Sara with a little smile. "And I should trust your father to God's own keeping, dear May. Don't have an anxious or unhappy thought about him. He was spared a long illness, which is so trying to men."

"Oh yes," May said listlessly. "I do believe he is all right. It is not his fate which depresses me, but my own. I have lost everything with him! He and I enjoyed everything together, now I shall never enjoy anything without him. I have lost my appetite. Can you understand me? Nothing interests me now. I try to do everything as I have always done, and I am struggling to take over a good deal that he did. There is plenty to keep me occupied, but deep down in my heart is the awful blank which will never be filled."

"I think I can understand," said Sara, tenderly. "I have gone through the same experience myself."

"Not exactly the same, have you? And I am not brave enough to face my future. Let me tell you. It is a relief to talk to some one. Shall I bore you?"

"My dear child!"

Sara's little caressing touch on her arm made May exclaim—

"You're the only person who seems to care a bit about me! I don't know if you have heard about my brother Alan. He is in the Navy, and just lately he has become engaged to an old friend of ours, Lilian Rush. Everything is left to him—house, property, and every penny of money. I have nothing but three hundred a year left me by my mother. I suppose father considered that enough, but then he expected that I shall be dependent on Alan for a home. I know he will retire from his profession, and settle down here at once. He will marry, of course. I cannot, and will not, stay here with them, so it means a break-up of all I value and love. Aren't women at a disadvantage? It seems so cruel to be turned out of my home and give my place to a stranger, one not of the same blood, and who can never love the family things as I do? Mr. Peel talked to me the other day of comfort coming to me. I thought how little he knew my circumstances to imagine I could 'ever' be comforted."

She spoke with passion. Clasping her hands round her knees, she looked into the glowing embers of the fire with gloomy sullen eyes.

And then Sara spoke.

"My dear, I don't often talk about myself, but I want you to listen to me now. I suppose you look upon me as a happy woman?"

"The personification of happiness!" said May, looking at the sweet sunny face opposite her. "Everybody says you carry a fund of sunshine about with you. Though I'm so miserable myself, I felt I couldn't stand long-faced tearful people about me. That's why I asked you to come to me. I have been wading through hundreds of letters of consolation, and there hasn't been one with a spark of brightness in it. Resignation they all preach, and at present, I am full of resentment."

"It is some years now since I lost my father," said Sara, slowly and softly. "Strange to say you and I are much alike in our experience. I had a country home like you. I hunted with my father, and after my mother's death did everything with him. Then he died, and not only did I lose him, but my home went as well. We had to sell the estate, and my brother and I went to London and had a hard struggle to live whilst he was an unknown briefless barrister. Then gradually he got on in his profession, and when I fancied we were settling down to a comfortable life together, he met a girl whom he liked, and my second home was broken up. These are just the facts of my life, but I want to tell you something more.

"In the early days, when the crash came, and I had to see all our family belongings sold, when I was leaving my home, and all the people I cared about, I was like you, rebellious and miserable. I could not, and would not, see any light for myself anywhere. And then one day, our Rector preached a sermon. I have never forgotten it.

"'The joy of the Lord is, your strength.'

"He told us first of all how joy in the heart carried people on the crest of the wave in time of storm and stress, how it strengthened and braced all the weakness in them, how absolutely impossible it was for them to sink under the biggest trouble that could come to them in this world if they had joy inside them. He compared it to a life-belt.

"'Joy won't let you drown,' he said, 'but take care that it is not a spurious imitation of the genuine article.'

"And then, having made our mouths water for this wonderful attribute, he told us how we could get it."

May looked interested.

"I never realized you had been through a bad time like mine," she said. "I suppose you got this joy, and have kept it ever since."

"You can have it too, dear."

"Oh, I know! I know! Do you remember your little song? Isn't it an extraordinary thing you sang that on the eve of our trouble? I remember father saying he loved it. How did it go? I remember something about a maid in a black gown who was singing because she had joy in her heart! But nothing can bring me joy, nothing!"

"Oh yes, May, you could obtain as I did."

"How did you get it?"

"I went down on my knees in church, and again when I got home, and besought for my poor desolate empty heart to be flooded with the love and joy that only my Saviour could give me. He came in Himself, and took possession of me. It's the knowledge of His love that brings the joy, May. You can bear anything if you lean hard on Him, and realize that He is with you through it all. If we can't understand the reason why, He stills our questionings by telling us we shall see the way He has led us by and by, and acknowledge that it all has worked out for our good. If you know a person loves you very much, you can't help trusting him."

May was silent. She was naturally reserved, and Sara knew that this was an opportunity that she might not get again. So she went on talking in her soft happy voice, and at last, her words began to impress May with an inexplicable conviction of their truth and reality.

"It may seem a strange thing to be talking about joy to you at this time," concluded Sara, "but our Lord did it to His disciples in the darkest hour of their lives, and when His agony was just coming upon Him. It's one of the Heavenly paradoxes, that when we're full of trouble, we can be full of joy. And it's such exquisite, unseen joy, that only we ourselves know about."

"The knowledge that our Lord was close to me could bring me no joy," said May, slowly, "for I don't love Him."

"But He loves you," Sara said quickly; "that's what brings the joy."

Then they were silent, the firelight flickering upon their faces, upon May's troubled eyes and hard shut mouth, upon Sara's tender, glowing gaze.

When they parted for the night a little latter, May kissed Sara very warmly.

"You're a wonderful person!" she said. "As a rule, I hate jaws from pious people, but with you it seems so simple and natural, a part of yourself, that nothing jars. You have given me something to think about. It's rather queer your life altering after hearing that text. For our Rector quoted it to me when talking about you the other day. He said he always said to himself when he looked at you, 'The joy of the Lord is her strength.'"

"Oh," said Sara with tears in her eyes; "I'm a very poor creature, but the poorest creatures can be made happy, and can tell others how they have been made so."

May said nothing more. She rather avoided another heart-to-heart talk in the evenings afterwards. And Sara was quite content to leave her alone. She never forced her views upon any one. And certainly she and her baby nephew brought brightness into the sad house.

May would often steal away to the nursery. She was very fond of children and Baby Oliver was a friendly little soul. He learnt to know her and look for her, and his chubby arms would be extended at once to be taken up and amused. They saw very little of outside neighbours.

Nellie came up to the Hall occasionally, but as she told Sara when she met her out one day, she was not good at talking to people when they were in trouble.

"I'm jealous of May. She has taken possession of you altogether. I have nobody to go off to, and pour out all my woes and troubles to now. And John and I do get so tired of each other. How long are you going to stay here? Till Captain Agnew comes home?"

"I think so," replied Sara.

And then Nellie had laughed and gone off calling out—

"It will be my turn then to have you."

Sara at this time was rather taken up with the news that Mrs. Laird was giving her in her letters.

Eva's serious illness was a great surprise to her.

Then one day the following letter came:—

"MY DEAREST SARA,

"You will be surprised and pleased to hear that Eva has of her own accord sent for me to come and see her. I told you, did I not? that she is in bed now, and too weak to get up. Graham is wonderful. He is always with her, when he is not at his office, and I do not expect to see much of him. I went round to Eva this afternoon. She looks very ill, and has attacks of pain which are distressing to witness. But she rallies wonderfully from them. She has altered very much. As I looked at her, and then at my boy, I could not help noticing that there was a calm peacefulness and serenity about their faces that used not to be upon them. I suppose they have learnt to fit into each other's ways, and to love each other. Graham left us together, and Sara, the last bit of anger and dislike to Eva left me. When she put her hand into mine and said, 'I want to be quite sure of your forgiveness, Cousin Rachael. I've had an unhappy past, but God has forgiven me and given me His peace, and I'm not afraid to go to Him now.' She told me the end might come in any one of these heart attacks, and she was longing to go. Then she added: 'I have selfishly made Graham's life very unhappy this last year, but I am not sorry he married me, and I do not think he will be, when he remembers what he has done for me.' All her peevishness and discontent has gone.

"I came away from her, feeling that a miracle had been performed, and then I suddenly thought of myself and of what I was like a couple of years ago, and I began to see that what changed my outlook, has changed hers. Graham walked home with me. He was very silent, but very dear. He told me that Eva's little girl was coming home from school for the holidays, that her mother wanted to see her. I have never seen the child, but I remember you spoke of her as a dear little thing. I have a strong feeling that Eva may not be with us at Christmas. God only knows. This is a dull stupid letter. I get a great longing for you, Sara, sometimes. When shall we see each other again?

"Much love,

"Your loving old friend,

"RACHAEL LAIRD."

Sara was hardly surprised to hear a fortnight later of Eva's death. For a day or two there was a shadow upon her spirit, which impressed itself upon her face. Even May noticed it, but she asked no questions. Sara was peculiarly reticent about her life with the Lairds. She rarely mentioned them; in some way she felt a shrinking from doing so. And yet now in the time of his trouble, Graham was continually in her thoughts. She wondered if his faith in God had increased during the time when he must have gone down for part of the way with his wife into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And she longed to be able to send him some bit of comfort. She could only pray for him, and that she never failed to do.

About Christmas time, she got a long letter from Mrs. Laird—

"MY DEAREST SARA,

"It seemed to me that poor Eva's funeral was no sooner over than Graham
came to me to ask me my advice about her child.

"'I promised Eva I would be a father to her,' he said, 'and I have written to her, and she must spend her holidays with me. It will be dull for a small child alone in that big house.'

"He paused, and, Sara, I knew what he hoped. And I could not bring myself to say it. I have never had a child in the house since my little Dorrie died. A child of Eva's, with her mother's nature—well, I will not write as I felt! The old Adam dies hard, Sara! Then I asked Graham if he was going to live in that big house by himself. And he sighed and said he felt he must, until he could let it. 'The child must have a home, mother,' he said. 'Well,' I said, 'after her holidays, you might come back to me for a little.' And he smiled. The first smile that has crossed his lips since Eva died. 'I think I might, mother,' he said. And my heart kindled at his words.

"Yesterday the child arrived. He met her at the station and brought her to see me on their way home. As they passed the house, it seemed natural to him to do it, but I felt irritated at first—until I saw her. I was sitting in the big drawing-room. Graham had run upstairs first to ask me if he could bring her up. I hope he did not see my hesitation. Then he went back, and a moment afterwards, she softly crept in at the door and stood looking at me shyly and wistfully. Such a tiny slim little thing in her deep black!—with big blue eyes and very fair hair.

"I held out my hand, and she came sedately across to me. I kissed her, Sara. She did not say one word. I wondered if my face was grim and set, and if she was frightened of me. Somehow or other a sense of her loneliness took possession of me.

"'Have you had a nice journey?' I asked her for want of something better to say. She looked at me, then clasped her small hands across her chest.

"'I felt,' she said, 'like Mummy used to—in a lonely world without
nobody to love me. And Mummy had me, and I have nobody.'

"Great tears were in her eyes. I was going to put my arms right round her and take her to my heart, when suddenly her little face became perfectly radiant, and she sprang towards the table on which your picture was—the one you sent me with your little nephew in your arms. 'Why!' she cried. 'It's my dearest Miss Darling! Does she live with you? Mummy told me she had gone away.'

"'So she has,' I said. But she did not hear me, she was hanging over the picture in ecstasy. Then she turned to Graham who was following her in. 'Oh!' she cried. 'My Miss Darling has got a baby! It's the one thing I mean to have direck'ly I'm growed up. How very kind of God to send her one.'

"Graham smiled.

"'Come along,' he said, 'we mustn't keep the cab waiting.'

"She turned towards me at once, and put up her face for a good-bye kiss.

"'Please, what may I call you? And may I, if I'm very good, come to see Miss Darling's picture another day? She was a very special fren' of mine, and I lost her so very soon.'

"I tell you, Sara, I longed to keep the child for good and all. And I
said in a voice that astonished myself—'You may call me Grannie, dear.'

"'Good night, Grannie dear,' she repeated, softly, and then Graham took
her away.

"And now, Sara, I have been unpacking a box of Dorrie's books and playthings, for if she and Graham do not come and live with me, I shall go and live with them.

"I can write no more. Much love,

"Your loving old friend,

"RACHAEL."

"Ah!" murmured Sara to herself as she read and re-read this letter. "I do not feel sorry for Graham if he has little True to share his big empty house with him. She will cheer both him and his mother!"

And she wrote a long letter in reply to Mrs. Laird, in which she begged her to use her influence over the motherless child.

"True responds so quickly if you talk to her. She has had so little religious teaching that I always wonder that her faith in God is so sure and strong."

Mrs. Laird acted upon Sara's suggestion. And day by day she and little True drew nearer to each other, until the old lady was never happy away from her.

True said to her stepfather—

"Grannie and I understand alike about some things, you know. I tell her about fairyland, and she tells me about Heaven, and I really think they're the same place, don't you?"

And Graham looked at the child in amused astonishment. She often reduced him to helpless silence.