Chapter XXII: Disappointment

"SLEPT well?" asked Miss Carmichael next morning, as Beryl came, glowing and fresh, out of the garden.

She did not look pretty; nothing could make Beryl's plain face pretty; but her open and honest enjoyment was pleasant to behold. The constraint of her school-days seemed to have vanished.

"I always sleep well," Beryl answered. "I have been out of doors half an hour and more. Only think; it is a week to-day since I came."

"Does it seem longer or shorter?" asked Hester.

"I don't know. Longer and shorter too, I think," said Beryl. "I am so happy that the time goes fast, and yet I feel as much at home here as if I had been months and months in the house. To think of weeks more still,—it seems like a dream."

"You will quite belong to us by the time they are over," said Hester.

"It 'feels' like belonging to you now," said Beryl.

Prayers at an end, they drew round the table, and Miss Carmichael's own hands supplied Beryl's plate with toast-and-butter. "Eggs and ham will come soon," she said. "But you are hungry with the fresh air, and you need not wait. Post come?—And another letter for Beryl! From Pearl, perhaps."

"No, it is Aunt Di's handwriting," said Beryl. "I didn't expect her to write to me."

She opened the letter, and, as she read, her happy face clouded over heavily.

"Bad news, my dear?" asked Miss Carmichael.

"They are not going abroad at all," said Beryl, in a thick and half-choked voice.

She crumpled the sheet together, and thrust it into her pocket, beginning to eat dry toast as fast as possible, under an evident impression that it was buttered. Hester handed her a cup of tea, and Beryl gulped some down hastily.

"Take care,—you will choke yourself," said Miss Carmichael.

She sat watching solicitously the girl's perturbed face, crimson with the struggle to keep down tears. It was plainly an almost hopeless struggle.

"Will she leave you with us a little longer, Beryl?" asked Miss Carmichael.

Beryl shook her head.

"What is the reason of the change?"

"I—don't know. I didn't—didn't read it all." She pulled out the crumpled sheet, and thrust it into her friend's hands, tears still gathering in hot rushes, and all but overflowing.

The letter ran as follows:

"DEAR BERYL,—Will you please to go back to our house early on Wednesday,—some time in the morning. I have decided to give up the Engadine entirely for this autumn, and Pearl and I will return from London to early dinner on Wednesday. I have sent word to the servants to go home the first thing on Tuesday, and they will get everything ready. I am dreadfully tired, and can't write more; and Pearl has cried herself ill about not going abroad, but it can't be helped. I dare say Miss Carmichael will be glad enough not to have you on her hands for a month or six weeks; anyhow, I must have you at home to help. It is time you should learn to be useful. Yours affectionately,—DIANE FENWICK."

"Mrs. Fenwick's surmise is wrong," said Miss Carmichael. "I am sorry, not glad." And seeing that Beryl did not understand, she read the letter aloud. "No reasons given, you see."

"It is terribly disappointing," said Hester.

Beryl was reaching a point beyond self-command.

Miss Carmichael saw this, and said quietly, "Come here."

Beryl obeyed, choking with sobs, and knelt down to hide her face on her friend's shoulder.

Miss Carmichael's arm, placed tenderly round her, spoke of comfort, yet the very tenderness made composure the more difficult, and Beryl's crying had about it something of the passionate emotion seen often in her childish days, though of late years commonly suppressed.

"My child, it isn't worth all this distress," said Miss Carmichael. "You are only going across the road. Come, dry your eyes and be brave. I didn't know there was such a reservoir of tears beneath. You and I shall meet often."

"It won't be the same," gasped Beryl. "She always tries to hinder me from coming. And I 'did' so want to be here next Sunday, the first time I go to—"

"Yes, I understand," said Miss Carmichael. "But that will be the same, child, wherever you are. The Master's Presence at the feast is its joy."

"Ah, but she will very likely make me feel so that I shall not think it right to go at all," murmured Beryl.

"I hope not. Something must be wrong if you can only come to the Master's Table when nothing has happened beforehand which could ruffle you. The things may happen—only don't be ruffled. Make it your aim to keep—or rather to be kept—in calmness."

"I'll try," Beryl said, rather despondingly. "But one doesn't always feel quiet when one looks quiet."

"Beryl Fordyce does not, certainly. My dear, there lies the difference between keeping calm and being kept calm by God. Our quietness is an outside affair very often. The peace of Christ, poured into our hearts, reaches to the very depths."

And then, as Beryl remained kneeling beside her, flushed and troubled, she added, "The tea is getting cold. Come, child, we are going to make a good breakfast, all of us. Emmie, give Beryl some eggs and ham."

Beryl had not seen them brought in, but there they were. She went back to her seat, and cried no more, but the heavy look of disappointment continued, a touch of sullenness being mingled with it.

Miss Carmichael took no notice of this. Breakfast at an end, she attended to household matters as usual, and was busy for an hour or more. Then she came to the drawing-room, and found Beryl seated idly in the window, gazing with a forlorn air into vacancy. Miss Carmichael realised suddenly the cause of Beryl's general unpopularity. In her present mood, she certainly did wear an exceedingly uninteresting appearance.

"What have you been doing since breakfast?" she asked cheerfully, taking a seat and pulling some work out of a drawer.

"Nothing," said Beryl.

"Hardly possible that, my dear. Some part of you must have been employed, whether hands or head."

"I have been thinking," said Beryl, with an effort.

"With what result?"

"I don't know. I don't feel as if anything was of much use," replied Beryl. "I feel as if I were just going back to the old way of things."

"Ah!" said Miss Carmichael quietly. "Then the vows of yesterday were hardly more than a form, after all. You are willing to be a soldier and servant of Christ just so long as you may do what 'you' wish. But if He gives an order which you don't quite like, away goes all thought of faithful service."

Beryl was silent, but her face grew softer, and Miss Carmichael left the words to work.

"I don't think I ought to have been confirmed," Beryl broke out suddenly. "I thought I had forgiven Mrs. Fenwick, and I haven't."

"Forgiven her for what?"

"For—everything," said Beryl. "If I had forgiven her, I shouldn't be so angry with her for this."

"You were able to forgive her last week for anything of seeming unkindness in the past. If you are tempted again to an unforgiving spirit, you must fight the battle over again, and conquer in your Master's strength. But as for 'this'—my dear, you are not so childish as to blame her, without knowing her reasons."

Beryl looked ashamed. "I will not," she said. "But I 'did' feel so vexed—"

"Then don't be vexed any more, for you have no cause. You cannot tell what moves her. Better to take the disappointment straight from God's hand, Beryl. That will save much needless worrying. It is His will for you; what matters anything else?"

"It did seem such happiness to be here, and I meant to learn so much," murmured Beryl. "And nobody cares for me there."

"Well," said Miss Carmichael slowly—

"'If loving hearts were never lonely,
If all they wish might always be,
Accepting what they wish for only,
They might be glad, BUT NOT IN THEE.'"

"I didn't think of that," said Beryl, understanding more quickly than Miss Carmichael had expected, for she was not usually quick to grasp another's thought. "Please say it again."

Miss Carmichael obeyed, adding no remarks.

"But I thought—'you' would teach me," whispered Beryl.

"A child at school doesn't have the choosing of her own class and teacher," said Miss Carmichael somewhat quaintly.

"There is nobody to teach me anything at home."

"There is your Master Himself, Beryl."

"I suppose I would rather learn from you than in any other way," said Beryl, tears threatening again. But the sullen look was gone.

"I dare say you would, dear. Most of us would rather turn to the right, when God tells us to turn to the left."

Beryl sighed audibly.

"Aunt Di means to make use of me now," she said. "It doesn't look much like getting away to be a hospital nurse."

"If you are wanted in Hurst, you are not wanted for hospital work," said Miss Carmichael. "Patience, Beryl, and don't be too eager to shape life for yourself. You do not know what God may have for you to do first, over the way. Only remember it is work of His setting, not merely of Mrs. Fenwick's."

And Beryl said at length, meekly, "I am afraid I have been very wrong this morning."