Chapter IV: Desolation

"WHAT a deluge!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Cosh, coming to the window where Felicia stood gazing out into the street. She laid her large hand with a kindly pressure on the little girl's shoulder as she spoke. "I'm afraid master will get very wet coming home from work. One thing I'm glad of, and that is, that it did not rain like this in the afternoon."

"Yes," assented Felicia, "I am glad it kept fine till—till all was over."

That afternoon she and Mrs. M'Cosh had followed her mother to her last earthly resting-place in the cemetery, and now she was experiencing more keenly than ever that sense of desolation which had fallen upon her when she had left the death-chamber three days previously. The weather, which had been dry, though overclouded, throughout the morning and afternoon, had now turned to rain, which was descending in torrents, and running in streams down the gutters on either side of the street. It was weather in keeping with her feelings, Felicia told herself; she thought she would have felt her sorrow still more acutely if the sun had shone that day.

The last week had passed like a dream to the little mourner. She was truly grateful to Mr. and Mrs. M'Cosh, who had not only given her the shelter of their own home, but had saved her mother from the degradation of a pauper's funeral; and now she was thinking that she could not remain with these kind friends much longer, she must keep her promise to her mother, and go to her father's people.

"How I wish I could stay with you altogether," she whispered by-and-by, her soft blue eyes shining through tears—"with you and dear Mr. M'Cosh!"

"Ah! I wish we could keep you, my dear, and so does master, I'm sure!"

"Supposing my grandfather and grandmother don't want me," suggested Felicia, sighing, "what shall I do then?"

"Why, then, you can come back to us. Yes, I mean it. Master and I talked the matter over last night, and he said I must impress upon you that you'd never be without friends in the world whilst we're alive."

Felicia flung her arms impulsively around the good woman's neck, and hugged and kissed her rapturously. How much rather would she face the future with Mr. and Mrs. M'Cosh than with strangers like her relations. But there was her promise to her mother to be kept. Oh, she did hope her grandparents would refuse her a home!

Later in the evening, after Mr. M'Cosh had returned from work, and had had his supper, he and his wife fell to talking of Felicia's prospects in life. It appeared he had been making inquiries about the little girl's relatives, and had learnt that they lived in a house called the Priory, on the outskirts of the village of N—, in Somersetshire. Felicia had the address in a pocket-book of her mother's, which contained several papers of importance, including her parents' marriage certificate.

"The Priory is a fine place, I'm told," Mr. M'Cosh remarked; "my mate worked there once when Mr. Renford was making some alterations in his stables, but more than half of the house is shut up. Doesn't it seem somehow wrong," he proceeded meditatively, "to think of Felicia and the poor soul who's gone living upstairs in that attic, when there's so many rooms wasting, so to speak, in that great house?"

"It seems most unjust!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Cosh indignantly. "Mr. Renford must be—" She paused abruptly, doubting whether it would be wisdom to say what she thought of Felicia's grandfather.

"Did you, hear what my grandmother was like, Mr. M'Cosh?" inquired Felicia anxiously.

"No, my dear, my mate never saw her, and he was told she seldom went out, except for drives in fine weather. The Priory is a very old house, beautifully situated in the midst of lovely scenery. Why, Felicia, you'll hardly know yourself there!"

"Perhaps I shan't be wanted," said Felicia with a little choking sob.

But Mr. M'Cosh was of a different opinion, and said so. He thought such a pretty little girl as Felicia would be very welcome in the big, lonely house his friend had been at some pains to depict to him. It seemed strange, after all he had heard, that Mr. Renford's grandchild should be his guest, and he regarded her with a somewhat wistful expression in his mild blue eyes, which Felicia noticed and wondered at.

"When do you think I ought to go to the Priory?" she asked in a tearful voice.

"Well, let me see, it's Friday now," Mr. M'Cosh observed reflectively; "we'd like to keep you till Monday, if you'll stay—eh, missus?"

Mrs. M'Cosh nodded silently.

"If I'll stay!" cried Felicia. "Oh, if I could always live with you, how delighted I should be! But I promised mother to go to father's relations, and, of course, I must go."

"They have the best right to you, my dear. Don't you think, though, you ought to write and say you're coming?" And Mr. M'Cosh glanced dubiously from the little girl to his wife.

"No," the latter answered, "her mother said particularly that she was to go—that her grandparents might see her."

"But I have no money," Felicia said with a painful blush.

"Oh, we can manage that!" Mr. M'Cosh told her reassuringly. "Your journey money will be very little. N— is only an hour's ride by train from Bristol, it's on the main line."

"But—but you have spent so much money on me already," murmured the little girl distressfully, "on me and—her! Oh, don't think I don't realise all you've done for us! I know you've paid for the funeral, and my new black frock and hat, and—and there's nothing I can do for you in return! I owe you so much—so much!"

"Never mind that," said Mr. M'Cosh earnestly, "we've been glad to help." He coughed as though there was something in his throat, then continued: "The missus and I had a little girl ourselves once, my dear; she didn't stay with us very long, and we thought it was cruelly hard God should take her away. When we heard the earth fall on her little coffin, we felt—well, much as you felt this afternoon, I expect—as though our hearts would never cease aching, as though we could never be happy again because of our loss; but as time went on, we were glad to know our child was safe with God. If she had lived, she would have been about your age, and that's made us take to you; isn't that so?" he asked, turning to his wife, who nodded assent.

This was the first occasion on which Felicia had ever heard mention made of the dead child, and she was very touched. Sore-hearted herself, she could enter into the sorrow of these good people, and sympathise with them. She had lost her mother; they had lost their child.

The next day she paid a farewell visit to the home which had been hers and her mother's for the past two years. Already it had been re-let and the new tenant was to come into residence that night. The attic was scrupulously clean, for Mrs. M'Cosh had thoroughly scrubbed the floor and rubbed the few pieces of furniture which belonged to the owner of the house.

Poor Felicia flung herself down beside the empty bed and wept heart-brokenly; then, exhausted by the violence of her grief, she crept to the window and looked out on the familiar view. It almost seemed as though she must hear her mother's voice addressing her presently. The last week appeared so unreal—like a hideous dream, the final scene of which had been enacted yesterday afternoon. Felicia had never attended a funeral before her mother's, and now as she stood by the open window, her aching eyes raised above the roofs and chimney tops to the wide expanse of sky overhead, she recalled the opening words of the Service of the previous day. And as she repeated them softly to herself they fell like healing balm upon her heart—

"'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'"

Her mother had believed, of that she was certain, therefore she need have no fears for her. And for herself—oh, she must not be a coward, she must trust her future to God's hands! She looked around the little attic, and wondered if she would ever see it again. She could picture her mother seated at the round table working the sewing machine even better than she could picture her on the bed in the corner. She was glad of that, for she would far rather think of her well than ill. How bright and cheerful she had been in her days of health, and how bravely she had faced sickness and death. What was that verse she had repeated to her one day when she, Felicia, had been inclined to grumble? Ah, she remembered! And she hoped she might never forget.

"God never would send you the darkness
If He knew you could bear the light;
But you would not cling to His guiding hand
If the way were always bright;
And you would not learn to walk by faith,
Could you always walk by sight."

She would try to walk by faith, but she dreaded the thought of facing those who had, as she knew, despised and disapproved of her mother; and deep down in her heart was still the hope that her grandparents would close their doors against her, in which case she would gladly return to the friends God had raised up for her in her time of need. Mr. M'Cosh was only a workingman, and his wife was only a working-woman, but there was nothing "common" about them as Felicia understood the word, and she was sure she would be quite content to live with them.

Suddenly Mrs. M'Cosh's rubicund countenance appeared round the door, and her deep voice interrupted Felicia's reverie—

"You've been here long enough, child," she said, "better come downstairs."

"I'm coming," Felicia answered readily, and though her face was swollen and her eyes red with weeping, her tone was less listless than it had been during the last few days.

"I came to look for you because I feared you were grieving," Mrs. M'Cosh explained solicitously; "it's natural you should, but depend upon it, you needn't grieve for her."

"No, it's for myself—that's selfish, I suppose. It seems to me I never can be quite my old self again. Nothing is the same now she is gone."

"I think when one loses someone one cares for very much, one never can be quite as one was before," Mrs. M'Cosh said musingly; "it gives one a solemn kind of feeling to know there's someone who loves one dearly waiting for one in Heaven, doesn't it?"

Felicia agreed; and after another lingering glance around the room, she followed Mrs. M'Cosh downstairs. Thus she said good-bye, for ever, to her attic home.