Chapter XIII: Bluebell's Return

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home."—GOETHE.

CAPTAIN VAUGHAN only stayed with his sister for a week. Heather was a little afraid of him. He was apt to be quietly sarcastic, and his eyes seemed to note everything—not a thing escaped his keen observation. Yet his sharpest speeches were always given with a kindly look in his eyes, and he had a fund of keen humour which made him a most entertaining companion. When he left, Ena, true to her promise, came to stay with Heather.

Abigail was rather doubtful of these newcomers, but Heather ruled the old servants now with fearless firmness, and after a few days, Abigail's stern heart was quite won by Ena's sweet good nature.

As the two old servants heard the merry talk and laughter proceeding from the drawing-room in the evening, Abigail, instead of shaking her head, would grimly smile—

"Ay, 'tis not the unholy mirth that Mrs. Carter brought with her. That was the crackling of thorns under the pot. Miss Vaughan is a Christian woman, and 'tis she I find that has helped Miss Heather so. One likes to hear voices about. I've felt sorry for the poor child. And as to Miss Bluebell, I fear she's entirely lost to us and to all that's right. She seems sucked into the giddy stream of worldly gaiety!"

The fortnight soon slipped away.

And one afternoon, Heather returned to her home after bidding farewell to her friend. She felt doubly lonely now, and needed all her spirit to keep her from being depressed. But she was daily learning lessons from a Master who was becoming very near and dear to her, and though not always able to see bright sunshine, was able to draw all the comfort and strength she needed for her daily life from above.

"It is a test now of how much I lean upon the Lord," she would say to herself. And the old servants never missed her bright smile and tones.

Quietly and steadily, Heather was seeking to influence the villagers she visited for good. It was no unusual thing for her to read a few verses from her little Bible that she carried about with her, or have a few words of prayer with those who were sick or in trouble. And she found that, in seeking to help and comfort others, she obtained help and comfort herself.

It was late autumn now; the days were drawing in, and the weather became damp and cold. Storms of wind and rain swept round the house, the leaves from the old elms lay on the ground sodden with the wet, and the canaries, instead of brightening the house with their song, crouched on their perches with ruffled feathers and disconsolate gaze.

Heather tried hard to keep cheerful. She had learnt the secret of being always busy when she felt particularly lonely. But one wet afternoon, she laid down a book she had been reading, and abandoned herself to her thoughts. She seemed to see again that wet afternoon when she came in from her walk and found Bluebell reading "Ivanhoe" by the dining-room fire. How long ago it seemed! How differently she viewed life now, since that first burst of longing to see the world and widen her circle! Wrapped in her thoughts, she did not hear a fly drive up to the door, nor steps and voices in the hall. But in a moment, the door opened, and Bluebell flung herself into her arms.

"I have come back, Heather! I can't live without you! I'm tired of them all, and have come home!"

The sisters embraced each other, divided between tears and laughter. And it was some time before Bluebell could calm herself sufficiently to tell her story.

After a cup of tea, which Abigail brought in with a dazed, bewildered face, Bluebell began at once—

"Oh, how good it is to be with you again! I've longed to say things in my letters, and then I felt I couldn't. I am afraid Cousin Ida is awfully vexed with me. Her last words were,—

"'You have both thoroughly disappointed me!'

"The fact is, Heather, I can't stand Sir Herbert! I used to fancy I was in love with him, but I never was quite sure. And our yachting trip settled it. By the time we had had a month of it, I was perfectly sick of him! Bored to death with his prosiness! He is as dull as ditchwater, and it would be dreadful to live with a husband who could never see or make a joke! Now, wouldn't it? I've simply run away from him. I sent him a note last night to say how sorry I was, but that I was sure we should never suit each other. You know I've been with Cousin Ida for a fortnight. Well, he has come round to the house every single day after me. I couldn't really stand it. Cousin Hal said he would be a good antidote to me. I told him it takes a fool to be always content with his own jokes. Oh, may I never see another serious man as long as I live! I am tired to death with his dulness and gravity. And so I thought the best thing I could do was to come straight home to you. I will stay in seclusion till all unpleasantness is over, and people will have found something else to talk about. Do you think me heartless, Heather? I am sorry for him. I think I have treated him shamefully, but isn't it better to stop now than go on pretending I care for him till it is too late to draw back? Oh, do comfort me, for I'm perfectly miserable!"

Here Bluebell broke down and burst into floods of tears, and Heather was too glad and thankful to have her back again to scold her. She petted and caressed and sympathized with her. And by the time dinner came round, Bluebell had quite recovered her flow of high spirits, and was making Heather laugh at her naïve accounts of the yachting trip.

She tripped down to dinner in a pale-blue silk dress, looking as fresh as a rose, and when she caught Abigail's disapproving eye in the hall, she danced up to her.

"Well, Abigail, aren't you glad to see me back again? Have you no welcome for me? For shame! Heather is the only one who is really delighted to see me."

"What have you come back for, Miss Bluebell?" asked Abigail, severely.

"Why did Heather come back? Is that how you greeted her? What a dismal time she must have had! Now, Abigail, you must be nice. I'm going to alarm you with my goodness. I have seen the error of my ways. That is why I have come back, of course! Can't you give me a tiny smile? Don't you like the idea of having both of us in your power for a little while?"

"You have grown out of my power, Miss Bluebell, and you know it! More's the pity! I would fain see you in a more modest dress, and with a more sober demeanour!"

"What is the matter with my dress? Heather is in a white one. Oh, you don't like to see so much of my neck, do you? Well, don't look, then. And as to a sober demeanour, I wasn't born with one, Abigail, and you know I wasn't!"

She left her, and joined Heather in the dining-room with a radiant face.

"It is good to be at home again," she said; "and how you've improved the house, Heather! But there is a great deal more to be done. We must get some fresh carpets and chintz for the drawing-room, and have several of the rooms re-papered. I shall enjoy doing it. It will give me something to do."

"But, Bluebell, we have no money to spare for that kind of thing. I have hardly got things straight yet."

"Don't remind me of money. I shall have to borrow from you to pay my dressmaker's last bill. She is bothering me continually about it. Why can't every one have enough and to spare, I wonder!"

Heather looked at her sister gravely. She saw she was talking recklessly to conceal her true feelings, and was sorry that Abigail, who was in the room, should hear her talk so. But Bluebell did not care. She chatted on, as if she had not a care or thought beyond herself and her own concerns, and Abigail left them at their dessert with a sore and anxious heart.

"She has come back as frivolous and empty-headed as Mrs. Carter," she confided to Rachael. "Ay, 'tis sad to be her! I could sit down and weep. She'll be for trying to entice Miss Heather up to London soon again, that is what I fear. And she talks of her debts as gaily as if it was the usual thing to buy things and have no money to pay for them!"

The twins had much to talk over, but it was not until they were upstairs in their bedroom over their fire that Bluebell began to soften.

She looked at Heather's Bible dreamily.

"Have you really become good, Heather? I couldn't quite understand from your letters?"

"No," said Heather, smiling, "I am afraid I haven't. I should like to. I will tell you about it some other time. You look tired and sleepy. I have found that real religion makes you very happy. That is all I will say to-night."

"Do you remember Abigail's text?" said Bluebell, gazing into the fire thoughtfully. "'She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth'? It has come true, in my case. I have lived in pleasure, and my soul is perfectly dead!"

"Oh, Bluebell, don't say such shocking things!"

"But it is true. I never read my Bible. Prayer is just an empty form to me. I have really no religion except going to church on Sunday. I went out for a walk with Cousin Cyril yesterday. He has been away, and came in for the first time. He asked me how my religion was getting on? He always asks that question, periodically, if you remember. I told him, it had left me entirely. He was silent for a whole minute! Then, what do you think he said?

"'I've been with a fellow lately who has the real article, and I'm more than half inclined to try for it myself!'"

"That does not sound like Cyril," said Heather, softly.

Bluebell looked at her quickly. Then she left her chair, and seating herself on the floor beside her sister, she leant her head against her knees. After a pause, she said quietly—

"Heather, tell me, has there ever been anything between Cyril and you?"

"Between Cyril and me!" Heather repeated in astonishment. "Why, of course not. I have always liked him, but I always bracket Cousin Hal and him together. He is like a brother, that is all. Why do you ask? I am sure neither he nor I ever did anything to set people talking!"

"Oh no; I never heard any one mention your names," said Bluebell, yawning slightly. "I only used to wonder, sometimes, if that was the reason you never seemed to fancy any one else!"

"Do you know," said Heather, and a faint flush came to her cheeks and a proud intonation into her voice, "that this is why I am thankful to be at home again? There is no question of marriage or of love. I got so tired of it. I feel I can breathe freely again. I don't think it is a nice atmosphere to spend one's life in. I never saw a single man that I would think twice about, and I always hated the chaff and talk about such things."

Bluebell sighed. "I have made a mess of my affair," she said, "but I was forced into it, and forced on. I think it was rather a shame." Then, almost under her breath, she added, "Why is it, that it is always the wrong man?"

Heather heard, but answered nothing. She only pondered as she lay in bed that night: Who, then, was the right man?

The sisters had much to talk over for the next few days. Bluebell was here, there, and everywhere, apparently as gay and light-hearted as ever. She bore the villagers' outspoken remarks with laughing equanimity. Watty told her that she "had aged considerable," Ralph that he "didn't expec' to see her without her bridegroom," Mrs. Carpenter that "folks were sayin' that Missis Abigail was shakin' her head over Miss Bluebell's carryin' on, and now she was to home agen, she meant to keep her there!"

Yet Heather was keenly conscious that Bluebell's apparent levity was only on the surface. She told her soon about her own experience, and finished up by saying wistfully—

"I wish you could see it as I do, Bluebell, or as we are meant to see it."

Bluebell shook her pretty head.

"No, no; I'm afraid I shall never feel religious again. I love the world too much. I could never settle down here as you have done. I can't think how you can stand it!"

"Don't I look happy? I am. I think happier than I have ever been in my life before!"

"Oh yes, you're radiant. 'Brilliant' is what you were called in town. Cousin Ida is rather disgusted with you quitting a fashionable life so soon. And, by-the-by, she knows of a poor lady that she wants us to have here as a chaperon. I told her I didn't intend to bury myself here very long, but she is uneasy about you. She says this Mrs.—now what is her name?—Fish—Fisher, that's it—Mrs. Fisher would be glad of a home, and wouldn't require any salary, so you need not refuse her on that score. What do you think about it? We might have people to stay if she were here."

"We have not the means to entertain at present, Bluebell. It is out of the question. Does Cousin Ida think I am settled here for good and all?"

"She is afraid so."

"I did not intend to be here altogether, when I first came back," said Heather, slowly, "but I think now that I shall be."

"Well, then, you must have Mrs. Fisher. I will write and tell Cousin Ida to send her down."

"Oh, Bluebell! And we shall never be alone together again. It will be dreadful having a third person always with us. I cannot understand your wishing it."

"I think it will be expedient; I want to have a little gaiety even here this winter. We can do nothing till she comes."

Impetuous Bluebell had her way, and before another fortnight had elapsed, Mrs. Fisher arrived, and was soon a settled inmate of their home. She was a quiet, unpretentious little widow. "An ideal chaperon" she was called by girls whom she had taken about. She was the wife of a naval officer who had lately died, and had seen a good bit of life in her young days.

She adapted herself to her vocation with easy complacency, and even Abigail found nothing to say against her.

The twins did not find her in the way. They walked, and talked, and planned out their days together in the old style. But Heather felt that there was a chasm between them that could not be bridged over, and her heart ached over her bright young sister when she saw how uninterested she was in spiritual things. She did not say much, but she prayed night and morning for her, and dimly began to understand a little of the stern Abigail's sentiments about a society life for her nurslings.

Bluebell seemed entirely swallowed up in it. She was restless and discontented at the narrow sphere in which she found herself. She did not care to visit in the village; her talk, her aspirations, her hopes, were all in the gay world which she had left. Yet at times, she would sit looking at Heather with a sweet gravity that was out of keeping with her reckless chatter. And one evening, by their bedroom fire, she startled Heather by saying—

"I think, when I am thirty, if I am not married, I will try to be good."

Heather smiled at the childish sentence, then she said earnestly—

"Bluebell, do you remember telling me before we went to London that you wanted your religion to be real, but that you had never had it tested?"

"Yes; it didn't stand the test, Heather, it failed me."

"It wasn't the right sort. Oh, Bluebell, how I wish you knew the Lord as your personal Friend! It makes such a difference. We went through our religion like machines; I don't think either of us had ever come into close touch with God. We had never accepted Christ's death for us, and come to Him as guilty sinners for forgiveness, and received the pardon He obtained for us."

"You are getting out of my depth. I don't understand that kind of thing. It is mere words to me."

"But you must think seriously sometimes. You say you will wait till you are thirty. You may not live so long."

Bluebell shivered.

"Don't put me in the blues. I should like to feel as you do, but I can't. I tell you again, I think my soul is dead."

"That is an awful thing to say. Do you realize what it means? Death of the soul means separation from God for ever. Can you look forward to an eternity spent without Him?"

"Now you're talking like Abigail. Well, I won't say it is dead. It is asleep for the present, and I would rather leave it so; it is more comfortable. Don't look shocked at me. I am getting very sleepy, so shall turn into bed."

This was how all such discussions ended. But Heather did not lose heart, and she believed her prayers would be answered before long.