Chapter IV: Winter in the Glen

Oh Winter ruler of the inverted year ...
... Thou hold'st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning East,
Short'ning his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him impatient of his stay
Down to the rosy West; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering at short notice in one group
The family dispersed, and fixing thought
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
Cowper.

IF Rowena had been asked if her married life now had fulfilled all her desires, she would have answered emphatically in the affirmative. Her husband adored her, and so did his child. She had full scope for her social activities all the summer; she had time, as she said, to find her soul and brain during the silent winter. For they did not move up to town as her sister-in-law wished. Neither of them had any desire to leave their Highland home.

Rowena tramped round the snowy moors with her husband, sometimes skating on part of the frozen loch, and sledging when the frost held the roads in its iron grip. Then when dusk came, she would sit sewing by the blazing log fires and the General would read aloud to her. He loved the solitude of their life and always protested if there was talk of having any visitors. One afternoon Rowena had taken Mysie with her and they had wandered into some fir woods, cracking the dry leaves and twigs underfoot with keen enjoyment of the aromatic scent of the pines, and of the fresh green moss and moist earth around them.

They were listening to some owls hooting just before turning towards home, when a cooee-ee rang out, and the next moment Dora Arnold Rashleigh came crashing through some undergrowth with her dogs.

"Why, Dora, what are you doing here!" asked Rowena. "I thought the Lodge was shut up and you were all back in town."

"So we were till two days ago, but Joyce suddenly developed scarlet fever, and I hate illness, so I came off out of it, and I remembered how happy you had been at the Lodge by yourself one winter so thought I'd try a month or so. Fact is, the Glen has got hold of me—it's a way some of these Scotch places have! And I arrived yesterday morning with a maid, and Granny Mactavish is delighted to do for me, but she quotes you on every occasion. We've been trespassing in your woods, haven't we?"

Rowena was astonished. She had not seen as much of Dora as she had hoped to do. Di and she had not got on together. They were both too masterful, and Dora had kept away from Rowena in consequence.

"How ripping to be in the Lodge quite by yourself!" said Mysie. "Do ask mother and me to tea one day; it will make me think of the days I went over to tea with her. It was a jolly old time!"

"I invite you to tea to-morrow," said Dora gaily. Rowena looked a little perturbed.

"My dear girl, you can't stay in the empty house by yourself. Surely your parents won't like it. You had better come to us."

Dora shook her head.

"You forget that women can do anything nowadays. I'll come over to you whenever I feel dull. I'm going to have a couple of friends down next week. They're overworked and want a rest."

Then, as Mysie danced along in front, calling the dogs after her, Dora turned to Rowena with an intent look upon her face.

"I want a talk with you. I've been longing for it. I want to have the highest goal. I've discovered mine is pretty low down, and I want to right it."

"Oh, Dora dear, I'm so glad."

As they walked homewards, their talk was a serious one, and when they parted, Dora said:

"Come to-morrow, and we'll make Mysie happy with the dogs somewhere whilst we have another talk. I really came back here to see more of you. Things you said to me have stuck."

Rowena went home with a light in her eyes and a glow in her heart. Di had disappointed her with her irresponsiveness, and all the time another was standing by who was longing to be helped and guided.

The next day she and Mysie went to tea at the Lodge as arranged, and when Mysie, in her old fashion, had gone out to see Granny in the kitchen, Rowena and Dora had a long talk together.

"You see," said Dora after a time, "I don't want to alter my life or give up my work. That's all right. But I want to put something in it that I haven't got. And when we are working away at these women, and getting them into Clubs and Guilds and all that sort of thing, we are continually knocking up against cases embittered by their circumstances and soured by trouble, and then one feels rather helpless. To tell them to go to church makes them smile. I think they feel they want something more. You have a living Power in your life. I can see it. I want to have that too, and I want to tell others how they can get it. You can't cure a vicious minded woman by giving her a dancing club, or comfort a broken-hearted one by teaching her how to make baskets! If one's work is to be a success, you must give of your best; and my best is not worth having. You quoted a verse to me one day in the summer: 'Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.' And of course I've been thinking we, and every one of these women we try to help, are made or built by God in the first instance, and if we come to grief, there's no one can rebuild us properly except our Maker. I want to put myself in His Hands; tell me how to do it."

It was not difficult for Rowena to help the girl. She was anxious and willing and quite convinced that a life without God was a failure.

Before many days were past, the light came to her. She was very happy in the empty Lodge, spent most of her days with Rowena, and sat chatting in the kitchen with old Granny after her simple dinner was over. But in three weeks' time she went back to town.

"I shall lodge with a friend till our house is disinfected," she told Rowena. "Joyce is nearly well, they tell me. I must be getting on with my work, and now I have got what I came for, there is nothing to keep me. I wish we had a few more of your sort in town, Mrs. Macdonald. You are so very definite. I find people so very vague when you start talking religion. If I get into a fog, I shall write to you. I have made you my father—no—mother-confessor!"

And when she said good-bye to General Macdonald, she said to him with a little laugh:

"I consider Mrs. Macdonald is wasting her life down here. You ought to come to town oftener. Of course, if the mountain won't come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain, and that's what I've done, but there are lots of others who couldn't afford the time or money to do it. Think of your fellow-creatures sometimes, General, and bring your wife to town. We want her there badly."

When she had gone Rowena told her husband about her. As a rule she did not betray the confidence of any who confided in her. She had learnt the wisdom of that in her life with Mrs. Burke. And her husband did not understand even yet, the gift that she had for drawing out the best in people, and winning their confidence and love.

"Well," he said, "I'm glad you were able to help her, dear. I must confess these loud-voiced, self-sufficient girls, do not appeal to me. The Miss Rashleighs were ardent suffragettes a few years back. I suppose they may do good in their own set; it is an age for strenuous exertion and work, but I can no more understand Dora Rashleigh than I can Miss Di Dunstan. I suppose Miss Dunstan is the more selfish of the two, as she never seems to think of anything but amusing and taking care of herself."

"I'm afraid you don't care for girls," said Rowena, looking at him rather ruefully. "And yet you have a little daughter of your own!"

"She is more than enough for me," said General Macdonald with a smile. "You say her will ought not to be broken, but I will not have her grow up into one of these modern young women."

"I cannot think why you ever took the smallest interest in me," said Rowena with her laugh. "I was an ordinary young woman—not an old-fashioned one by any means."

"You? Oh, you stand by yourself. You were perfectly adorable from the first moment I set eyes on you! I don't wonder you are so popular with these girls. I wish I could be more sociable and sympathetic. I am just an old bear who likes to remain in his den, and have his family with him."

"Then my dear Bruin," was Rowena's laughing retort; "it will be one of my endeavours to make you dance to our music sometimes. We are not meant to shut ourselves away from our neighbours. How can we help them if we do; how can we bear each other's burdens, as we are told to do? I consider that my time with dear Mrs. Burke was given me to show me how many of the people we consider frivolous and empty-headed, are really needing help and comfort and counsel. Don't think I set myself upon a pedestal above them. I don't. I'm just as foolish and ignorant in many ways as they are, but by coming together and being friendly with a number of them, I have discovered that we all have the same cravings, and needs, and that what has helped me will help them."

General Macdonald was silent, but when a few days later an invitation came from Hector Ross for them to spend Christmas with him, he did not cavil at it, as was his custom.

After talking it over, Rowena and he agreed that they wanted to be in their own home for Christmas; but Rowena wrote, suggesting that they should pay him a visit in the new year, and this was finally settled.

And then came an invitation for Mysie to spend part of her holidays with the young Holts and their Grandmother. Marion said she was not particularly anxious to be at home at Christmas, and would willingly wait, and take Mysie with her later.

At first Rowena had difficulty in getting her husband to consent to this arrangement.

"What does the child want to go away from home for!"

Mysie was enchanted with the invitation. She had never been away alone before, and Milly Holt was her "bosom friend." So she informed her father.

"It does her good to get away from us, sometimes," said Rowena. "Yes, I really mean it. We are too old and staid for her. I would not send her anywhere, but she can get nothing but good where she is going."

"I should have thought it would be better for her to have a change from her governess rather than from us," said her father.

"I agree with you, but as it happens, Marion is not going to stay at home. She has promised to visit some old friends of hers in the North. And Mysie will have her company on the journey there and back, which is necessary, and as we are going to Kestowknockan it will all fit in beautifully."

So General Macdonald gave in to his wife, which he generally did, after making his protest.

Sometimes Rowena wondered if he would ever lose his old bachelor ways and ideas.

Christmas came and the weather was bright and frosty. They had a very quiet time, but a happy one, and Mysie's high spirits never flagged.

She received a gold watch and chain from her father as a Christmas gift, and a most beautiful edition of the Life of Flora Macdonald, with coloured illustrations, from Rowena. It would be hard to say which present she prized most. She was allowed to dine late on Christmas day, and in the midst of the meal she put down her knife and fork and leaned her elbows on the table, looking across at her father very earnestly.

"Dad dear, do you remember Christmas last year when you and me sat here alone together, and it was raining and squalling, and you kept sighing, and then we talked of mother, and you said she might possibly be here another year; and then I sat on your knee by the fire afterwards, and you read me bits of her letter to you, and about the poor ill lady she was with! Doesn't it seem years ago! And we've got her now for ever. Isn't it lovely?"

"Haven't you got tired of me yet, Flora?" Rowena said laughingly; but a shadow crossed her face as she, too, cast her mind back to a year ago, when she was nursing Mrs. Burke through that terrible attack of rheumatic fever.

"Tired of you! Oh, mother, what an awful thing to say! Mrs. Dalziel said to Angus the other day that you'd let all the light and sunshine into the dark corners of this old house, and it does seem quite, quite different; doesn't it, Dad?"

"We'll drink Mother's health presently," said General Macdonald, and Rowena declared that they would make her feel quite self-conscious and shy.

Later on, they sat round the fire, in which reposed a huge Yule, and Mysie roasted chestnuts and persuaded her father to tell her some stories about his youth. When she finally went off to bed, Rowena asked her husband if he would come out on the terrace for a moment or two.

He got her fur cloak, and insisted on wrapping it round her. Then, together, they stood for a few moments looking down through the vista of pines and bare trees to the silver Loch in the distance. It was a brilliant starlit night; here and there on the hills and moor in the distance, a faint light from some shepherd's cot or farm shone out. Owls were hooting in the neighbouring wood, but otherwise there was a great stillness.

And Rowena said with a half-caught breath:

"I expect it was just a night like this when the earth was hushed and still to hear the angel's voices. The whole world waiting till the Saviour of the earth was born!"

Something in her voice made General Macdonald draw her very closely and tenderly to him.

"Why, dearest, what is the matter? Tears on Christmas night!"

Rowena smiled through misty eyes.

"I only thought I'd like to tell you to-night, that before another Christmas comes round, I may be a mother. I seem to feel the Manger-throne so close to me to-night."

General Macdonald bent his head and kissed her. For once his composure was shaken.

"My darling," he said, "what a wonderful joy to give me to-night."

"Are you pleased?" she whispered. "I did not know if you would be."

Her husband tightened his hold on her; then he looked up into the starry sky.

"If God sees fit to give us a son," he said in a husky tone, "to carry on the old name and family, I-I think my cup will overflow."

"We will ask Him to do so," said Rowena, smiling up at him.

And then they went back to the fire, and talked together in low happy tones of the future, with all its golden possibilities.