Chapter XII: Dawn

TOMINA paid Mrs. Norman another visit. Colonel Norman was out, but she got on better with the invalid when she was quite alone with her. Mrs. Norman was decidedly better, she could nod or shake her head, and say "Yes" and "No." It was not quite such a trying experience to Tomina as her last visit.

And then, as Tomina was getting up to go, Colonel Norman came in, and begged her to stay a few minutes longer.

"A storm is brewing," he said. "I conclude you have driven over."

"If a storm is coming, I mustn't wait a moment. I hate driving in the rain."

As she spoke, a low rumbling roll of thunder in the distance was heard. And then down came the rain. It reminded Tomina of the time when she and Harry had climbed the old oak tree, and could not get down.

"Now you will have to stay," said Colonel Norman, firmly. "I see you have had tea; is there a cup for me, I wonder?"

Tomina was still seated at the small tea-table which had been brought her. She at once peeped into the teapot, and proceeded to give the Colonel what he needed.

His eyes followed her every moment.

"I suppose," he said, "my mother has not been able to tell you about our arrangements. We leave this next Tuesday. We shall have an invalid carriage to town, and then will go straight through to Bordighera by the 'Train de Luxe.'"

"Isn't it very soon for the Riviera? Surely you will find it very warm there?"

"We may, but the great thing is to get to a place where we shall not be obliged to move again. And it will be September next week."

"Yes," said Tomina, "the time has flown. I had no idea that a quiet, monotonous life went so much quicker than a full one."

"Do you mean to stay the winter here?" asked Colonel Norman. "I can't fancy you doing it."

"Yes, I am going to try a year of this country life."

"And then?"

Tomina looked at him and laughed.

"By that time, I am to be made into a new creature altogether. That is my doctor's theory. If he is right, how can I tell you what the new Tomina will do? Something quite different from what she has ever done before, I assure you! And if my doctor proves wrong, and I continue to be my old self, I shall pronounce all doctors and all country to be frauds, and go back to my old life again."

Colonel Norman's eyes took the tender protective look in them that Tomina could not bear to see. She turned her head away towards the invalid.

"I hope you will continue to be your old self," he said.

"Now, aren't men contrary, Mrs. Norman. He couldn't bear me when I was in town. Everything I did and said rubbed him up the wrong way. I could never do right in his eyes, and we were both frantically anxious to remove our paths in life as far from each other as we possibly could. Fate has shaken us near each other again, and he pretends he likes it. But Mother Fate knows him better than he knows himself, and is going to be truly kind to us. Before you come home again, Colonel Norman, the new or old Tomina will have vanished from this part, I promise you!"

"Don't make rash promises," said Colonel Norman, apparently quite unperturbed. "'Fate' as you call her, is going to be on my side, I fancy. Time flies fast, as you say, and the winter will come and go. It cannot last for ever."

The storm increased in violence. Presently Colonel Norman took Tomina down to the library. The drawing-room was an unused room since his mother's illness.

Tomina sat in a big lounge chair, and he in another. She kept reminding herself that as this would be the last time she would see her old friend, she must be kind and civil to him now. And there was no lack of conversation between them.

But when an hour passed, and the storm still raged, Tomina began to get restive.

"I really must go home. Susan will wonder what has become of me."

"She will know that we have kept you. She knew, I suppose, where you were coming?"

"I should rather think so. Susan considers that her first duty is to look after me, and to be aware of all my plans and purposes and correspondence. I never can be secretive, you know; I am too careless and forgetful. She did not approve of my coming here at all, for she knows that I am not a good visitor to sick people."

"Have you minded it? My mother does so enjoy your visits."

"Oh, I haven't minded it at all. I like it when I'm alone with her. I can talk any nonsense I like, and there is nobody listening with a critical ear to my poor little jokes and stories!"

"Don't mind me, Tomina, to-day. Let us do nothing—either of us—to spoil the memory of this time."

Tomina was silent: she walked to the window and looked out. The rain was coming down in a ceaseless pour.

"You will have to stay to dinner, and if it doesn't clear, we shall keep you for the night."

Colonel Norman could hardly keep the glad exultancy out of his tone. Fate was indeed treating him mercifully on this last day. His words proved partly true.

Tomina did stay to dinner, and she sat opposite Colonel Norman at the big table in the dining-room, with a queer feeling that it was her rightful place.

He, poor man, was in the seventh heaven of delight. Tomina with her hat off, and the little soft curls that he remembered so well half shading her mischievous eyes, with her slim, graceful young figure in the old carved oak chair, and her pretty gestures with her delicate little hands, her gay laugh, her proud poise of head, and bewitching smiles, it was enough to turn any man's head. What a fool he had been, he assured himself. How bitterly he had repented of his rash injustice and masterful intolerance!

But when dinner was over, Fate favoured him no more. The storm had passed, and it was a still quiet evening. Tomina insisted upon having the trap round. Colonel Norman eagerly said he must drive her back, then remembered that this was the hour he always spent with his mother before she retired for the night. For a moment, his mother and Tomina were weighed in the balance. But Tomina decided the point herself.

"Your mother's nurse told me you always sat with her now. Do you think for a moment that I would let you leave her in the lurch?"

Colonel Norman yielded.

"I will get my groom to go back with you, I shouldn't think of letting you drive alone at this time of night."

They were standing together in the library. Tomina had already put coat and hat on.

"This is our good-bye for some months, perhaps," said Colonel Norman, very gravely, "but I shall not be always outside your life, Tomina, shall I?"

His masterfulness was gone, and such wistfulness was in his voice and eyes, that Tomina's eyes drooped.

When she raised them to his a moment later, they were misty with tears. Both her hands were in his; she felt like a prisoner, but her pulses throbbed and trembled, and Colonel Norman felt them do so.

"I don't know," she wavered. Then her flash of mischief came uppermost. "You really are a little nicer than you used to be, but I'm in a metamorphosis stage, as I told you, and I do not know what in the world I shall be or what I shall be doing this time next year."

"Will you write to me?"

"Oh, how dreadful! I hate letters. You know what a bad correspondent I always was!"

"Sometimes—once a month—let me hear."

"I couldn't. You are asking too much. Perhaps at Christmas I may send you a letter. That is all I can promise."

"Thank you."

Colonel Norman raised her hands in an old-fashioned way to his lips. Then he released her, and with swift, silent steps followed her out into the hall and saw her comfortably wrapped up for her drive home.

"Good night," Tomina cried, as she started of down the drive; "and I hope you'll have a pleasant and safe journey."

"I'll send you a line to tell of our arrival," called out the Colonel.

And Tomina's soft voice was carried through the evening air—

"Do!"

The next day, Tomina felt very depressed and irritable. But the day after that was Friday, and she started to Damerton in her van, feeling that there was something still left to live for.

When Tuesday came, and she knew that the objectionable Colonel was for the time removed out of her sphere, she tried to make herself believe that she was relieved and thankful. But after a time, she gave up the struggle.

"Why should I keep up pretending lies to myself? I feel awfully sorry for him. He will be such a devoted son, but it isn't natural for a man to turn into a sick-nurse. He might just as well have stayed on here. I think I should have become quite clever in talking to sick people. It would have done me a lot of good. He was almost pathetic that stormy evening, but it's just as well he went away. He might have persuaded me against my will. And I should have lived to rue it. Once bitten, twice shy! I am not going to place myself in abject subjection to any man on earth, and that is the only 'rôle' that Gerald's wife would and could play."

Time slipped quietly by. Summer went, and autumn came.

When the short dark days set in, Tomina decided that Harry would be best at school. The house was small, and his restless activity began to get upon her nerves. She and he parted with some tears, and his last Sunday was quite a memorable day. He would not leave her side, and in the afternoon cuddled up beside her on her roomy old couch, and talked, as Susan said, more like an "angel child than a roguish scamp of a boy."

"If I never come back to you, Tommie," he said solemnly, "will you promise faithfully you'll keep the next-door seat to you in heaven? Because I can't never forget you, you know."

"But, you silly boy, you're coming to me in the holidays, or for a part of them, I expect."

"Susan said you'd had enough of me."

"Susan didn't mean it. You've helped me a lot, Harry. If I ever get to heaven, I'll tell you how much you did towards getting me there."

Harry opened his eyes wide.

"There's only One Person gets us there, as my 'Green Hill' says. Don't you love the 'Green Hill,' Tommie? I learnt the last verse yesterday and said it to Mrs. Francis. Shall I sing it to you? It sounds lovely when it's sung."

Harry had a sweet little voice, and he lifted it up now, and the old simple words of the child's hymn came home with a new power to Tomina's heart, and stayed there.

When he came to the verse—

"There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in,"

he paused and shook his curly head reflectively.

"You see," he said, "only Jesus keeps the key of heaven. I suppose, Tommie, He could never lose it, could He? Wouldn't it be awful if it couldn't be found when you and me wanted to get in?"

His eyes grew round with fright, as he imagined the terrible tragedy. Then his brow cleared.

"Of course, Jesus could never lose anything, and if He does, He knows just where to find it. He's much cleverer than the devil, isn't He, Tommie? Granny used to say, I re'mber, that the devil himself must hide her spectacles, for no mortal person could find them. But when I lose my knife, I go straight to Jesus and ask Him to tell Satan to put it back at once where he found it. And it always comes, always—"

"That's very wonderful!" said Tomina, smiling into Harry's earnest face.

"Yes, isn't it? But didn't Jesus lose a sheep once, Tommie? I think I re'mber you reading me about Him finding a lost sheep?"

"Yes, we did read about it. It was a little parable of how people get lost."

"Yes, but we simply can't get lost from God, for He's always close to us."

Tomina did not answer; she was conning over in her mind the lines of the child's hymn.

A dim and far-away light was beginning to dawn into her soul.

She sat still and watched its beams coming nearer. At last she roused herself.

"I never learnt that hymn when I was a little girl, Harry. I was brought up like a little heathen. I wonder if I could learn it now?"

"I'll fetch you the book," said Harry, with alacrity. "It's very easy if you give your mind to it."

Tomina laughed at his old-fashioned air. But she took the hymn-book from him.

And that night, when Harry was fast asleep, she scanned the verses over to herself.

Harry left her early the next morning. Mrs. Francis came in her motor for him, and drove him into Damerton.

And when he had gone, Tomina felt desolate indeed. She hardly touched her lunch, and when Susan came in and remonstrated with her, she said—

"Eating is such a bore, Susan, and I'm feeling so low and flat that nothing seems worth while to do."

"You're missing Harry, miss, but in a day or two, you'll get over that. And if I may suggest it, a walk in the air would do you a power of good. It's not often now we'll be getting such sun as there is this afternoon."

Tomina looked out of her window. The sky was a bright blue with flecks of white cloud chasing each other across it. The elms and beeches round the church wore their warmest coats of red and yellow. A flock of starlings was flying past.

"I'll go and see somebody, Susan. I'll go to dear old Mrs. Cayley. She's the only good person that doesn't scare me."

She ran up the stairs. For a moment, the oppression of her spirit seemed to lighten. Then, in a very short time, she came down in hat and coat, and, whistling for Thor, she started off.

It was a mile's walk, but there was a touch of frost in the air and it braced her. Twice on the way she stopped to speak to some country people. There were very few of the poor who were strangers now to Tomina; and she generally had a little joke and a laugh with them all.

She found Mrs. Cayley sweeping up the autumn leaves from the flagged path outside her cottage.

"Mrs. Cayley, I'm in the blues. Do you think you can get me out of them?" Tomina asked, as she leant her arms on the little wooden gate and watched the old woman's quick, deft movements.

Mrs. Cayley had not noticed her approach. She started, then dropped the old-fashioned curtsey that Tomina so loved to watch.

"Why, ma'am, 'tis nice to see your bright face. Come ye in. Ye be more than welcome."

Tomina followed her into the bright little kitchen. It was as usual a picture of neatness and cosiness.

Tomina took an old-fashioned rocking-chair by the fire, with a wonderful cushion of patchwork upon it, and Mrs. Cayley went to her oak dresser and began to lay the cloth for tea.

"I'm just going to have a cup, ma'am, and you must join me."

"I shall be delighted."

Tomina leant back in her chair, and watched the old woman with thoughtful, wistful gaze.

"Oh, Mrs. Cayley, I wish—I wish I were you, with my life nearly finished and all my troubles over, and my—my faith so untroubled and sure!"

Mrs. Cayley was taking the kettle off the fire and pouring some water into her brown teapot. She did not answer for a moment, then she said—

"Are things not going well, ma'am, with you?"

Tomina clasped her hands round her knees.

"I'm tired of everything and everybody, and of myself most of all, and I'm 'bitterly' disappointed!"

"With what, ma'am?"

"Oh, with this doctor's experiment. I was sick and tired of life in town, and had come to the end of it all. Then I was brought down here to be buried for a time in view of beginning afresh—having a new start. And the peace and the novelty and the quaintness of the country satisfied me. My body has certainly benefited, but lately my mind has been tormented with religious misgivings. They wear me out. And now they're looming so big and so black that the peace of the country is gone. Instead of feeling fresher, and beginning life anew, I'm feeling a blot in creation. And I'm alone. I have nobody to help me. Harry has gone, and—and others, and I've come to the end of everything. I just felt this afternoon that I must come off to you and get help."

Mrs. Cayley looked at her in a puzzled way: but she never stopped her occupation. She was now cutting thin slices of bread and butter from a home-made loaf. And her next words were a request that Tomina should have some tea before any further talk.

Tomina drew up her chair to the table, some golden honey in the comb was produced, and she thoroughly enjoyed the repast.

At first, Mrs. Cayley was going to wait upon her, but Tomina insisted upon her joining her at the table.

Presently, Mrs. Cayley said—

"Didn't you like the Rector's sermon yesterday morning, ma'am?"

"I don't think I did. I don't care much for sermons. In London, I always used to leave when the sermon began, and yesterday my mind wandered. I can't even remember the text!"

"I always think the sermon be the best part of church," said Mrs. Cayley. "'Tis the best half, surely. The first half I always think is we speakin' to God, and the last half be God speakin' to us."

Tomina paused in conveying her cup to her lips to consider this.

"You think that God speaks through the preacher? It never struck me so."

"He spoke to me. I come home yesterday and sat here thinking it out. 'Twas beautiful, so clear and simple. The text was, 'Ask, and ye shall receive.' It do seem to take in all we need. And I think you would find it so, ma'am. I don't rightly understand your feelin's; young ladies like you have a bigger life and more wants than we. But your askin' can't be too big for the Almighty."

Tomina faced her old friend with earnest eyes.

"It's like this, Mrs. Cayley. Every one has been hammering away at me since I came here, and I see that there is quite a different life to be lived in this world from that which I have been living. So the long and short is, I'm going to live it, if I can. Harry has been making me read the New Testament a good deal; I suppose it has a fascination of its own. I know I've learnt to love the—Chief Character in it. I want to follow Him as they did in those times. But I don't seem to get at the way to do it. And I've a wasted good-for-nothing life behind me. Not worth much, am I?"

"Worth nothing at all," said Mrs. Cayley, sitting with clasped hands in her lap and with almost an inspired glow in her eyes. "That's why we come to the dear Lord, and ask Him to take us and make something of us. 'Tis just 'Ask, and ye shall receive,' after all."

Tomina drew in a long breath.

"That sounds simple. Harry's 'Green Hill' hymn explains it all beautifully. I know that 'He died to save us all,' and that 'He died that we might be forgiven.' 'That we might go at last to heaven, saved by His precious blood.' It's all there convincing to one's head, but I've got no further."

"'Ask, and ye shall receive,'" repeated Mrs. Cayley again, with a smile. "You've never come near enough to Him, ma'am, perhaps. I minds years ago, time of my confirmation, when I come to see that I must come myself to the Throne o' Grace, and ask for all my needs. Just try, ma'am, ask for what you want, and you'll get it without any waiting. If 'tis anything concernin' our souls, don't you think the Loving Father be more in a hurry to give it to us than we are to get? Ask and take, that be our part. He does all the rest."

Tomina sat very silent, drinking in from this poor hard-working old woman the truths that no clever divine could put more forcibly and clearly. She did not say much more about her difficulties, but began to talk of other subjects.

When she wished Mrs. Cayley good-bye, she said—

"You've helped me tremendously this afternoon."

"'Twas only the text our Rector spoke on, ma'am."

"Yes, I missed a lot by not listening. It's a very practical command, Mrs. Cayley. I see light now."

She walked home, and every step of the way she was repeating to herself with increasing emphasis—

"'Ask, and ye shall receive.'"