“Do skip a little, if it is very long,” pleaded Dulcibel, peering over at the page. “A few verses will do.”
“Very well, my dear. I’ll skip some, on condition that you hear the rest patiently.”
Dulcibel gave a little gape behind her hand, and assumed an air of resignation, as George began—
“Thou inevitable day,When a voice to me shall say—‘Thou must rise and come away;’”“‘All thine other journeys past:Gird thee, and make ready fastFor thy longest and thy last.’”“Day deep hidden from our sightIn impenetrable night,Who may guess of thee aright?“Art thou distant, art thou near?Wilt thou seem more dark or clear?Day with more of hope or fear?”“Wilt thou come, unseen beforeThou art standing at the door,Saying, Light and life are o’er?”“Or with such a gradual pace,As shall leave me largest spaceTo regard thee face to face?”* * * * * *“Will there yet be things to leave,Hearts to which this heart must cleave,From which parting it must grieve!““Or shall life’s best ties be o’er,And all loved ones gone beforeTo that other happier shore?”“Shall I gently fall on sleep—Death, like slumber, o’er me creep,Like a slumber sweet and deep?”“Or the soul long strive in vainTo escape, with toil and pain,From its half-divided chain?”“Little skills it where or how,If thou comest then or now,With a smooth or angry brow;”“Come thou must, and we must dieJesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.”
“Thou inevitable day,When a voice to me shall say—‘Thou must rise and come away;’”“‘All thine other journeys past:Gird thee, and make ready fastFor thy longest and thy last.’”“Day deep hidden from our sightIn impenetrable night,Who may guess of thee aright?“Art thou distant, art thou near?Wilt thou seem more dark or clear?Day with more of hope or fear?”“Wilt thou come, unseen beforeThou art standing at the door,Saying, Light and life are o’er?”“Or with such a gradual pace,As shall leave me largest spaceTo regard thee face to face?”* * * * * *“Will there yet be things to leave,Hearts to which this heart must cleave,From which parting it must grieve!““Or shall life’s best ties be o’er,And all loved ones gone beforeTo that other happier shore?”“Shall I gently fall on sleep—Death, like slumber, o’er me creep,Like a slumber sweet and deep?”“Or the soul long strive in vainTo escape, with toil and pain,From its half-divided chain?”“Little skills it where or how,If thou comest then or now,With a smooth or angry brow;”“Come thou must, and we must dieJesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.”
“Thou inevitable day,When a voice to me shall say—‘Thou must rise and come away;’”“‘All thine other journeys past:Gird thee, and make ready fastFor thy longest and thy last.’”“Day deep hidden from our sightIn impenetrable night,Who may guess of thee aright?“Art thou distant, art thou near?Wilt thou seem more dark or clear?Day with more of hope or fear?”“Wilt thou come, unseen beforeThou art standing at the door,Saying, Light and life are o’er?”“Or with such a gradual pace,As shall leave me largest spaceTo regard thee face to face?”* * * * * *“Will there yet be things to leave,Hearts to which this heart must cleave,From which parting it must grieve!““Or shall life’s best ties be o’er,And all loved ones gone beforeTo that other happier shore?”“Shall I gently fall on sleep—Death, like slumber, o’er me creep,Like a slumber sweet and deep?”“Or the soul long strive in vainTo escape, with toil and pain,From its half-divided chain?”“Little skills it where or how,If thou comest then or now,With a smooth or angry brow;”“Come thou must, and we must dieJesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.”
“Thou inevitable day,
When a voice to me shall say—
‘Thou must rise and come away;’”
“‘All thine other journeys past:
Gird thee, and make ready fast
For thy longest and thy last.’”
“Day deep hidden from our sight
In impenetrable night,
Who may guess of thee aright?
“Art thou distant, art thou near?
Wilt thou seem more dark or clear?
Day with more of hope or fear?”
“Wilt thou come, unseen before
Thou art standing at the door,
Saying, Light and life are o’er?”
“Or with such a gradual pace,
As shall leave me largest space
To regard thee face to face?”
* * * * * *
“Will there yet be things to leave,
Hearts to which this heart must cleave,
From which parting it must grieve!“
“Or shall life’s best ties be o’er,
And all loved ones gone before
To that other happier shore?”
“Shall I gently fall on sleep—
Death, like slumber, o’er me creep,
Like a slumber sweet and deep?”
“Or the soul long strive in vain
To escape, with toil and pain,
From its half-divided chain?”
“Little skills it where or how,
If thou comest then or now,
With a smooth or angry brow;”
“Come thou must, and we must die
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by
When that last sleep seals our eye.”
The rich, sweet utterance of the last verse was indescribable, and Joan’s face was turned away, while Dulcibel found her own eyes suddenly moist. A short silence followed before she said—
“I don’t believe you left out a single line.”
“Yes, dear; I left out two verses.”
“Well I don’t believe it is the same you read to me last time, though it is dismal enough for that or anything.”
“Not dismal, Dulcie.”
“Dreadfully dismal,” asserted Dulcibel. “What is it called?”
“The Day of Death.”
“And it’s about nothing but dying all through.”
Joan looked round with a quick movement.
“I like it,” she said. “If only one could feel so.”
“Very few people do,” observed Dulcibel.
“Except—” said George.
“No, not ‘except.’ Very few of even really and truly good people do, George. I am sure most of them are afraid, if they would confess it.”
“You must have better means of knowing the condition of ‘most people’ than I have. But no doubt a good many people are ‘all their lifetime subject to bondage’ on this account. One may be absolutely safe, without fully realizing one’s safety.”
“It is not only that,” said Dulcibel. “I think it is the feeling of the ‘must’ that is so dreadful—knowing that things must go on, and we all must grow older, and changes and death must come. That is the worst.”
“‘Thou inevitable day,’” George quoted in answer to this—
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by
When that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“Dulcie, you speak as if it were a going down into darkness, instead of going up into light. It will be out of night into day.”
“Not for all,” said Dulcibel.
“For all who are the Master’s own.”
“But still—”
“And the very inevitableness of the change is matter for rejoicing, not dread.”
“You may feel so. Other people don’t,” murmured Dulcibel.
“Father, after all it is giving up everything—going from every one,” said Joan.
“No, no, Joan; it is gaining, not losing—going to, not from,” said George.
“But the strangeness,” said Dulcibel.
“The land of light can be no strange country to us, with Jesus our Master there,” George answered.
“If one could feel it all real,” said Dulcibel.
“Father does,” Joan uttered looking up in his face.
Nessie took no part in the discussion.
TEN days of unshaded brightness followed. Joan ever after looked back upon that time as one of the fairest seasons in her life. She could not see then how dark a cloud was gathering over her sunshine.
Joan was full of glee, frolicsome as a kitten, with boundless enjoyment of hill and dale, tree and flower. Each ramble or excursion proved more delightful than the last; and even Nessie’s colorless serenity seemed to catch a little glow and warmth from Joan’s exuberant happiness. At home Dulcibel and Joan were apt to rub and fret one another a good deal. Here however there seemed no place for petty jealousies and irritations.
They made some pleasant acquaintances in the hotel; but generally the four went out together, having no strangers with them. Occasionally Joan had the supreme pleasure of a walk with her father, when Dulcibel and Nessie were unequal to further exertions. George and Joan seemed never to reach that condition. No further visits were paid to “George’s Valley” until the afternoon of the last day.
A long morning ramble, and the necessity of packing up for an early start next morning, decided Dulcibel to remain indoors after luncheon, keeping Nessie with her. So George and Joan went off alone together, and by mutual consent directed their steps towards the valley.
Clouds looked threatening on their way, and some fine effects of light and shade were to be seen in crossing the moor. Then came a sharp shower; but the two pressed on determinately, and by the time the valley was reached there was sunshine again.
This time no Dulcibel was at hand to cause delay in bridge crossing, yet they lingered—George scanning with interest the spot where Joan had once sat in baby disdain of would-be comforters, and Joan as earnestly scanning his face.
“Father, if ever my real mother came forward, I should be yours, not hers,” Joan broke out.
“That is not likely, my dear. She was in broken-down health, and believed herself dying, seventeen years ago.”
“But if she did?” Joan’s voice and restless brows said together.
“Time enough then for consideration of your duty.”
“I am very glad I am twenty-one,” said Joan. She slipped her arm through George Rutherford’s, and looked up with loving eyes. “And you know she gave me to you, father, to be your very own.”
“Yes. Even if she were living, which seems most improbable, she would hardly demand you again as a right, until I grow tired of you.”
“And you’ll never, never do that, father!”
“Hardly,” George said, with a little smile.
“Only there was that old man—it frightened me seeing him. But he hasn’t written or said anything, so perhaps, even if he does think we may be related, he doesn’t want me. If he did I would not go to him. I couldn’t live without you, father!”
George hardly knew whether to answer this lightly or seriously. He said at length only—
“Until—”
“No, not ‘until’ anything, father. I shall never want to leave you; and I shall never marry. I only want to live with you, and be your child and friend always—always—always.”
“But, Joan, life does not last always.”
“But I don’t want to think of that,” Joan answered quickly. “Mother often makes herself miserable, thinking how the years are going, and how one’s happiness has to come to an end by-and-by. But I don’t see the use. It only makes one wretched, like those beautiful sad lines you read to us here, the other day. I wish you had not, for I can’t forget them.”
“Ay,” George said—
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:Jesus, Saviour, stand thou byWhen that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“‘Come thou must, and we must die:
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by
When that last sleep seals our eye.’”
“Still, one needn’t be always thinking about it,” said Joan. “What must be, must, but I would rather enjoy things as they are. And I like to feel that life will go on a long, long while yet. By-and-by, of course—but when one gets old and tired, perhaps one wouldn’t mind so much—”
“The call doesn’t always wait till we are very old and tired, my Joan,” George said quietly, as they began to walk towards the old gray church. “If one may have to take a sudden journey, at any hour or moment of one’s life, it is well to have things in readiness.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Joan said, in a calm uninterested voice. “But somehow it never seems as if one really might die at any time. I suppose I know it, but I don’t believe it; I always do expect to live long. People are very different in that way. Nessie often expects something to happen to her; and if she is ill she thinks of danger directly. I never do. And mother counts the years, and fancies coming changes, and dreads losing every one that she loves. It is odd how unlike we all are to one another—especially you and mother. I suppose mother really loves God, doesn’t she?—but she does not at all want to go to him. She has such a dread of life coming to end. And you never seem to think of death as sad at all; and you don’t mind about little fidgets and worries in this world, as most people do. Sometimes I feel as if you had had a little peep into heaven, which had made you quite different from everybody else for all the rest of your life.”
No disclaimer came, as Joan half expected, George only said—
“Would not you like such a peep, Joan?”
“I should like to go anywhere with you, father. Even to—” and a pause.
“Even to heaven? Was that it?”
“Father, I don’t think of heaven as you do,” said Joan, tears springing to her eyes.
“Loving me will not take you to heaven, my child,” said George, very tenderly.
“No, father; but—”
“If I were called away, would you come after me?”
No answer came to this, and the ungloved brown hand, lying within his arm, trembled uneasily. Joan’s face was turned away.
“Joan.”
“Yes, father,” came in smothered tones.
“If I were called away to the land of my hopes, would you come after me, darling?”
“Father, I do think you needn’t make me so miserable the very last day here,” sobbed Joan.
“I did not mean to make you cry. But, Joan, my dear—there, don’t sob. Sit down here for a moment. What has grieved you so? Did you think me unkind?”
“Oh, no, no,” said Joan, with a kind of indignant energy. “Only, please, please don’t talk of that. Anything but that, please.”
“What—of my having to leave you some day?”
“Yes;” and another flow of tears.
George’s strong hand came over hers.
“And yet it has to be,” he said—“it has to be. One or the other may go first, but the good-bye will have to be spoken—unless indeed the King comes first to earth in his glory. Joan, would that be good-bye between you and me? Or if the good-bye is spoken in death, must it be for ever?”
Joan shook with sobs, and George bent towards her pityingly.
“Think it over, dear one, and pray it over. Don’t let there be any doubt on that matter. Now we are not going to talk any longer about sad subjects. I am sure you will not forget. Have I been very cruel?”
Joan murmured something about “Never are.”
“That’s right. You and I always understand each other, don’t we? Come—we take a quick walk up to the top of Castle Hill, before going home.”
Tears were hastily dried, and Joan seemed very glad to put aside an unwelcome subject. She was soon talking and laughing with her usual freedom, almost—but not quite. An undercurrent of grave thought showed now and then; and George Rutherford would not have had it otherwise. He did not wish to depress her spirits, and a brisk hill-climbing, followed by a rapid walk back to the hotel, brought her into good tune for the evening.
But Joan was not a girl to thrust lightly aside the words he had spoken, more especially as such words of personal appeal were very rare from him. There was nothing morbid about George Rutherford; indeed his equable cheeriness of temperament was something remarkable. Not less remarkable, however, were his calm trust in God, and his happy realization of things unseen. While using and enjoying the good gifts of this world, his heart did not rest upon them. Joan’s heart did.
An early start had to be made next morning, and Dulcibel was in one of her usual agonies of unreadiness. Some people never are in time for anything, no matter how early they begin to prepare; and Dulcibel’s supremest efforts after punctuality came always to the same impotent conclusion.
“Nessie, do make haste! Put those things into the portmanteau—no, not there—the other pile. Oh, dear, you have upset them all! Never mind—stuff them in. Where’s Joan? Not gone down stairs yet! She might have come to help me first.”
“Mother, here is Joan,” said Nessie, as the door opened two inches.
“Father wants you to come down to breakfast, mother.”
“I thought so!” responded Dulcibel, in despair. “Well, he must wait, that’s all. Do help Nessie lock the portmanteau, Joan. She is so slow, she will never get things done. Is your packing finished?”
“Quite,” said Joan.
“I’ve just found three great holes in my gloves; the wrong pair left out, of course. You haven’t a needle and thread, have you, Joan—or Nessie? Thanks, Joan—what a handy girl you are! When the portmanteau is locked you had better both go down, and begin breakfast with your father.”
“Let me mend the holes,” said Joan, when a vehement struggle had brought together the bulging sides of the portmanteau, and Nessie sat upon the floor, panting rather dolefully.
“Oh, well, I don’t mind—thank you, Joan! I must pin up the braid on my skirt. It ought to have been mended last night, and I forgot it. Nessie, you are quite tired. Really, I think we must bring a maid with us next time we go out. I don’t feel as if I could eat a morsel of breakfast. You had better both go down without me.”
“Father said he should not begin till you came,” observed Joan, stitching diligently.
“Well—if I must. But it’s of no use. I can’t eat in a bustle; and we haven’t a moment to spare. There he comes. I knew he would.”
“Breakfast, my dear,” said George, looking in.
“But we shall be late. We shall miss our train,” gasped Dulcibel.
“No harm if we do; but I don’t think we shall,” said George calmly.
And they did not, though he allowed no more flurrying haste, and breakfast was eaten in quietness.
JOHN CAIRNS was, as Mrs. Brooke had said of him, “quite a respectable farmer.” Nobody except disdainful Mrs. St. John would have thought of applying the term “milkman” to that gray-headed well-to-do old man, owner of many broad acres, even though he did largely supply the “gentry” of the neighborhood with butter and milk.
The farm occupied a position about equally distant from Woodleigh Hall and Mr. St. John’s residence, being within three miles of either. It was an aged, ivy-grown house, with divers sheds and out-buildings hard by, and several hay ricks in the near background.
A smart little drawing-room, swathed in brown holland and yellow gauze, was so seldom employed as to be practically useless. There was, however, a small cosy parlor, close to the big kitchen, where the farmer permitted himself to sit and smoke. Occasionally his son did the same; but Jervis was more of a reader than a smoker. The daughter, Hannah, might also be found there, darning stockings, once in a while; not often, since she had no great love for sitting still, and was commonly busy about the house and farm.
Hannah Cairns was not the old farmer’s only daughter, and Jervis Cairns was not the only son. Many years back there had been, twice over, times of great trouble at the farm—trouble of a kind which tends either to break the heart or to harden the nature.
First, the eldest son, William Cairns, the pride and hope of his parents, went wrong. Up to the age of twenty all seemed well. He had always had an aversion to farming; but he was rising to a position of trust in the employ of a neighboring gentleman of property—no other than George Rutherford, himself in those days a young man. Then William was led astray by bad companions, ran into debt, and fell under temptation into dire and deliberate dishonesty.
The generous kindness of George Rutherford averted the more terrible disgrace of open trial and condemnation; but remorse in his case did not mean reformation, and from that day to this, his face had never been shown in his own land. John Cairns never wrote to him or invited his return.
The eldest daughter, Marian, commonly known as “Polly,” was an unusually pretty girl, her father’s especial darling, and not a little spoilt by him. When William so disgraced himself at the age of twenty-one, Polly was only seventeen, while Hannah and Jervis were not more than twelve and six years old.
Five years passed, and the second great family trouble came. Polly went to pay a long visit to a farmer-uncle in the next county. While she was there a young Cantab,* Hubert Brooke by name, who was spending part of his long vacation at a large country house near, fell in with her accidentally, and speedily lost his heart and head. Polly was very taking, no doubt, and Hubert was very young—more than a year her junior. Polly went home, and Hubert followed her, taking up his abode for a week at an inn, not far off. He did not show himself to Polly’s parents, but contrived to meet her two or three times; and a runaway marriage was an early ending to the brief, foolish affair. Hubert’s family immediately cut all connection with him, and Hubert insisted on the entire separation of his wife from her family. He had friends who helped him to find work, and while her husband lived Polly knew no lack of tolerable comfort.
* Undergraduate in Cambridge University
Had Hubert openly sought Marian as his wife from her parents they might not have objected. But that she should marry without leave, and should give them to understand that all intercourse between herself and them must thenceforth cease—this did come with a terribly heavy blow. The farmer grew hard and cold in his hurt pride, and forbade the mention of Marian’s name; and Hannah, young as she was, sternly followed suit. The mother said little, but quietly drooped and died. Only Jervis still cherished loving recollections of the sister who had always been kind to him.
Strange as it may seem, George Rutherford had never heard the details of this story. From the time of William’s disgrace—the facts of which had oozed out in some measure, though not through George Rutherford, the Cairns family had lived as far as possible in strict seclusion. No neighbors were admitted to intimacy at the farm, and few among their few acquaintances knew how Marian left her home, or conjectured the cause of her absence.
When Marian wrote to George Rutherford, “You will not know my married name,” she was rather making a happy shot than asserting what she knew to be a fact. It really was so, however. The Cairnses, as a family, were grateful to George Rutherford for his forbearance, but the very sight of him was by association painful, and they had quietly dropped themselves as far as possible out of his ken. The farm lay beyond Woodleigh parish limits; and while they often heard of him, he did not hear of them. In a passing way it came to his ears that the eldest daughter of old Cairns had married and gone away, but that was all. If her “married name” was ever mentioned to him, it made no impression. He could recall “Polly” as a pretty sweet-mannered girl, overwhelmed with grief, at the time of her brother’s wrong-doing; but he had not exchanged a word with her since; and he could not guess the deep girlish admiration and gratitude with which she had ever regarded him for William’s sake.
During all the seventeen years that Joan, the granddaughter of old John Cairns, had lived at Woodleigh Hall, no passing breeze had ever brought to light the fact of this unsuspected connection. Perhaps it was not surprising. Intercourse between George Rutherford and the Cairns family had become absolutely nothing in amount. John Cairns did not know that he had a granddaughter. When he or his met Joan—as doubtless they did in the country lanes—they could have seen nothing in her face or manner to recall the vanished Marian.
The Brooke family did know of the probable existence of a grandchild, and of her relationship to the Cairnses of Cairns farm. But they had not the slightest wish to know more, always excepting Hubert’s mother, whose desires were overborne by her husband’s determination. They were under no anxiety to rake up the smouldering ashes of a past fire. Until their old friend Mrs. St. John had come to live near Woodleigh none of them had ever wished to visit the neighborhood. Thus it had come to pass, both easily and naturally, that the matter had slumbered all these long years.
John Cairns at seventy-five was a fine old man still, tall and massive, with strong features, and unsmiling expression. He overlooked everything on the farm himself, trusting to nobody’s memory except his own, and tramping about in all weathers, with a hardy disdain of cold and wet not often to be surpassed by younger men.
Hannah Cairns resembled her father, alike in appearance and in character. She too was tall and big-boned, with harsh mouth and cold eyes. Within a few months of forty in age, she might have been taken for ten years older, judging from the marked features and deep intervening hollows.
Jervis Cairns, her brother, six years her junior in reality, and fifteen years her junior in look, was a widely different subject from the other two. Delicate in health from babyhood; always more or less a sufferer from alternations of asthma and bronchitis; an intelligent reader and thinker, and a man of warm affections; he seemed to be singularly planted in the unsympathetic companionship of a silent father and a morose sister. He would have enjoyed the kindly warmth of real family life; but from this he had been debarred ever since the loss of his sister Marian, and the death of his mother. The farm servants all loved Jervis Cairns; but their affection could not make up for the lack of loving-kindness from his own people.
They did not mean to be otherwise than good to him. Cairns and Hannah would alike have been amazed at any complaint on his part. All his bodily wants were attended to; and in illness no expense was spared. Nevertheless, Jervis was keenly conscious of a want.
“It’s going to be a boisterous night,” old Cairns said, coming in late one evening. A lamp was on the little parlor table, and he sat down, pulling off a woollen comforter, and drawing out a short pipe, which he proceeded to light. “Have up the shutters, Hannah. The wind blows in cold.”
“Winter seems coming before its time,” remarked Jervis. “I never knew it turn suddenly cold like this, quite so early. Well, we’ve had a lovely autumn till to-day, so we needn’t complain.”
“At your books for ever,” said Cairns discontentedly. “And whatever in the world is the use?”
“Hannah wouldn’t let me go out, and one can’t sit idle. Reading keeps me happy, father, if there’s no other use.”
“I should just think I wouldn’t,” responded Hannah.
“It’s a sharp wind. Best take care,” said old Cairns. He seemed to fall into a musing fit; his brows knitted. Hannah presently moved out of the room, and he said then—“Met old Elton just now; and he couldn’t let me pass without stopping.”
“Elton?” said Jervis.
“You don’t remember him, of course. Used to be butler at Woodleigh Hall—time our troubles began. You were a little chap then. He broke down in his health after, and Mr. Rutherford pensioned him off. That’s some eighteen years ago, I should reckon. I didn’t know but he might be dead before this; but he isn’t. I shouldn’t have known him, but he knew me.”
“Staying near here?” asked Jervis.
“Yes; he’s got a daughter married and come lately to live in Woodleigh. I met him near there.”
“Have you been so far? And did he tell you any news?” Jervis, in his secluded, sickly life, liked an occasional voice from the outside world.
“Not much. Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford’s been away, he said—to Wales, I think—and they’re expected back this evening. I told him I hadn’t spoken to Mr. Rutherford for years, and he said he could hardly believe it. He asked why I didn’t go to the Hall; and I said I’d no wish. I cut it short, and got away as soon as I could.”
Jervis bent his head, looking on the ground. “Elton—yes, I remember him now. Polly took me once to the Hall, when I was a little fellow, and I saw him there. Did he ask after Polly?”
“Yes,” the old man said shortly.
“And you told him—?”
“The truth, of course—that she was married and gone off more than twenty years ago, and I’d never seen her since. He asked if she had any children. I said I didn’t know—Polly hadn’t thought it worth her while to write and tell us. He said he was sorry to hear it. He’s been to stay at the Hall two or three times, and always thought of us, but he couldn’t walk so far as here, and nobody seemed to know how we were getting on. I said—so much the better; we didn’t want to be talked about; and then I went away.”
Hannah had not come back. Jervis lifted his face, speaking quietly. “Sometimes I have a downright craving for Polly come over me,” he said—“as if I’d do anything to get hold of her again. She was more like mother in her ways than any.”
“Your mother was a good woman, if ever there was one,” said the old farmer, with an accent which seemed to imply that he counted Polly the reverse.
“They were like in their ways,” repeated Jervis.
John Cairns made no answer. He only smoked vigorously, till a deepening blue mist began to pervade the room. Father and son sank into their usual evening silence.
This day it was not to remain uninterrupted. Perhaps an hour had passed, when a ring sounded faintly. After a pause it was heard again, and Hannah’s voice called—
“Do see what’s wanted, Jervis. My hands are in the flour, and that girl’s loitering somewhere upstairs.”
Jervis obeyed. It afterwards seemed singular that he should have been the one to respond to the bell on this particular occasion, for he was very seldom called upon to do so.
WHEN Jervis opened the door, he found a woman standing there—a stranger, he supposed.
She wore a neat, though shabby, bonnet and cloak, and her thin, careworn face was turned full towards the light. It was a face which had been pretty once, though all traces of beauty had vanished now. The features were sharpened as if by prolonged illness, and the gray eyes were set in deep hollows; but a certain strong content shone through the eyes and hovered round the mouth. She stood very still, looking straight before her, with both hands clasped over the handle of a travelling bag.
“Do you want something or somebody?” asked Jervis, after waiting two or three seconds for speech.
“Yes,” she said, and gazed at him questioningly. “Can you tell me, please—”
“Jervis, shut that door—you’ll catch your death of cold,” called Hannah.
“Are you Jervis? Do you have asthma still?” asked the new-comer; and she stepped inside, closing the door herself. “Jervis! I shouldn’t have known you.”
He stood in perplexity, not understanding, and she placed her bag on the ground.
“May I put that down?—it’s heavy. You are Jervis, aren’t you?—little Jervis! He used to be so fond of me.”
“Polly!” Jervis said with an accent of utter amazement.
“Yes, I am Polly. I have come back at last. Is father alive still? Will he be pleased or angry?”
“Polly!” he said again. “Why, we have just been speaking of you, and the wish I had to see your face again. I never could think you weren’t living still—though you didn’t write a word.”
“I couldn’t write, Jervis. I didn’t seem able. I have lived with William, and father would have been vexed at that. It was my husband’s wish first that I should keep away from you all—he has been dead now many, many years; but I always felt ashamed to write. Only just of late I’ve learnt to feel differently about many things, and I began to see it was wrong. And William is going on worse and worse. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I did long for a sight of home again. Jervis, it really is you?—so altered!”
He kissed her kindly, gravely, in answer, accepting at once the returned wanderer.
“You are altered too, Polly; but I couldn’t be mistaken,” he said. “We must tell father.”
“What’s it all about?” called Hannah, sharply. “Who have you there?”
“One moment,” Jervis said. He was breathing hard, with a touch of his old enemy, asthma, brought on by the shock of Marian’s sudden appearance, and the reply failed to reach Hannah.
“Who have you got out there?” was called again, impatiently.
“You haven’t grown strong yet, Jervis,” said Marian.
“Stronger than I was—only for this. Polly, you’d better come straight in. Come to father.” He walked before her, slowly and with audible panting, leading the way into the little parlor. Old Cairns was alone there still, smoking as before. Jervis sat down, with so violent a fit of coughing that he could not speak. Marian stood still in one doorway, upright and composed, with her hands drooping before her; Hannah appeared in the other, frowning and disturbed.
“Now that just comes of going and standing in a draught. You might as well have had the sense to shut the door at once. A nice bother it’ll be to-night. There, don’t speak, or you’ll bring it on worse. Who’s this?”
Marian came a few steps forward, moving quietly, and wearing the same look of settled calm upon her thin, worn features. She did not seem agitated by this return to her childhood’s home. John Cairns was gazing hard.
“Why, it’s—it’s—our—Polly—I do believe!” he said.
“Yes, I’m Polly. I have come home again, father,” she said.
“It’s Polly herself; I do believe,” repeated the old man. He seemed, very much surprised—more surprised than either gratified or displeased. “Polly, her very own self—after all these years—and grown into a middle-aged woman. Lost all her good looks, too. But it’s really Polly.”
“I’m so glad you know me, father,” she said.
“It’s easy to know you. It isn’t so easy to know what you’ve come back for now,” Hannah’s harsh voice said.
“I’m come because I thought it was right for me to do so,” Marian answered, with slow utterance. “I’ve been taught that I was wrong to go away and wrong to stay away. That brought me home.”
Hannah was so astonished that she could only stare.
“Where have you been, Polly?” asked old Cairns, after a pause.
“I’ve been abroad for years, father—living with William,” said Marian.
Jervis’ paroxysm of breathlessness was severe, and she came close, standing by his side, and giving him support with her hands. The old farmer paid no attention to her mention of William.
“Father, may I stay and nurse Jervis?” she asked, when the coughing grew less. “I’m a good nurse, and I’ve done a great deal in that way.”
“He doesn’t need nursing. He only needs common-sense about himself,” said Hannah, sharply. “We’ve done well enough all the years without you.”
“May I, father?” repeated Marian.
“Stay! Yes, you may stay,” said old Cairns. “I’m not the man to turn away one of my own children that wants a shelter. It wasn’t by my wish you ever went, Polly.”
“No; it was my own doing,” said Marian. “I did wrongly in leaving you all, father, and I’ve had long punishment. My life has been a sad one, and the worst of all has been the knowing I brought my troubles on myself. It’s only of late that I’ve begun to hope there might be forgiveness for me too—and there’s comfort in the thought. But the consequences of evil-doing do cling like a leech to one through life.”
Her three companions heard in silence; the old farmer seeming a little bewildered; Hannah wearing a look of grim contempt; Jervis resting against her still.
“What’s become of him?” asked John Cairns, suddenly.
“Hubert died years and years ago, father.”
“And you never had any children?” asked the old farmer, with interest.
“One I had, and I—lost her.” Marian paused, seeming to consider. “Yes, it’s true—I lost her. But she didn’t die. I’d best be open with you all. I gave her away.”
“Gave her away?” Jervis roused himself to utter. “Your own child?”
“Yes—my own child! I don’t know how ever I could,” Marian said mournfully. “You can’t despise me more than I despise myself; Jervis—so you may say what you will. I knew it was wrong then, and I know it better now. But I’d been in bad health, and a quack doctor, who was said to be clever, told me I was soon to die; and I had nowhere to leave my child. I couldn’t take her to William, and let him bring her up. I loved her too well for that—and Hubert had made me promise faithfully that I’d keep her from my own relations. I had no business to make the promise, but I did. So I couldn’t bring her here either.”
“Ay, ay, he had plenty of pride, if he had nought else to boast of,” said John Cairns.
“Yes it was pride, of course. But I suppose we are all proud, one way and another. I was proud of him, and proud of his grand relations, even though they wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I thought perhaps they might some day, and that’s why I was willing to give the promise.”
“And you gave your child away?” Jervis repeated, incredulously.
Marian dropped her head, in utter shamefacedness. “It’s true,” she said. “I would cut off my right hand, now, to live that time over again; but the past can’t be undone. I left her in the way of one who I thought would have pity, and I wrote a letter and took myself off. I knew I was doing wrongly; but it wasn’t till later that the evil and meanness of it all came back to me.”
“What I went through after, I couldn’t tell you, nor any one. It wasn’t as if God had taken my child from me. I had given her up myself; and when I found I was getting better instead of dying, and knew what I had done, the thoughts I had pretty near drove me mad. It was ever so long before I knew what had become of her. She might have been living or dead, or brought up as a pauper, for all I could learn. And when I did hear, in a roundabout way, it was only to know that she was more lost to me than ever I had pictured. It’s been bitter, bitter work, Jervis—hard, as the way of transgressors is said to be.”
“And you are better in health now, Polly?” her brother asked, half grave, half pitying in manner. Much as he loved the returned sister, he could not put aside the recollection of a mother’s forsaken child. It seemed to him too terrible, almost beyond belief.
“Yes, I’m better.” she answered listlessly. “The doctors say I may live a good while yet—perhaps as long as most people. I went into a hospital seven years ago, and was put to a deal of pain, and I’ve been better ever since. And now I hope I’m willing to live or not to live, as God chooses. I’m glad I didn’t die then. I’ve learnt a deal lately: and if my sins look blacker than ever, and my shame and sorrow are greater, I know there may be pardon for the worst, through the dying of the Son of God—and hope has come to me at length, though I know I can never undo the past, and must bear to the end what he appoints.”
Ease of expression had always been a characteristic of Marian, even in her girlish days; and she could speak without effort about such feelings as another in her place would have been scarcely able to allude to. The frankness was not new; but a certain religious element in her talk took them all by surprise. Perhaps Jervis marvelled the most, as he listened. He was of a reserved temperament, having its deep under-flow of thought and faith, but with tardy and limited powers of utterance.
“What was your child named? Who was it you gave the child to?” asked Cairns.
A red spot rose to Marian’s cheek. “I think I’d best answer no questions about her,” she said. “I don’t seem to feel myself free. I promised Hubert to keep her away from you all; and in a sort of way I promised never to come forward and claim her. I mustn’t count that she is mine still—and that’s the bitter thought of all to me. If she was unhappy—but she isn’t, and it would be no pleasure to her to know she had a mother living. I’ll manage to see her some day, for I must—I can’t stand the craving much longer, if I don’t. But that’ll be my own concern.”
Marian removed her bonnet and cloak slowly. No one would have guessed from her looks that she was older than Hannah.
“It’s so natural to be at home again,” she said. “I shall begin to think I’ve been asleep, and just woke up. Only mother isn’t here. But mother has forgiven me—I’m sure of that. There’s no unforgiveness or thinking hard thoughts of people in heaven. Can I have my old bedroom, Hannah? I should like that best.”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” said Hannah coldly. “Nobody’s sleeping there now, and you may as well have that as any other.”
“Then I will.” She stood looking at her sister. “Hannah, can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me yet? I think you might. I think you would, if you knew half I’ve gone through. It’s an awful thought for a child to have helped to shorten a mother’s life; and it’s an awful thought for a mother to have given up her own child. Can’t you pity me yet?”
She did not wait for an answer, but went away to see after her room, moving with a quiet step, which contrasted with Hannah’s abrupt dashes to and fro. The old farmer watched her then, and on her return, with a curious interest. The old half-dead affections for his eldest daughter seemed to be slowly returning. “Yes, it’s good to have our Polly back,” he muttered now and then.
Marian appeared to have strangely little to say about her long absence. Perhaps the fact that she could tell few particulars without bringing in William’s name was a restraint. One matter after another came up, and events were mentioned at intervals, but there was no outpouring. She seemed placidly happy to be at home again, and her eyes continually strayed in the direction of Jervis. Hannah’s brusqueness glanced harmlessly off the shield of her calm content.
Supper, usually a meal partaken of in dead silence, was broken thus by fitful conversation. Marian took her position at once as daughter of the house—not as eldest daughter. Hannah could not after these years be dispossessed of her leading place in the household.
When supper was over, Hannah disappeared, and John Cairns gradually nodded himself off into profound slumber. The little parlor was very hot, but not too hot for Jervis. He had placed himself on the other side of the fire, and Marian came near him, taking a seat slightly in the shade. She did not wish to have the light full upon her face, while putting one or two questions of which her mind was full.
“How did you get here from the station?” Jervis asked.
“I walked. My box is there, till we send for it.” Jervis was about to answer, but Marian could endure no farther delay.
“I want to know about the people in the neighborhood,” she said before he could speak. “The friends we used to have.”
“We have no friends now, Polly. Father and Hannah have sheered off from everybody.”
“Because of William?”
“Yes; and—since mother’s death.”
“Mr. Rutherford of the Hall was a good friend to father once,” said Marian.
“We never see him now. Father took to snubbing everybody—and Mr. Rutherford is busy man. He wasn’t likely to come after people who didn’t give him a welcome. He did bring his wife once, and I believe Hannah was downright rude.”
“And he so good to William,” said Marian, sorrowfully.
“That’s just it, Polly. He knew too much of William’s conduct.”
“Who did Mr. Rutherford marry? Has he any children?” asked Marian, her face turned slightly away.
“I don’t know anything about Mrs. Rutherford. They have two daughters—at least I have seen two young ladies riding with Mr. Rutherford. Now I think of it, somebody once told me that the eldest wasn’t his own—a niece, or a friend’s child, I believe. She’s a fine-looking, handsome girl.”
“Dark or fair?”
“Dark not a bit like Mr. Rutherford or his family. Why, Polly, you seem to care a great deal about the Hall people.”
“They have to do with my young days—or at least he had,” Marian made answer.
THEY were nearing Woodleigh fast. The last preceding station lay in their rear, and the next stoppage would mean home.
Joan had been for some time sitting upright in her cushioned seat, trying to make out the features of the country through deepening nightshades. Ghostly white telegraph posts flashed past at regular intervals, but little else was visible. Still Joan gazed on, her brows bent with a look of intense gravity.
George Rutherford sat opposite, making believe to read a newspaper by lamplight, but in reality watching Joan. He could not decipher her thoughts. It was something unusual for her to be so absorbed as to remain unconscious of his scrutiny.
Dulcibel and Nessie, tired with the long day’s journey, were comfortably ensconced in the two farther corners of the compartment, both sound asleep. The seats between were empty.
“Father,” Joan said at length abruptly, turning her face towards him, “I wonder if—”
“Yes, my dear—” as she came to a pause.
“No; I think I’ll ask you by-and-by,” Joan answered, flushing.
“Afraid of me?”
“Oh, no! As if that were possible! But there are some things one can’t say always and anywhere. I could ask you questions which I couldn’t put to anybody else—in your study, sitting by your side on a stool, when it is nearly dark.”
“It is nearly dark now, Joan; and there is room for you by my side.”
“But this is not your study,” Joan replied archly, taking the offered position.
“We may make it so for the moment, to all intents and purposes. Shut your eyes, and picture the bookshelves around. What were you going to ask me?”
A break, and then—“I can’t now, father. Some other time.”
“My dear, if a thing has to be said or done, there is no time like the present.”
“Yes—but—”
“But my little woman is shy?”
“I suppose I am,” said Joan. “Some things are so difficult to speak about, even to the people one loves most and best. I should like to turn my heart inside out to you, if I could do it without talking. Having to put everything into words is hard. One word is too strong, and another is not strong enough, and no two people mean exactly alike by the same word.”
“Earthly language is defective,” assented George. “I suppose that want will be fully supplied in heaven.”
Joan’s face said—“How?”
“Each word having its own absolute meaning, being in exact accordance with the thing signified, and being used always in its rightful sense. There will be no misunderstandings in heaven.”
“But you never misunderstand me, father. Other people do, of course.”
“I think you must have some fear of the possibility even with me, or you would find speaking out an easier task.”
There was no direct response to this. Joan said, after a minute—“We are almost there.”
“Is that tone just a little regretful?”
“N-no, father,” said Joan slowly. “Wales has been very delightful. But I couldn’t regret going home. Only—”
“My dear, I don’t think I quite understand you this evening,” said George.
“I don’t think I quite understand myself,” Joan answered, flashing a look up at him in the lamplight; “I was going to say—‘Only there is that old Mr. Brooke.’”
“He seems rather a bugbear of your imagination at present. Did he not assure you of non-troublesome intentions?”
“Oh, yes. But people change their minds betimes.”
“They do,” George said. “Will you change yours now, Joan, and ask me the little question which you had in your thoughts a minute ago?”
Joan’s eyes fell.
“I don’t think I can,” she said.
“Not if I wish it?”
Joan fidgeted with one of her gloves. Once she looked up, and met his kind, wistful gaze. Words were hovering on her lips, yet they did not come forth. She said at length, desperately—
“Father, I can’t.”
“Well, I won’t tease you. Some other time I hope you will be able. No need to say how glad I am to give my Joan help, whenever it is possible.”
Yes, Joan knew that well; and as the momenta sped she began slowly to wish that she had not let the opportunity slip. She could scarcely have told what she had wanted to ask, only she had a sense of need, a desire for something of spiritual help. And, after all, no time for appealing to George Rutherford could well be better than this lost time. But it was now too late. The train was rushing into Woodleigh, and the station lay close ahead. Rapid slackening of speed had already begun.
“Here we are!” George said, giving her a kind, reassuring smile, as if he feared she might think him vexed by her refusal.
“I’ll get down the umbrellas,” Joan said, moving to the other end of the compartment, where Dulcibel was slowly opening her eyes.
“Is this Woodleigh? Oh, dear, I am so tired! Nessie, you must wake up. Joan, just put—”
The sentence was cut short. A fierce jarring shock vibrated through the train, and they were at a standstill.
Joan was distinctly conscious of the shock, conscious of the shuddering thrill which shook the boards under her feet, conscious of the force with which she was flung against the side of the carriage and down upon the cushioned seat. The long grinding crash of the train, brought suddenly to a stop—happily from not half its usual speed—reached her ears vividly, mingled with shrieks of human terror. The hiss and rush of water came next, sounding close at hand, and in one instant the air was full of white, blinding steam.
Joan tried to struggle up from her prone position, and found herself held firmly down. Something seemed to be clutching her dress, but there was no painful pressure; her arms were free, and her mind was clear. “Father!” was the first involuntary cry, as she groped around with outstretched hands, and then—“Mother! Nessie! Oh, what has happened?”
But no response came, only the outside din went on continuously, and her voice rose to a scream with the terrified appeal—.
“Father, father, are you hurt?”
Silence still. Something streaming down her own face made her put up one hand, and she knew it to be blood. She could feel the outlines of a cut on her forehead, though still unconscious of pain. Bodily sensations were lost in bewilderment and dread.
A hand touched hers as if by accident, and the two closed together tightly.
“Nessie,” Joan cried.
And Nessie said hoarsely—
“Joan, mother doesn’t move.”
“I can’t either, can you?” Joan answered hurriedly. “I’m held down. There’s a weight on my dress, I think. If I could only get to father! He must be hurt, or he would come. Oh, I don’t know what to do! Nessie, are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so. But mother!” Nessie said.
“But father!” was the cry of Joan’s heart. She struggled to release herself, struggling in vain. Each effort brought a fresh flow of blood from the cut in her forehead, and Joan grew faint.
“I can touch mother, but she won’t answer or move,” Nessie said fearfully.
“Nessie, couldn’t you go to father?” asked Joan, in a voice which sounded to herself strange and far-away.
“I can’t. The sides of the carriage seem jammed in, so there’s no getting past you. If only this horrid white mist would clear! It must be from the engine, I suppose.” Nessie spoke in a tone of unwonted flurry and excitement, not surprising under the circumstances. “Some one ought to help us out. Why doesn’t any one come? I’ve tried to open the door, and I can’t.”
“Father must be hurt, or he would speak,” moaned the other. “Nessie, call for help—call loudly. They don’t know we are here, perhaps.”
She could not tell whether Nessie obeyed. Buzzing sounds filled her ears, and the dim, white mist faded into blackness. Seconds, minutes, even hours, might have passed before she revived to a consciousness of voices, faces, and lantern light. Troubled eyes were peering in through the shattered window, and the steam had partially cleared away.
“Some ladies this side,” a voice said, and Joan was vaguely conscious of a familiar sound. “Here, men.”
“Three of us,” Nessie’s small tones chimed in. “And a gentleman at the other end. We can’t get to him.”
With much exertion and difficulty the door of their compartment was forced open. Strong hands lifted Dulcibel out, and Nessie followed, an exclamation of concern in that same deep voice greeting the two. Joan did not hear it, nor did she know that the owner of the voice gave up his lantern to another, and hastened elsewhere. Her release was no quick matter; for some of the broken woodwork had closed like a vice upon her skirts, and part of the dress had to be cut away before she could be freed. She said impatiently once, “Oh, leave me—don’t mind about me! Only see to my father?” One of the men answered, “The gentleman has gone, miss,” and they worked on steadily.
Out at last upon the ground, amid the scattered debris of the collision; with a black sky above, and rain dripping on her head; a wrecked carriage in front, and an overturned engine close beyond; lanterns glimmering here and there, and men moving confusedly to and fro. A good many passengers had made their way already to the Cross Arms Hotel, a rather superior village inn, within two minutes’ walk of the spot where the accident had occurred. Others preferred to wait, and give needed help.
No other carriages had suffered to the same extent as the foremost compartment, in which the Rutherfords had travelled; but many people were more or less shaken and bruised. One lady in violent hysterics sat near, filling the air with her shrieks, and declining to stir; while a poor stoker, with a broken leg, lay not far or, scarcely groaning in his pain—only waiting to be carried away. He was not the worst among the injured. Mr. Forest, the Woodleigh doctor, and a surgeon from a distance, travelling by this same train, were both occupied elsewhere.
Joan herself looked ghastly—pallid, dizzy, and streaked with blood. One of her rescuers lifted a lantern, throwing its light full upon her; and she staggered, grasping at somebody’s arm. Needed support was at once given, and the question, “Are you much hurt?” was asked in concerned, deep tones, so familiar in their articulation that Joan turned, with one sharp cry of relief—“Oh, father!”
“No, Joan; don’t you know me?”
“No. Oh, I don’t care—” and she snatched away her arm from that of the tall, broad built fair-haired man by her side, in bitter, almost angry disappointment. “I thought it was father’s voice! Will nobody get him out? Will nobody see what is the matter? He hasn’t said a word. Oh, do make haste!”
“He has been taken out from the other door. They could not have reached him from this side.” Joan had not thought of that possibility, and the words would have brought relief, only something in the speaker’s manner stirred her to renewed fear. “I have been there—helping.... Joan, are you much hurt? Don’t you know me?” as she stared at him. “I am Leonard Ackroyd—Leo! Are you badly hurt?”
“No, no, no. It is nothing—only a cut—nothing at all,” cried Joan passionately. “If I could know about father? Nothing else matters! Where is he? I must go to him.”
Leo’s hand was on her arm detainingly.
“Not yet—impossible yet,” he said. “The surgeons are there!”
“The surgeons?”
“Mr. Forest, and another, a friend of mine, going by this train—”
“Where?”
“They are with him.”
“Where?” repeated Joan, in agony.
Leonard would not give a direct answer. He doubted his own power to keep her back if she once knew whither to turn her steps, so wild in determination was the blanched face.
“He has been taken under shelter. They are seeing to him at once. There could be no delay.”
Joan’s colorless lips could hardly frame the word—“Hurt!”
“I am afraid so—very much.”
“Worse than others?”
“You were nearest the engine; and his end of the compartment—” Leo seemed unable to continue, yet those craving eyes would not let him off. “There was—Joan, will you not come with me? We shall know—presently.”
She almost stamped her foot.
“There was—what—what? Tell me.”
“From the engine—a rush of boiling water—that, or hot steam; I don’t know which—or how,” Leo said with difficulty. “He seemed to be severely scalded.”
“Could he speak?”
“No.”
“Not—not—dead?”
“No, Joan—” very sadly; and then a pause. “But—”
Joan’s white face grew whiter, and the ground seeming falling from under her feet. “I must go to him,” she strove to say; and then all power to move or speak died away. Leonard Ackroyd lifted her like a child in his strong arms, and bore her elsewhere.
“YES; Mr. Rutherford belongs to my young days,” slowly repeated Marian Brooke, as she sat in the little smoking parlor of the old farm-house, alone with her brother, Jervis Cairns. “I can remember him first as a big boy, when his father was alive—always so sunny looking, with his auburn hair. It wasn’t often I saw him, but when I did he always had a pleasant word for me. ‘Well, Polly, how are the lessons going on?’ he used to say; and I liked him to ask, though I was shy about answering him. And then he came of age, and his father died—I forget which of the two happened first. And when I was seventeen our troubles began, with William going wrong. It was a sad time. You can’t remember that, Jervis—such a mite of a child you were, only six or seven years old.”
“I can remember how mother used to cry,” said Jervis.
“Poor mother! Yes, that half broke her heart, and my going later broke it quite. I always feel I am rightly paid for that by my years of sorrow. I think we do get punished often by being paid back in the same coin we’ve paid to others. I broke her heart, and now I am nothing to my own child. Yes, I know that’s my own doing—my own folly, but still—still it is my punishment, Jervis. You don’t think it’s presumption in me, do you, to hope for God’s forgiveness? We have his word of promise, and it can’t be wrong to take him at his word. I’ve grieved and mourned for years, but something of light has come lately. I think I needn’t hold myself back from him now. If I had but known in those days how little I was to gain by my wilfulness! But I oughtn’t to have needed that to keep me back from wrong-doing.”
“If only you had told mother all about Mr. Brooke!” said Jervis.
“Hubert wouldn’t let me. There’s where it all hinged. If I had insisted on telling mother, I should have lost Hubert, and I couldn’t make up my mind to it. He was very good to me; I can say so much, though he did lead me into wrong-doing. While he lived I didn’t seem to feel how ill I had acted; that all came later. And what I went through—”
“Don’t you often wish for your child again, Polly?”
“‘Wish’ is no word for it,” she answered. “Sometimes it’s such awful longing that I feel almost as if I could lie down and die with the heart pain. It’s worst at night—the thirst to have her little arms round my neck once more. But they are not little any longer, and I’m nothing to her now. She is happy without me, and she doesn’t even know she has a mother living. I’ve not seen her since she was that high, Jervis—under four years old—with such pretty ways, and such a loving heart! But children soon forget you know. I don’t suppose she’d even know me if she saw me. No, of course she couldn’t. The trouble has been that I could so very, very seldom hear of her; and she might any time have died without my knowing. I never dared to write straight, and say I was alive, and ask. I was too ashamed and too unhappy; and there were those promises in the way.”
“You’ll manage to see her now,” said Jervis; and Marian flushed.
“Perhaps. I shouldn’t wonder. I’ll try some day. A mother does crave fer a look. But I shan’t tell her who I am, so long as she is happy and doesn’t need me.”
Voices presently sounded outside, and after a while Hannah came in.
“There’s been a bad train accident,” she said abruptly.
“Where?” asked Jervis.
“Near Woodleigh Station. Jim’s but just got back, and I asked him whatever he had been dawdling about. He says father sent him to the station for a parcel, and of course he wasted his time there, playing and gossiping. Anyway, there he was when the accident happened, and he stayed to see all he could—sure to do that, or he wouldn’t be a boy! Some sort of blunder about the train coming in; it got upon the wrong line, and ran into another just going out of the station.”
“A collision?” Marian said.
“Yes. Jim says it might have been a deal worse, if both trains had been going at the top of their speed, which they weren’t. But anyway it’s bad enough. One engine went right over, and a front carriage is smashed, and a lot of people are hurt. There’s a stoker with his leg broken.”
“That’s not the train, I hope, that Mr. Rutherford was expected back by?” Jervis suddenly said.
“Mr. Rutherford!” repeated Marian; and a sudden fear shot through her—not for George Rutherford.
“Yes, it is,” Hannah answered, “and they’re worst hurt of any. Mr. Rutherford’s said to be dying.”
Every trace of color left Marian’s face. Jervis looked at her in perplexity, as she said in changed, hoarse tones—“Mr. Rutherford’s daughters!”
“I don’t know everything,” said Hannah shortly. “They’re hurt, I believe. They were all in the first carriage, and that’s pretty well smashed up.”
Marian rose slowly, a dazed look in her eyes. “What are you after? What’s the matter, Polly?” asked Jervis.
“They’ll want me, perhaps. I mean I’m going to see if I can be of any use,” she said slowly. “I’m a good nurse, and some of the poor things might be needing help.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Hannah. “There’s any number of people to do all that’s wanted.”
“You can’t tell. I dare say I could be useful.”
“I dare say you couldn’t. Sit down and be quiet,” said Hannah curtly. But the order was not obeyed.
“It’s too late, Polly, my dear,” said. Jervis in his kindest tone. “You shall do as you like in the morning—only not to-night. It’s getting late, and the station is a long step off; and, as Hannah says, there’ll be people enough to do all that’s needed. A stranger going among them couldn’t be much good.”
“I don’t see that: and I’m not a stranger to Mr. Rutherford,” said Marian. Her look was very resolute. “You needn’t try to hinder me, Jervis, for my mind’s set on going. The walk’s nothing.”
“You always were set on anything you wanted to do,” said Hannah.
“But, Polly, it’s not needful. It would be better not,” urged Jervis. “In the morning, if you like—”
“Any one among them may be dead by the morning,” Marian answered. “I am going, Jervis. I couldn’t lie down and sleep to-night if I didn’t. Perhaps I shall come back presently but you needn’t sit up for me. More likely I’ll stay there till the morning.”
“At the hotel?” asked Jervis, giving in to what seemed inevitable.
“Yes.”
Marian moved away, not pausing at the door to hear Hannah’s very audible animadversions on her obstinacy. Presently she returned, wearing bonnet and shawl.
“I shall know my way,” she observed. “Though it’s years and years since I’ve walked those lanes I can remember every step of them, like yesterday. It’s clear moonlight, and I’m in no fear of going wrong. Don’t be anxious, Jervis.”
Once out of the house, away from observers, Marian’s calmness of manner forsook her. In the solitude and semi-darkness she could yield to her feelings, as she rarely permitted herself to do before the eyes of others.
A great fear was pressing on the mother’s heart. What if Joan—her child—were among the severely injured? What if Joan should die?