“Come thou must, and we must die,Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by!”
“Come thou must, and we must die,Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by!”
“Come thou must, and we must die,Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by!”
“Come thou must, and we must die,
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by!”
No more than this, but over and over again the prayer came solemnly—
“‘Jesus, Saviour stand thou by!’”
“‘Jesus, Saviour stand thou by!’”
“‘Jesus, Saviour stand thou by!’”
“‘Jesus, Saviour stand thou by!’”
“He is not far-away,” Leo said quietly.
“No, my dear Leo—very near—in death and in life—always near,” was the reply, with calm emphasis.
Nessie, helplessly sobbing, had left the room, and Dulcibel at length could bear up no longer. But Joan showed no signs of breaking down. Pale as wax, she remained close beside her father, watching intensely every movement, anticipating every need.
Drowsiness again usurped sway over him, and George seemed passing into a heavy sleep. Would he ever wake from it again? Leo thought not. But by Joan’s wish an urgent messenger was sent again for the doctor, though not two hours had elapsed since his last call; and he came at once.
Almost immediately after Mr. Forest’s arrival, some one desired to speak to Leo outside the room. A few whispered words were exchanged in the passage, and when Leo reappeared, it was to say to Joan in an undertone—
“Mrs. Brooke wishes to see you.”
Joan shook her head.
“She is downstairs, and will not be denied.” Leo scarcely breathed the utterance audibly, fearing to rouse George, whose calm face showed no sign of consciousness. “Would it not be best for one minute?”
Again Joan shook her head.
Leo hardly knew whether to press the matter further.
“Joan, it is something about your interview—something that she wishes to unsay or undo.”
No response came to this. Joan simply turned her head aside, with an air of resolute refusal. A slight silence followed, broken by George Rutherford. He had not seemed to hear what passed, but now his eyes opened, looking towards Joan, and the faint voice uttered the words—
“Marian Brooke?”
Leo only said, “Yes,” gently, and Joan gave him a most reproachful glance.
George spoke distinctly, “I should like to see Marian Brooke.”
“Father dear, don’t trouble yourself about her; please don’t!” entreated Joan. “Everything will come right by-and-by—indeed it will.”
“Yes, my darling,” and George smiled at her. But again he said, “I should like to see Marian Brooke.”
“I think it might be as well,” Mr. Forest observed, after a very brief low consultation with Leo.
“Oh don’t;” Joan said, with imploring voice and eyes.
Her wish was not regarded. George Rutherford seemed roused and expectant, to a degree which no one would have thought possible ten minutes earlier.
“Bring Marian Brooke here!” he reiterated, and Leo went.
Dulcibel, with reddened eyes and sobbing breath, now came back into the room, taking up her station on the other side of her husband from that occupied by Joan. Dulcibel believed him to be dying, as did Leo. Then Marian entered slowly, and stood at the foot of the bed.
She looked very worn and haggard and sad, but the gray eyes were full of a nameless peace, something like that which rested upon the countenance of George Rutherford.
He had not seen her since her bright and pretty girlhood. It would not have been surprising if he had failed to detect any likeness. But unexpectedly he held out his hand, and said in his old kind manner—
“Why, Polly Cairns!”
Marian took the wasted hand, and burst into tears.
“No—I am forgetting. Not Polly Cairns now—but—” George hesitated.
“Marian Brooke, sir,” she answered.
“Yes, true. My Joan’s mother.”
A troubled look came over George’s face. He held out his hand again, took Joan’s, and placed in Marian’s.
That was the crucial moment, and none watched with more intense anxiety than Mr. Forest. He was resting his last faint hope of George Rutherford’s life upon this interview.
Joan visibly shuddered, and George sighed. But Marian lifted the little cold hand to her lips, kissed it fervently, and gave it back to George.
“No, sir,” she said, very distinctly. “There mustn’t be any mistake about that matter, please. Joan is your child now—now and always. I gave her up to you, and I can’t take her back.”
A strange look came over George Rutherford’s face—a look of doubt, of relief, of awakening, of renewed life. His eyes brightened and his voice grew stronger.
“You do not wish—” he said.
“It is not a matter of wishing, sir,” she answered, with resolute calmness. “Joan can’t be mine, as she would have been if I hadn’t given her up. If I had her with me ever so much, that couldn’t make her mine. Her heart is yours, and I couldn’t be so cruel as to take her from you—even if I had the right, which I haven’t. You’ve been a true father to Joan, and I do thank you. And she is yours now—yours for always. I pray God he may spare you both long to one another. I’ll ask to see her now and then, and may be one day she’ll learn to love me a little. That’s all I can hope for now, and I’ve none but myself to blame that things are as they are. I’ve no fit home to offer Joan, and I couldn’t make her happy. I’ll only ask to see her once in a while.”
“Not to have her always?” murmured George.
“No, sir.” said Marian firmly. “If you made me the offer now to take her back altogether, I wouldn’t accept the offer, knowing it isn’t really your wish to part with her. It would be only another wrong to you both, and another sin on my part; and I’ve enough on my conscience already. No, sir; Joan is yours.”
George could not speak. Tears filled his eyes, and in his utter weakness a sob broke from him. Then his arm was round Joan, and her dark head lay against his tawny beard, just as on that long-past day when he had first taken the little forsaken one into his loving heart.
“My own little girl,” he whispered.
“You’ll get well now, father,” she said.
At a sign from the doctor Marian passed out of the room, Leo saying, as she went—
“Wait in the dining-room, till one of us can come to you.”
Marian obeyed. She had done her utmost, and something of a reaction followed. Not reaction in the way of resolution, but of strength. None saw her in the next half hour of grief and loneliness, and perhaps it was well. She had a full hour in which to recover herself.
Then a quick step approached, and Joan herself opened the door. Marian had not expected this.
Joan came close, took both her hands, and looked into her face with eyes no longer defiant, only full of soft gratitude.
“Mother!” Joan said.
“My dear!” faltered Marian.
“He has dropped asleep—such a sound, quiet sleep,” said Joan. “And Mr. Forest thinks he will be better when he wakes. Mr. Forest thinks the worst is over now. And he says you will have saved his life! I can never, never thank you enough! Mother, I shall always love you for this!”
Joan’s lips were pressed against Marian’s cheeks.
“Oh, my dear, it’s too much—too much!” sobbed Marian. “I didn’t think I was to have such comfort. It’s more than I deserve.”
* * * * * * *
The worst was over at last; not only the worst of this one attack, but the worst of George Rutherford’s long ill-health. The tide had reached its lowest ebb, and steady improvement began to set in.
Day by day strength came back to body and mind, as it had never yet come back since the railway accident which made an invalid of the strong and vigorous man.
“I think you have taken out a new lease of life,” Mr. Forest said one day. “We shall soon have you almost your old self again, Mr. Rutherford, thank God!”
“Yes, thank God!” echoed George.
“But you must get away for a change soon. Where will you go? Scotland?”
“Or Wales,” said George.
“What—your favorite valley? No, not this summer. Some other year, perhaps. I should like a fresh scene for you now.”
George made no objection, and Dulcibel fully concurred in Dr. Forest’s decision. Two days later Joan asked Leo—
“Are you going to Scotland with us?”
“I am not sure—yet,” said Leo.
“We don’t start for a fortnight, so you need not make up your mind at once,” said Joan carelessly. For a sudden change of expression in Leo’s face made her regret having put the question.
“What do you wish about it yourself, Joan?”
“I? Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t make very much difference either way,” said Joan, “except that of course we all like to have you—especially father.”
Leo spoke rather coldly, after a pause—
“Joan, do you care for any one in the world except uncle?”
“Yes, of course I do,” Joan answered rather hurriedly. “What an odd question. I love mother and Nessie, and I am trying to care for my other mother as I ought; she is so good and self-denying. And my uncle Jervis is really nice, too. Of course, I don’t love anybody else in the world as I love father.”
“And I suppose you never will,” said Leo.
“Never,” Joan answered decidedly. “Oh no, never! If I didn’t know that before his illness, I know it now.”
“But, Joan, after all, that is all nonsense,” Leo asserted. “Girls often say such things, and it means nothing.”
“It means a great deal with me,” said Joan. “I will never leave father, Leo, for anybody. After all that I owe to him, how could I? Even if I could wish it, I could not do it. And I never shall have such a wish—never. I love him much too dearly.”
“That is mere infatuation,” Leo declared. “Daughters leave their own fathers to be married;—every day it happens.”
“Yes, their own fathers! But this is different,” replied Joan. “If father were my own father, things would have come to me as a right which are only a gift. That would make all the difference. Nessie will marry some day, and then father and mother will need me all the more to take care of them.”
Leo did not seem convinced. He began to say something in a low, agitated voice, and Joan only caught two or three words. She would not hear more.
“No, Leo, no! Please stop,” she cried. “Oh, don’t go on! Don’t say it, and make everything uncomfortable. That can never be—never. I can never leave father. My work in life must be to look after father. He will never be strong, as he used to be, and he does depend on me so. And though I like you very much—very much indeed—it isn’t that. It couldn’t be. Father is always first with me, and he always will be. And even if I could feel just exactly as you wish, still the thing could not possibly be. You know how you feel about my relations at the farm.”
“But out in India, Joan!” entreated Leo.
“You won’t spend your whole life in India, and I am not going to cast off my relations. Nothing of that sort can ever be. I am only sorry you did not keep from saying a word. We will forget about it as fast as possible. You are my brother, and that is all. The best thing you can do is to fall in love with dear good little Nessie. But please don’t think about me any more, and don’t say one word to father. My path in life is quite plainly cut out for me. I will never leave dear father, by my own choice.”
“OH no! I couldn’t think of it, George. I am quite too old for swinging bridges now. I couldn’t, really,” said Dulcibel. Two years had gone by, and once more they were in their old quarters—Dulcibel being seated lazily in an arm-chair near the window of the hotel drawing-room, while George and Joan stood in front of her. George Rutherford, though a good deal aged by his long ill-health, now looked fairly strong again; and Joan’s warm dark face was rippling over with happiness. Nobody else happened to be present. They had come late in the season this year, and the hotel was nearly empty. The trees in the hotel grounds showed autumn tints and thinned foliage.
“I couldn’t possibly,” repeated Dulcibel. “You know I always had a horror of that bridge, George, dear. Last time we were here, you made me go over; but I can’t now—I really can’t. My nerves will not stand that sort of thing any longer. You and Joan most go together.”
“But, my dear, what are you going to do with yourself?” asked George.
“I shall just take a little turn presently, or else sit here and work. Besides, I want to write to Nessie.”
For Nessie was no longer with her mother. Men do not often follow such advice as Joan had rashly given to Leo; but in this case it had been followed. Finding Joan hopelessly out of his reach, Leo at length actually contented himself with the gentle and impassive little Nessie. Three months before this Welsh trip the wedding had taken place, and Leo with his bride was now again in India.
Dulcibel felt the parting greatly, of course; still it had long been her ardent wish that Leo should wed Nessie, and if grieved she was also very much gratified. Her chief consolation was found in writing endless chit-chat letters to Nessie. So soon as one was finished, she started its successor.
And Joan now was the only home-daughter. She loved and exulted in this position. George depended upon her companionship more entirely than ever; and Dulcibel and Joan no longer rubbed and fretted each the other. Dulcibel’s ways were perhaps not less teasing than in past years, but Joan was more patient; and there existed also between the two a greater heartiness of affection.
Joan’s “other mother” saw her often. George Rutherford took care of this. Twice a year he sent Joan with Marian for ten days together to some seaside place; and once a week regularly they spent an hour or two in company. Marian neither asked nor expected more.
“Shall we put off the valley till another day?” asked George.
“No, indeed. Why should you?” asked Dulcibel. “I don’t in the least care to go, and you and Joan have set your hearts on it. And it has rained every day since we came, and very likely will rain every day until we go. I suppose it means to keep fine this morning. You must take waterproof wraps. I shall just stay in, and write to Nessie.”
“You are sure you can spare me, mother?” asked Joan.
“Yes, of course. Your father will never be happy till he has been to that place. I can’t think what you are both wasting time for,” responded Dulcibel, rather ungratefully.
Joan did not seem distressed. She gave Dulcibel a kiss, slipped her arm in George Rutherford’s, and turned to leave.
“Mother really does like writing to Nessie more than anything else in the world,” she remarked, outside the front door.
“Yes, I believe so. One is always afraid of her being lonely; but she has suffered less acutely from the parting than I feared.”
“Isn’t that mother’s way?” asked Joan. “She always dreads and fears everything, and yet somehow she always gets through trouble better than one expects. And after all, she did wish this very much.”
George Rutherford could not quite attain to his old vigorous speed. He would never be the strong man that he had once been, although more fully restored than could have been expected two years earlier. Very little of the head-weakness remained now. He was only a decidedly older man, less able to endure than before his illness, and somewhat easily fatigued.
So a longer time was occupied with the walk than would have been three years before, had he gone then at his full speed. And when the tremulous swinging bridge was reached, George seemed glad to lean against a tree for a brief rest before crossing.
“We have come rather too fast, I am afraid,” Joan said, as he drew his handkerchief across his brow.
“No; I shall be all right directly. Take a look at the old surroundings, Joan.”
Joan obeyed, going slowly over, and giving herself up to the enjoyment of wooded heights, and varied autumn tintings. The little river babbled on still with its ceaseless soft chatter, and the old church stood unchanged in the centre. Quick changes of light and shade came from the passing of small cloudlets over the sun.
“It is very lovely, father,” Joan said, when he joined her. “I don’t know any dearer place than this valley, because it is where you first found me.”
“There might be a dearer spot, Joan,” he said, as they passed on slowly.
“What—home, father?”
“No, my dear. I meant the spot where Another found you.”
Joan was silent for a minute or more.
“Do you think he really has found me?” she asked at length.
George looked down into those dark eyes, full of earnest appeal for his decision.
“Yes!” he said.
“I can’t be sure always,” said Joan thoughtfully. “Sometimes—yes, sometimes I do feel sure. Things have never been the same since that dreadful time when you were so ill. I did learn to pray then. And I think—I think I do love Christ now. But still—”
“But still, temptations come. Is that it?”
“Father, I am afraid I do love you too much still, and I love God too little.”
“He alone can cure that evil, dear.”
“If I knew what to do!” said Joan.
“There is only one thing to be done. Take it all to Jesus.”
Joan gave him one quick smile of response. She could respond now.
“Yes,” George said presently, as if carrying on or answering some thought of his own, “if the illness and trouble of that year brought my Joan to his feet, I can be thankful for the whole.”
“I think it did,” Joan said softly.
They were finding their way to the river brink—the spot where once Dulcibel the bride had dabbled her hands in water, and where twice over George had read aloud, first to one hearer, and then to three hearers. Joan said smilingly, when this place was reached—
“Trench’s Poems.”
“It seems quite the correct thing now to have Trench with us here,” remarked George smiling too. “But unfortunately I forgot him to-day. My memory is uncertain.”
“Ah, but I am your memory, father!” —and Joan triumphantly held aloft a green volume.
“Well done, Joan!” He took it from her, but gave it back. “No, you shall read something to me for a change. No need for us to run in a groove.”
“I shall turn to my favorite ‘Century of Couplets,’” Joan answered.
She seemed, however, to find choice difficult. George watched for some time her fixed gaze at a certain page, and then caught a stealthy glance from eyes soft with unshed tears.
“What is it, my dear?”
“Something I came on here,” said Joan, with the least possible break in her voice. “It is only—only this—
“‘Some are resigned to go: might we such grace attain,That we should need our resignation to remain.’”
“‘Some are resigned to go: might we such grace attain,That we should need our resignation to remain.’”
“‘Some are resigned to go: might we such grace attain,That we should need our resignation to remain.’”
“‘Some are resigned to go: might we such grace attain,
That we should need our resignation to remain.’”
“Well?” George Rutherford said.
“I think this is like you, father. I am afraid you do need your resignation to remain.”
If she expected denial, she was disappointed, for none came.
“And here is another,” added Joan—
“‘Ill fares the child of heaven who will not entertain,On earth the stranger’s grief—the exile’s sense of pain.’”
“‘Ill fares the child of heaven who will not entertain,On earth the stranger’s grief—the exile’s sense of pain.’”
“‘Ill fares the child of heaven who will not entertain,On earth the stranger’s grief—the exile’s sense of pain.’”
“‘Ill fares the child of heaven who will not entertain,
On earth the stranger’s grief—the exile’s sense of pain.’”
“Yes; that is an old favourite of mine. Well, Joan?”
“Of course, it is quite right—and one ought,” murmured Joan. “But I can’t help feeling it rather dreadful that you would be so pleased to leave us.”
“No; you are wrong there. I could never be pleased to leave those I love.”
“Only—to go to—”
“That is another side of the question. I am an exile on earth—and a citizen of heaven. The true exile doesn’t grieve to go home. And no joy could be greater than to meet my Master face to face. But, Joan, that means no possibility of gladness in leaving you. Cannot you understand the existence of joy and sorrow side by side?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Joan said slowly.
“Only—what?” he asked, watching her.
“Father, if you could have seen your own face in that illness, the day you were at your worst—” Joan said, and came to a pause.
“I had some fair glimpses of the light on the other side, my dear,” he said, quietly. “And if the call had come, I could have gone rejoicing. The call did not come,—and I could turn back to wait, rejoicing. Joan, do you believe it was no pain to me at that time to think of parting with my child?”
Joan looked up with sudden comprehension.
“Oh, I know—I know it was,” she said.
An hour later as they crossed the moor, one or two sharp showers overtook them; and some fine effects in the way of contrasted brightness and shadow were to be seen. A close phalanx of low black clouds with fringed edges swept over the hills, and following persistently in their wake was one broad belt of sunshine.
“Like life,” George said musingly, as they stood to gaze. “Remember, Joan, if the clouds return after the rain, as return they often do, the sunlight comes after the clouds again. But one must have the commingling. Pure joy and pure sorrow are scarcely known to us in this life.”