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Rachel took out her pearls from the jewel box and looked at them. They were certainly very beautiful. She had not worn them since her wedding day; and she did not see any chance of wearing them again.
In case the parting with them should grow a little hard she packed them up quickly and went to the post to register them.
It seemed to her as if she was parting with another link of the old life. But after all what did that matter! She had Luke; and it was true what Gwen had said, that Luke compensated for the loss of all else. Besides which, she knew that they both needed a change and rest, and certainly sea breezes were of more value just then than pearls locked up in her jewel case could be. Nevertheless it cost her something to part with their beauty. It was not so much their value that she had thought of as their beauty; and more than once she had taken them out simply to have the pleasure of seeing something very lovely. There was so little beauty surrounding her that she revelled in the sight of her pearls.
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It was some time before the cousin, to whom she had sent them, wrote and told her that he believed they would fetch a very good price; and one morning at breakfast she opened a letter that was lying on the table beside her, and a cheque, much larger than she had hoped for, fell out.
Her exclamation of surprise and pleasure caused Luke to look up from the paper he was reading.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Something delightful," she answered. "We can now go for our holiday."
"What do you mean? Have you come in for a fortune?"
"I feel as if I had in our present strait," said Rachel still looking down at the cheque in her hand. "Would you like to see what I have?" She held it out to him.
Money meant little to Luke, except that it enabled him to carry out plans on which he had set his heart. And there was a plan of his that sprang at once into his mind as he looked at the cheque. His face glowed.
"Where did it come from?" he asked, astonished and delighted.
"I sold my pearls."
The smile on his face faded for a moment.
"I did not know you had any, I have never seen them."
"I have never shown them to you as I know that that kind of thing is not in your line, you don't care for jewels; but I wore them on my wedding day. I hope you saw them then."
"No, I only saw you. But why didn't you tell me what you were doing?"
"Because I was afraid you would not let me part with them. Uncle Joe gave them to me, and I was fond of him."
"I shouldn't have prevented you from parting with them. What is the good of pearls?"
"The good! Why their beauty is their good. They are gifts from God just as everything else is that is lovely, and of good report. Don't despise them. Besides," she said, feeling a little sore, "Uncle Joe gave them to me, and I loved him." Then she added, determined not to give way to any feeling of disappointment, "and now we can think about our holiday. Where shall we go?"
She was folding the cheque up and putting it again in the envelope of her letter. But on noticing that Luke did not answer her question, she glanced up and found him looking out of the window with a dreamy happy smile on his face. He was evidently thinking of the holiday. Perhaps his thoughts had flown to Southwold and the moon's silver pathway on the sea. The happiness displayed in his expression of face made her feel that the small self-denial that she had exercised was well worth while.
"I do believe," he said, still looking out of the window, "that at last my dream will be fulfilled."
"What is your dream?" asked Rachel. She had been right. He was evidently dreaming of Southwold.
"Why, to put electric light in St. Marks. Think how attractive and bright it would make the place. I never thought I should be able to do it. How much do you think it would cost?"
Rachel was silent from astonishment and disappointment.
Then she said slowly:
"You don't suppose, do you Luke, that I have sold my pearls to be able to do for the Church what the people are far better able to afford to do than we are? You seem to forget that we are really poor, much poorer than many of the congregation. No, the first thing we must do," she said decidedly, "is to pay our bills and to start afresh, and then to go for a holiday."
Rachel's tone of voice was so decided that he turned and looked at her in surprise.
"But," he said, "it is God's work that you are refusing."
"No," she answered, "I don't think it is. To provide the luxury of electric light in a place where the gas is quite good and sufficient, seems to me to be not so much doing the Will of God as paying our debts, and going for a holiday, which will give you strength to do His work better."
Luke was silent.
"Besides," she added in a lower voice and smiling, "you forget next January."
Luke looked mystified. Then noticing the expression of his wife's eyes, he remembered.
"I forgot for the moment," he said. "You are quite right."
At the thought of January Rachel's face had lost all the surprise and disappointment as she looked down again at the envelope containing the cheque. Then she suddenly drew it out with a gay laugh and flourished it in his face.
"Happily it's mine," she said, "and you can't get at it."
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"I know you won't give way," said Rachel, as she helped her husband into his coat.
Luke did not answer at once.
"If you remain firm this time you will find it easier the next."
"I don't intend to give way," said Luke gravely. "It would be fatal."
"Yes, and you would never forgive yourself." Luke buttoned up his coat and looked at his wife.
"We should hear the same excuse that that old woman gave for not attending her Parish Church," he said smiling.
"What was that?"
"That she had been too ill for the last half year to come to the services but she was proud to say she had not missed a single Whist Drive."
"Oh you mustn't give way," repeated Rachel earnestly. Then she added, laying a hand on his arm, "You know what I shall be doing."
When Luke smiled his face was transfigured.
He smiled now.
"You will be doing the part of Moses," he said. "I am not sure that I should not fail if it were not for that." Then he opened the door and was gone.
Rachel stood where he had left her looking absently at the door which he had shut after him.
That the Church Councils were not always happy meetings she knew. Luke said the right people were not on it. There were some really in earnest, but these often seemed afraid of speaking. Those who spoke the most often and the loudest were those who wanted to make their Church the most popular in the town by way of parish dances, whist drives, etc. Luke, Rachel knew, had always stood out against such methods of work, but people were growing persistent, and the subject was to come up again this evening. His last words had surprised her and made her anxious, for they showed her that his resistance was growing weaker and that he felt himself in real danger of giving way.
She knew what giving way would mean to him. It would lie on his heart like lead. He would not look for blessing so expectantly and hopefully in his parish if once his church began to cater for the amusement of his people instead of putting its full strength into the spiritual work. By this time Rachel knew her husband so well, that she felt sure that he would grow melancholy and depressed, and his work would be robbed of zeal and happiness in consequence.
It was not as if he had any doubts as to the wrongfulness of such methods for Church work. He absolutely disapproved of them and had made his opinions known. If he gave way or countenanced such proceedings, in the least, people would cease to believe in him.
Well there was one thing she could do to help him to be strong; she would go and do it. And while Luke was wrestling with his Church Council, Rachel was wrestling in prayer.
Then she went down stairs to listen for his footstep.
When she heard it, it did not inspire her with hope. Luke came in quietly and made his way slowly into the drawing-room where he knew he would find her.
"Well?" she said.
He took a seat on the sofa near her.
"I have gained my point."
Rachel's eyes shone.
"What good news," she said greatly relieved. "Why do you look so melancholy?"
"Because though I have gained my point I have lost four of the most regular members of the congregation. They walked out of the room."
"Oh well, that is not half so bad as if they had gained the victory," said Rachel cheerfully. Then Luke looked lovingly down at his wife.
"I doubt if I should have taken such a strong attitude if it had not been for you. I knew you were praying."
"Yes, I was praying."
"The knowledge of that helped me enormously. The four who resigned have been my most loyal supporters and I can tell you it was hard to stand out against them. They have been so exceedingly kind to me ever since I have had the church. It was this fact that made it so difficult. Besides I love peace."
"Peace with honour, but not without."
"That's just it. I felt that my Master's honour was at stake."
"I can't tell you how thankful I am," said Rachel. And under his wife's influence Luke regained something of his usual spirits. But Rachel had only heard Luke's side of the question. The next day she was inundated with callers.
"I suppose you know," said Mrs. Moscombe, the wife of the owner of the principal shop in the parish, "that the Vicar got his way by one vote only. I own when I heard all the arguments in favour of opening the Hall for such purposes I began to wonder if we ought not to do what the neighbouring churches have done to attract the young people."
"I don't think that kind of thing attracts people to Church," said Rachel.
"But as my husband says," continued Mrs. Moscombe, "it saves the boys and girls from going to worse places. Surely that is the work of the Church."
"It may save them for two or three days, possibly; but it really leads them to go to unwise places of amusement in the long run, and I know my husband feels very strongly that the Church loses its spiritual power if it goes in for catering for amusements."
"But then, dear Mrs. Greville, your husband, forgive me for saying so, is rather peculiar in his views. He scarcely moves with the times and isn't up to date as they say."
Rachel flushed.
"The times are not so particularly good that one should wish to move with them," she said. "I am very thankful that my husband does what he considers right without swerving or moving with the times."
Rachel was glad to see the last of her visitor, but had hardly said goodbye when the door opened to admit Mrs. Stone.
"Of course," she said as she took a seat, "your husband has told you all about last night. I admired him immensely. He didn't give way an inch though the majority were really against him."
"But anyhow he had a majority of one."
Mrs. Stone laughed.
"And he would not have had that if it had not been for me. I didn't agree with him in the least! I must tell you, but I voted for his views as I always feel he is such a good man that he probably knows what is for the good of his people better than I do. If it had not been for my vote, he would himself have had to give the casting vote."
"I am very disappointed that you don't agree with us," said Rachel.
"Well I do believe in people keeping up with the times, and girls and boys are crazy now for dancing and cards. You can't get them if you don't give way. Things have changed so much since our fathers' times."
Rachel was silent. She felt depressed. She quite expected people like Mrs. Moscombe and others who had called to see her, and who did not profess to be religious, to misunderstand Luke's action, but it was a blow to find that her friend Mrs. Stone also disagreed with him.
But the last caller was the most trying of all.
Rachel heard her mother-in-law open the front door and walk heavily across the little hall.
"What has Luke been doing?" she exclaimed almost before she was in the room. "I hear he has quite estranged the four best supporters of the Church." She looked at Rachel as if she were to blame.
"It was about the amusement question," said Rachel. "He put down his foot at the proposal to introduce them into the work of the parish."
"Well I call it remarkably silly of him. It is a matter of very little importance and certainly not worth wrangling over. I am quite thankful I am not a member of the Council. I could not have voted against my son, but I should have felt very vexed at being a party to such a loss to the Church."
"You mean?"
"I mean losing his four best financial supporters, and those who give the most to the Easter offerings. Who is he to look to now, I should like to know? And if he only waited to consider the state of his own finances and the expense of food, (eggs are still fourpence a piece), he would not have made such a fatal mistake."
Rachel was silent, but she disagreed with every word her mother-in-law had spoken. Then after a pause during which Mrs. Greville tied and untied her bonnet strings in her agitation, she said:
"I don't suppose any consideration respecting finance would weigh with Luke against doing what he thinks right."
"My dear, young men often make a fatal mistake in going their own way, thinking that youth must know better than age. Think of those four gray haired men who know more of the world than Luke, being set at nought like that. I have never known Luke to make such a mistake. If he had only consulted me before he had acted."
Then Rachel spoke.
"But don't you see how noble it was of him to keep to what he felt right even though he must have known what the result would be. I own am proud of him, and should have been bitterly disappointed if he had given way. I am sure he did the right thing."
Mrs. Greville looked at her son's wife and could not but admire the way she stood up for her son's folly, (as she considered it). There was an expression on her face that any mother-in-law would have been pleased to see on the face of her son's wife. But for all that she felt it incumbent on her to give her a snub.
"I daresay," she said, "that you admire him. So would most young girls who only look for actions without weighing their cost. We all admire a man who is not afraid to speak out. But when it comes to flouting those who have been kind and considerate, and who never hesitate to give money for the work, it is a different matter. Luke has done a bad thing for the parish by his action of last night."
"People would never have believed in his convictions again if he had given way," said Rachel.
"Well now, don't you go and encourage him in that kind of thing," said Mrs. Greville. "I hope that you recognise the fact that Luke is not a paragon of wisdom, neither can any one turn him from what he imagines his duty. But he must remember that he now has a wife to support. He not only will stubbornly stick to his point even when it means losing money for the work of the parish, but will give away every penny he possesses without a thought of the consequences. I daresay you have found that out."
Rachel laughed, thinking of the pearls.
"Well, am I not right?"
"Luke is the most generously minded man that I have ever come across," said Rachel.
And then Mrs. Greville gave her a kiss. She could not resist it; though she knew that her action would startle her daughter-in-law.
"My dear," she said, "I do believe that you love that boy of mine as much as I do."
Rachel was tempted to answer "a great deal more," but forbore, only returning the kiss with warmth. She was getting almost fond of Mrs. Greville.
"Well, you see," she said with a smile, "he is my husband."
"But that does not always follow I am sorry to say. Wives are generally very quick in seeing and resenting faults in their husbands. And much as I love my dear boy I see a great many in him."
"But there are more virtues after all," was Rachel's answer, "and to return to the subject of whist drives, it is perfectly true what Luke quoted to me from some speech yesterday. 'The Church has so little power with the world because the world has so much power over the Church.' Don't you agree?"
"Well perhaps it is so. But when a man's bread and butter is concerned and when the Church funds are low, I own I feel it is not the time to be too particular."
"I am afraid I don't agree with you a bit."
"I don't suppose you do; that is because Luke has imbued you with his ideas of right and wrong."
"Luke has a very high ideal," said Rachel, "and I am trying to live up to it."
And Mrs. Greville went away thinking to herself, "I only hope that Luke realises what a devoted wife he has. I don't believe he does."
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The four members who had left the Church Council when the vote went against Whist Drives for Church purposes, did not leave the Church. They valued their Vicar too much to do so suddenly; but they were thoroughly vexed at the decision arrived at.
It had been a blow to Luke to find that he only had a majority of one. He had hoped that his congregation had felt with him in the matter, and finding how strong the stream was towards such means of increasing the popularity of the Church, depressed him not a little.
Moreover, he felt bound, greatly against his will, to preach against such methods and to give his reasons for so doing; and though some respected him for his courage, there were others who resented it. To Rachel, the Sunday on which he mentioned the matter was a most painful day; though she was glad that Luke had spoken out on what was much on his mind.
"I am beginning to think," he said, on sitting down to dinner after the service, "that my time in the parish is about over. It seems to me my influence for good is not strong enough. It wants a stronger man than I am here."
"You are tired," said Rachel. "That's what is making you downhearted. Last week was such a very heavy one for you. In a day or two you will see things differently."
Luke smiled unbelievingly.
"What I should like, and in fact what I have always longed for," he said, "is a Church in London. Though I doubt if such an honour will ever come my way. I am not a big enough man to be trusted with a London parish."
"London!" cried Rachel. "Oh Luke, I should hate it of all things. Besides you must be a man strong in body as well as in soul to work a London parish satisfactorily. I should be very sorry to see you undertake such a work."
"I'm quite strong enough," said Luke. "The only things that try me are the petty quarrels and vexations of such a parish as this. I heard this morning that Went and Ethers have fallen out, and on a ridiculously small matter. I fancy everything would be larger and more important in London. It is just the petty matters that worry me."
"Human nature is the same everywhere. I expect you would find small souls in a London parish just as you do here."
"Would you very much object to London?" asked Luke. "Not that there is the slightest chance of me being offered a Church there. But it is the dream of my life. Fancy working in the very hub of the Universe. I should revel in it."
"The work would be enormous, unless you had several curates. And you know how difficult they are to find now-a-days."
"I shouldn't mind the work. The more the better, so long as it is not spoilt by bickerings and quarrellings. Should you very much dislike it?"
"Intensely. I don't feel in my present mood, as if I could endure it." Then seeing a look of disappointment on her husband's face, she added, "But where thou goest I will go, you know that."
"Yes, I have no doubt of that," he answered.
And his longing for London increased during the next few months. It was a time of great disappointment for him. When he had first come to Trowsby, he had had the warmest of welcomes, and the largest congregation in the place. His preaching was arresting and people congratulated themselves on having such a Vicar. He had come straight from France where he had been acting as Chaplain, and had there shown great bravery under fire. Many came to hear him just because of this. But when the rage for amusements began to show itself, and it was found that the Vicar had no sympathy with it, and had no new Gospel to preach, but preached the same Gospel as they had heard before the war, untouched with modernism and the various other new religious theories, the congregation that had increased out of curiosity gradually dwindled, for they said, "He's not up to date." It was disheartening for Luke, specially as he heard that a Church not very far off was crowded to overflowing on account of all the social questions that were discussed during the sermons, and well-known lecturers on the various religions came down from London, Sunday after Sunday, to preach.
"Nevertheless," he said one day to his wife, "I shall continue to preach the Gospel; and by-the-bye Rachel, I must somehow get three days of quiet at least, for some of the men's Bible Class want to discuss those questions which have been raised by the Modern Churchmen's Conference; and I must prepare for the discussion. But I really don't see how I can manage it. I am late as it is with the Parish Magazine."
Rachel was laying the table for dinner at the time and looked up quickly at her husband.
"Pass that over to me," she said.
Luke looked at her a little doubtfully.
"Do you think you can manage it?" he asked.
Rachel laughed.
"Certainly I could. I am a little more intelligent than you give me credit for. Have all the people sent in their accounts?"
"No, that's just it. Sargent has never sent in his description of the Temperance Meeting, nor has Mrs. Lent of the Scripture Union Meeting. They are so often late. It means a good long walk as there is no time to send them cards to remind them of their duty. The manuscript ought to go in early to-morrow morning to the printer or the magazine will not be out in time. I should be thankful to have at least two quiet uninterrupted days; but then there are sick people to visit. I don't see how I can."
"You can quite well if you will only trust me," said Rachel, smoothing the table cloth. "You have never tried me."
"I wonder what my mother would say."
"What does it matter? I don't belong to your mother I belong to you. You must take the responsibility of me," she added laughing.
And so it was settled and Luke had two whole days of quiet. He did not move out of his study except for meals, and then he hurried over them and ate them without speaking. Rachel, knowing what he was going through and in what dead earnest he was, in his longing to rid his men of the terrible doubts that had been sown in their hearts, kept silence. It might have been a quiet day arranged by the Bishop!
Luke had given her a long list of people to visit, and had told her what information was needed for the magazine, and Rachel set to work asking no further questions. She dispensed money where she thought it was needed (not always wisely alas!) and tended to the best of her knowledge the sick people, singing to many of them; and though it was work just after her own heart, being utterly unused to it having had no training whatever, it took a great deal out of her, particularly as she was of a sympathetic nature. But she felt it was well worth while when, after the two days were over, the strained tired look on Luke's face had disappeared giving way to one full of peace and happiness.
He had felt it his duty to face over again, all the arguments and difficulties that his people might come across; and he realised that he was at war with the Devil. The words of St. Paul often ran in his mind; "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Not even Rachel was conscious of the spiritual warfare that was raging in her husband's little study, nor how often he threw himself on his knees crying to God for help in the conflict, nor had Rachel the faintest suspicion of the victories that were gained within its walls.
She had often wished that her husband was not so preoccupied, and had more thought for the small things of life which make all the difference to its comfort. But though she felt that the things of which she complained in her heart were so insignificant compared to the great matters about which Luke was engaged, she had no idea that his preoccupation and absentness of mind were often caused by the fact that he had either lost or won a spiritual battle.
He was thankful now that he had spent so much time in facing the doubts and difficulties that he had met with in the course of his reading, so that the two quiet days enabled him to prepare the subject in such a way as to make the truth plain to his men.
On the night of the meeting Rachel found it rather hard to occupy her thoughts with anything but the great strain which she knew Luke was passing through. He was late home and to turn her mind from that which was making her anxious she sat down to the piano and sang.
She was just finishing her song when she heard the front door open. She sat still in her suspense, expecting Luke to come at once into the drawing-room. But instead, she heard him going upstairs to his study, and walking heavily as if he was tired.
For some moments she sat still where she was, then she followed him. But at the study door she stopped.
Was that Luke groaning? Was he ill?
She very softly opened the door and looked in.
Luke was on his knees, his arms on the writing table and his face buried in them. He was praying out loud.
Rachel closed the door and went downstairs again. Her heart was heavy, and anxious. She knew that his habit was to pray out loud; but his prayer to-night was mingled with groans and probably tears. What had happened? Rachel moved restlessly about the room. Her impulse was to go to the piano, and soothe her anxiety by playing. But she was afraid of disturbing Luke. Then she took up her work and sat waiting.
It was late before she heard him coming down the stairs.
His face bore no trace of the anguish he had apparently been going through. He came and sat down by Rachel's side without speaking.
"Well?" she said.
He was silent for a moment, then he said:
"I have never had such a fight with evil as to-night. I feel sure that the Devil is working with all his might to destroy any good that may have been done."
"What happened?"
"We have been discussing for nearly three hours the articles of our faith. The men had primed themselves with all the arguments they could lay hold of against them. The Divinity of our Lord, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection; and the very men who I had hoped were on the eve of making the great decision have been thrown back."
"But there were surely some who were helped by your words?"
"Yes, thank God. There is a small band of faithful Christians as firm in their faith as I am. They know the Christ; and believing Him to be God take His Word as truth. But the greatest number have been shaken by these views that have been scattered broadcast since the Modern Churchmen's Conference at Cambridge, and there are some who are weak in the faith and just tottering, as it were." Luke rose up and began to walk about the room.
"I feel," he said, "that a stronger man than I am is wanted for this place. It seems to me to be the stronghold of Satan."
"When I am weak, then am I strong," said Rachel.
Luke stood and looked at Rachel for a moment. Then his face broke into a smile.
"Thank God for my wife," he said.
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"Next year," said Rachel one day, as she and Luke were on their way to Church, "next year we may not be able to afford a holiday. So I am resolved that we shall have a good one this August. We will go to the Lakes."
Rachel wrote and secured rooms at Rydal and a month after the men's meeting mentioned in the last chapter, they started off for the North.
What the sight of the beauty that now surrounded them was to Rachel can be imagined. She told Luke that she had seen nothing that could be called beautiful ever since coming to Trowsby, with the exception, she took pains to add, of her primroses and hyacinths in the little garden of which she was inordinately proud.
To sit by the Lake in the cool of the evening and watch the lights and shadows on the mountains, was positive bliss to Rachel. She tried to make Luke revel in it as much as she did, but alas, his thoughts were still engrossed with his parish, not withstanding all Rachel's efforts to make him forget it.
"It will be so much better for the parish as well as for you if you will only put it away from your mind," she said.
But Luke still persisted in saying that his work was his life and that it was the most interesting of all subjects to him. Happily there was a friend of his staying at Rydal with whom he went long excursions, leaving Rachel to the luxury of beauty and her happy thoughts. These excursions she felt were the only things that interested Luke or turned his thoughts away from his parish, with the exception of the many books he had brought with him making their luggage over weight. Rachel had sighed as she had caught sight of him trying to force them into his suitcase; but she knew he would not be happy without them.
The anniversary of their wedding took place while at the Lakes. Rachel wondered if the day meant anything special to her husband, and waited some time before she reminded him of it. They were walking on their way to Grassmere when she said:
"Luke do you remember what day this is?"
"To-day? No, what?"
"You mean to say you don't remember?" said Rachel incredulously.
Luke looked concerned.
"I have not forgotten anything important in the parish I hope."
"Important! Yes, indeed it is important; but nothing to do with the parish. In fact you have forgotten the most important day of our life, anyhow, I count it so. Don't you remember the fifteenth of August last year?"
"I'm afraid I don't. What happened? The School treat?"
"Something much more important than that. It was our wedding day."
Luke laughed.
"Our wedding day! Why I feel as if I had always had you. Is it really only a year ago? I was afraid at first that I had forgotten some important engagement."
"So you have. It is the most important. It was my first waking thought."
"What creatures you women are, always making so much of anniversaries."
Rachel laughed.
"I am afraid after all you are a thoroughly prosaic man. I thought you were full of romance and beautiful things when I married you. You must not grow prosaic or we shall be just like all the other dull couples that we so often meet."
"How can I think of anniversaries when I have 6,000 souls under my charge."
"You can think of them very well, that is to say if marriage is the sacred thing I always thought it was. Don't you remember the words in Aurora Leigh?"
"'Beloved, let us work so wellOur work shall be the better for our love,And still our love be sweeter for our work.'"
"Don't give up loving, Luke."
"Give up loving!" said Luke amazed. "Why, you are all the world to me."
"Then tell me so sometimes," said Rachel. "Wives need to be told. If not they, the husband and wife I mean, drift into such commonplace, humdrum, phlegmatic married couples."
Luke laughed. He had not noticed the slight tremor in her voice.
"By-the-bye," he said, "I hope I shall get a letter from West to-morrow about the estimate of the new gas stove to be put in the chancel."
Rachel, who had been watching the changing shadows on the mountains, now turned and looked at him. Was he really thinking about gas stoves! Then she laughed, and he vaguely wondered what she found to amuse her in gas stoves.
They were silent till they arrived at the end of the Lake.
Then Rachel said, "Just look at those lovely pink clouds and their reflection. Isn't it perfectly heavenly?"
On getting no answer she looked again at Luke; but the expression of his face convinced her that the beauty was quite lost upon him; his horizon was still filled with gas stoves.
Rachel loved the quiet times she had when Luke and his friend went for excursions. She would sit in the little garden belonging to the house in which were their rooms, and try with her paint brush to produce the wonderful effects of cloud and sunshine on the hills opposite to her. She had not touched her paint brush since her marriage, and she revelled in sketching. While she sketched, her thoughts were busy with the past and future. She looked back in her year of married life and was conscious of the change it had wrought in her. She found it almost difficult to believe that she was the same girl who had lived such a happy uneventful life in her country home. In those days her time had been taken up with riding, driving, gardening and tennis. She had had few thoughts for anything outside her home. She had very little knowledge of the world and its sorrows; and scarcely any suspicion of its sins and wickedness. It seemed now to her as if she had been living in a happy dream.
But what she had learned from the little parish work that she had done, and from the pained expression again and again on her husband's face, was enough to make her realise something of the strain and stress of life and of its misery and sin. She would gladly have been without the knowledge that she had gathered since her marriage, had it not been, that she was able to realise more what it all meant to Luke, and to sympathise with him. Life seemed a different thing to her to what it had been at home, and it made her long to be able to stretch out a helping hand to those who were tasting its bitterness. But she was willing now to wait till the way was made plain for her to do all that she longed to do; and till she was more ready for the work.
For she realised now how unfit she had been for the work in her early days of married life. She had known very little of God, or of the help that came from above. She had learnt so much from Luke of which she was ignorant before, of the things which matter. Although he was by no means perfect in her eyes, and thought too little, she felt, of the things which she ranked of importance, yet, she knew he was very far above her in spiritual matters. She felt ashamed of her poor prayers, when she knew he spent hours in his study in communion with his God. His love of his people was more than she could understand; his passion for souls and God's work absorbed him almost to the elimination of everything else. He was more in earnest than any clergyman she had ever met, and even when on a holiday, he never forgot that he was God's ambassador and was on the look out to help travellers to the Radiant City. His faults and weaknesses arose, after all, she said to herself, from mere forgetfulness and absentness of mind. It was not that he was neglectful of her or of the little things of life which to her made just all the difference, but he simply did not see them or what was needed. But oh! He was good—good all through! And she could not imagine any mean or small ignoble thought entering his mind. Though she had been disappointed when she found the anniversary of his wedding day counted as nothing to him, she knew all the time that next to his God, he loved his wife. It was just because of his love for her that he thought it so absolutely unnecessary to remind her of it.
How much she owed to Luke she was beginning to realise more than ever. The very fact of him being so terribly distressed at the meeting of his men the other night, convinced her, if nothing else had done so, of his love and adoration for his God and Saviour. That those for whom Christ had suffered and died had begun to doubt His Word and His Divinity pained him beyond expression. Luke might forget things which wore of lesser importance, but he never forgot his God. Gwen might imagine that he was slow to think of the little duties which would have been appreciated by his wife if they had been fulfilled, but Rachel knew that it was not laziness, or selfishness that caused them to be neglected, but simply that his mind was full of greater things and spiritual needs.
It was in human nature to wish that he did not live quite so much up in the clouds, as she expressed it, and being of a truthful nature Rachel did not hide the fact from herself, that to have recognised these duties, and to have done them, would have made her husband a finer man; but she had come to the conclusion that he was one who found it difficult to think of more than one thing at a time, and it was far more important for him to be occupied with spiritual matters than with temporal.
Indeed she would not have had it otherwise.
Watching the changing shadows on the hills caused by clouds and the sudden bursts of sunshine, it seemed to her that the view before her was a picture of her life. Shadow and sunshine, and perhaps she would not have realised the glory of the latter had it not been for the shadows that sometimes eclipsed it. And after all, she thought to herself, the sunshine, representing love and happiness, far outweighed the disappointments of life. She had everything to make her happy; and a future, the hope of which flooded her soul with joy whenever she thought of it. And January was not very far off! The homesickness and the loneliness of which she had often been conscious would be over then.
Both Luke and his wife were the better for their holiday, and returned home with fresh vigour for their duties. And though Mrs. Greville shook her head over the extravagance of going so far away, she could not but agree with Rachel that her son looked another man.
It was a good thing for Luke that he had been refreshed and had returned hungry for work; for he found himself in the midst of a fierce battle with the evil one. Unbelief was spreading, and his congregation gradually diminishing. One or two of his best workers were leaving the town, and two of the four men who had left the Church Council on the night of the discussion on the amusement question, had attached themselves, while he had been away, to a neighbouring church, where they considered the young people were better looked after. But Luke's faith had been renewed, and he determined not to give way to depression or discouragement, knowing that that was the atmosphere in which the devil did some of his worst work.
So the summer wore away, giving place to autumn and winter, and on January the first, his little son was born, and they called him Patrick, after his maternal grandfather.
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"I don't know what is to be done about Rachel," said Gwen, as she stood looking at her sister Sybil weeding in the garden.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that she won't live long at the rate that she is working."
"Don't be silly, Gwen."
"I am not silly; I am only thinking of what Rachel is doing in that horrible Trowsby. No girl could do all that she is doing and not pay for it. There is Luke in the first place who seems to require no end of her attention; then there's the baby and the house; and now she is doing Mrs. Greville's work."
"Of course it's unfortunate about Mrs. Greville being ill; but there is no reason why she should not get better. And after all Rachel likes parish work."
"But when she had the time for it they gave her none to do; and now that there is that troublesome baby who is always needing her, she is called away from him to do her mother-in-law's work. But you don't care Sybil, I get no sympathy from you."
"I care very much, but I'm not going to worry over what can't be helped. And after all it's nobody's fault but Rachel's. She chose to marry Luke and must abide the consequences."
"I can't imagine what made her do it, when she could have had Archie. He is worth a dozen Lukes."
"I don't agree with you. Luke is worth more than Archie."
"Archie of course has his weak points, but for all that he is a dear. But if he did not suit her there was Sir Arthur, who was head over ears in love with her, and asked her twice to marry him."
"Yes, he was a nice man, and yet she chose Luke. I thought it silly of her at the time, but I am not sure that I have not changed my mind."
"But why?"
"Because he is such a thoroughly good man. Of course Rachel recognised this about him. She could trust him; and after all that is what a woman wants to be sure about before she marries."
"Oh, he is trustworthy I grant; but I don't like him. Rachel ought to have someone quite out of the common."
"He may be a better parish priest than a husband; but it is not from want of devotion to his wife; it is from a certain denseness—I don't know what to call it. You don't understand him Gwen."
"I certainly don't."
"I am not sure however that he ought to have married. He is so wrapped up in his parish. Or he ought perhaps to have married someone different to Rachel—a real parish worker. I sometimes wonder if his parish does not stand for more in his estimation than his wife. But for all that he is good."
"I don't call him good."
"Well you don't understand him, that's all. He would do anything in the world for anyone who wants his help."
"Except for his wife."
"That is what I say; he is rather dense, and probably doesn't suppose she needs his help. I remember when I was at Trowsby, he sat up all night with one of the men of his Bible Class who was dying. No nurse could be got."
"Well of course that was nice of him," said Gwen grudgingly, "but I doubt if he would think of sitting up for an hour with his own refractory baby to give Rachel a night's rest."
"I own he is a little blind about those comparatively small matters, but for all that he is a good man and Rachel knew it, and that was why she loved him enough to marry him."
"He is so blind that he is killing her with his neglect," said Gwen warmly. "Mother must not be told, but I shall write to the Bishop."
"Don't be silly Gwen."
"I love her much more than you do. You are evidently satisfied to leave matters alone without trying to remedy them; and as both father and Uncle Joe are dead there is no-one whose opinion I should care to take except the Bishop's."
Sybil rose from her kneeling posture and rubbed the earth off her gloves.
"I wish you would be more sensible," she said, "and see things in their right proportion. As for me I tell you that I envy Rachel."
"Envy her!"
"Yes, because she follows out our Lord's command so wonderfully. She denies herself daily, takes up her cross, and follows Him."
"Yes," said Gwen slowly. "She is the one person I know who makes me feel ashamed of myself."
"And it seems to me," said Sybil, making her way towards the house, "that instead of commiserating her on her hardships, and pointing out to her, as you do, her husband's imperfections, we ought to encourage her. She has to live the life, why should we make it more difficult for her. Why try and rob her of the 'Well done' that she will hear by-and-bye."
"That may be all true; but it does not mean that we are to stand still and see her die. I shall certainly write to the Bishop."
The Bishop smiled as he read the letter that lay on his hall table next morning. He knew Gwen, and had no doubt whatever that in her love for her sister she had exaggerated matters. He sent her a kind answer reminding her that no life was perfect. There was almost always some drawback or other.
"All our joy is touched with pain;So that earth's bliss may be our guide,And not our chain."
He owned that the trials that Rachel had apparently to meet, if Gwen had reported their correctly, might not be very good for her bodily health, but they were the means of strengthening her soul, of helping her to grow in grace, evidence of which was not wanting. That after all it was worth enduring hardness, if it resulted in becoming a better soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ. He ended his letter by expressing the wish that his little friend Gwen knew what it was to take up her cross and to follow Christ.
But the Bishop did not put the thought of Rachel and her husband away from him. He determined to run over to Trowsby before long to see if Gwen's report had the element of truth in it.
The first few months after the baby's birth had been supremely happy for Rachel. Little Pat had supplied all that she had been conscious of lacking in her life. Notwithstanding the fact of their increasing poverty, she was able to fight successfully the anxiety which would have depressed her in earlier days. She was so engrossed with the thought of her child that other cares were put into the background. That the balance at the bank grew steadily less she knew; but it was no use allowing this fact to weigh down her spirits, and when she now and then had to face it, a glance at the lovely little flushed face lying on the pillow in the cradle, filled her heart with such rapture that anxiety fled, leaving her with a smile of happiness on her face.
She was astonished that even his baby son had not the power of engrossing his father's attention for more than a minute. He would take a look at the child, lay his finger on his cheek, and smiling at the little laugh that issued from his lips would turn away and run up to his study. Even the baby fingers had no power to keep him! How he could resist them Rachel could not imagine. "It is perfectly shameful the little notice you take of your son," she said one day laughingly. "It's a happy thing that he has a mother to look after him, poor little man."
"I thought mothers always looked after them in the crying stage," he answered. "Just wait and see how I shall fulfil my duties when he is older."
"I doubt it. Did you see the account of the baby sea lion that was born in the Zoo the other day? The mother undertook its education, teaching it to swim. The father avoided all responsibility. There are hosts of fathers like that."
"Wait and see," answered Luke. And then the door bell was rung sharply and Rachel little thought that a new chapter in her life's story was about to begin.
Luke had come in late after a heavy day's work in the parish, and the conversation just related had taken place at the supper table. He, rose to open the front door, and Rachel stood listening to a man's voice that she did not recognize. What she heard made her run into the hall and clasp her hands round her husband's arm, as if to shield him from the blow she knew the news would be to him.
"When did it happen?" he was asking in a quiet tone of voice. His very quietness made Rachel aware of what he was feeling. Under any strain he was unnaturally still.
"She was took about half an hour ago, Sir," said the man. "And the doctor, he say it would be as well for you to come round as soon as possible, and Mrs. Luke too. It's difficult to get a nurse just at once. But he say, that it ain't a really bad stroke. She can talk a bit, but is quite helpless on one side."
"We'll come at once," said Luke, reaching for his hat which hung on the peg. "You'll follow directly, won't you?" he added.
Rachel's thoughts flew at once to the baby who was sleeping peacefully upstairs, but who might wake any moment. She had never left him for more than a few minutes before. How could she leave him for an indefinite time in Polly's care! Polly was as good as gold, but had had no experience with babies. She was devoted to Pat, but her very devotion was likely to take an unwise form. She would probably give him anything he cried for, whether it were advisable or no. Rachel's heart sank at the prospect of leaving her little baby in her care.
"Is it quite necessary that we should both go?" she asked faintly.
Luke, forgetful of his little son, looked at her in surprise, and there was a tone of reproach in his voice as he said:
"Surely we must not fail my mother at this time. I am quite sure that she would feel it very unkind if you did not go to her."
"I will follow you," said Rachel.
She ran upstairs and looked at her boy. He was fast asleep in his crib. She always loved to look at him asleep; her whole heart went out him now as she leant down over him, giving him into God's keeping. She would have to trust him to the One Who loved him better than she did, but it was difficult not to be over anxious.
"Polly," she said, as after putting on her coat and hat, she went into the kitchen to give parting directions; "if I don't get back in time to give baby his bottle, be sure that you don't make it too hot, and that he doesn't take it too quickly. And if he cries, mind you don't give him anything but pat him gently and sing to him; then perhaps he won't notice that I am not with him."
"I'll be ever so careful of him, Ma'am," said Polly. "He shan't come to no harm I'll promise you."
And Rachel left the house determined not to give way to her fears.
She found Luke kneeling by the side of his mother's bed smoothing her hand and talking in a soft comforting tone of voice. His mother was lying with closed eyes, occasionally murmuring a few words.
"I'm going to try and find a nurse," he said in a low voice, "now that you have come. The doctor has given me several addresses. They have no-one at liberty at the Nurses' Home. I shan't be long."
Left alone Rachel took his place by the bedside, and for many minutes she knelt in silence. Then Mrs. Greville opened her eyes. When she saw who was with her an added look of anxiety crossed her face.
"Baby?" she murmured.
Rachel smiled reassuringly at her.
"I've left him with Polly," she said. "Don't be anxious about him. Polly is very fond of him and will take good care of him."
Mrs. Greville closed her eyes again. But though Rachel had spoken so reassuringly to her mother-in-law, she had hard work not to let her mind dwell on the occupant of the crib in the nursery at home.
She was touched at Mrs. Greville's anxiety for her boy, and that even in this first hour of her illness she was thinking of him rather than of herself. That she loved her grandson had been evident to Rachel from the very first. She was in fact wrapped up in the child; and was in consequence creeping into a warm place in her daughter-in-law's heart, the daughter-in-law who had never yet been able to frame her lips to call her "mother." Mrs. Greville had noticed the omission but had said nothing about it either to Luke or to his wife. It hurt her too much to mention it. But as Rachel knelt by her bedside holding her hand Mrs. Greville recognised the fact that the girl, who she had at times rather despised, had a strength in her, after all, that, made her glad to have her at this sad time, and when Luke returned with a nurse, he found her peacefully sleeping.
Rachel was thankful to be able to slip out of the house, and ran all the way home. After all, her fears had been unnecessary. Pat had had his bottle and was asleep again with Polly sitting by his side.