Then came that wonderful morning on which I read that Captain Paul Buchanan was coming home, was expected to arrive that very day. I opened the paper at breakfast, as usual and my eyes caught the word that at any time had the power to set my heart thumping and to send the blood rushing to my head, a word common enough, and which to most people, beyond relating to a country always interesting, means little—Africa. It is curious that a day that is to change the whole of one's life should begin exactly like any other day. Of the most important things we have no premonition, most of us.
That what I longed and prayed for every hour of my life should come to pass was not wonderful, but that a day on which I was to be called to make the greatest sacrifice of my life should steal stealthily upon me seems strange.
That morning when I came downstairs, my little house in Chelsea looked exactly like it always had done. The sun shone as the sun does shine in the early winter in London, and no more, until after I had read that paragraph; then, behold a new world was born. Why had my eyes been blind to the gloriousness of the morning? Why had I thought the day an ordinarily dull one with just the amount of pale sunshine which is meted out to those happy people who are wise enough to live within easy reach of the river? Yes, I know, some people do say that Chelsea is foggy.
It depends so much on their lives. No place could be foggy to me that day. My fear was that Nannie should read the news in my face. I looked away when she said, "Anything in the paper?" as she had said a hundred times before. She always came to see me eat my breakfast, so she said, but I knew it was really to hear the news. I handed her the paper, although I hated to let the words out of my sight, and she glanced at it. She paused and walked to the window. Kind Nannie, she was giving me time. She blew her nose, she was crying, she knew. A double knock at the door brought my heart to a standstill. Lady Mary was right, he did care. It seemed hours before the telegram was brought to me. I hardly dared to open it. There is some happiness too great to bear. I opened it and read:—
Sara very ill. Come at once.
DIANA
"Nannie," I said, "I am going to Hames."
"To-day?" she said. She knew it was my day of days.
"I must, Nannie. Will you come?"
"No; I'll stay here. Poor Mrs. David, whatever will she do?"
I could hardly imagine, and I am glad to remember that my sorrow seemed a small thing compared to hers.
It would be impossible for me to describe that journey. The train crept along. It seemed to stop hours at the station. No one seemed to remember that Sara was ill. I felt the grip of a cold hand on my heart. Should I ever arrive? I did at last, and found a groom waiting for me at the station, with a dogcart. His mouth twitched, and he could hardly control his voice to tell me that there was no fresh news. The carriages were wanted for the doctors; did I mind the dogcart? Mind? I could have urged the horse to a gallop, and yet I dreaded to arrive.
It was strange to pass through the quiet, deserted hall, up the stairs, and to hear no sound. A nurse opened a door and spoke in a whisper. I went into the room, and not until I saw Diana, so lovely in her grief, did I realize the agony of her suffering. She put out her hand and silently pressed mine. I turned away so that she should not see my face.
A man, a stranger to me, sat by the bedside, his eyes fixed on the child lying there. He was the great London doctor, in whom I could see all hope was centered. There were other doctors and nurses, I believe, but it all seemed confusion to me now; but poor, broken hearted Nannie I remember. She stood at a distance. Not a sound was uttered, and I took up my watch with the others, to watch that precious life ebbing away. The soft flitting backward and forward of nurses, a word now and then from the great man who held not only the life of Sara in his hands, but, it seemed to me, the life of my beautiful Diana, only broke the intense silence. The night came on and we still watched.
The doctor's face became sterner and graver and the little life weaker, or so it seemed to me. Diana knelt at the side of the bed. She never moved.
As the dawn broke, Sara opened her eyes and said, "Nannie."
Diana rose and beckoned to Nannie. Nannie hesitated, and Diana, taking her hand, whispered, "Dear Nannie, I am so glad," and gave up her place. It is not given to all of us to reach great heights, but Diana at that moment, I think, reached the divine in human nature. Then came the moment, too wonderful to think of, when the doctor told Diana that the great danger was over.
Later he said to David, "My boy, you have given your children the greatest of all blessings in their mother. Thank God for her every moment of your life. I've seen many mothers and many sick children, but—thank God, and don't forget it."
Dear David, I think most of us thank God oftener than we know and in many and divers ways, and I am not sure that David does not do it every time he looks at Diana.
Sara, having got over the crisis and being on the fair road to recovery,—children recover quickly,—my heart turned towards home—and a longing to get back obsessed me. I could think of nothing but home, now that Diana's immediate need of me was over. She begged me to stay with her. To fail her at such a moment was a great grief to me, but I could make no further sacrifice. I must go home.
"I must go, David," I urged.
"Of course, if you must, you must, Betty, but I should have thought after all Diana has gone through, you would have stayed with her. You have always been so much to each other."
How he hurt me, as if I wouldn't do anything in the world for Diana; but I must go home.
"David," I said in desperation, "I must go. If I promise to come back directly, you won't misunderstand my going?"
"I'll try to understand, Betty, that you have some very strong reason for going back."
"Thank you, David," I said.
"But," he continued, "you must tell Diana yourself."
I went to her room, where she was lying down. "Diana, darling," I said, "I want very much to go home, if only for a day."
"Of course, Betty, you must go. But don't look so distressed. I must have been selfish if I gave you the impression that I would not let you go. It is only that I love so having you, you are such a rock, and oh! it seems like some awful and terrible dream we have been through, doesn't it? Sara asked for her darling bunny today. Think what that means! Darling Betty, I pray that some great happiness may come to you some day. I begin to believe that the greatest joys come through the greatest sorrows."
"Don't, Diana," I whispered. "I can't bear you to be too kind. I suppose it's all we've been through, but I feel."
"I know, Betty," she whispered. "I lie here too tired to do anything but thank God. I ache with thankfulness, for you among other blessings. Come back soon."
"What did Diana say?" asked David, who was waiting outside the door. "Did she understand?"
"Understand? Did you ever know a time when Diana didn't understand?"
I went. Oh, the joy of setting out towards home! That ridiculously small house in Chelsea in which were centered all my hopes. Some word might be there waiting for me. Nannie might have thought nothing of sufficient importance to forward at such a moment. How I hoped that was it, and that it might be there, else all my hopes were shattered.
I opened the door with my latchkey. I looked. No telegram lay on the table; that I saw at a glance. Then Nannie appeared. She was crying.
"Nannie," I said, "don't cry, she is much better, and is going to get quite well; only I had to come home."
How explain to Nannie that I had left Sara and Diana at such a moment!
"Your bat's crooked," said Nannie.
"You ridiculous old person," I said, "what does that matter?" Nannie sniffed. I put my hat straight. "Is that better?"
"Yes, it's better, it'll do," she answered, not quite satisfied, evidently. I wondered why she asked no questions. Why had I come home to this? No wonder David had been surprised at my leaving Diana! What was the use?
Then Nannie said with a startling suddenness, "Some one is waiting for you upstairs."
"Someone for me, Nannie. What do you mean?"
"He's waiting," she said, between laughter and sobs. "He's waiting."
I often wonder how I had the strength to go upstairs and open the door. But I did, and there surely enough he stood, only a few feet of green-painted boards separating us. How I crossed them I never knew. He came halfway, no doubt.
I should never have done the journey alone, and I wondered too how it was we met as lovers! That was the most wonderful part of all. How, when I did not even know that he cared, could it have happened? It was all too wonderful, and I was too dazed with happiness to question anything at the moment. I only knew that the world had become a paradise, and that the past years of doubt and perplexity had fallen away like a disused garment.
Then we began to talk, and the mystery deepened. He spoke of a telegram. I had never received one! And my telegram? I had never sent one! He laughed, and when I said I didn't understand, he said what was the use of understanding when knowing was sufficient?
It was all very puzzling, but I was content. There was so much to talk of, so many explanations to make and to hear! But in time we came back to the telegram. There had been no such thing!
He laughed. "I have it here," he said, putting his hand on his coat-pocket.
"Show it to me," I pleaded.
Never; it was his, and his alone.
"But nothing is yours now that is not mine," I urged, "at least, if you have asked me to marry you."
"Betty," he said, "I quite forgot. I came home for the express purpose of doing so. I have thought and dreamed of nothing else, all through the long marches in Africa; all the way home I have thought of that and of your answer. Betty, will you marry me?"
"I shall be delighted, Captain Buchanan. But where is my telegram to you, your telegram to me?"
"It. I think Nannie must have one."
"And did she answer it? Oh, what did she say?"
"Never mind; she said exactly the right thing. Don't let's discuss Nannie's telegram when we have to make up for the silence of years! O Betty! shall I wake up?"
A little later he said, "Tell me, did you care that night at the Frasers'?"
I said I never remembered a time when I didn't care.
"O Betty! if only you hadn't been so proud!"
"Or you so horribly ununderstandable!"
"You wonderful Nannie," I said later, as I sat at her feet, "how did you do it?"
"Quite easily," said Nannie. "When I saw that you must go to Hames, as of course you had to, I thought to myself, I'll wait! Years ago my lady said to me, I Nannie, don't let my child throw away her own chance of happiness. I feel that a day may come when she will be called upon to make a sacrifice, and she will make it, regardless of her own feelings. You were always giving up your toys and things to the boys; that's what made your mother think of it. The day she spoke of came the morning the telegram came from Hames. I had been waiting and waiting so as to be sure to do what your mother told me, and the day came. You see, I saw the paper, and I knew!"
"How, Nannie? No one knew, I thought."
"Ah, nannies know things; much use they'd be in this world if they didn't? I know lots of things I'm not supposed to! Well, I waited, and no telegram came from him that day. There were all sorts of things about him in the evening paper, being a hero and a lion and all those sort of things. Then the next day the telegram came. The ship had been late; you never can tell with ships. Leave ships to sailors, I say. Well, I opened the telegram. It said, 'Will you see me if I come straight to you?' or some such words, and I answered it."
"What did you say, Nannie?"
"I don't see that that matters. There's nothing in words, and I'm no scholar."
"Nannie dear, it does matter. It meant everything in the world to me. If only you knew how happy I am, how ridiculously happy."
"It's all right, then. I've done what she said." A rapturous smile illuminated her old face.
"All right, Nannie?"
Only a hug can express some things. Nannie straightened her cap. "Well, then," she said, drawing herself up, "I couldn't do it for sixpence, it cost ninepence halfpenny. I said, 'Come. Been waiting for you for years.'"
"Nannie!" I exclaimed.
THE END