"The knowledge of your own heart. Ask God to show it to you. Ask Him to remind you that for twenty years you have received all and given nothing to Him; that you have lived entirely for self. That though the Son of God came down on this earth and suffered and died for you, you have been turning your back on Him and entirely ignoring His claim upon you. When you realise the burden of sin, which, remember, as long as you keep apart from your Saviour, you are bound to bear on your own shoulders and be responsible for, you will long in a way you now cannot understand for a personal interview with your Saviour. And that interview must in one way or another, I believe, take place in every soul that is really seeking the kingdom of God."
Jean remained speechless. Miss Lorraine had never spoken with such fervour and earnestness to her before.
She added—
"Unless your life is in touch with your Saviour, it is utterly purposeless and unfruitful. A life centering round itself becomes more dwarfed and withered year by year. It is like a pool of stagnant water—no force, no freshness, no purity."
Miss Lorraine was called away. Jean sat on by that London window feeling very small indeed. She wondered dimly how she could have spoken so complacently of herself and her talents a few minutes ago. But self was deeply rooted in the inner chambers of her heart, and the shaking of her idol was not a pleasant process.
She wished Miss Lorraine "Good-night" that evening with a miserable face.
"I know you are right," she said, "and I am all wrong, but I am a very slow learner. You have shaken my foundation, and it will take time to readjust it."
The next morning, she had bidden goodbye to her friend and was being whirled down into the heart of Devonshire.
It was a lovely June day. As she looked out of the carriage window and saw the green fields, the fresh young green of the trees, and the young colts and lambs at play, the peace and rest of the country stole into her soul. She passed snowy orchards of apple-blossoms, thatched cottages and slopes of yellow buttercups and marsh marigolds; here and there a whiff of freshly-cut hay made her look about until she discovered the hayfield.
A railway journey gives time for thought and reflection. Jean came to a crisis in her life whilst she was gazing out of her window. She seemed to get a sense of God's greatness and goodness, His tender, protecting care of all His creatures, and as she dwelt on His love and power, she began to realise her own worthlessness.
Jean was slow in learning, as she said, but what she learnt, she remembered. If the unspoken prayer of her heart could have been put into words, it would have been after this fashion—
"I'm not even good enough to feel my sins, but I want Thee, I want to belong to Thee. I want to be made into what Thou dost wish me to be.""I want to know Thee, I want to have Christ as my Saviour and Lord. I am helpless to do any of this properly myself, but I am willing. Take me now, and help me never to go back from it."
And as her gaze went up into the unfathomable blue, her eyes were opened. She knew that a personal interview between her spirit and her Master had taken place. A sense of awe came over her. If she had been alone in the carriage, she would have got down upon her knees. As it was, a plain, hard-featured woman opposite wondered what thoughts could so soften and lighten a young face.
It was five o'clock when the train put Jean down at her destination. She was the only passenger that alighted, and both the stationmaster and one porter looked curiously at her.
"Be you the party for Kingsford Farm?" she was asked.
"Yes, I am. Is there a trap here for me?"
"Miss McTaggart be waitin' outside."
Jean went through the little booking-office and found a very shabby dog-cart drawn up under the shade of an old elm close by. A girl was in it, and turned at once to greet her.
"Good evening, Miss Desmond. I hope you are not tired. Will you get up in front? And Brayson will pack your luggage in behind."
Jean was disappointed that the voice was essentially an English one. Yet the face with its freckles, high cheek-bones, and rough reddish brown hair, was distinctly Scotch. She climbed in, and took herself to task for noting the shabby jacket elbows, the white cotton gloves, and the square thick boots that protruded from the short blue serge skirt her driver wore. But Miss McTaggart was apparently oblivious of dress. Jean put her down at once for a strong-minded young woman who scorned all feminine fripperies.
She little knew that in one quick glance, Christobel McTaggart had taken in every detail of her London-made blue linen gown, with its French embroidery, her shady hat with blue cornflowers, even her dainty gloves and boots. Jean was not an extravagant dresser, but she always knew what she wanted, and her artistic eye never played her false.
For a short time, there was silence between the girls. Why did Jean's thoughts take her with a rush to another drive some months ago in an open dog-cart, to another silent driver?
She rushed into speech at once.
"Have we a long drive? It is very good of you to come to meet me."
"About four miles. We have no man to spare at present, and I liked coming."
"How delicious the air is! I was beginning to feel very tired, and now I am quite reviving. Are you near the sea?"
"No, but we can see the moor from our bedroom windows. I like the moor air as well as the sea. It is quite as invigorating."
Up and down hill they went, and Jean had her first experience of Devonshire lanes. She longed to get out and pick some of the wealth that bordered their path, but Christobel assured her, she would see plenty of lanes close to home.
And finally, after passing through the river, at the ford from which the farm took its name, they drove in at some white gates, and one of the prettiest old farms that Jean had ever seen lay before them.
It was of grey granite with big buttresses, covered with ivy, dividing it into three sections. Over a deep stone porch was a projecting casement window; the entrance was flagged with stone, but an old oak staircase went up in the centre of the small square hall to a long passage above, out of which all the bedrooms led.
Jean was led into a long low sitting-room, which had originally been a dining hall. Here she was welcomed by a young woman who was evidently Christobel's senior by some years. She was in a cotton shirt and dark serge skirt, but her face was a beautiful one, and a wealth of thick auburn hair was rolled off her forehead into a shapely coil behind. Very pale and weary she seemed, yet her smile seemed to warm through Jean's bones, as she expressed it afterwards.
"Come and sit down and have some tea," she said, "and then Chris will take you to your room."
Jean obeyed, and as she sipped her cup of tea, she looked about her. The room was plainly furnished; it was wainscotted in oak, but above the wainscot, it was simply coloured in grey-blue, and some old prints adorned the walls. An oak dresser contained some really good old china; there was a bookcase, a side table holding a sewing machine and work-basket, and a couple of armchairs; the square table was in the middle of the room, and chairs were placed round it. Jean faced the two windows, which, with their deep window seats and casement panes, were the prettiest part of the room.
"This is our sitting-room," Barbara McTaggart said as she noted Jean's wandering eyes. "The kitchen is the other side of the hall; the room above this, is where we think you will like to sit and paint. It is the only room that has been preserved in its original state. We think it was used as the best bedroom by the farming folk, and they have not made so free with it as the other rooms."
"It looks a dear old house," said Jean.
"One wing of it is nearly in ruins. We cannot afford to repair it, and it is unsafe to live in. But we have as many rooms as we want. I believe originally they were all panelled rooms, but when the house was turned into a farm, a great deal of the wood was stripped off and burnt."
Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Chris and her brother, a young man with a plain, honest face. He was introduced to Jean as "Mick." He sat down and drank a cup of tea with relish.
"I've just been selling some cattle," he said to Jean, "and it's a warm day to be much on the highroad here. I'm as thirsty as a fish, Barbara. I met Tom Barton coming home; he asked me if we had any flowers for sale. They're going to have some féte on next week, and want all the flowers they can get."
"I have nothing to do with the flower garden; Chris must settle that."
Chris squared her elbows on the table, and began to discuss the subject with her brother. Jean looked at her, as she did so. She had a bright, pleasant face, but none of the beauty that her eldest sister possessed. Her hands were red and roughened with toil, and her whole appearance seemed to bespeak that she was useful rather than ornamental.
KINGSFORD FARM
"And one, an English home—gray twilight pour'dOn dewy pastures, dewy trees,Softer than sleep—all things in order storedA haunt of ancient peace."—Tennyson.
WHEN tea was over, Chris took Jean upstairs.
"We are rather proud of this old house," she said, as she pointed out to her the ornamental carving round the balustrade of the staircase. "If one had money, how delicious it would be, to do it all up. This is your bedroom; it is very simple, but we hope you will like it."
Jean saw a large, rather bare-looking room. A very small square of carpet was laid in the centre of the floor; a little white dimity bed was in one corner, an old-fashioned washstand in the other; a hanging wardrobe, small chest of drawers, and modest dressing table completed the furniture, with the exception of one cane-bottomed chair and a bowl of pink roses on the deep window-ledge.
"It looks most cool and comfortable," was Jean's remark.
Then Chris took her farther down the old passage, and threw open a carved oak door.
"This is our show-room," she said. "Sometimes Barbara and I come up and sit here with our work. We imagine ourselves ladies of leisure, and expect a stately old butler to throw open the door and announce some guests dressed in Caldecott's fashion."
It was indeed a show-room. Ceiling and walls were all panelled and carved, the mantelpiece was in beautiful preservation, and the coat-of-arms and motto of the owner was carved above it; the floor was of polished oak.
"I spent two days last week rubbing it up," said Chris proudly; "for I was determined you should see it at its best. We settled when we came here, that nothing new should ever come into this room. That Chippendale cabinet belonged to our grandmother. The old oak chest we picked up cheap at a sale. The spinning-wheel an artist friend brought from Brittany, and that queer old cradle we got at a cottager's sale. These Chippendale chairs used to be in our drawing-room at home, and so did that oval table."
Jean's eyes were busy. Three casement windows looked out over valleys and woods, and the river dashed over granite boulders below. As she leant out of one window which was framed with creepers, a deep crimson rose touched her cheek, and the scent of the honeysuckle from below filled the air with its fragrance.
"It is perfect," she said. "May I use this room?"
"Of course. You are going to paint it, are you not? I often wish I could paint. I think I am better with my pen than with my brush. I wrote a little story about this room when we first came here. You know the place is called King's-ford, because Charles I forded the river during the Civil Wars. It is easy to make up a nice little tale about this house being his refuge for the time. It belonged to some Hollingsworths long, long ago. I am sure the name sounds loyal, does it not? There is Barbara calling; I must go, for I have a good hour's work in the dairy. We have supper at half-past eight. Your trunk has been carried up to your room, and you will find Barbara downstairs if you want anything."
She ran out of the room, singing in a fresh young voice—
"Should one of us rememberAnd one of us forget,I wish I knew what each will do—But who can tell as yet?"
Jean pulled a chair up to the window and sat down. She wanted quiet, for she wanted to think.
The quaint old-fashioned room, the scent of the climbing roses, the sleepy chirps of the birds outside as they prepared to retire to rest, all seemed like some delicious dream. She could hardly believe that that very morning, she had been in the midst of the roar and bustle of London. And more serious thoughts took possession of her as she sat at that window—thoughts that made her at last murmur to herself:
"This has been a day of great beginnings."
She did not go downstairs till the supper bell rang, and then she found every one in a pleasant, talkative mood. Conversation was not wholly on farming; Barbara, Jean found, knew London well, and had plenty to say on art and literature.
"My first visit was when I was quite a young girl," she explained. "I used to stay with an old uncle and aunt. They did not go out themselves, and never entertained, but they sent me to every museum and picture gallery in town, and very often to a good concert. I learnt a good deal whilst with them."
"I have never been out of Devonshire, since I was two years old," said Chris, with a sigh, "though I was born in Edinburgh."
"Were you?" said Jean, with interest. "I wonder if you have any relations still in Scotland?"
"No, none, except my godmother, whom I have never seen. She is a very distant connection of ours—a Mrs. Fergusson. She lives about sixteen miles out of Edinburgh."
"At a house called 'Duncommon'?" exclaimed Jean. "I wonder if it is the same!"
"'Duncommon' is the name of her house," said Barbara gravely. "Do you know her?"
"Yes. How very strange! It must be the same."
Jean began to tell them of her Scotch visit with great animation. There was no difficulty in proving that Chris's godmother and Jean's Mrs. Fergusson were one and the same.
"She has asked me at different intervals to go and stay with her," said Chris, "but I have never been able to do it as yet."
"It seems so strange to come down to Devonshire and find a link at once with the people I have been staying with in Scotland," said Jean presently.
"Not so strange as you imagine. The Douglases and Lorraines both lived in our father's parish in Hampshire. The living was in the Douglas gift, and was given to my father, because they had known him in Edinburgh. You went to Scotland through Mrs. Talbot, Colonel Douglas's sister. The Fergussons were mutual friends. Scotch folk always help each other and hang together."
A little sigh followed Barbara's words.
"Then do you know Colonel Douglas as well as Miss Lorraine?" asked Jean.
"Yes, slightly; but he was in the service when we knew the family, so was only home occasionally."
When supper was over, Michael McTaggart went out. Jean lingered on in the room, watching Chris clear away the remnants of the meal, with some surprise. Barbara asked to be excused, and followed Chris into the kitchen, leaving Jean by herself for a short time.
When the sisters came back, they brought work with them, and talk began again. Jean listened in wonder to an account of what seemed to her a hard, barren life, with an ever-present anxiety as to how to make both ends meet. Yet the sisters were perfectly cheerful and happy. When she went up to her bedroom that night, she felt a decided interest in the family into which she had come as a paying guest.
Early hours were kept in Kingsford Farm, but Jean came down fresh and vigorous at eight o'clock the next morning. She was surprised to hear that Chris had been up since five.
"I do all my dairy work before breakfast," she said, "and in summer, the best part of the day is in the early morning."
Jean went up to the panelled room directly the meal was over.
"I will take the morning for work and enjoy myself for the rest of the day," she announced.
And Barbara smiled in her quiet amused fashion, but said nothing.
Jean got her canvas out, and made a little progress before one o'clock.
"Now," she said, as she joined the others at their early dinner, "I want one of you to come out with me this afternoon and show me the premises and the country round."
"We are busy folk, Miss Desmond," Michael said good-naturedly. "You will not often find any of us at leisure till about five o'clock."
"I am going to pick currants for jam," said Chris. "Will you talk to me while I work? It is very pleasant in our kitchen garden."
"I will come and help you," said Jean. "What is your sister going to do?"
"I am going to bake bread," said Barbara, "and make a cake. I'm sure a cool garden would be pleasanter than a hot kitchen this weather."
"Yes," said Jean, with pity in her tone. "I couldn't stay in a kitchen five minutes, a day like this."
She put on a shady hat, and followed Chris out. They went through the farm and into a walled garden, with rows of apple and pear trees bordering the walls. Currants and gooseberries of all sorts and sizes were there in profusion, and they set to work with a will, though Jean's tongue went faster than her fingers.
"I like currant-picking," said Chris cheerfully, "but I can't bear doing the gooseberries; they tear one's hands so!"
"I shouldn't do them, then," said Jean, "but make some one else do it."
"But if there is no one else?"
"Then pay a small boy to do it."
"Do you always get over your difficulties so easily?" laughed Chris. "If you are not rich, you cannot afford to pay some one to do your disagreeables for you."
"Then I would just leave them," Jean persisted.
Chris shook her head, but did not argue the subject.
"I wish, if you don't think me curious, you would tell me how you came to this place," said Jean presently. "You all seem so contented and happy here, and yet from what you say, you have not always been accustomed to a farm life. Who taught you to do dairy work and cook and manage everything?"
"I will tell you," said Chris, and a shade of gravity crept into her frank, laughing eyes. "We never have been comfortably off. My father had a very poor living, barely three hundred a year, and there were eight of us children to feed, clothe, and educate. Our mother was not strong, and of course, from the time we were quite little children, we learnt to help ourselves and others."
"Barbara was the eldest, then came Jack and Tom, then Lilian, then Mick, then me, then Rob and Martin. The elder boys went to school, but mother taught us girls, and Barbara, in her turn, taught the younger boys till they were old enough to join the others at school. We girls did all the mending, and as we grew older made our own dresses, and helped in the house as much as we could."
"Then mother's health failed, and she died. Barbara came home from the hospital just in time to nurse her before the end. She couldn't be spared from home again. Two years afterwards, Lilian married a soldier, a Captain Dunbar, who took her straight out to India with him; she has been there ever since. Jack and Tom went out to Canada. They are just getting a livelihood, no more. Rob went to sea; Martin died. He had diphtheria. Father would nurse him, and caught it, too. He died three weeks afterwards."
Chris stopped abruptly. Jean hardly knew how to express her sympathy. But with a catch in her breath Chris went on—
"Mick was wild to follow the others to Canada, but a friend of father's offered us this farm very cheap, and we three determined to come and work it. We are making it pay, which is more than any one has done in it before. We always said from the time Mick was quite a boy, that he was a born farmer. He used to be always talking to the country people and helping them with their fields. Of course, his idea was to go out to the Colonies, but we had not any capital to start him, and after talking it over, we determined to stick together and come here. Lilian did ask me to come out to her, but of course, it couldn't be thought of."
"Why not? I have always heard that India is a delicious place for girls."
"Yes, if you have money for your passage and outfit, and no one wanting you at home. One of us could not have done the work here; there must be two—I mean two women. We have only a woman who comes by the day to help us with the rough work. Barbara would not have been able to manage everything; I could not have left her."
"I should have done so," said Jean thoughtfully. "I should have been thankful to have a chance of getting away from poverty and work. I shouldn't have thought of Barbara at all, I should have thought only of myself. I should argue if I were dead, or if I had never been born, she would have got on without me, so she might as well do so now."
Chris paused in her currant-picking and looked at Jean.
"You have never had brothers or sisters?" she said.
"No," said Jean, "I have not."
"Then you have only had yourself to consider. That must be a strange experience."
She went on picking in silence for some minutes. Jean went on impetuously—
"Do tell me, have you and your sister had any pleasures in your life at all? I have thought my life a dull and dismal one, but it was a life of ease compared with yours, and that I fled from. I wanted my liberty, and I got it. Have you done nothing but slave and work since you were children? Wouldn't you like to go out to India, or to Scotland to see your godmother, or to London to do a little sightseeing?"
"We have never had time or opportunity to do what we like," said Chris, laying down her basket and straightening herself for a minute. "I don't know that I have given much thought to it. I suppose I have had my daydreams, as most have, and Barbara has given up something tangible. She could have married once, but father could not spare her, and she sent him away. But I can't say we are unhappy, either of us. We get a good deal of enjoyment out of our lives, and fancy what we might be doing! Governessing in some tradesman's family, or perhaps typewriting and starving in London. Clergymen's daughters have a hard time of it when their fathers are taken from them. Don't pity us. I enjoy every minute of my day. Now I have filled my basket. Shall we go in?"
"I haven't filled mine," said Jean, in rueful tones.
"Never mind; perhaps you will help me again to-morrow for a short time. I am going to hunt for eggs now; will you come with me?"
Jean willingly agreed, and they were busy till tea-time, Jean experiencing for the first time the engrossment and fatigue of labour.
CHARLIE OXTON
"A man he seems of . . . cheerful yesterdaysAnd confident to-morrows."—Wordsworth.
IN a few days' time, Jean had adapted herself with great content to the simple farmhouse life. She wandered out of doors a good deal, made sketches of anything that took her fancy, and worked away at her panelled room. After tea, she would persuade one of the sisters to bring their work out into the garden, and sitting lazily in a hammock chair, would beguile them into talk. She liked Chris's lighthearted chatter, but sometimes preferred listening to Barbara's earnest views of life.
She was talking about her brother one day.
"He is such a steady, good boy, with such a sound head on his shoulders," she said, with sisterly pride. "So many of our friends predicted our failure in farming. Every one seems to think that if young fellows can farm in the Colonies, they always come to grief if they try it at home. But Mick has got grit and purpose in him, and he knows the secret of successful farming."
"What is it?" asked Jean. "Why is it that young men can't farm in England as they do abroad?"
"I think it is their position in life that is against them. When first we settled here, several families round were inclined to be friendly. They expected Mick to hunt, and shoot, and join in all the sport going. They asked us to tennis parties and 'At homes.' They looked upon Mick as a gentleman farmer, not a working one, and when he told them simply and plainly that he could not afford the time for sport, when we explained that we were really going to bake and brew and milk and garden, they quietly dropped us. We know the vicar and his wife, but no one else. And the hard part for Mick is that he never mixes with his own kind. The other farmers round here are quite ignorant rustics. We do not despise them—Mick learns many a valuable lesson from them—but socially they are not at ease with us nor we with them. In the Colonies it is so different, for so many gentlemen are farming. And I think there are few young men who will put their pride in their pocket, and work with their labourers. The temptation is to treat their farm as a small property, and get servants to do the work for them. Then failure is sure to follow."
"You all shame me," said Jean. "I feel so lazy and self-indulgent. Honestly, Miss McTaggart, are you happy working so hard?"
Barbara looked away to the wooded hills on the other side of the river, before she replied.
"I think want of occupation is the great cause of people's discontent and unhappiness. We are so busy that we have no time to think whether we are happy or not. Happiness never bears analysing, does it? I think one is happiest, when one is unconscious of it."
"Oh no," said Jean; "I can't agree to that. I always know whether I am happy or not. Don't smile in that way."
"I am only thinking that you are very young in years and experience."
"I am afraid I am," Jean said humbly. "I feel I have a lot to learn. Miss McTaggart, let me ask you a question which was asked me once. Round what or whom does your life centre?"
Barbara looked surprised.
"We are getting into deep waters," she said. "I think my life at present centres round Mick and Chris, and—and my absent brothers abroad."
"Yes, your life and your sister's centres round others," said Jean, with conviction. "Mine has centered round myself, but—but—I wonder if I shall come on to your centre, and then reach my right one at last?"
"What is your right one?" asked Barbara, looking puzzled.
Jean coloured. "I have been seeing things so differently lately—I mean from a religious point of view."
"Oh," said Barbara, with quick comprehension. "I see. I suppose the religious centre is the Church—our vicar would say so."
"Would he?" said Jean. "I was told it was Christ, and I've been looking it up in the Bible. St. Paul puts it, 'To me, to live is Christ.' But I'm just a beginner, and it seems so difficult to understand."
Barbara did not speak. Jean went on—
"You and your sister are so brave and unselfish and good, that I thought perhaps you might be able to help me."
"No," said Barbara, a slow flush coming into her pale cheeks. "You are quite mistaken in your opinion of us. It is entirely owing to the way one is brought up. You have had no cause to think of others, because you have had no 'others' belonging to you. We have been trained since our infancy, by principles and circumstances, to put our individual selves in the background. No credit is due to us for doing so. No high motive—I am speaking of myself now—except that of duty has influenced us. I daresay mine is not the highest centre, but it is the only one I am deeply interested in. My brothers and sisters come first with me. Their welfare is, I think, dearer to me than my own."
"I see," said Jean slowly. "Your love for them rules your life. And I suppose that is what a real Christian feels about Christ. Then of course, He would be the centre of their life."
There was silence again between them. Barbara with her quiet, sad eyes looked at this young, earnest-hearted girl with wonder. Was she groping after truths that she herself had let go by? Her life had been full, but Jean had touched upon a truth that might make it a fuller and a happier one.
And then Barbara rose, and shook off such disturbing thoughts.
"I must go in now," she said. "I have finished the work I brought out to do."
With Chris, Jean was bright and girlish; she admired her cheery practical common sense, and learnt many a lesson from seeing her at work amongst her poultry and flowers.
One afternoon, Jean wandered out by herself over the meadows that led down to the river. There were times when the bustle and noise of the farmyard drove her out and away from it. As she got nearer the river, that delicious coolness that running water always brings in its train, refreshed and soothed her spirit. And then suddenly, she heard a voice, and Charlie Oxton, in a fisherman's suit and a fishing-line in hand, stepped up on the bank from the grey boulders below and confronted her with a broad smile of recognition.
"Hullo! Where do you spring from?" he said. "I've come down for a week's fishing, and am putting up at the Long Elm. How extraordinary to run up against you here!"
Jean looked at him straight.
"You knew I was coming here," she said; "for I told you so."
"Did I?" he said in some confusion. "I've such a bad memory. I hear so much when I'm in town, that I get quite muddled. On my honour, you could have knocked me down when I saw you walking down this way?"
"I thought you were farming," Jean said, still with a spice of severity in her tone. "This is a busy month with most farmers. How can you leave your hay?"
"I don't cut mine till July. You are forward in these parts. I'm just having a holiday before my busy time begins. Do you like fish? I've caught a splendid fat trout. Come and have a look at him."
Jean followed him down the bank, whilst he plunged his hand into his basket and dangled a very fine specimen of Devonshire trout before her eyes.
"You shall have that for your supper," he said. "Now will you say you are glad to see me?"
Jean could keep grave no longer. It was impossible to resist Charlie Oxton's gaiety.
"Of course I am glad to see you," she said. "Have you seen Miss Lorraine lately?"
"Haven't been to town since you left. How is your old feudal room getting on? Seen any ghost in it? Now own up, are you really working or playing down here? I've a suspicion that you are just wandering round in buttercup meadows and making every honest labourer stop his work to talk to you."
"As I am doing at this moment," retorted Jean. "I will not be your interruption, for I'll depart at once."
"You'll do no such thing. Sit down under this tree, and tell me what you're doing. I don't believe they're feeding you well. You look pale. That's your farm up there, isn't it?"
"How do you know?" asked Jean.
"Oh, my landlady told me."
"You were never cut out for a story-teller!" said Jean. "You're such an audacious bungler!"
Charlie's eyes twinkled.
"Would your friends ask me to tea, if I brought them some fish? It's dull work having one's meals in the musty inn parlour."
"You had better catch your fish first," suggested Jean.
Barbara looked surprised, when later on Jean appeared with her cousin, but she welcomed him warmly, and when Mick came in, Charlie and he plunged into farming matters with such zest and earnestness, that Jean and the sisters left them to talk and smoke together.
"Did you know Mr. Oxton was coming down here?" asked Barbara quietly of Jean.
"Of course not. I should have told you, if I had. He is a nice boy, and has knocked about in the Colonies so long that it has given him that blunt, downright manner."
"Is he the one who has ousted you of your grandfather's money?" asked Chris.
"That is hardly the way to put it," Jean replied. "My grandfather disinherited me before he came on the scene at all."
"She'll marry him," Chris said to her sister that night when they had retired to their bedroom that they shared together. "And it will be a nice match. I can tell from the way he looks at her that he is in love."
Barbara smiled.
"I am not so certain," she said. "I fancy Jean does not care for him in the way you think. She is the kind of girl that will expect a good deal from the man she sets her affections upon. I do not think that this Mr. Oxton will come up to her standard."
"Now, Barbara, how can you possibly tell? That is ill-natured to Mr. Oxton, who seems a very good sort of man."
Charlie Oxton certainly spent a good deal of his time at Kingsford Farm. When haymaking began, he went into the fields with Michael, and was as hardworking as any. He made himself at home with an ease and frank unconventionality that astonished Jean. He ran errands for Barbara, chaffed and sparred with Chris; and took Jean under his special care and protection with such a brotherly, or perhaps fatherly, solicitude, that she was more amused than touched by it.
"It's no good, my dear child," he said one morning when he had crept up to the panelled room and had stood unperceived behind her chair for some minutes watching her paint. "You have taken a subject beyond you. The perspective of that elaborate ceiling is wrong, and if you succeeded in depicting this apartment as it is, what an empty picture!"
"It is meant to be empty," said Jean, laughing away her annoyance; "it is an empty interior. What is the matter with my perspective? I have sketched and re-sketched it, till I am quite dizzy."
"As I look at it now," said Charlie, squinting fiercely at her canvas as he spoke, "your point of sight—your vanishing point say—is too low!"
"Of course it is, you goose!" said Jean impatiently, "because you are standing up and I am sitting down. You only do it to tease. I don't believe my perspective is wrong. I have tested it every way."
"Interiors are out of date," went on Charlie, unabashed. "What the public wants are pretty girls to look at, or angelic children, or sporting men. They won't thank you for a panelled room with no one in it. Now if you put me in it, there would be some sense in it. I will pose as a rowdy Cavalier, if you like, or a prim Puritan, or a love-sick swain. I will dangle one leg out of that window over there, and kiss my hand to some damsel below, or I will stand in the middle of the room with a drawn sword and knitted brow, with my teeth clenched, and my eyes in rolling despair, waiting for my pursuers to burst in the door. See what subjects I am giving you! With me as a centre-piece, your picture is sure to be a success. I would grace the walls of the Academy."
"Oh, go away!" said Jean. "You know I am not intending this picture to be a success. It is a test of skill: I am trying to improve myself in my drawing."
"Well," persisted Charlie, "will you undertake my portrait? You say you are going in for portrait painting. Will you paint me? I will come up here and give you two hours' sitting a day. I will not speak a word. The portrait must be full face. I will give it to our uncle as a birthday present, and when he has admired it, and thanked me for it, and hung it up in his hall, I shall tell him it was painted by you. Can you see and hear him when he is enlightened? When shall the first sitting be? To-morrow?"
"Never," said Jean. Then she turned round and faced the young man. "Charlie, you have no business here. Go back to your uncle, and to your farm. You have been here three weeks. You are doing no fishing. You are wasting your time and other people's. And—and I'm quite tired of the sight of you!"
"Say that again," said Charlie, trying to look injured. "Who brings you London papers, and rabbits, and trout? Who talks to you when you are silent, and smooths your frowns away, and is ready to dry your tears at any moment of the day? Who is ready to lie down this blessed moment on the ground for your Highness to trample upon and walk over? Now come, Jean, as a man and a—a brother, I protest against such a rude, ungracious speech."
"I mean it," said Jean, with a grave face. "I don't want you here any longer. You hinder me in my work. I have been neglecting it lately, and life isn't made up of walks and talks in orchards and fields."
Then he held out his hand.
"Goodbye," he said. "I am going, but we haven't done with each other yet, Jean."
He slammed the door behind him, and strode out of the house.
Jean went on painting, and quite expected him to put in an appearance when tea-time came round, but Michael enlightened her—
"I met Oxton on his way to the station," he said. "Hasn't he gone away rather suddenly? He had his luggage with him, and wished me goodbye."
"Why, he promised to help me with my bees to-morrow," said Chris, in tones of dismay. "Did you know he was going, Jean?"
"I told him he was wasting his time here," said Jean.
The sisters looked at each other, but said nothing, and Jean never mentioned him again. She applied herself more diligently than ever to her work on hand, and sometimes shut herself up for a day at a time in the panelled room.
A SUBSTITUTE
"He never errs who sacrifices self."—Bulwer Lytton.
"JEAN," said Chris one morning at breakfast, "guess whom I have heard from to-day?"
"Any one that I know?" said Jean musingly.
"Yes."
"Not Mrs. Fergusson?"
"The very same. And she sends her periodical invitations. I wonder she cares to remember me at all."
"But why don't you go? Oh, you must. You would like her so much. She is fascinating. I only saw her once, but I longed to see her again. Why shouldn't you go?"
"It isn't feasible," said Chris briskly. "We never have been able to afford the luxury of paying visits, have we, Barbara?"
"I wish you could go, but I don't see how it could be managed."
Barbara looked wistfully at her younger sister as she spoke.
Michael glanced at both his sisters; then slowly put his hand in his waistcoat pocket, and tossed across a little crisp crackling piece of paper to Chris. "If that will help you to go, I shall never miss it nor you either; it's the price of that acre of hay in the bottom meadow. I sold it straight away to Tom Barton the other day."
Chris looked at the five-pound note, then flipped it back at her brother with her finger.
"Thank you," she said laughing; "but it isn't a question of money, exactly. No, I must write her a civil little note as I generally do."
Jean said no more, but after breakfast, got hold of Barbara alone.
"I wish you would make Chris go," she urged. "She never seems to have any pleasure. It is such a chance for her. What is the difficulty?"
Barbara hesitated.
"We cannot spare her," she said. "Chris does so much about the farm, her fowls, the dairy, the pigs,—everything she sees to. I have as much as I can get through, with the cooking, and mending, and cleaning. I would willingly do her work if I could, but it is more than one pair of hands can do."
"Couldn't I help you?" said Jean quickly. "Don't say no; let me take Chris's place for the time. I'm sure I could manage everything but the dairy. If you could do that, I would take some of your work instead. Do let me try, and we will make Chris go!"
Barbara was hard to persuade, and Chris harder still, but in the end Jean overcame all their objections.
"I am my own mistress," she said. "It will do me good to have to work. I have lived such a lazy, selfish life up to now. Give me a chance of showing you that I am not utterly incapable. And if everything does go wrong, Chris can but come back. I don't think I can do much harm though, and I have helped her so often in feeding the animals, that I feel I know all about it."
When it was once settled, Chris became wild with delight. Her only fear was that she would not be properly dressed. But Jean took her in hand; the little village dressmaker came up, and the panelled room was turned into a work-room. An old black silk of Barbara's, originally her mother's, was, with the help of some inexpensive black net and an old lace fichu of Jean's, made into a very nice dinner dress for every evening. Then Jean persuaded Michael to take her into the nearest town on market day. She came back with sundry small purchases, amongst which was a dress length of very pale blue sprigged muslin; this, with some old lace that Barbara turned out of an unused cupboard, was manipulated by the dressmaker and Jean together into a very pretty gown.
When Chris remonstrated, Jean said, "I will give you something, so this is my present, and I've a pair of pale tan slippers and stockings that I'm going to lend you. I noticed we wear the same size in shoes."
Chris's everyday clothes were repaired and smartened. When the last day at home came, and she was putting her "outfit," as she called it, into a neat little trunk that Mick had bought for her, she turned to Jean with tears in her eyes.
"I feel," she said, "as if I am not worth all this. If it was Barbara, now, she would grace any one's drawing-room or dinner table. I'm such a plain, homely creature; I shall be awkward and ill at ease, and my godmother will be sorry she has asked me."
It was so new for Chris to think about herself at all, that Jean was almost startled. She reassured her.
"You will enjoy yourself from beginning to end. The only fear is that Mrs. Fergusson may want to keep you altogether."
Then she gave her many exhortations.
"Ask Mrs. Fergusson to take you to see Mrs. Gordon, and try to see Sunnie, if you can. Mrs. Gordon is not fond of taking visitors up to the nursery, but say you have a message to give her, from me. Oh, how I wish I was coming with you! I loved Scotland so! The very smell in the air of the heather and pines seems so utterly different to anything we have in England. What it must be in summer, I fail to imagine! I only saw it in the late autumn and winter. And if Miss Meta Worth is staying there still, remember me to her. She is a nice girl, and she is very fond of Mrs. Fergusson. You may see her. I wonder if you will see Mr. George Fergusson and Dr. Fergusson. Do you know her sons at all?"
"I didn't know there were any," said Chris, staring at Jean with puzzled eyes. "You have never mentioned them. What are they like?"
"I only saw Mr. George once. He lives in Edinburgh. Dr. Fergusson attends Sunnie; he is a great deal at Mrs. Gordon's. She is a cousin of theirs. I think I told you. Write and tell me everything, Chris, won't you? I shall be so interested to hear about every one that you meet."
"I think it is a pity that it isn't you going, instead of me," said Chris, looking at Jean's flushed cheeks and eager eyes with amusement. "I expect I shall be dreadfully homesick, and perhaps arrive home again before a week is over. Do you know that I have never left home in my life? Does that seem incredible to you?"
She made a very early start the next morning, and left the house with her brother at seven o'clock. Barbara looked after her tearfully, but there was no time to waste in regretting her departure. Jean and she set to work with a will, and for the first time in her life, Jean found that it took a good deal of strength and energy to do the commonest things in a house. She said to Barbara at the close of the day—
"I am glad you have let me look after my own rooms. I am ashamed to think how Chris must have tidied and swept and dusted for me, and I taking it all as a matter of course! I shall manage better to-morrow."
Alone in her room that night, her thoughts followed Chris through every stage of her journey.
"I would give all the world to be with her," she said to herself, almost passionately. "I can picture them all sitting down to dinner, Dr. Fergusson coming in late and rather tired. How does he spend his evenings at home, I wonder! Perhaps he will lie back in an easy chair with his newspaper and a cup of coffee, and listen to Chris and his mother talking together. I wonder if Mrs. Fergusson remembers me at all! Perhaps Dr. Fergusson will go to the piano and play, but he will never play such delicious impromptus as he did to me and Sunnie in the old nursery. Oh, if only such times could last for ever! Shall I never have them over again! It seems hard. It all meant so much to me, and I feel as if now I was nothing to any of them—only a young struggling portrait painter who came and went, and whom little Sunnie rather liked; but then she would like any one! If I could only go back, now that I see things differently! I used to speak so scornfully of religion. I would be so different!"
And then Jean did what many a young over-full heart has done before—she threw herself upon her knees, and told the One she was getting to know as her personal Friend the inmost secrets and longings of her heart. If some tears fell, the comfort of knowing that she had given herself and her life into the hands of One who loved her, sent her to rest, happy and content.
And five o'clock the next morning found her stirring. She was determined to fill Chris's place to the utmost of her ability, but after the novelty of the first few days wore off, she began to feel the irksomeness and weariness of the daily household tasks. She had never known before what it was to be obliged to work when she felt disinclined—headache, backache, heat or cold, must be entirely disregarded, if the routine of Chris's work was to be accomplished. Her dogged perseverance held her in good stead, and the assurance of Chris's enjoyment did much to solace her, for her want of leisure.
Barbara spared her as much as possible. She felt sincerely grateful to her, and would have lightened her labour, if she could.
"It all seems such an easy, happy life to you and Chris, until one comes to do it," said Jean, one afternoon as she was helping Barbara to iron some linen in the kitchen. "Don't you get sick of it all, and long to have some one to do all the drudgery for you? It seems a waste of life for educated and cultured people to be filling their time with such menial work."
"I don't think it is waste of life," Barbara said, thoughtfully. "Very often the people living in ease and luxury are wasting their lives, as you call it. You see us now in our busiest time, but in the long winter evenings, we have time for reading and improving our minds. I have a horror of sinking to the level of the rustic labourer, who, when his work is done, sits and dozes in his kitchen or the inn parlour, and lets his brain become less and less active as the years roll by. Mick reads to us while we work. Sometimes I have a game of chess with him, and he brings home many a good and interesting book from the free library in the town. Our vicar is very good in lending us magazines. He comes in and has a chat with us occasionally. Do you think we are apathetic and sluggish in our conversation and tastes?"
"No—oh no—far from it!" exclaimed Jean hastily. "I think you are all wonderful, and I have no business to criticise you. I only thought that if I were always to live the kind of life that you do, I should give up everything else. It would be too much trouble."
"You are unaccustomed to such work as ours," said Barbara. "You would get used to it, after a time. It is what many an English girl does in the Colonies."
"Yes," said Jean, "but some of them sink under it. It is a case of the survival of the fittest out there."
Chris's first letter to Jean was an intensely interesting one to her, and she read and re-read it with increasing pleasure:—
"MY DEAR JEAN,—What a trump you are! When I lie in bed here sipping my early cup of tea, and think of the delicious restful day in front of me, I know that you are up and about, roughening those artistic fingers, and burning your pretty face over the kitchen fire, tramping through the yard after the chicks, chasing the pigs away from the dairy, and sweeping and dusting, laying the breakfast and taking it away—oh! I must stop, but I can see it all in my mind's eye, and quite expect to receive a telegram soon: 'Can stand it no longer. Come back at once.'""Well, I have written to Barbara and given her an account of my journey. I know you will be more interested in my godmother. She was in the drawing-room when I arrived, and greeted me quite affectionately. What a handsome, old lady she is! We had a quiet, little chat together. She showed me a miniature of my grandmother, whom she knew intimately. Then, she took me to my bedroom. I felt like Cinderella in the palace! Such a luxurious room, with every comfort—a sofa, and a bookcase, and a writing-table, lovely pictures and dainty chintzes! I felt I could spend the whole of my days in it.""I was left to dress for dinner. There were some cream roses on my dressing table, and her maid, who came in and embarrassed me by insisting upon unpacking my things and helping me to dress, suggested my wearing them. I was so thankful they were not pink in colour, as I know she would have made me put them on. I should have been too frightened to refuse, and the combination of those and my red hair would have put a finishing touch to my ugly face! Well, I got into my black silk and rustled downstairs with my head well up, and wrapped my shyness over with an easy assurance of manner that I hoped would carry me through. Dr. Fergusson was in the drawing-room when I went in. I like him, Jean. He has the keen sense of humour I love to see in a man, and a sense of repressed force of character—how can I describe it? When he forgets himself and talks with earnestness and animation, you realise he is a strong and clever man, but you also realise that there is a good deal more of him to know than he lets you know. He and his mother had a delightful discussion on the present generation versus the past.""'Of course,' said Mrs. Fergusson, 'every one is staunch to their own generation. I think my own girlhood was a much happier and more wholesome one, than the girls of the present day. But my mother thought her girlhood was preferable to mine. Mrs. Kitty McTaggart, Christobel's grandmother, said once to me: "'Bel, my dear, I don't mind growing old, I don't mind grey hairs and wrinkles, but I do mind these empty, scatter-brained lassies scoffing and jeering at the days of our childhood. It is the sweetest memory to me, and the only comfort to me, is that the wheel of time will bring these lassies to my stage, and they, in their turn, will have their past held up to ridicule by their grandchildren!"'""'I should like to have known that grandmother of mine!' I could not help saying.""'You are very like her, child,' my godmother said, and I could only stare at her, for the miniature she showed me was such a sweet one.""I mentioned your name, Jean. Mrs. Fergusson remembered you quite well, after a minute's thought. Dr. Fergusson asked whether you were doing any more portraits. I told him how it was you came to us, and then he asked his mother, if she had seen Sunnie's picture. She said no, but that if I liked, she would take me to see it. 'I hear,' she said, 'Mrs. Gordon is going to allow it to appear in the Academy, if it is approved of. I would not care to have a child of mine brought before the public in such a manner.'""'I suppose Helen belongs to the present generation,' said Dr. Fergusson, quizzically.""We went into the drawing-room after dinner, Mrs. Fergusson and I. The doctor was called out. I found myself telling her everything. I felt it would be more honest. And when I told her how you were doing my work, so that I could come, she said thoughtfully—"'That is good to hear. I remember I thought she had capabilities of other kinds besides art. She was undeveloped, when I saw her.'""I heard that Miss Worth had gone back to London. I am afraid I must stop now, but I will write again soon.""Your affectionate and grateful""CHRIS.""Dr. Fergusson came in before I went to bed, and said to me in a half-joking fashion—""'You mustn't let my mother rob you of your roses. You have been accustomed to keep early hours, I can see, so beware of interesting her too much. Time is of no account to her. She considers it a servant, not a master.'""Mrs. Fergusson put her hand on his shoulder in such a pretty, graceful fashion.""'No, laddie,' she said gently, 'I have given up trying to master it; it is like the modern young woman—I can't keep pace with either!'"
A DOCTOR'S VERDICT
"And I must go alone! Most near and dear,I cannot hope to have thee with me here!I know that thou wilt watch me to the last,Till all sweet ministries of love be past,And we shall not be separated long—But 'Love is strong as Death,' and Death is strong."—From "Heart to Heart."
YES, Chris was enjoying herself. There was not the smallest doubt about that. Barbara read her letters through, with a smile on her lips and a light in her eye.
"I am so thankful that she is having this change," she said to Jean. "Chris has never had any pleasure like it before. It will do her a world of good."
"Now," said Jean, "if she sees some nice Scotchman up there, and gets engaged to be married, would you be glad, Barbara?"
"Oh, I hope I should; yes, I am sure I should," was the hurried reply.
Then, after a pause, Barbara said rather nervously, "What is this Dr. Fergusson like, Jean? Chris seems to mention him so often."
Jean felt her heart give a thump against her ribs. She knew at once what was in Barbara's mind, and for the first time, wondered what she would feel like if Chris captivated the doctor's heart.
"He—he is a very good man, I know," she replied, steadying her voice with an effort. "Every one likes him."
Barbara said no more, but Jean passed a sleepless night with useless conjectures as to the possibility of Chris and the doctor taking a liking to each other. "Of course, she cannot fail to like him!" argued Jean, in deep depression of spirits. "And she is so bright and good tempered, so unselfish and so unaffected, that he is very likely to care for her. She will make him a good wife, and I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have brought about the match. Oh—" here she flung herself face downwards on her pillow and gripped it with both hands in the intensity of her feelings—"it will be hard—very hard to bear!"
She applied herself with extra vigour to her household tasks, and more than once Barbara remonstrated with her.
"You are always at it, Jean. We are working you to death. What will Miss Lorraine say?"
"She will be glad that I am making myself useful. I want to get away from myself, Barbara. You don't know what a selfish creature I am, and what a struggle it is, to keep my wishes and my desires in the background!"
Barbara only dimly understood, but while Jean was earnestly trying to quench her self-will and self-indulgence, there was another influence slowly growing and increasing in her heart, that was helping her successfully to cope with her besetting sin, and this influence was bringing a new tenderness and softness into her eyes and voice, and a deep undercurrent of peace and happiness into her soul.
Jean was a slow learner at the feet of her Master. But she was learning. From being a dreary irksome book, her Bible was giving her fresh thoughts, day by day. She stumbled very often, her self was her worst enemy, but she thanked God that her life was widening, and that now she could feel as much interest, and perhaps more, in others than in herself.
Chris continued to write her bright, amusing letters. She told of a long day in Edinburgh with her godmother, of lunching with Mr. George Fergusson, whom she thought very nice, but not a quarter good enough to be the son of his mother, of the sightseeing she had done, and of the charming Scotch people she had met. She described a day when she lunched at Strathglen, and found little Sunnie on her couch underneath an old chestnut-tree on the lawn. Dr. Fergusson had carried her down, and Chris described her as "a quivering, radiant sunbeam."
"I don't wonder Jean loved it all," she wrote. "The sombre old house, with its rich carvings and stained windows, and gallery of portraits, the sad, silent self-contained mistress, the devoted old servants and the little bit of sparkling quicksilver with her ringing laugh, her quaint conceits, and her wonderful love for everything and everybody, it impressed me tremendously, and the bond of union between the doctor and that tiny child is most touching!"
Then she spoke of Sunnie's portrait.
"It is marvellous! Jean must be a genius. She seems to have caught and held the spirit of the child in her canvas. It isn't only the outside of Sunnie, but the indescribable sweet witchery of the little darling, the absolute purity and innocence of her nature."
Jean read these extracts, smiled and sighed, and waited impatiently for the next to come.
A fortnight passed, three weeks, and then Chris wrote, saying she was coming back.
It was towards the close of a very warm day in August when she returned. Mick brought her back from the station in triumph. He was a very quiet young fellow, and Chris was his favourite sister. He had missed her, more than he cared to say. Barbara welcomed her home with open arms, and Chris seemed as delighted to be back, as she had been to go. She was brimming over with talk, and had gained an indescribable sort of society air which amused her sister. But Barbara soon found that Chris had come home absolutely heart-whole.
"It is only in story books," she confided to Barbara, when they were alone, "that country girls go away from home for three weeks, and meet their fate in that prescribed time. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, but have seen no one that has taken the slightest liking to me, nor I to them."
"We were wondering—" Barbara began, then hesitated. "Did you like Dr. Fergusson, Chris?"
Chris looked at her sister, then laughed.
"Oh, you dear old thing, is that what you were getting into your head? I shouldn't say that the doctor is in the least, a marrying man. He is so—what shall I say?—self-reliant and self-contained. Awfully nice, and considerate and respectful to all women, which is not the fashion with younger men nowadays. But his heart—if he has one—is wrapped round with a stout substantial crust of stolid indifference and unimpressionability! I should say he was interested in women as fellow-creatures, but he never individualises them any more than he would his patients."
She said much the same to Jean, and laughed at Jean's pertinacious questions.
"Why do you like Scotland so much?" she asked in her turn.
And Jean flushed, and was more wary in her catechism afterwards. Then they slipped into the old routine, except that Jean persisted in lightening Chris of some of her labours.
"I never knew how much you did, till you went away," she said. "I have always been too self-indulgent; it will do me such a lot of good, to work a little."
"But you have your painting. You have quite neglected it, since I have been away."
"Yes, but I am making up for lost time now. I shall soon have finished it."
"And then we shall lose you."
"I have had a delicious time here," said Jean. "But I must be in town again soon. The autumn is coming on, and I think I shall have a chance of doing some portraits during the winter."
Time slipped away, but when Jean came to leave Kingsford Farm, she felt she had made real friends there, and friends who would remain so.
"You must come back to us another summer," said Barbara. "Come to us in the spring-time. We have fields of daffodils and primroses; it is the sweetest time in the whole year to me."
"I have learnt a good deal from you," said Jean thoughtfully. "I never had my selfishness brought home to me before. I hope I shall never be so self-absorbed again."
She could not speak of the deeper lessons she had been learning. Not even to Miss Lorraine, in her letters, had she given the least hint of the great change that had slowly and gradually come into her soul.
But she had not been back many days in town, before Miss Lorraine noticed the difference in her.
And one Sunday evening coming home from church Jean said abruptly—
"Do you remember your talk to me, Miss Lorraine, before I went to Kingsford?"
"Yes, I do."
"I see things differently now. I hardly like to say it, but I think I've got a different centre in my life. I hope I have the right one; I should like to tell you about it."
Miss Lorraine listened with a glad heart. The answer to her many prayers had come.
She was able to give Jean wise counsel at this juncture, for, like many beginners, the girl had her ups and downs, and could not understand why her feelings should vary so—why one day she felt able to do and dare great things for her Master, and other days would be cold and indifferent; afraid of being thought peculiar or fanatical, and hopelessly discouraged by her inconsistency of conduct.
"Don't expect to walk without falling, Jean. Aim at doing it. There is no necessity for lowering your standard, but a fall does not mean instant loss of God's grace and love. Tell Him about it, and His hand will be outstretched at once. Remember Peter on the stormy lake. We none of us can always walk on smooth waters. Upheavals will take place; we may be shaken, knocked down, but a Christian will find his feet again, and perhaps be a humbler, truer Christian in consequence."
"Am I right to keep to my art, Miss Lorraine? Is it waste of life?"
"I think not at present, as long as you do not let it crowd out the better things in your life."
So Jean worked on in her School of Art, and was busy and happy as the winter passed by.
The winter brought Miss Lorraine a heavy trouble. Colonel Douglas came and went as usual, but her quick eyes noticed a greyness and pallor about his face, and a weariness that he in vain tried to hide.
She taxed him with it at last.
"You are not well."
"Getting old."
"Nonsense, not old enough to be so tired."
He looked wistfully at her for a moment, and then began to talk of other things, but she was not to be put off, and returned to the attack a day or two afterwards. After a little fencing, he told her—
"I have been to a—a doctor. I am not quite the thing; in fact, he has found out what I suspected myself, that there is something serious, and something, Frances, that cannot be cured."
There was dead silence. The woman caught her breath. Few moments in her life had been so intense with pain as this. She looked at her old friend with a white, still face.
"I am glad you have told me; but is it—is it quite hopeless? Don't tell me, Philip, that you are going to be taken from us?"
There was a sharp ring of anguish in her voice that she did not try to keep back.
The Colonel rose from his seat, paced the room irresolutely, then turned to her.
"I was about to wish that my time was short here, Frances, but I will not be a coward. I have always enjoyed such good health, and have led such an active life, that a sick-room is abhorrent to me. But if it is to be my lot, I shall be willing to go through it. I may live a few years, the doctor says, but I shall always be an invalid. I have done with health and strength and activity; and sickness and weakness and pain, Frances, are formidable foes to confront. There! I ask your pardon for letting you see me in this mood, but I have always been to you with my troubles, and I could not keep this back from you."
He made a feint at one of his cheerful smiles, but Miss Lorraine sat still.
"Oh," she said at last, "if I could go through it for you! Women can bear sickness—they are accustomed to it. Oh, Philip, can I do nothing, nothing for you?"
Colonel Douglas sat down and partially turned his face from her, as if he could not meet her eyes.
"I would like," he said a little brokenly—"at the end—you know I am not fond of nurses—I would like to think, you would be near me. Would you come, if I sent for you, Frances?"
"To the end of the earth," she said. "But you are not going far away, Philip?"
"The doctor advised my going to the South of France. He suggested first a sea voyage, but I could not stand that. You see I have been such an active man, that I don't think I could stand the life on board ship when you're thrown upon yourself so. I thought perhaps I would try the Riviera, and yet—"
Here a little fiery sparkle shot into his tired-looking eyes. "Why should I try to prolong my life? I shall be away from my friends. No, I will die in harness, Frances."
Then a great impulse seized the woman who loved him. She rose from her seat and stepped across to him.
"Philip, you must carry out the doctor's orders, you must go to the Riviera, but—will you take me with you?"
The Colonel did not start, or show any surprise at her words. But he put one of his hands on her shoulder, and looked at her.
And then he drew a long breath.
"Oh, Frances, do you think I do not love you better than that? Could I wear you out for my selfish gratification and pleasure? It is like you to offer yourself for such a task, but I would not be a man, if I were to say yes."
Miss Lorraine's fair face was flushed. For a moment she struggled for self-control, and then she burst into tears.
"Oh, Philip, my heart would break, if you suffered and slowly died—away—out of my reach. I ask to come as your nurse. You cannot, you shall not, prevent me! Because I made a great mistake years ago, shall that mistake still shadow our lives? I am not a girl now, I am a woman, and if I am forward and unconventional, we are too old friends to misunderstand each other. You do not like hired nurses, I do not, and I plead with you now, for the sake of the girl you once loved, to give me the right to come with you and comfort you, and be with you till the end. Do not refuse me."
Colonel Douglas took her hands in his.
"Frances, my love has never changed, I have never swerved in my allegiance to you, and if you are going to crown my last days with such unspeakable happiness, I will hold out no longer."
He drew her to him, and the long lonely years of severed lives in the past, and the certainty of the black cloud hovering over them, so soon to sever them again, could not bring one drop of bitterness into that sweet moment when their hearts met and touched each other.
"We will not wait any longer," he said at last, "and we shall be married as quietly and quickly as possible."
Miss Lorraine acquiesced. Her one desire was to be with him now, and spare him as much as possible. She knew that joy and grief would be intermingled through every bit of intercourse they held together, but her own feelings she thought little about—he was her chief concern.