Agnes Giberne

“ An hour later as they crossed the moor, one or two sharp showers overtook them; and some fine effects in the way of contrasted brightness and shadow were to be seen. A close phalanx of low black clouds with fringed edges swept over the hills, and following persistently in their wake was one broad belt of sunshine.
“Like life,” George said musingly, as they stood to gaze. “Remember, Joan, if the clouds return after the rain, as return they often do, the sunlight comes after the clouds again. But one must have the commingling. Pure joy and pure sorrow are scarcely known to us in this life.” ”

“ She only laid her head upon her raised knees, moaning afresh.
“O, Joan, Joan—my little Joan—my darling! But what could I do—what else could I do? Joan, you will never know how your mother loved you—never, Joan!” A tearless sob sounded, and she went on—“I didn’t know what else to do, Joan; and I have no friends. He will take care of you—I am sure he will. He is no man to turn from any in want. Am I wrong to give him no choice? Oh, how can one tell—all is so dark, and I have no hope?”
But she might have known. Marian Brooke was no stranger to right and wrong. ”

“ It is odd how unlike we all are to one another—especially you and mother. I suppose mother really loves God, doesn’t she?—but she does not at all want to go to him. She has such a dread of life coming to end. And you never seem to think of death as sad at all; and you don’t mind about little fidgets and worries in this world, as most people do. Sometimes I feel as if you had had a little peep into heaven, which had made you quite different from everybody else for all the rest of your life.”
No disclaimer came, as Joan half expected, George only said—
“Would not you like such a peep, Joan?” ”

“ Must I leave off calling you ‘mother’?”
“Joan, how can you!” Nessie exclaimed, quite indignantly, while Dulcibel sat down and burst into tears.
“Of course I am ‘mother’ to you,” she said sobbing. “I should be very much hurt if you did leave off after all these years. Of course you are our child, and always will be. Do you mean to say it was Marian who left you at the bridge?—that horrid, heartless creature!—poor dear little mite that you were! I always say she ought to have died of remorse for her cruelty. How did she know she hadn’t killed you by exposure? ”

“ It doesn’t make very much difference either way,” said Joan, “except that of course we all like to have you—especially father.”
Leo spoke rather coldly, after a pause—
“Joan, do you care for any one in the world except uncle?”
“Yes, of course I do,” Joan answered rather hurriedly. “What an odd question. I love mother and Nessie, and I am trying to care for my other mother as I ought; she is so good and self-denying. And my uncle Jervis is really nice, too. Of course, I don’t love anybody else in the world as I love father.” ”

“ Joan said, after a minute—“We are almost there.”
“Is that tone just a little regretful?”
“N-no, father,” said Joan slowly. “Wales has been very delightful. But I couldn’t regret going home. Only—”
“My dear, I don’t think I quite understand you this evening,” said George.
“I don’t think I quite understand myself,” Joan answered, flashing a look up at him in the lamplight; “I was going to say—‘Only there is that old Mr. Brooke.’”
“He seems rather a bugbear of your imagination at present. Did he not assure you of non-troublesome intentions?”
“Oh, yes. But people change their minds betimes.” ”

“ Forest said again.
“I don’t believe talking will do any good. It can’t undo about Marian and all the rest,” said Dulcibel.
“Mother, that isn’t all. I don’t think you understand,” Joan said suddenly. “I know what really makes father so unhappy;” and her own eyes were full to overflowing. “He has said something once or twice—not much, but enough. He thinks I ought to leave him and you and go to Mrs. Brooke—because she is my mother. To leave you and this dear home altogether, and only come sometimes as a visitor to see you all!” cried Joan. ”

“ I left my Joan!” she said.
“Yes, you did, Polly,” Jervis answered, with a sorrowful intonation. “It’s one of the saddest things I ever heard—a thing I don’t know how to believe yet. But, my dear, God’s ways are not like man’s ways. He never forsakes any that put their trust in him.”
“And if I can’t trust?” she whispered.
“Then I’d go and tell him so, and confess again the past, and wait on him for new help.”
Marian stood up, drawing her shawl round her.
“Yes, you’re right,” she murmured. “Tell him! Of course; there’s nothing better to be done. ”

“ Nessie said kindly. “You look quite pale. After breakfast you shall go for a walk. That will refresh you more than anything.”
Marian murmured a grateful response, but one voice rang incessantly in her ears—“Who is that woman? Take her away! Go away—I don’t want you!” And “that woman” was Joan’s own mother—the girl who did not want Marian was her own child!
Alone at last! Hurrying out of the village, away to the old churchyard, unseen by any human eye, alone in her grief, Marian sat upon a flat gravestone, heedless of cold or damp, rocking herself to and fro with smothered sobs. ”

“ Marian could not so reason away the passion of her heart’s longing. Gladly would she have given up all that she possessed, once more to have her child’s arms clinging round her. Little loving arms they had once been; and now Joan—her own Joan, her only child—held coldly aloof. It did matter terribly to Marian. Years might be short, and life only a brief span ”

“ For somebody else stood there beside the massive dining-table—stood facing her calmly, with lady-like composure and indifference.
Marian knew again these velvet-black eyes, with the marked, dark brows above—would have known them anywhere in the world. And the likeness to the little child of Marian’s recollections was more striking now than on a former occasion. The cold air had freshened Joan, and brought quite a color to her cheeks. Not only that, but, as she met Marian’s intense gaze, her dark brows drew together into the old petulant, childish frown of displeasure.
“What do you want?” ”

“ But Polly never had any heart to spare for her own folks.”
“Polly’s not wanting in heart, only she’s too easily led,” protested Jervis, coughing as he spoke. “There’s warmth of heart enough. She never can forget Mr. Rutherford’s kindness to William.”
“It’s a pity she forgets so soon any sort of kindness from them that belong to her,” sourly observed Hannah. “But that’s the way of the world. If a stranger says a soft word, everybody’s dying with gratitude; while a woman that slaves night and day for her own people don’t get so much as a civil ‘thank you’ for it all.” ”

“ Left at twenty-one, by his father’s death, in possession of the property, George had steered marvellously clear of the perils sure to assail a young man in such a position, owing much of his safety, under a higher Power, to the companionship of a wise and loving mother. Not until her death, in his thirty-third year, did George Rutherford begin to think seriously of finding a wife.
After considerable hesitation he had found one in Dulcibel Lloyd; not at all the kind of wife that any one would have expected him to choose, the very last person that anybody else would have chosen for him. ”

“ The boy Leo was away at some distance. George’s eyes fell again on the open page of the book; and he read aloud, in answer—
“Ill fares the child of Heaven who will not entertain
On earth the stranger’s grief, the exile’s sense of pain.”
“But I don’t,” said Dulcibel. “Of course one speaks of heaven as one’s home; and I suppose it ought to seem so. But I don’t feel the least like an exile on earth. And the pain is in expecting things to change, knowing death must come; not in being away from heaven now.”
“Dulcie, I would leave off expecting and fearing,” said her husband. ”

“ Brooke’s son, Hubert, was my husband,” Marian said.
“Yes, so he told me. And you are my—”
Then a pause. Marian’s face worked.
“What made you give me up?” asked Joan suddenly. “If you had loved me, and kept me with you, I should have been your child now. I should have learnt to care for you. Now I am Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford’s child. I love them dearly, dearly, and I should be miserable away from them. Father is everything in the world to me. ”

“ She made no attempt to rouse herself; and Leo said not a word; but presently the keen air, at first too strong, proved reviving, and Joan sat up.
They were by this time in a country lane, flanked by hedges, dressed in a sparkling veil of hoar-frost. Though a cold day, it was entirely still, and the sun shone from a blue sky.
“Better?” her companion asked.
“Yes. It is nothing—I am only stupid! What are you going to tell me about father?”
“We have not had our walk yet. No, I am not going to be unreasonable—” as she exclaimed indignantly. ”

“ Having thus let off steam, and relieved herself, she subsided into a corner of the drawing-room, with solemn disdain of everybody present, scorning all blandishments.
Lunch-time arrived, but not George or Leo. Dulcibel had scarcely passed so wearisome a day since her marriage. Hitherto her life had been as one continued honeymoon. She could almost have shed tears at her husband’s non-appearance, only she was ashamed.
Joan was by this time sufficiently hungry to consent to eat, and Dulcie found half an hour’s amusement in ministering to her wants. ”

“ We all hoped that the long unconsciousness was due, at least in a measure, to the shock of the accident and the burns, and that when he once began to rally the mind would be clear. But it is not so.”
“He is so weak,” murmured Joan.
“Still it is something beyond mere weakness. Have you not noticed?”
Joan’s face was turned away, and Leo kept silence. She looked round at length with a sudden impatience and distress.
“Go on—oh, go on!” she said. “It is no use putting off. The worst can’t be worse than I often think. You have promised to tell me all—everything—not to hide a single word. ”

“ There was indeed about Mrs. Brooke so marked and unusual an air of reserve, and of shrinking from her fellow creatures, that Mrs. Flint’s curiosity might well have been aroused.
But Mrs. Flint, a north countrywoman by birth, though now the widow of a Welshman, living in a lonely cottage near a lonely moor, was by nature singularly devoid of the spirit of inquisitiveness. She accepted her lodger’s peculiarities calmly, asking no questions; and at least her trust was not abused.
To and fro, from side to side moved Marian Brooke, incessantly, through the hours of that long night. ”

“ Joan was fighting against an overwhelming grasp of sickness and exhaustion. She sat bolt upright still, but her lips were the color of the white table-cloth.
“No,” she said—“nothing yet. I will hear about father first.”
“Joan, be reasonable,” urged Leo. “You are fit for nothing till you have taken some food. I promise to tell you presently; and you shall see him so soon as Mr. Forest consents.”
“You are to tell me now,” Joan retorted imperiously. “I don’t want to be reasonable. I only want to know about father.”
“Just a little tea first,” pleaded Nessie. ”

“ It does make me so wretched, and there is no need.”
“God’s will is always right, always best, always loving.” George spoke slowly, as if repeating a message or a statement, learnt with difficulty. “Joan, we must not fight against it. If ever your duty becomes plain to go to your mother—”
She thought him wandering, and was frightened.
“Please don’t say any more,” she begged anxiously. “Father, you have talked too much. Things will all come right by-and-by, only don’t talk about parting. You are going to get well now, and you know I could never leave you. Try to rest, father dear.” ”

“ Joan and her adopted mother were almost equally loath to have the matter known, and speech had not yet become necessary. At present George Rutherford seemed disposed to shirk the subject—to put it aside. If Dulcibel brought it forward, he did not respond. If Joan alluded to Mr. Brooke or Marian, he said only—“We shall see what to do before long.”
And still he had gone downward; losing strength day by day; wearing always a look of care and trouble and weariness on the broad brow and in the brown eyes, never seen there in past days. ”

“ I could not leave father. But when mother knows who really is my mother and my grandfather—that old farmer and her nurse—and my other grandfather too proud to have to do with me! I don’t care about him; but this—this; it does seem so strange. Father is not proud; but still—the Cairns living so near; and if mother—oh, if I could be sure they would not mind, I could bear anything—but if mother and Nessie turn against me—and Leo—”
Grief and distress were rising, to an over-powering pitch. Joan left the window, and walked to and fro with hasty, uncertain steps. ”

“ Joan looked round with a quick movement.
“I like it,” she said. “If only one could feel so.”
“Very few people do,” observed Dulcibel.
“Except—” said George.
“No, not ‘except.’ Very few of even really and truly good people do, George. I am sure most of them are afraid, if they would confess it.”
“You must have better means of knowing the condition of ‘most people’ than I have. But no doubt a good many people are ‘all their lifetime subject to bondage’ on this account. One may be absolutely safe, without fully realizing one’s safety.” ”