A happy woman
should behave! I was very angry, and sent for Dorrie to come to me. I
can see her now springing up the stairs, a little slim figure, with her
auburn curls flying, and her dark eyes flashing rather angrily.
"I came out on the broad landing, and she stood balancing herself on
one leg—it was a trick she had—at the head of the stairs.
"'I won't come, Granny!' she said passionately. 'Poor Eva is crying.
You've been very unkind to her!'
"'So you like Eva better than your old Granny!' I said, feeling my
temper rise.
"'A thousand times better!' cried Dorrie.
"My passion overcame me. I can't remember what I said. But my words
were enough to make the child shrink back suddenly, as I sprang towards
her. My instinct was to take her by the arm and bring her into my
room and keep her there till Eva had gone. Even now—I can't say for
certain—I go over and over the scene till my brain gets dizzy—but I do
believe that I never laid my hand on her. In any case, the child was
frightened, lost her balance and fell headlong down that steep long
staircase, striking her head with awful force on the stone pavement
below.
"Eva saw her fall, and told every one that she saw me strike her down.
I could not contradict her. The horror of it all numbed me. I dashed
downstairs and carried her upstairs to my bedroom. A doctor was sent
for, but she never recovered consciousness. She died in my arms two
hours afterwards—I—and no one else had killed her!"
"You poor—poor soul!" said Sara. And then in a passion of pity and
compassion, she put her arms round the trembling speaker, and kissed
her.
Mrs. Laird gently pushed her away.
"Ah—h—h!" she said, with a drawn-out shudder. "I am in God's sight a
murderer. It was my temper which killed my darling! That sting nobody
can take out of my heart. Let me finish, there is not much more to
tell. Edmund was telegraphed for. He came, but got the version of
the story from Eva first. You can imagine how he felt towards me. My
remorse, my grief was nothing to him. He shut himself up away from
me till after the funeral, then he bade me good-bye, and went abroad
again. What do you think his last words were to me? They are burnt into
my soul:
"'May God forgive you, mother, I cannot. We are best apart, for you
have taken my all from me!'
"He went, and to add to my punishment, he was attacked by fever a year
later, and died out in India. He passed out of this life without a word
of forgiveness for his mother."
"And then your other son came home and comforted you," said Sara,
consolingly.
"Do I look comforted? No. It's a wonder to me now why I was not tried
for murder. Our doctor hushed it up."
"It was an accident," said Sara, firmly. "You could not have been
thought guilty of murder. You say yourself that you did not think you
touched her."
"I delude myself with that fancy. I know I did not strike her
downstairs, as that vile girl insinuated. But the fact remains the
same. She met her death through me. A young happy life destroyed at its
outset by a jealous passionate woman! This is my burden. This is why I
will not face my fellow creatures. They say I am morbid, but God has
forsaken me. How I wrestled all that night in my agony beseeching Him
to save her life, and not lay the loss of it to my charge! He would not
listen to me. He took her. And I have never prayed to Him since."
"But God knows your heart. He knows your sorrow and remorse, and
forgives. I remember a verse in the Bible that brought me great comfort
once, when I had done wrong:
"'Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon Thee. Thou saidst,
Fear not.'
"That's how we're received. Do call upon Him. He will comfort and
relieve you, because He knows, as no one else knows, how you feel about
it."
Mrs. Laird did not speak, her face was turned away.
"So now," she said coldly, "you know that you are living with a woman
who has been guilty of murder."
"No," said Sara, emphatically, "that is not true. You may have sinned
by anger, but I don't believe for a moment that your hand touched the
child. Shall we have our evening reading now?"
"No, I cannot bear it. I am too upset."
Sara took her trembling hand in hers caressingly. She said no more, she
felt she could not, but she just sat silently by her side, praying for
her.
Then Mrs. Laird suddenly raised her head, and spoke in an indifferent
tone.
"You might play and sing to me. I like your music. We will not talk any
more."
Sara never in her life had felt more disinclined to sing than she did
just now.
But she went into her room and got her guitar. And then a sudden
impulse came to her. She sat down in the firelight and sang in her
sweet thrilling voice—
"'Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frighten'd sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?'"
When she came to the verse—
"'There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven;
There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgment given—'"
Mrs. Laird heaved a deep sigh, and her lips quivered. Sara went on—
"'For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind;
And the Heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
"'Pining souls! come nearer Jesus,
And oh! come not doubting thus,
But with faith that trusts more bravely
His huge tenderness for us.'"
Then Mrs. Laird bowed her head in her hands, and tears came.
Sara finished the hymn, then slipped quietly out of the room, and left
the stricken woman alone.
CHAPTER VII
THE INVALID IMPROVES
THE next morning at breakfast, Graham said—"How is my mother this
morning?"
"She did not sleep very well, but she seems comfortable now. I shan't
let her get up very early."
"I'm afraid your meeting with Mrs. Jeffery rather agitated her?"
Sara looked up at him gravely and frankly.
"Mr. Laird, your mother told me all last night."
"I am glad she did," he said, after a little pause; "I would rather
you had heard it from her lips than from anybody else's. I suppose you
guessed she had something on her mind?"
"It ought not to be there," said Sara. "She has distorted and magnified
what happened so much that she refuses to put it away from her."
"She cannot well do that. Our memories are hard masters."
"But our failures and mistakes can be blotted out. It is wrong to bind
them upon our shoulders and bear the burden of them."
"What were you singing to her last night?"
"A hymn—"
Graham smiled, and Sara coloured a little.
"Don't scorn hymns," she said. "This was a very special one."
"I do not doubt it. But my mother's hurt is too deep to be touched
by hymns. If Mrs. Jeffery does happen to call here, you must not let
her see my mother. I am sorry she is in the neighbourhood. Of course
I was abroad at the time of my mother's trouble. Eva was a young and
foolish girl, but I don't think she was so much to blame as my mother
imagines. It is a very sad story. I have heard both sides. But I would
give a good deal to any one who brought the least bit of comfort to my
mother. She is much too morbid, of course, about her part in it. It was
an accident, pure and simple. And if any soul has punished themselves a
thousand times over for a fit of temper, I am sure my poor mother has."
"Yes," said Sara, "that is quite true. She will be comforted by and by,
Mr. Laird; I know she will."
"I shall have to answer Mrs. Jeffery's note," said Graham, musingly. "I
am ashamed of having put it into my pocket and forgotten it. I think I
must ride over and see her, and then I'll have a look at Snooks. Reuben
would like to keep him another day, he said."
Sara's day passed very quietly. It seemed like a calm after a storm.
When Mrs. Laird was dressed, she sat in her chair engrossed in a book
which she was reading. She made no allusion to what had passed the
evening before, but when dusk came on, she sent for Sara.
"Sing to me," she said.
Sara sang some of her favourite songs, both grave and gay, then, just
as she was laying aside her guitar, Mrs. Laird said—
"And now sing me that hymn again. And sing it slowly—make it last!"
Sara willingly did so.
Mrs. Laird listened with face screened from view by her book, which she
held between herself and the singer.
The sweet vibration of Sara's voice accentuated the sweetness of the
words.
Mrs. Laird thanked her quietly when she had finished, and Sara wisely
made no comment upon it.
After that, every evening she sang the same hymn, until one night about
ten days afterwards Mrs. Laird said abruptly—
"You need not sing it any more. I know it now by heart. As I lie in
bed, I hear your voice still singing it."
Sara bent down and kissed her.
"I'm so glad you like it," she said. "I have always loved it. You're
going to have the two last lines made good to you."
Mrs. Laird looked up inquiringly.
"We'll change one word," said Sara, smiling.
"And our lives will be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord."
Mrs. Laird caught hold of her hand with a quick-drawn breath.
"Oh," she said, "if it could be! It's the first ray of hope I've had
through all these wretched years."
She was very silent after that. Sara felt her way very carefully. She
knew that words from her were unnecessary, for she believed that Mrs.
Laird was drawing near to the One Who loved her. So she said little and
prayed much.
Snooks returned home, and soon regained the use of his leg.
Sara did not forget the lonely woman who had helped to dress his
wounds. She went up one day, and sat outside the hut according to her
promise. She sat there for half an hour without hearing or seeing any
sign of her.
Then as she was about to move away, the door slowly opened, and Agnes
came out. She had a jug in her hand as if she were going to the spring,
and she gave a start when she saw Sara, but it was too self-consciously
done to be natural. Sara had a pretty good idea that she had been seen
from the window.
"I thought you might like to hear how your patient was going on," said
Sara, brightly. "I nearly brought him up with me to-day, only I was
afraid that you had made him so comfortable here that he would want to
return to you."
"He was a very good patient," Agnes said gravely. "A good deal more
patient than I was when I got my hurt. He and I have reason to remember
these hills."
Then she looked sharply at Sara.
"You've heard my story from somebody?"
"Well, yes, I have," said Sara, gently. "I do feel so sorry for you."
Agnes shot up her head in the air with a little snort.
"Oh, you've no cause to be sorry for me. That happened years ago. I've
learnt to bear in silence, but I hate pity."
Sara made no reply. She just smiled upon her companion in a friendly
fashion, and Agnes's face softened at once.
"Father and I fit in very well together, for we're both silent. He is
always busy, and so am I."
"Do you get any time for reading?"
"No. Father's books don't interest me. They're all on herbs and
medicines. But I crochet and knit. I've crocheted a good many shawls
and now I'm doing a quilt. Does Mrs. Laird work? She'd find it would
soothe her like nothing else if she did."
"Yes; we work together. I quite agree with you. Work always soothes me."
Agnes looked at Sara's bright sympathetic face.
"I shouldn't think you were ever ruffled or disturbed," she said.
"Sometimes I feel inside like a seething whirlpool," said Sara;
"especially when wrong is being done, and nobody seems able to right
it. But as far as my own affairs go, I have had a happy life."
"You look like it. Anybody could see you've never known trouble."