A happy woman
fragile. And Sara noted with an ache at her heart how very thin she
was. She took her up to her room and did not worry her with talk.
Graham was talking to his mother about her when Sara returned to the
drawing-room.
"She is being worked to death, a willing slave, but Cousin Anna does
not realize the strain it is for a young girl to go on year in and year
out without any change or holiday. They are devoted to each other, and
once the doctor told her that Miss Godwin must go away, she was quite
anxious and willing that she should do so."
"We will soon make her stronger."
Graham looked at Sara with a grave softness in his eyes.
"I told Cousin Anna that you would be better than a gallon of doctor's
tonics."
"Thank you," said Sara, laughing. "I can't promise that, but change of
air and scene are better than a tonic any day."
Miss Godwin retired early to bed that evening, and Sara visited her the
last thing with a tumbler of egg and milk beaten up together, which she
insisted that she should take before she went to sleep.
"I am going to take you in hand," she said, with one of her
irresistible smiles; "you are nothing but a bag of bones at present!"
The girl flashed a grateful look at her. Then she impulsively put her
hand on Sara's arm.
"I feel I am in a dream. Will you be my friend and let me talk to you?
And will you call me by my Christian name, which is Ina?"
"A dear little name," said Sara, and she stooped and kissed her. "You
poor child," she added, "of course, I shall be delighted to be your
friend. Now good night. Sleep well, and then you will be able to talk
to me to-morrow."
She left her and went downstairs, wondering why this girl had been
brought into the quiet life at Felstone Corner.
When Sara re-entered the drawing-room, she found Graham still there
talking to his mother. He looked up at her inquiringly.
"Well, what do you think of her? My mother fancies she may prove an
additional burden to you."
"I have no burdens in this house," said Sara, happily; "my heart is
full of pity for her, and I'm longing to see her lose her careworn
lines and wrinkles."
"I have been asking who she is," said Mrs. Laird.
"And I have been telling my mother that she was the daughter of a
former rector of the parish in which our cousin lives. She was the only
child, and lost both her parents when she was seventeen. Cousin Anna
befriended her, and she has been living with her for the last seven
or eight years. A cold, joyless life, I should say, but you religious
people would say it ought not to be, for she has been entirely devoted
to good works."
"Good works is a very vague term," said Sara. "In any case, all workers
need relaxation and rest sometimes."
"I don't believe she has ever had it. Cousin Anna is wiry, and doesn't
like to be absent from her work. She told me she occasionally goes to
the sea, which is twenty miles or so from them, for a week-end. But
when she goes there, she takes all her accounts and reports and keeps
this child well at it for quite half of every day."
"How will she manage without her?"
"Quite well. A friend of hers has gone to stay with her. I really
believe if this girl had friends to whom she could have gone, she would
have been sent away before. But that was the difficulty which I tried
to solve."
"Well," said Mrs. Laird, "she seems very gentle and quiet, and Sara
will know how to amuse her. Now I am going to bed. Good night."
They separated. Sara's thoughts as she laid her head on her pillow that
night were full of Ina Godwin. She wondered at herself for taking such
an interest in her, for as a rule young girls did not appeal to her as
much as old people.
CHAPTER XII
"TOO GOOD TO LAST"
"AND now can we talk?"
"As much as ever you like."
Sara was taking the young guest for her first walk across the hills.
Ina was not as a rule a good walker, but the keen bracing air
invigorated her, and though Sara had to adapt her pace to hers, she was
enjoying her fresh experience of striding through the dead heather and
bracken. It was a still October morning. Curlews swooped and circled
round overhead, there was a fresh moist smell of earth, occasionally
they disturbed the sheep who were cropping the short turf, and Snooks
who was with them darted in and out of the furze bushes in the vain
hopes of putting up a rabbit to chase.
Ina lifted her head, and drew in long breaths of the sweet pure air.
"Oh, how I hate chimneys and smoke!" she said suddenly. "How good it is
not to see a sign of either up here!"
"Tell me about your life," said Sara; and Ina began at once.
"I love Aunt Anna—she lets me call her 'Aunt,' though I'm no real
niece—but I have got weary of all her work. Is that wicked of me? I
can't tell you how unselfish she is, but I wonder if ever God will be
able to make her rest in heaven. She will never rest here. And she has
had trouble upon trouble. I often wonder why people are allowed to
deceive her so! I have reasoned it out to myself sometimes, and I feel
as if every professing Christian must be a hypocrite!
"And then I realize that in Aunt Anna's single-heartedness, she
lays traps for impostors. If she engages a servant, she must have a
Christian one, she says, and as she gives good wages, they pretend to
be what they are not, for the sake of the place. She is always getting
hold of reclaimed drunkards and putting them into places of trust and
responsibility, and then they break out, and there is disaster at once.
"And then Mr. Wylde, her late secretary, he is an arch hypocrite, and
has been behaving in a perfectly shameless way, actually enticing
members of her young men's club to come to his house and play cards and
drink. I can't tell you what we have gone through. She hasn't had one
honest strong man amongst all her dependents. And then Mr. Laird came.
Isn't he wonderful? So quiet and capable and strong, with such keen
quick sight of right judgment. In one day he discovered what Mr. Wylde
was like, and he was sent away in twenty-four hours!"
Ina paused for breath. Her eyes were glowing. She was quite
enthusiastic.
Sara listened and sympathized; the girl talked on and told of the busy
life she had had since she had left school.
"Have you had no young companions of your own age?"
"I have never been young," said Ina, with a little wistful smile, "not
since I left school. Aunt Anna has some nieces, but they are smart
up-to-date girls who despise her, because she is old-fashioned and
good, and they look upon me as a poor dependent. You see I am always
so busy that I haven't a chance to know young people. I have friends
amongst the colliers, and I see servant girls and shop girls who come
down to our Home of Rest, but I can't exactly make friends of them. I
don't think I care about people much. I never meet anybody who takes
any interest in me. But there is no reason why they should."
"Isn't there?" said Sara with a smile as she put her hand on her
shoulder. "Why, I was interested in you from the first moment I saw
you!"
A swift bright colour came into Ina's cheeks.
"Oh," she said, "you are so kind. I can't tell you what I feel like.
You are all such fascinating people to be with! Mrs. Laird with her
sad eyes and sweet smile, and clinging affection for Mr. Laird and
for yourself, and he—well, I've told you what I think of him, he's
like a chivalrous knight, thinks no trouble too much for a weak
defenceless woman. And you're a princess—I love to watch you moving
about. I watch for your smile and that lovely little laugh of yours:
you're the happiest person I've ever seen! Do you believe in people
distributing their auras around them? You make everybody in the room
with you comfortable and glad. Mr. Laird inspires one with safety and
confidence; you with joy and hope. And when I'm in the room with both
of you, I feel as if I were in heaven!"
"My dear Ina, what a romantic little person you are!" Sara was much
touched.
This quiet girl had keen observation as well as imagination. She had
not yet lost her youthful enthusiasms, though she was strangely worn
and old in other ways.
And then suddenly, as they breasted the summit of the hill on which
they were, they came across Colonel Fleming riding on his stout old
cob. He dismounted at once and came forward in his usual impulsive
genial way.
"Upon my word, I'm in luck! Was thinking of you, Miss Darlington, and
wondering whether Graham were back!"
Sara introduced him to Ina.
He shook hands with her.
"Don't know who you are from Adam, but you look a good sort. A friend
of Graham's, eh? He seems to have a good many friends when he gets
away. Oh! Do you come from Dalby? Where he has been putting his
finger into a very muddled pie, eh? And what do you think of our
neighbourhood?"
"I think it is all perfectly lovely!"
"That's right. Then you'll be happy here. But you look like a wraith!
And I suppose Miss Darlington has trotted you up here to whip some
colour into your cheeks. I'm coming over this afternoon—want to look up
Graham on business! Do you know what I call Miss Darlington behind her
back? Balm. Just Balm. You'll soon find out what a good name it is for
her."
If Ina was astonished at Colonel Fleming's rapid flow of talk, she
did not show it. But she smiled up at him, the first real smile of
appreciation and pleasure since her arrival.
And then Sara and Colonel Fleming had a little talk together about
local matters, and presently Ina was addressed again.
"Do you like horses? Ever ridden?" Ina was quietly stroking the nose of
the Colonel's old cob.
"Yes, I used to ride when I was a little girl. We had an old pony."
Sadness came into her eyes at the recollection of her childhood.
Colonel Fleming looked at her, then at Sara.
"Look here, will you come out riding with me? I have a quiet old
rocking-horse, who will carry you anywhere. If you've come down here to
get strong, there's nothing like riding over our hills, now is there,
Miss Darlington?"
"I think it would be delightful for her. Wouldn't you like to ride,
Ina?"
Ina's face flushed and paled by turns.
"I think I would," she said.
"That's good. Now we'll settle it right off. To-morrow afternoon sharp
at half-past two, I shall be at Felstone Corner with a mount for you."
"But," gasped Ina, "I have no habit—nothing to ride in. And Mrs. Laird
might not like me to do it."
"Habits be bothered! I've seen women on horseback in shorter skirts
than you're wearing at present, and nobody will see you on these hills.
Make yourself a guy, nobody will care. And as for Mrs. Laird, she'll
let you do any mortal thing you have a mind to, dance on your head if
you care to try!"
Ina laughed, and Sara joined her.
And then the girl promised to be ready; and the Colonel mounted his
horse and rode away.
"I think I'm in a fairy tale," said Ina with sparkling eyes. "I seem to
be in another life altogether."
She was a different girl when she returned to the house, bright and
animated and interested in everything about her.
In the afternoon, Sara made her rest.
They had a pleasant evening together in the drawing-room. Sara brought
out her guitar and sang to them, and Ina played on the piano. She was
a good musician though she acknowledged that she had never time to
practise.
And then Graham began to talk to her about his cousin's work. In the
course of conversation, Ina mentioned their new vicar, who had lately
married and settled in a house close to them.
"Surely," said Sara, "you see something of him and his wife, don't you?"
"Not much," said Ina. "Aunt Anna doesn't care for his wife. She isn't
a bit like a clergyman's wife. Won't do anything in the parish, and
dresses very smartly and plays golf and bridge. She says she's not