A happy woman
"You were the success of the evening, Miss Darlington. Good night."
Sara smiled.
"Ah!" she said to herself. "How little they know what a poor creature I
am at heart! But I will be glad. I have plenty to make me so. Life is
full, and I have found very pleasant friends in this quiet little spot."
The next afternoon, she was in her sitting-room trying to soothe her
little nephew who was teething and rather fractious in consequence,
when her door burst open, and Mrs. Shiplake appeared panting with
excitement.
"Oh, ma'am, what do you think! My Frankie has just run in with the
news. Our poor dear Squire has broken his neck out hunting! It's given
me such a turn, I be tremblin' to where I stand."
Sara stood up. She could not believe her ears.
"Not dead!" she cried. "Oh, he can't be dead!"
"But 'tis Gospel truth, ma'am—he were carried home an hour ago, and two
doctors wired for, and my Frank stayed till he heard the head groom say
'twas all over! What an awful situation for the whole lot of us!"
Sara felt quite dazed. She recalled the Squire's last words to her on
the previous night. How little she thought that she would never see him
alive again, and then her whole heart went out to May. How would she
bear this awful blow? Had she been with him when the accident occurred,
she wondered. She felt glad that May had her aunt staying with her, but
she knew what a terrible shock it would be to them all.
Later on she heard further particulars from Frank. It was in taking
a high fence that the Squire's horse came down, and flung his master
against the trunk of a tree. Death was instantaneous, and May riding on
in front was absolutely unconscious of what had occurred. Her cousin
broke the news to her, and every one said her calmness and composure
astonished them all. She walked home by the side of her father's dead
body, and when they arrived at the house issued all necessary orders
with an unfaltering voice.
Sara knew the reaction would come, but during the next few days, May
was still the ruling spirit in the house.
The Rector came over to Sara with a white shaken face. He had been over
to the Hall to see the last of his old friend, and had found May very
cold and grave, very absorbed in necessary business, and not in any
respect broken down with grief at her loss.
"I cannot understand her," he said to Sara; "her aunt is absolutely ill
with the shock of it, but May talks as if she is arranging a funeral
for some outside stranger. Has she no feelings, do you think?"
"I am sure she has," said Sara, earnestly; "she and her father were
devoted to each other. She will feel it more by and by. I expect the
shock has for the time stunned her."
"I asked her if I could do anything to help her, but she said her
cousin, Captain Talbot, was seeing to everything for her. She seems as
if she wants no sympathy from any one. I was allowed to give her no
comfort."
"The time for that is not just yet," said Sara, thoughtfully. And she
was right.
It was not till after the funeral had taken place, and after all the
relatives and friends had left the house, that May began to realize her
loss.
Her aunt remained with her, but even she got upon May's nerves. She
longed to be quite alone, and at last, frankly told her aunt so.
Miss Agnew was much hurt, but she herself wanted to get home, and was
glad to have the excuse of leaving her niece.
"I will come down to you later," she said; "for you are too young to be
left long in this big place alone, and it would not be the thing. But
for the present, if you want to nurse your grief in solitude, you can
do it!"
Sara had written a little note of sympathy to May, and she had a line
acknowledging it. But she did not see her till three weeks after the
funeral, and then May surprised her one day by walking in whilst she
was at tea.
Sara was shocked to see how white and ill she looked. But she held her
head high, and spoke much as usual.
"You always look so cosy here! How is the baby? For once I find you
without him!"
"He is very well, thank you. He is asleep in the nursery now. I am so
glad to see you. I did not come up to you, because I thought you would
not care to see visitors."
"I don't count you as a visitor. But I have been frightfully busy, and
Mr. Dane, our lawyer, is still in the house. I suppose you know my aunt
has left me?"
"I heard she had. Are you sorry?"
May gave a wintry smile.
"No, I'm glad; she worried me. I have never been accustomed to have
women fussing over me, and I could not appreciate it. She threatens
to come back to me, says it's improper my living alone! Now, isn't
that very Early Victorian? What do you think? Tell me frankly. I am
expecting my brother back in three months' time. His ship is still
at Hong Kong, but till he comes, I shall keep everything going as it
always has been. Why on earth should I require a chaperon?"
"It isn't necessary," said Sara, slowly, "but I think it would be
pleasanter for you. It would leave you freer to have your friends at
the house."
"You don't think I am going to entertain at present, do you? Now, look
here. I want to ask you a favour. I've been thinking over things, and
I suppose I had better not run the risk of having Aunt Maria coming
back just yet. Will you come up and stay with me? I'm perfectly certain
we should get on. You would go your way and I should go mine, and you
never worry nor fuss."
"My dear! I don't think I can. It is not possible. I should not like to
leave my small nephew down here without me."
"But, of course, you can bring him with you. There are the old
nurseries. We could make him and his nurse quite comfortable. At all
events, you can stay with me till Alan comes back. Do try to do it. I
won't press you for an answer to-day. There's no hurry; think it over."
Sara looked at May without speaking for a moment, then she said—
"I'll do it if I can, if it will be any help to you, I'll come. It is
very generous and good of you to take us all in. Could I bring Lacy as
my maid, do you think?"
"Of course."
May was drinking a cup of tea. She put it down hastily, and got up to
go.
"I can't stay. I have business to do with Mr. Dane before dinner.
Thanks awfully. You don't know how I shall like it."
She shook hands abruptly with Sara, but when she reached the door, she
turned—
"Do you know what father said to me before we went to bed that last
evening? I suppose you know how struck he was with your singing. He
said of you,—
"'That's a most charming woman, May. I should like to see more of her.
One feels the better for having her near one. Couldn't we ask her to
stay in the house?'
"And I said I was afraid you wouldn't leave the baby."
She broke off, slipped out of the door, and was gone, leaving her
sentence unfinished.
Sara understood. She knew that the mention of her father, and the
memory of that last evening of his, had proved too much for her
self-control.
It was the remembrance of the Squire's words to herself that had made
her accept May's invitation so promptly.
"He would like it, dear old man!" she thought. "He asked me to be her
friend and help her; and God helping me, I will."
She knew that there would be difficulties in her way, and she found
that it needed a good deal of talk and persuasion to make both nurse
and Lacy willing to accompany her. Mrs. Shiplake was aggrieved too, for
she had quite looked forward to having her as a permanent lodger all
the winter. However, Sara managed to soothe them all, and a week later
she went up to the Hall.
Nellie Peel was very excited over the news.
She met Sara out one afternoon, and told her that she had just heard of
the plan from her father who had been up to the Hall.
"I do think May might be a little more friendly with me. She hasn't
been near us, and we are quite her oldest friends here. She is so
self-important now. One would think that she was squiress. It all
belongs to her brother, and some people say he is engaged to some girl
out abroad. If he leaves the Navy and comes home and marries, May may
find herself without a home. I wonder how she will like that!"
"She would bear it as other women have before her," said Sara, quietly.
"We will hope, for her sake, that she will not be turned out of her old
home just yet."
"I don't wonder that she has sent for you," said Nellie, quickly, not
liking the pained look in Sara's eyes. "If I ever get into a hobble
about anything, I should do the same—I wonder how you will like it up
at the Hall? I always love staying there. It is so luxurious!"
But the luxury and comfort did not appeal to Sara, who had only one
overwhelming longing, and that was to comfort this sorrowful lonely
girl in the hour of her trouble.
CHAPTER VI
AN EVENING TALK
"YOU don't mind sitting up here in the evening, do you?" May asked this
question of Sara after dinner the first evening.
They were in the library. The Squire's chair was drawn up to the fire
just as when he was there, but Sara noticed that May never sat in it.
In the same way, the chair at the head of the dining-table was always
there, but it was never used. May drew a low chair up to the fire
by Sara's side. It was the first time they had been alone. At May's
suggestion the lamps had not been lighted. Only the wax candles on the
big carved writing-table gave light besides the fire, but the flames
flickered and danced merrily up the wide chimney, and touched with
golden sparkles the books in the bookcases, the pictures on the walls,
and the handsome copper and silver ornaments about the long room.
"Father and I always sat here after dinner," said May, gently. "And I
like to think that his spirit is here still. You will not laugh at me
if I tell you something. Yesterday, all day long, I was hunting for
an important paper which Mr. Dane wanted. I knew father had had it in
his hand in this room the day before—before his accident. I came up
here, and I searched everywhere for it. I turned out the drawers in the
writing-table, I ransacked the bureau for it, I searched everywhere.
And last night as I was sitting here alone, I felt that father was near
me. I said out loud:
"'If only you would tell me where you put it!'
"This morning I came here again and had another hunt, and, do you know,
when I opened his writing-table drawer—there was the paper just doubled
in half on the very top! Now don't you think he came back and put it
there himself?"
Sara, looking at May's pale earnest face, could not answer her for a
moment, and May, quick to read faces, exclaimed—
"I see you don't believe it. You will say I hadn't looked properly,
that it was a coincidence. Well, you can think what you like. But I
know, and am perfectly certain, that there was no coincidence about it."
A little silence fell on them. Then May said, abruptly—
"Where is he, Miss Darlington? He was taken so suddenly. He was alive
to his finger tips! What an awfully cruel thing death is! How can he
be silent towards me if the best part of him is living still. And what
is he doing? And what is he thinking? Oh, I wish I knew! I don't doubt
where he is! Father was always so very good, though he never talked
much. Do you know, he used to read a chapter out of mother's Bible
every night before he went to sleep? And I shall never forget his
saying to me in this very room the first night after I came home from
school:
"'My dear, your mother was a good woman, and she isn't here to teach
you. I want you to be like her. Will you always say your prayers and
read your Bible in the quiet of your bedroom every day? I promised your
mother I would do it, and I want you to do it too.'
"Of course I promised."
"It is a great comfort to have such memories as that," said Sara with