A happy woman
a little smile. "And I should trust your father to God's own keeping,
dear May. Don't have an anxious or unhappy thought about him. He was
spared a long illness, which is so trying to men."
"Oh yes," May said listlessly. "I do believe he is all right. It is
not his fate which depresses me, but my own. I have lost everything
with him! He and I enjoyed everything together, now I shall never enjoy
anything without him. I have lost my appetite. Can you understand me?
Nothing interests me now. I try to do everything as I have always
done, and I am struggling to take over a good deal that he did. There
is plenty to keep me occupied, but deep down in my heart is the awful
blank which will never be filled."
"I think I can understand," said Sara, tenderly. "I have gone through
the same experience myself."
"Not exactly the same, have you? And I am not brave enough to face my
future. Let me tell you. It is a relief to talk to some one. Shall I
bore you?"
"My dear child!"
Sara's little caressing touch on her arm made May exclaim—
"You're the only person who seems to care a bit about me! I don't
know if you have heard about my brother Alan. He is in the Navy, and
just lately he has become engaged to an old friend of ours, Lilian
Rush. Everything is left to him—house, property, and every penny of
money. I have nothing but three hundred a year left me by my mother.
I suppose father considered that enough, but then he expected that I
shall be dependent on Alan for a home. I know he will retire from his
profession, and settle down here at once. He will marry, of course. I
cannot, and will not, stay here with them, so it means a break-up of
all I value and love. Aren't women at a disadvantage? It seems so cruel
to be turned out of my home and give my place to a stranger, one not of
the same blood, and who can never love the family things as I do? Mr.
Peel talked to me the other day of comfort coming to me. I thought how
little he knew my circumstances to imagine I could 'ever' be comforted."
She spoke with passion. Clasping her hands round her knees, she looked
into the glowing embers of the fire with gloomy sullen eyes.
And then Sara spoke.
"My dear, I don't often talk about myself, but I want you to listen to
me now. I suppose you look upon me as a happy woman?"
"The personification of happiness!" said May, looking at the sweet
sunny face opposite her. "Everybody says you carry a fund of sunshine
about with you. Though I'm so miserable myself, I felt I couldn't stand
long-faced tearful people about me. That's why I asked you to come to
me. I have been wading through hundreds of letters of consolation, and
there hasn't been one with a spark of brightness in it. Resignation
they all preach, and at present, I am full of resentment."
"It is some years now since I lost my father," said Sara, slowly and
softly. "Strange to say you and I are much alike in our experience.
I had a country home like you. I hunted with my father, and after my
mother's death did everything with him. Then he died, and not only did
I lose him, but my home went as well. We had to sell the estate, and
my brother and I went to London and had a hard struggle to live whilst
he was an unknown briefless barrister. Then gradually he got on in his
profession, and when I fancied we were settling down to a comfortable
life together, he met a girl whom he liked, and my second home was
broken up. These are just the facts of my life, but I want to tell you
something more.
"In the early days, when the crash came, and I had to see all our
family belongings sold, when I was leaving my home, and all the people
I cared about, I was like you, rebellious and miserable. I could not,
and would not, see any light for myself anywhere. And then one day, our
Rector preached a sermon. I have never forgotten it.
"'The joy of the Lord is, your strength.'
"He told us first of all how joy in the heart carried people on the
crest of the wave in time of storm and stress, how it strengthened and
braced all the weakness in them, how absolutely impossible it was for
them to sink under the biggest trouble that could come to them in this
world if they had joy inside them. He compared it to a life-belt.
"'Joy won't let you drown,' he said, 'but take care that it is not a
spurious imitation of the genuine article.'
"And then, having made our mouths water for this wonderful attribute,
he told us how we could get it."
May looked interested.
"I never realized you had been through a bad time like mine," she said.
"I suppose you got this joy, and have kept it ever since."
"You can have it too, dear."
"Oh, I know! I know! Do you remember your little song? Isn't it an
extraordinary thing you sang that on the eve of our trouble? I remember
father saying he loved it. How did it go? I remember something about a
maid in a black gown who was singing because she had joy in her heart!
But nothing can bring me joy, nothing!"
"Oh yes, May, you could obtain as I did."
"How did you get it?"
"I went down on my knees in church, and again when I got home, and
besought for my poor desolate empty heart to be flooded with the love
and joy that only my Saviour could give me. He came in Himself, and
took possession of me. It's the knowledge of His love that brings the
joy, May. You can bear anything if you lean hard on Him, and realize
that He is with you through it all. If we can't understand the reason
why, He stills our questionings by telling us we shall see the way He
has led us by and by, and acknowledge that it all has worked out for
our good. If you know a person loves you very much, you can't help
trusting him."
May was silent. She was naturally reserved, and Sara knew that this was
an opportunity that she might not get again. So she went on talking in
her soft happy voice, and at last, her words began to impress May with
an inexplicable conviction of their truth and reality.
"It may seem a strange thing to be talking about joy to you at this
time," concluded Sara, "but our Lord did it to His disciples in the
darkest hour of their lives, and when His agony was just coming upon
Him. It's one of the Heavenly paradoxes, that when we're full of
trouble, we can be full of joy. And it's such exquisite, unseen joy,
that only we ourselves know about."
"The knowledge that our Lord was close to me could bring me no joy,"
said May, slowly, "for I don't love Him."
"But He loves you," Sara said quickly; "that's what brings the joy."
Then they were silent, the firelight flickering upon their faces, upon
May's troubled eyes and hard shut mouth, upon Sara's tender, glowing
gaze.
When they parted for the night a little latter, May kissed Sara very
warmly.
"You're a wonderful person!" she said. "As a rule, I hate jaws from
pious people, but with you it seems so simple and natural, a part of
yourself, that nothing jars. You have given me something to think
about. It's rather queer your life altering after hearing that text.
For our Rector quoted it to me when talking about you the other day. He
said he always said to himself when he looked at you, 'The joy of the
Lord is her strength.'"
"Oh," said Sara with tears in her eyes; "I'm a very poor creature, but
the poorest creatures can be made happy, and can tell others how they
have been made so."
May said nothing more. She rather avoided another heart-to-heart talk
in the evenings afterwards. And Sara was quite content to leave her
alone. She never forced her views upon any one. And certainly she and
her baby nephew brought brightness into the sad house.
May would often steal away to the nursery. She was very fond of
children and Baby Oliver was a friendly little soul. He learnt to know
her and look for her, and his chubby arms would be extended at once to
be taken up and amused. They saw very little of outside neighbours.
Nellie came up to the Hall occasionally, but as she told Sara when she
met her out one day, she was not good at talking to people when they
were in trouble.
"I'm jealous of May. She has taken possession of you altogether. I have
nobody to go off to, and pour out all my woes and troubles to now. And
John and I do get so tired of each other. How long are you going to
stay here? Till Captain Agnew comes home?"
"I think so," replied Sara.
And then Nellie had laughed and gone off calling out—
"It will be my turn then to have you."
Sara at this time was rather taken up with the news that Mrs. Laird was
giving her in her letters.
Eva's serious illness was a great surprise to her.
Then one day the following letter came:—
"MY DEAREST SARA,
"You will be surprised and pleased to hear that Eva has of her own
accord sent for me to come and see her. I told you, did I not? that
she is in bed now, and too weak to get up. Graham is wonderful. He is
always with her, when he is not at his office, and I do not expect to
see much of him. I went round to Eva this afternoon. She looks very
ill, and has attacks of pain which are distressing to witness. But she
rallies wonderfully from them. She has altered very much. As I looked
at her, and then at my boy, I could not help noticing that there was a
calm peacefulness and serenity about their faces that used not to be
upon them. I suppose they have learnt to fit into each other's ways,
and to love each other. Graham left us together, and Sara, the last bit
of anger and dislike to Eva left me. When she put her hand into mine
and said, 'I want to be quite sure of your forgiveness, Cousin Rachael.
I've had an unhappy past, but God has forgiven me and given me His
peace, and I'm not afraid to go to Him now.' She told me the end might
come in any one of these heart attacks, and she was longing to go. Then
she added: 'I have selfishly made Graham's life very unhappy this last
year, but I am not sorry he married me, and I do not think he will be,
when he remembers what he has done for me.' All her peevishness and
discontent has gone.
"I came away from her, feeling that a miracle had been performed, and
then I suddenly thought of myself and of what I was like a couple of
years ago, and I began to see that what changed my outlook, has changed
hers. Graham walked home with me. He was very silent, but very dear.
He told me that Eva's little girl was coming home from school for the
holidays, that her mother wanted to see her. I have never seen the
child, but I remember you spoke of her as a dear little thing. I have
a strong feeling that Eva may not be with us at Christmas. God only
knows. This is a dull stupid letter. I get a great longing for you,
Sara, sometimes. When shall we see each other again?
"Much love,
"Your loving old friend,
"RACHAEL LAIRD."
Sara was hardly surprised to hear a fortnight later of Eva's death.
For a day or two there was a shadow upon her spirit, which impressed
itself upon her face. Even May noticed it, but she asked no questions.
Sara was peculiarly reticent about her life with the Lairds. She rarely
mentioned them; in some way she felt a shrinking from doing so. And yet
now in the time of his trouble, Graham was continually in her thoughts.
She wondered if his faith in God had increased during the time when he
must have gone down for part of the way with his wife into the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. And she longed to be able to send him some bit
of comfort. She could only pray for him, and that she never failed to
do.
About Christmas time, she got a long letter from Mrs. Laird—
"MY DEAREST SARA,
"It seemed to me that poor Eva's funeral was no sooner over than Graham
came to me to ask me my advice about her child.
"'I promised Eva I would be a father to her,' he said, 'and I have