A happy woman
written to her, and she must spend her holidays with me. It will be
dull for a small child alone in that big house.'
"He paused, and, Sara, I knew what he hoped. And I could not bring
myself to say it. I have never had a child in the house since my little
Dorrie died. A child of Eva's, with her mother's nature—well, I will
not write as I felt! The old Adam dies hard, Sara! Then I asked Graham
if he was going to live in that big house by himself. And he sighed and
said he felt he must, until he could let it. 'The child must have a
home, mother,' he said. 'Well,' I said, 'after her holidays, you might
come back to me for a little.' And he smiled. The first smile that has
crossed his lips since Eva died. 'I think I might, mother,' he said.
And my heart kindled at his words.
"Yesterday the child arrived. He met her at the station and brought
her to see me on their way home. As they passed the house, it seemed
natural to him to do it, but I felt irritated at first—until I saw her.
I was sitting in the big drawing-room. Graham had run upstairs first to
ask me if he could bring her up. I hope he did not see my hesitation.
Then he went back, and a moment afterwards, she softly crept in at the
door and stood looking at me shyly and wistfully. Such a tiny slim
little thing in her deep black!—with big blue eyes and very fair hair.
"I held out my hand, and she came sedately across to me. I kissed her,
Sara. She did not say one word. I wondered if my face was grim and
set, and if she was frightened of me. Somehow or other a sense of her
loneliness took possession of me.
"'Have you had a nice journey?' I asked her for want of something
better to say. She looked at me, then clasped her small hands across
her chest.
"'I felt,' she said, 'like Mummy used to—in a lonely world without
nobody to love me. And Mummy had me, and I have nobody.'
"Great tears were in her eyes. I was going to put my arms right round
her and take her to my heart, when suddenly her little face became
perfectly radiant, and she sprang towards the table on which your
picture was—the one you sent me with your little nephew in your arms.
'Why!' she cried. 'It's my dearest Miss Darling! Does she live with
you? Mummy told me she had gone away.'
"'So she has,' I said. But she did not hear me, she was hanging over
the picture in ecstasy. Then she turned to Graham who was following
her in. 'Oh!' she cried. 'My Miss Darling has got a baby! It's the one
thing I mean to have direck'ly I'm growed up. How very kind of God to
send her one.'
"Graham smiled.
"'Come along,' he said, 'we mustn't keep the cab waiting.'
"She turned towards me at once, and put up her face for a good-bye kiss.
"'Please, what may I call you? And may I, if I'm very good, come to see
Miss Darling's picture another day? She was a very special fren' of
mine, and I lost her so very soon.'
"I tell you, Sara, I longed to keep the child for good and all. And I
said in a voice that astonished myself—'You may call me Grannie, dear.'
"'Good night, Grannie dear,' she repeated, softly, and then Graham took
her away.
"And now, Sara, I have been unpacking a box of Dorrie's books and
playthings, for if she and Graham do not come and live with me, I shall
go and live with them.
"I can write no more. Much love,
"Your loving old friend,
"RACHAEL."
"Ah!" murmured Sara to herself as she read and re-read this letter. "I
do not feel sorry for Graham if he has little True to share his big
empty house with him. She will cheer both him and his mother!"
And she wrote a long letter in reply to Mrs. Laird, in which she begged
her to use her influence over the motherless child.
"True responds so quickly if you talk to her. She has had so little
religious teaching that I always wonder that her faith in God is so
sure and strong."
Mrs. Laird acted upon Sara's suggestion. And day by day she and little
True drew nearer to each other, until the old lady was never happy away
from her.
True said to her stepfather—
"Grannie and I understand alike about some things, you know. I tell
her about fairyland, and she tells me about Heaven, and I really think
they're the same place, don't you?"
And Graham looked at the child in amused astonishment. She often
reduced him to helpless silence.
CHAPTER VII
TOWN LIFE AGAIN
CHRISTMAS passed; a very sad time at the Hall, and Sara was glad when
it was over. May sometimes seemed to her to be possessed with the fever
of unrest. She never sat still unless at meals; she never opened a
book to read, and rarely a newspaper. Sometimes in the evenings she
would throw herself down in a fit of exhaustion upon the couch in
the library, and ask Sara to read her the news. All day long she was
either shut up in the study conning accounts, and doing business with
her father's bailiff; or else she was going round her father's farms,
trying to keep the reins of each in her hand.
"Alan will never cope with it," she said to Sara one day. "He is too
easy-going. I expect he will have an agent. Father never had one.
He has kept on John Whiting as his working bailiff, and has always
superintended everything himself."
"Yes, but, May dear, you are wearing yourself out. No woman can have
the same grip as a man. It is too much for you."
"I mean to keep everything going without any change till Alan comes
back. And I am happier working hard. I have not so much time to think."
She and Sara were thoroughly content with each other's company, and
they did not see much of any one else, except occasionally Nellie Peel.
One day Nellie wrote a note to Sara, imploring her to come to tea with
her.
"I shall be quite alone," she wrote; "and I have something of great
importance to tell you. My husband has gone to a clerical meeting and
won't be home till quite late. Don't disappoint me. May has so much of
you that she can well spare you to me this afternoon."
Sara went, and found Nellie looking very bright and happy, with flushed
cheeks, and an important turn of her head.
"Come and sit down in this easy-chair. Now then for my news. I don't
believe you would ever guess, and a year ago I should have thought it
bad news. Now I don't. I think it is seeing you with your little nephew
that has made me alter my mind."
"Ah," said Sara, softly. "If my guess is a right one, I do indeed think
it good news. Is it that you are going to be a mother one day?"
"Yes," whispered Nellie, "and I am glad. Of course John is delighted.
He has been so nice to me. I thought I must tell you before any one
else."
"I am so very glad, Nellie dear. It is just what you want. Some little
life to tend and care for and train. You will have no more dull empty
days. And it will bring such a lot of fresh thoughts and ideas to you."
"It has done that already," said Nellie, gravely. "I mean to turn over
a new leaf, and be a model wife and mother. I do want to be good, Miss
Darlington, but I hate being a long-faced Pharisee. You are not that.
You enjoy life, don't you? It doesn't matter where you are, or what
you are doing, you always look absolutely radiant, and I don't want my
child to think his mother a selfish pig!"
Sara laughed heartily. But this was a prelude to a very nice little
talk together, and she left the rectory with great content in her
heart, for she knew that Nellie's rather shallow sleepy little soul was
at last waking up to realities.
The winter passed, and spring came. Slowly and gradually May was
creeping back to her normal life. She was not averse to seeing visitors
now. Occasionally she returned their calls. She and Sara always enjoyed
their evenings together. They would read and talk, and many long
earnest discussions they had on matters of science and theology, which
always led them to spiritual things.
One day May heard from her brother on his way home, and strangely
enough, by the same mail, Sara heard from hers. Arnold's friend had
fractured his ankle, and they were returning to England before their
year was over.
"It seems as if our circumstances are fitting in like a puzzle!" said
Sara, laughing.
"My brother will want me in town very soon; and you will be wanting me
no longer."
"Don't say that! I think I shall always want you. But I know what you
mean. Oh, Sara, what shall I do, when I am forced to leave this dear
old house? I have so much to interest and occupy me here. Imagine me
at a loose end in town! I always feel like a fish out of water there.
Where shall I live? What shall I do? You made your plans before your
brother married, but I can't do that. I know he will want help when
he first comes back. He knows nothing of the working of the estate. I
should like to take a cottage in the village and stay on as his agent.
I wonder if I could?"
"I don't think it would be wise. Your brother would not get to know his
tenants so well if you did, and though it is delightful for you to be
able to look after everything in his absence, it wouldn't be the same
thing if he were here. It would place him in a false position."
"Yes, I expect you are right. I had better make myself scarce, as soon
as ever he knows his way about."
"I don't see why you shouldn't live in the neighbourhood still. You
need not separate yourself from them altogether, need you?"
"The fact is, I know I should not be able to keep from interfering if
things went wrong," said May, laughing. "And Lilian is quite as fond of
managing as you say I am. I am afraid we should not get on if we lived
close to one another; whereas now we are great friends, and I should
always be able to pay them a visit in the summer."
"I wish you would come and pay me a visit," said Sara. "I shall settle
down in town. My brother will have to be there, and it would be very
nice to have you, before you decided about your future."
"I should love to come to you. May I really? Now, that makes my way
clear. I shall come straight off to you directly I leave this."
A heavy sigh followed. May tried valiantly to keep up a brave heart,
but as yet she had not always succeeded.
In a very little time her brother arrived.
Sara liked him, and though May had perhaps the stronger character of
the two, Alan was a clear-headed straightforward young fellow. He told
Sara he was bitterly sorry to leave his profession. He had always had a
passion for the sea from a boy, but his father only let him enter the
Navy on condition that he would leave it, and take possession of the
property when it came to him.
"And I mean to do my best," he said, "but I shall never run the show
like my father did. He was a born farmer, and loved his land as I love
the sea. I don't know much about farming, but I shall learn, and I mean
to have an agent. It wasn't necessary with my father. It will be with
me."
Then he spoke of his sister.
"She's a fine woman, isn't she? A born ruler. I'm sorry she means to
turn out. The house will hold us both, and Lilian and she are very fond
of each other. But I must leave her a free hand. Women can't be coerced
these days, eh, Miss Darlington?"
Then came the day for Sara and her little nephew to return to London.
She left the Hall with sincere regret, but looked forward to seeing May
according to her promise later on.
And when she got back to town, she found her brother awaiting her. He
was delighted at the growth of his baby son, who was now a year old,
and a most intelligent and amusing little mortal.
Sara, with her usual adaptability, soon settled down in the town house
again, and life went on much the same as it had done before.
Then one day she heard from Mrs. Laird, asking her if she could ever