A happy woman
nurseries, for they had been papered with a paper illustrating the
Nursery Rhymes, and in one corner cupboard she had found a headless
doll in an old wastepaper basket.
Mrs. Laird looked about her with a soft, tremulous smile. She was
wondering if a few years hence, pattering feet and baby voices would be
heard up here from her sitting-room below. And Sara walked through the
rooms, her hand on Graham's arm, and her grey eyes misty with dreamy
hope.
When the house was thoroughly explored, they went downstairs and
brought cushions and rugs in from the car and spread them in the sunny
drawing-room. Then the luncheon basket was unpacked, and they all did
justice to their meal. Afterwards, Mrs. Laird said she would like
to sit and rest there. Graham had found an old garden chair in the
conservatory, and he brought it in and tucked her up so comfortably in
it, that she had quite a long nap. Whilst she was resting, True was
scampering round the old garden, and Sara and Graham paced the paths
together.
"Do you like our future home?" he asked her gently. "Knowing how fond
you were of the country and of a garden, I could not bear to think
of bringing you into a town house, and when I at last found this, it
seemed to fit you."
"It is quite palatial," said Sara, laughing, "but I do like it very
much. I always think houses have their atmosphere, and I am sure this
must have had a happy one."
"In any case you would soon make it a happy one," said Graham. "Shall I
ever forget your first few weeks at Felstone Corner? What a miserable
atmosphere you came into! An ugly house, comfortless rooms, rough
ignorant servants, my poor mother in the depths of woe, and a rough
surly silent man."
"No," said Sara, quickly, "a weary sad, patient man, content to
think nothing of his own prospects and happiness, wholly absorbed in
ministering to the wants of his invalid mother. Before I had been a
week with you, I admired you from the bottom of my heart!"
Graham shook his head, then went on—
"What changes you wrought! How quietly you went to work, how slowly
but surely you brought sunshine into every dark corner of that house!
I don't know which time I loved best, the summer evenings when I came
home to find you in your cool white gown amongst your beloved flowers
tending and watering them with a look of love upon your face, or the
winter nights when I used to steal upstairs and see you sitting by
my mother's side in the firelight, with your guitar upon your knee,
singing those bewitchingly sweet little songs of yours. I was so afraid
that you would stop when you saw me that sometimes I used to slip out
of my boots at the bottom of the stairs and creep up noiselessly and
sit on the top stair outside my mother's room listening to all of it.
How did you manage to content yourself in those first miserable days?"
"I was always hoping for better times," said Sara; "and I loved the
lake and the hills and the country. And when once your mother began to
get better, how happy I was!"
"Would you like to go back there again?" asked Graham.
Sara shook her head.
"I don't think I should care to live there. It was a desolate bit of
country, wasn't it? Very beautiful, but no friends are there now. Do
you regret leaving it? Tell me truly, Graham. Does this town life suit
you?"
"I am getting to enjoy the work. I understand the men much better, and
I think they are getting to understand me. And I see now the principles
which were the mainspring of my cousin's good works. I told you once,
Sara, that I would leave all the religious part of the work to you. I
don't want to do that now."
Sara looked up at him with sweet earnestness.
"What a difference that will make to me! Don't you see, Graham, that
having the same aim and object in life, you and I will be drawn much
nearer together than if you went your way and I mine?"
"I see that you were right, as you always are, when you sent me away
from you."
Then they wandered round the garden. The long sloping lawn in front
of the house, with its group of old cedars at the farthest end, the
herbaceous borders under the old brick walls, the rose garden, and
the small Dutch garden, and the winding walk through a shrubbery of
rhododendrons and azaleas, all were visited in turn. Sara felt as if
she were in a dream. Once Graham referred to her brother.
"I pity him, when you have to leave him. What will he do?"
Sara smiled.
"He will console himself. He is very fond of May Agnew. I told you
about her, and his only fear is that she does not care for him, but
the other day I discovered that she did. And I quite understand men
marrying again. They become accustomed to women and cannot get on
without them."
Then she stopped.
"Don't think I am meaning anything personal."
"I told you," said Graham, quietly, "that I considered my marriage an
interlude. You ought to have been my first and only wife, Sara. You
know that."
Sara did not reply. She gazed over the old garden dreamily.
Graham, seeing her sweet wrapt face, asked her to give him her thoughts.
"I was resolving to make up to you, if I could, for all your lonely
barren years!"
Graham caught her in his arms and kissed her.
"One day with you now has more than compensated me for all those bygone
years," he said.
And then they were interrupted by True, who wanted to show Sara a
squirrel up a tree. They did not get any more time alone, for the
builder arrived and business was done with him for the rest of the
afternoon. They all returned home in the car in time for tea, having
had a very enjoyable day.
In the evening, Mrs. Laird asked Sara to sing to them. She willingly
did so, and many of Mrs. Laird's old favourites were asked for. Then
just before Mrs. Laird went to bed she asked for the hymn that had
first touched and quickened her soul. Sara sang it sweetly and softly
as she always did, but with passionate warmth in some parts of it, and
Graham listened entranced. It had new meaning to him now.
"'Souls of men, why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?'"
When Sara had finished it, he said—
"We shan't be able to let you go, Sara. I can't think how mother and I
have existed without you all this time."
"When will you come back?" asked Mrs. Laird.
"I am going to give her a month to get herself ready: no longer," said
Graham with determination.
Sara looked up at him with a shake of the head.
"Give me till June," she said, "the month of June! What do you say to
being married on Midsummer Day? Your builder said he could complete the
repairs and decorations by the beginning of June!"
"It's too far off."
"Time will soon remedy that."
They finally settled upon Sara's date.
Mrs. Laird retired to bed, and Sara and Graham were alone.
A little bright fire was in the grate, as the evening was chilly. She
sat in a chair, in unconscious grace, her eyes dreamily and happily
gazing into the red-hot coals. Graham stood warming his back, his dark
eyes fixed upon her.
Then he spoke slowly—
"Sara darling, we must get away alone together. I love my mother and
I love the child, but I want you, and you only. I am selfish. I have
always had to see you and talk to you before others, now I want to have
you all to myself. I will not bring you to our home directly after
marriage. Where shall we go?"
Sara looked up at him and smiled, but her heart beat quickly.
"I want a honeymoon," he said.
"Then," said Sara, "let us go back to Felstone, and see the lake once
more. I love it so. And I could see that poor old herb doctor again and
Agnes his daughter."
"I would want you to see no one but me," said Graham. "I have never
been really with you—never told you half that is in my heart. We will
go back there if you wish. I don't care where it is, as long as we are
together. Do you think I shall make you happy, Sara? Or rather shall I
add to your happiness?"
His tone was somewhat wistful.
Sara rose from her seat. Then she turned towards him—
"You have worked for the happiness of every woman you have come
across," she said with her soft laugh; "do you think that I shall be
your first failure? Oh, Graham, life has had its clouds as well as
sunshine, for both of us, but now that we belong to each other, I feel
that I can weather an eternity of storms if you are by my side."
And then Graham held her in his strong arms, and was content.
THE END
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