Janet's Love and Service Part 70

Arthur was rather taken aback. He was by no means sure that it would be a wise thing to discuss his sister's affairs with his wife. f.a.n.n.y would never be able to keep his news to herself.

"You ought to be in bed," said he.

"Yes, I know I ought. But is she not a wretch?"

"Graeme, a wretch!"

"Nonsense, Arthur! I mean Mrs Tilman. You know very well."

"Mrs Tilman! What has she to do with it?"

"What! did not Graeme tell you?"

And then the whole story burst forth--all, and a good deal more than has been told, for f.a.n.n.y and Rose had been discussing the matter in private with Sarah, and she had relieved her mind of all that had been kept quiet so long.

"The wretch!" said Arthur. "She might have burned us in our beds."

"Just what I said," exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, triumphantly. "But then, Sarah was there to watch her, and Graeme knew about it and watched too. It was very good of her, I think."

"But why, in the name of common sense, did they think it necessary to wait and watch, as you call it? Why was she not sent about her business? Why was not I told?"

"Sarah told us, it was because Miss Elliott would not have Mrs Snow's visit spoiled; and _Rose_ says she wanted everything to go smoothly, so that she should think I was wise and discreet, and a good housekeeper.

I am very much afraid I am not."

Arthur laughed, and kissed her.

"Live and learn," said he.

"Yes, and I shall too, I am determined. But, Arthur, was it not very nice of Graeme to say nothing, but make the best of it? Especially when mamma had got Nelly away and all."

"It was very nice of her," said Arthur.

"And mamma was very angry to-day, and Graeme said--no, it was mamma who said she would let me manage my own affairs after this, and Graeme said that would be much the best way."

"I quite agree," said her husband, laughing.

"But, Arthur, I am afraid if it had not been for Graeme, things would have gone terribly wrong all this time. I am afraid, dear, I _am_ rather foolish."

"I am sure Graeme does not say so," said Arthur.

"No. She does not say so. But I am afraid it is true all the same.

But, Arthur, I do mean to try and learn. I think Rose is right when she says there is no one like Graeme."

Her husband agreed with her here, too, and he thought about these things much more than he said to his wife. It would be a different home to them all. Without his sister, he acknowledged, and he said to himself, that he ought to be the last to regret Graeme's decision with regard to Mr Green and his European tour.

In the meantime, Graeme, not caring to share her thoughts with her sister just then, had stolen down-stairs again, and sat looking, with troubled eyes, out into the night. That was at first, while her conversation with her brother remained in her mind. She was annoyed that Mr Green had been permitted to speak, but she could not blame herself for it. Now, as she was looking back, she said she might have seen it coming; and so she might, if she had been thinking at all of Mr Green and his hopes. She saw now, that from various causes, with which she had had nothing at all to do, they had met more frequently, and fallen into more familiar acquaintanceship than she had been aware of while the time was pa.s.sing, and she could see where he might have taken encouragement where none was meant, and she was grieved that it had been so. But she could not blame herself, and she could not bring herself to pity him very much.

"He will not break his heart, if he has one; and there are others far better fitted to please him, and to enjoy what he has to bestow, than I could ever have done; and, so that Arthur says nothing about it, there is no harm done."

So she put the subject from her as something quite past and done with.

And there was something else quite past and done with.

"I am afraid I have been very foolish and wrong," she said, letting her thoughts go farther back into the day. She said it over and over again, and it was true. She had been foolish, and perhaps a little wrong.

Never once, since that miserable night, now more than two years ago, when he had brought Harry home, had Graeme touched the hand or met the eye of Allan Ruthven. She had frequently seen Lilias, and she had not consciously avoided him, but it had so happened that they had never met.

In those old times she had come to the knowledge that, unasked, she had given him more than friendship, and she had shrunk, with such pain and shame, from the thought that she might still do so, that she had grown morbid over the fear. To-day she had seen him. She had clasped his hand, and met his look, and listened to his friendly words, and she knew it was well with her. They were friends whom time, and absence, and perhaps suffering, had tried, and they would be friends always.

She did not acknowledge, in words, either her fear or her relief; but she was glad with a sense of the old pleasure in the friendship of Allan and Lilias; and she was saying to herself that she had been foolish and wrong to let it slip out of her life so utterly as she had done. She told herself that true friendship, like theirs, was too sweet and rare a blessing to be suffered to die out, and that when they came home again the old glad time would come back.

"I am glad that I have seen them again, very glad. And I am glad in their happiness. I know that I am glad now."

It was very late, and she was tired after the long day, but she lingered still, thinking of many things, and of all that the past had brought, of all that the future might bring. Her thoughts were hopeful ones, and as she went slowly up the stairs to her room, she was repeating Janet's words, and making them her own.

"I will take heart and trust. If the work I have here is G.o.d-given, He will accept it, and make me content in it, be it great or little, and I will take heart and trust."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

If, on the night of the day when Janet went away, Graeme could have had a glimpse of her outward life for the next two years, she might have shrunk, dismayed, from the way that lay before her. And yet when two years and more had pa.s.sed, over the cares, and fears, and disappointments, over the change and separation which the time had brought, she could look with calm content, nay, with grateful gladness.

They had not been eventful years--that is, they had been unmarked by any of the especial tokens of change, of which the eye of the world is wont to take note, the sadden and evident coming into their lives of good or evil fortune. But Graeme had only to recall the troubled days that had been before the time when she had sought help and comfort from her old friend, to realise that these years had brought to her, and to some of those she loved, a change real, deep, and blessed, and she daily thanked G.o.d, for contentment and a quiet heart.

That which outwardly characterised the time to Graeme, that to which she could not have looked forward hopefully or patiently, but upon which she could look back without regret, was her separation from her sister. At first all things had happened as had been planned. They made their preparations for their long talked of visit to Merleville; they enjoyed the journey, the welcome, the wedding. Will went away, and then they had a few quiet, restful days with Janet; and then there came from home sad tidings of f.a.n.n.y's illness--an illness that brought her in a single night very near to the gates of death, and Graeme did not need her brother's agonised entreaties to make her hasten to her side. The summons came during a brief absence of Rose from Merleville, and was too imperative to admit of Graeme's waiting for her return, so she was left behind. Afterwards, when f.a.n.n.y's danger was over, she was permitted to remain longer, and when sudden business brought their brother Norman east, his determination to take her home with him, and her inclination to go, prevailed over Graeme's unwillingness to consent, and the sisters, for the first time in their lives, had separate homes. The hope of being able to follow her in the spring, had at first reconciled Graeme to the thought, but when spring came, f.a.n.n.y was not well enough to be left, nor would Norman consent to the return of Rose; and so for one reason or other, more than two years pa.s.sed before the sisters met again. They were not unhappy years to Graeme. Many anxious hours came in the course of them, to her and to them all; but out of the cares and troubles of the time came peace, and more than peace at last.

The winter that followed her return from Merleville, was rather a dreary one. The restraints and self-denials, which the delicate state of her health necessarily imposed upon her, were very irksome to f.a.n.n.y; and Graeme's courage and cheerfulness, sometimes during these first months, were hardly sufficient to answer the demands made upon her. But all this changed as the hour of f.a.n.n.y's trial approached--the hour that was to make her a proud and happy mother; or to quench her hope, perhaps, her life, in darkness. All this was changed. Out of the entire trust which f.a.n.n.y had come to place in her sister Graeme, grew the knowledge of a higher and better trust. The love and care which, during those days of sickness and suffering, and before those days, were made precious and a.s.sured, were made the means of revealing to her a love which can never fail to do otherwise than the very best for its object-- a care more than sufficient for all the emergencies of life, and beyond life. And so, as the days went on, the possibilities of the future ceased to terrify her. Loving life, and bound to it by ties that grew stronger and closer every day, she was yet not afraid to know, that death might be before her; and she grew gentle and quiet with a peace so sweet and deep, that it sometimes startled Graeme with a sadden dread, that the end might, indeed, be drawing near.

Graeme was set at rest about one thing. If there had lingered in her heart any fear lest her brother's happiness was not secure in f.a.n.n.y's keeping, or that his love for her would not stand the wear and tear of common life, when the first charms of her youth and beauty, and her graceful, winning ways were gone, that fear did not outlast this time.

Through the weariness and fretfulness of the first months of her illness, he tended her, and hung about her, and listened to her complaints with a patience that never tired; and when her fretful time was over, and the days came when she lay hushed and peaceful, yet a little awed and anxious, looking forward to she knew not what, he soothed and encouraged her with a gentle cheerfulness, which was, to Graeme, pathetic, in contrast with the restless misery that seemed to take possession of him when he was not by her side. One does not need to be very good, or very wise, or even beautiful to win true love; and f.a.n.n.y was safe in the love of her husband, and to her sister's mind, growing worthier of it every day.

Graeme would have hardly acknowledged, even to herself, how much Arthur needed the discipline of this time, but afterwards she saw it plainly.

Life had been going very smoothly with him, and he had been becoming content with its routine of business and pleasure. The small successes of his profession, and the consideration they won for him, were in danger of being prized at more than their value, and of making him forget things better worth remembering, and this pause in his life was needed. These hours in his wife's sick-room, apparently so full of rest and peace, but really so anxious and troubled, helped him to a truer estimate of the value of that which the world can bestow, and forced him to compare them with those things over which the world has no power!

f.a.n.n.y's eager, sometimes anxious questionings, helped to the same end.

The confidence with which she brought her doubts and difficulties to him for solution, her evident belief in his superior wisdom and goodness, her perfect trust in his power and skill to put her right about matters of which until now she had never thought, were a reproach to him often.

Listening to her, and pondering on the questions which her words suggested, he saw how far he had wandered from the paths which his father had trod, how far he had fallen short of the standard at which he had aimed, and the true object of life grew clearer to him during those days.

They helped each other to the finding of the better way; she helped him most, and Graeme helped them both. These were anxious days to her, but happy days, as well. In caring for these two, so dear to her in seeking for them the highest happiness, in striving, earnestly, that this time might not be suffered to pa.s.s, without leaving a blessing behind, she forgot herself and her own fears and cares and in seeking their happiness found her own.

This quiet time came to an end. The little life so longed for, so precious, lingered with them but a day, and pa.s.sed away. f.a.n.n.y hovered for a time on the brink of the grave, but was restored again, to a new life, better loved and more worthy of love than ever she had been before.

That summer they went south, to the seaside, and afterwards before they returned home, to Merleville, where Arthur joined them. It was a time of much pleasure and profit to them all. It did Arthur good to stand with his sister beside the two graves. They spoke there more fully and freely than they had ever spoken to each other before, of the old times, of their father and mother, and of the work they had been honoured to do in the world; and out of the memories thus awakened, came earnest thoughts and high resolves to both. Viewed in the light which shone from his father's life and work, his own could not but seem to Arthur mean and worthless. Truths seen dimly, and accepted with reserve, amid the bustle of business, and the influence of the world, presented themselves clearly and fully here, and bowed both his heart and his reason, and though he said little to his sister, she knew that life, with its responsibilities and duties, would henceforth have a deeper and holier meaning to him.

Janet never spoke to Graeme of her old troubled thoughts. "It is all coming right with my bairn," she said, softly, to herself, the very first glimpse she got of her face, and seeing her and watching her during these few happy days, she knew that she had grown content with her life, and its work, and that the fever of her heart was healed. And as the days went on, and she saw Arthur more and more like his father, in the new earnestness of his thoughts and hopes, and watched f.a.n.n.y gentle, and loving, mindful of others, clinging to Graeme, and trusting and honouring her entirely,--a f.a.n.n.y as different as could well be imagined from the vain, exacting little housekeeper, who had so often excited her indignation, a year ago, she repeated again and again. "It is coming right with them all."

Another year pa.s.sed, bringing new cares, and new pleasures, and, to Arthur and f.a.n.n.y, the fulfilment of new hopes in the birth of a son. To Graeme, it brought many longings for the sight of her sister's face, many half formed plans for going to her, or for bringing her home, but Arthur's boy was three months old before she saw her sister. Will was still in Scotland, to stay for another year, at least Harry had been at home several times since his first sorrowful departure, and now there was a prospect that he would be at home always. A great change had taken place in his affairs. The firm of Elphinstone and Company no longer existed. It was succeeded by one, which bade fair to be as prosperous, and in time, as highly honoured as it had been, the firm of Elliott, Millar and Company. Mr Ruthven was still in the business, that is, he had left in it the capital necessary to its establishment on a firm basis, but he took no part in the management of its affairs. He lived in Scotland now, and had done so ever since the death of his wife, which, had taken place soon after they had reached that country. He had since succeeded, on the death of his uncle, his father's brother, to the inheritance of a small estate near his native place, and there, with his mother and his little daughter, he resided. Either, it was said, his uncle had made his residence on the place a condition of possession, or he had grown tired of a life of business, but he, evidently, did not intend to return to Canada at present; even his half-brother, who deeply regretted his early withdrawal from active life, and earnestly remonstrated with him concerning it, knew little about his motives, except that his health was not so firm as it used to be, and that he had determined not to engage in business again.

Harry had changed much, during the years of his absence. Up to the time of his leaving home, he had retained his boyish frankness and love of fun, more than is usual in one really devoted to business, and successful in it. When he came back, he seemed older than those years ought to have made him. He was no longer the merry, impulsive lad, ready on the shortest notice, to take part in anything that promised amus.e.m.e.nt for the moment, whatever the next might bring. He was quiet and observant now; hardly doing his part in general conversation, holding his own views and opinions with sufficient tenacity when they were a.s.sailed, but rather indifferent as to what might be the views and opinions of others; as unlike as possible to the Harry who had been so ready on all occasions, either in earnest or in sport, to throw himself into the discussion of all manner of questions, with all kind of people.

Even in their own circle, he liked better to listen than to speak, but he fell quite naturally and happily into his place at home, though it was not just the old place.

Graeme thought him wonderfully improved, and made no secret of her pride and delight in him. Arthur thought him improved too, but he shocked his sister dreadfully, by professing to see in him indications of character, that suggested a future resemblance to their respected friend, Mr Elias Green, in more than in success.