Chapter XI: A Young Visitor

COLONEL FLEMING was the first one to return, and he came round to see Mrs. Laird at once.

"Graham has gone to Dalby," he informed her. "Some relative of yours there, eh? He'll be following me in a few days' time. His change has done him a lot of good, Mrs. Laird. He was in first-rate form, and his shooting took the cake!"

"We are expecting him in three days' time," said Mrs. Laird. "I hope you all enjoyed yourselves."

"Oh, it was great sport. Quite a big house-party. I told you Mrs. Jeffery turned up."

"Not Eva?" said Mrs. Laird in astonishment.

Colonel Fleming gave a little chuckle.

"Clever young woman she is," he said.

Sara suddenly frowned at him; and her frowns were so unusual that he gave an embarrassed cough.

"Er—well—she's a pretty young woman, Mrs. Laird, eh? And a great favourite with some of the fellows there. She's not there now, you know. Left when we did. We travelled part of the way together."

"How is your farm getting on?" Sara asked.

Colonel Fleming immediately plunged into a list of delinquencies on the part of his men in his absence, and Sara kept him busy on that topic till he went.

She accompanied him to the hall door, and said then—

"I do wish you would not mention Mrs. Jeffery in conversation with Mrs. Laird. Don't you know that she does not like her?"

"Awfully sorry! But 'pon my word she is a minx! Do you know she's made Graham her child's sole guardian and trustee? And such a lot of confidential business she transacts with him! I got hold of her one day and tried to warn her that he never would be a marrying man.

"'Such stuff to make him a trustee for your child!' I said to her. 'Why don't you marry again and let your husband do it? Lots of chaps waiting for you to encourage them a bit!'

"And then she looks at me with her big reproachful eyes. 'Graham is the only relation I have in the world!' she says. 'If I can't turn to him, whom can I turn to?'

"'Well,' I said, 'of course he'll be a single unattached man to the end of his life—told me so the other day—so he'll have more time to give to the business perhaps.'

"She gave a little ghost of a smile and walked away. She always walked away from me, but I put Charlie Carter on her track—told him she had a fat little income, and was feeling her lonely state. He admired her, likes womanly women you know, and he haunted her steps, has got her address at Brighton, and means to turn up there soon. My dear Miss Darlington, I'd rather see Graham married to your Izzie than to that young lady! There's something slimy about her! Can't help myself! I never could cotton to her when she was here, but I dare say that's because she didn't like me. She has a way of pleasantly ignoring anybody that won't be of any use to her!"

"Well," said Sara, laughing, "Mr. Laird is able to look after himself, I think, and if he is fond of her, you must stand back and let him have his desire."

"I never will!" said Colonel Fleming, stamping upon the ground energetically. "I've looked after him too long. Miss Darlington, Graham is a chap who lives for other people, not himself. And those sort want to be protected. If he thought a woman wanted him, he would give himself away to her out of sheer cussedness of generosity! It wouldn't matter about his life at all, only about hers. And I'm not going to see him make a mess of his affairs as—as I've done."

His tone softened. Sara spoke very quietly.

"My dear Colonel, Mr. Laird would not be at all likely to desert his mother or bring a wife into her house whom she would not welcome. You say yourself that he told you he had no intention of being ever anything but a bachelor. Does not that content you?"

"Yes, yes, of course I'm a fool, an old fool. Good-bye, take care of yourself. You look a little fagged. Had any hill rambles lately?"

"Not many. I shall when Mr. Laird is home again."

She went indoors, thinking how good it was to have such a staunch true friend as Colonel Fleming, and wondering uneasily if there was any foundation for his fears. She found it difficult to soothe Mrs. Laird when she joined her again.

"I am convinced Eva means mischief. She wants to take my son from me, and she will make him miserable—his life will be a hell on earth with her! It wasn't a coincidence her being included in that house-party. She managed it all. I know her!"

This and more Mrs. Laird poured into Sara's ears, and she listened and expostulated, but could give little real comfort.

Mrs. Laird grew feverishly anxious for her son's return, and yet when he did come, she had actually so worried herself into a sick headache that she was obliged to go to bed before he arrived.

But in a quarter of an hour Graham had restored her peace of mind to her. The very look of him, the calm grave tone of his voice, and the affectionate inquiries after her health, all brought reassurance to her. She felt that he had at present no desire to wreck her peace and spoil their home together.

"I'm a regular stay-at-home," he said to her, with a little smile coming to his lips. "Do you know I have been counting the days to get back to you! Now, I'm not going to talk much to-night. To-morrow I have a lot to tell you about Cousin Anna. My mind is full of her at present."

Mrs. Laird turned over on her pillows with a rested heart, and went sound asleep directly he had left her.

Sara and Graham dined together downstairs. Their conversation was mostly on local topics, but towards the end of the meal, he looked round the room meditatively.

"We are old and shabby," he said, "but how is it you give such an atmosphere of bright comfort in the room in which you are? I have felt nothing like this the whole time I have been away, and yet our quarters at Lyle's shooting-box were most luxurious!"

Sara laughed.

"That is good to hear," she said; "I must tell your mother that. I wish you had not come home to find her laid up. She and I have had very good times together, and last Sunday she went to church with me!"

Graham looked astonished. Then he said quietly—

"You are a wonderful woman."

When dinner was over, Sara went upstairs to Mrs. Laird. She soon came down to the drawing-room, and found Graham reading his newspaper there before the fire.

"Now," she said, "we have another surprise for you! Mrs. Laird has gone to sleep, and I do not want to wake her, but she asked me to show you the surprise. Will you come this way?"

She stepped out into the passage and opened the door of what had been a lumber-room. It was behind the kitchen and looked out into the garden. Graham could hardly believe his eyes. All the boxes and rubbish had disappeared. A dark crimson carpet was on the floor, and the same coloured curtains to the big square window. There was a square table with a new desk and inkstand, two big leather armchairs. A bureau with a glass bookcase on top, and a roomy cupboard in a recess. Some old prints lined the walls which were covered with a grey paper. A small bright fire flickered in the grate.

It looked as it was meant to look, a man's room waiting for him to occupy it.

"Your mother thought of everything. She was horrified that you had written, and read, and smoked, and ate in the same room—the dining-room."

"It did not seem worth while to move from it," said Graham. "I really shan't know myself. What a revolutionary person you are, Miss Darlington!"

"But it isn't me! It is your mother."

"Yes—yes—but you have carried out her wishes, and aided and abetted her all through. I am in luck! Dear little mother!"

He looked round him as pleased as any boy, and then Sara slipped away. And Graham sank into one of the big chairs, pulled it close to the fire, and lighting up his pipe gave himself up to some very pleasant reflections.

The next day he went off early to interview Sir Malcolm, but got home in time for lunch, and found Mrs. Laird downstairs and quite herself again.

At lunch, he began to talk of his visit to Dalby.

"Cousin Anna was overjoyed to see me," he said. "I found her a pitiful little creature, overtaxing her brains and strength by multiplicity of good deeds, and being defrauded right and left by a most obnoxious rogue of a secretary. She had just begun to find him out, and was terrified of convicting him of dishonesty. I went to her in the nick of time, for I spent a good day and night studying his books, and then gave him the sack on the spot. She is one of the frailest little creatures I have seen, does a man's work, and does not seem to have a single capable person about her. The only person I saw who seems to have any gumption is a sad overworked girl, a kind of companion to her, I fancy. She, Cousin Anna told me, is her right hand in most of her charitable objects, and it was she who opened her eyes to the delinquencies of the secretary."

"And what about her colliery?" asked Mrs. Laird. "Is she still working that? Is that in a satisfactory condition?"

"I should doubt it, for she is always changing her agents. She says she must have a Christian man at the head of it. And her so-called Christian men prove failures from a business point of view."

"Poor Anna, she always was queer from a girl!" said Mrs. Laird. "Have you been able to find her another secretary?"

"Not yet. I want to overhaul her accounts a bit first. I have brought a batch of books away with me, and promised her I will go back for a day or two, till she gets straight again."

"You are not going away again?"

"Not for long, mother. I couldn't leave my work here. I may run up for a week-end."

"I don't really see why you should worry over Anna's business affairs. Can't she engage a lawyer to work for her?"

Graham smiled.

"She says she doesn't trust lawyers, and she's a woman who likes to keep the reins in her own hand. The consequence is that only inferior and incapable people will work with her. But she has given me 'carte blanche' to do what I like, provided I pull her out of her difficulties."

"How can you be in two places at once?" said Mrs. Laird. "Sir Malcolm takes up all your time here."

"Oh, I can do a good deal in a week-end. I should have the whole of Sunday up there, and could get through a good bit of work in it."

A sudden silence fell on them. Then Graham began to tell them about his Scotch visit, and he was more animated than Sara had ever yet seen him.

Later in the day, he happened to come through the garden as Sara was trimming some dead flowers and tying up her chrysanthemums. He stopped and began to assist her. His help was very welcome, and Sara said as she thanked him—

"Your rôle in life seems to be to help us women."

"It's the least I can do. I feel so sorry for my poor little cousin. She is too guileless, and is taken in right and left. If she would only not try to mix up religion with business she would get on much better."

"I don't agree."

"No, I know you don't. But the fact is there. These Christian secretaries and agents are all rogues and hypocrites. They are fleecing her."

"Then that proves they are not genuine Christians. There is always the counterfeit article, is there not?"

He did not reply for a moment, then he said, abruptly—

"I saw disapproval stamped upon your face when I mentioned working for her on Sunday. Now, doesn't your Bible say somewhere that you can rescue an animal on a Sunday? Is it more wicked to rescue a human being, especially a little saint? If I don't do something for her, she'll drift into a regular quagmire of debt."

"I don't think she will let you work for her on Sunday," said Sara. "You are a Christian, aren't you? We are all bound to respect the day of rest."

"I am bound to nothing. I never go to church, as you know."

"I am hoping you will go with your mother next Sunday."

"Why?"

"It will please her, and will do you good."

"I wish I could see things as you do. But religion has never influenced me as a practical thing. And I am essentially practical and matter-of-fact."

"True religion is absolutely practical. May I quote St. James? What can be more practical than his definition of it.

"'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.'"

"The latter condition is very vague."

Sara shook her head.

"We won't argue. But has not your mother's altered state of mind proved that religion is very real and practical?"

"But I don't put down my mother's improved health to her religious views. It is your vivid personality that has impressed and changed her.

"Nothing of the sort," said Sara, emphatically. "I could live with her for fifty years and never be able to bring her peace of mind. She has given herself into the keeping of our Master. He brought her into touch with Himself, and she lives every day of her life now wholly dependent on Him for strength and guidance."

"You may fancy that, but it is your—shall I call it mesmeric influence that plays upon her heart. If you went away, what would happen? Why, ten chances to one, my mother would lapse into her old depression of spirit."

"Not now," said Sara, firmly.

"Now, Miss Darlington, do you really believe that the Creator of the Universe would take the trouble to pick out my mother as His special charge?"

"Certainly I do. What are we told?

"'Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'"

"You must know your Bible by heart," said Graham, with a little smile. "I still maintain that you, rather than our Creator, influence my mother."

"I should almost like to go away from her to prove how wrong you are."

"Oh, please don't do that! What a discussion we are having. I am only too thankful for my mother's improved health and spirits—whatever may be the cause!"

The subject dropped.

But the following Sunday, Graham did accompany his mother to church, and Mrs. Laird was very happy in consequence. He drove her there and back, but Sara preferred to walk across the hills by herself.

As Graham and his mother were returning, Mrs. Laird said—

"I have missed a great deal of happiness all these years; what a blessing Sara has been to us all!"

"Would you miss her if she left you?"

"Very much indeed. She is not thinking of doing so, is she?"

"Not that I know of, but I suppose she will be wanting a change some time. Would you be very miserable without her?"

"My dear boy," and Mrs. Laird put her hand gently on his arm, "I don't think I shall ever be miserable again. I have new life in my soul. It's just as we were hearing this morning, 'The Lord guides us continually and satisfies our souls in drought.' I have Him with me. And though I have lived most of my life without Him, He has forgiven the past, and now fills me with joy."

"Very wonderful," murmured Graham, and he said no more.

It was not long before he paid another visit to his old cousin. He was only three or four days away, but he did not spend Sunday there, and then he made an astonishing proposal to his mother the day before he returned.

"May I bring back Cousin Anna's young helper, a Miss Godwin? She has had an attack of influenza, and is run down and badly needs a change. Our beautiful hills will soon set her up again, and Cousin Anna is quite willing to spare her."

"A strange girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Laird to Sara. "How can we do it? We never have visitors. There is no spare room. And how can we entertain her when she comes? I have seen so few people that I am shy of meeting strangers. If it were Anna herself, it would be different."

"I think you might manage it," said Sara, persuasively. "There is an empty room at the top of the house which I could move into, and give her mine. You wouldn't have to entertain her. I expect it is rest she needs. She would be quite happy, I am sure, if she were allowed to amuse herself."

"I shouldn't like you to turn out of your room at all, for you are close to me, and I should miss you."

"Very well, if you give me leave, I am sure I could make that top room cosy for her."

Mrs. Laird made no further objections, and Sara took Izzie to help her, and worked very hard all that day and the next. But the result fully paid her for her trouble. The little room looked quite fresh and dainty, and Izzie was wildly excited at the prospect of a strange young lady coming to stay with them.

The travellers arrived by an early afternoon train, so that they reached the house by five o'clock, and there was an abundant tea waiting for them in the drawing-room. Mrs. Laird was quite composed when she greeted the stranger; Sara looked at her with real interest. She was a tall slim girl, with auburn hair, beautiful hazel eyes, and a small white face and pointed chin. Her complexion was delicate and transparent. When she got a little flush upon her cheeks from the fire where she stood to warm herself, Sara thought her very pretty. But her face in repose lacked animation, and she was very shy.

Yet once, when Sara laughed, she looked up at her quickly with a flash of light in her eyes, then in a moment lapsed into her quiet pensive mood again.

"Miss Godwin was not in love with our lake, Miss Darlington," said Graham. "She did not make me pull up, and go into ecstasies over it as you did."

"Perhaps Miss Godwin has seen views like it before. You must remember I came straight from London; and the contrast was very marked."

The girl looked up quickly.

"I have never seen anything like it before, but it was eerie and lonely and desolate; it made me want to cry."

"You must see it in the sunshine," said Sara, cheerily, "with the blue sky reflected in it and the birds singing above it. You would want to sing too!"

The girl did not answer. She leant back in her chair looking tired and fragile. And Sara noted with an ache at her heart how very thin she was. She took her up to her room and did not worry her with talk.

Graham was talking to his mother about her when Sara returned to the drawing-room.

"She is being worked to death, a willing slave, but Cousin Anna does not realize the strain it is for a young girl to go on year in and year out without any change or holiday. They are devoted to each other, and once the doctor told her that Miss Godwin must go away, she was quite anxious and willing that she should do so."

"We will soon make her stronger."

Graham looked at Sara with a grave softness in his eyes.

"I told Cousin Anna that you would be better than a gallon of doctor's tonics."

"Thank you," said Sara, laughing. "I can't promise that, but change of air and scene are better than a tonic any day."

Miss Godwin retired early to bed that evening, and Sara visited her the last thing with a tumbler of egg and milk beaten up together, which she insisted that she should take before she went to sleep.

"I am going to take you in hand," she said, with one of her irresistible smiles; "you are nothing but a bag of bones at present!"

The girl flashed a grateful look at her. Then she impulsively put her hand on Sara's arm.

"I feel I am in a dream. Will you be my friend and let me talk to you? And will you call me by my Christian name, which is Ina?"

"A dear little name," said Sara, and she stooped and kissed her. "You poor child," she added, "of course, I shall be delighted to be your friend. Now good night. Sleep well, and then you will be able to talk to me to-morrow."

She left her and went downstairs, wondering why this girl had been brought into the quiet life at Felstone Corner.

When Sara re-entered the drawing-room, she found Graham still there talking to his mother. He looked up at her inquiringly.

"Well, what do you think of her? My mother fancies she may prove an additional burden to you."

"I have no burdens in this house," said Sara, happily; "my heart is full of pity for her, and I'm longing to see her lose her careworn lines and wrinkles."

"I have been asking who she is," said Mrs. Laird.

"And I have been telling my mother that she was the daughter of a former rector of the parish in which our cousin lives. She was the only child, and lost both her parents when she was seventeen. Cousin Anna befriended her, and she has been living with her for the last seven or eight years. A cold, joyless life, I should say, but you religious people would say it ought not to be, for she has been entirely devoted to good works."

"Good works is a very vague term," said Sara. "In any case, all workers need relaxation and rest sometimes."

"I don't believe she has ever had it. Cousin Anna is wiry, and doesn't like to be absent from her work. She told me she occasionally goes to the sea, which is twenty miles or so from them, for a week-end. But when she goes there, she takes all her accounts and reports and keeps this child well at it for quite half of every day."

"How will she manage without her?"

"Quite well. A friend of hers has gone to stay with her. I really believe if this girl had friends to whom she could have gone, she would have been sent away before. But that was the difficulty which I tried to solve."

"Well," said Mrs. Laird, "she seems very gentle and quiet, and Sara will know how to amuse her. Now I am going to bed. Good night."

They separated. Sara's thoughts as she laid her head on her pillow that night were full of Ina Godwin. She wondered at herself for taking such an interest in her, for as a rule young girls did not appeal to her as much as old people.