Chapter VIII: Graham's Visit

GRAHAM came to lunch, had a smoke and chat with Arnold in his study, and then hearing that Sara was going to the Abbey service, asked if he might accompany her. They walked across St. James's Park, which was looking bright with bulbs and spring flowers.

Sara found conversation rather difficult. Graham was peculiarly silent, he seemed to her to be in dreams, but in reality every moment of his time with her was precious to him. If he was in dreams, she formed the centre of those dreams.

They reached the Abbey, and managed to get seats in the Choir. The service was exquisitely rendered, and the anthem that afternoon was, "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." One boy's voice rang out with such thrilling power and sweetness that tears came to Sara's eyes.

When they came out, Graham said—

"I haven't enjoyed a service like that for many years. It seems to lift one up to the heights."

"Yes," said Sara; "I've had a very happy hour. I always come here in the afternoon. I let nurse go out in the evening and stay with my small nephew then."

"May I, if we have spare time on our hands, come and see you on our way home? True is always talking of you. I shall put up at an hotel to-morrow night and then bring her up to town Tuesday. Will you be in that afternoon?"

"I shall make an engagement of it," said Sara with her happy smile.

Then they talked of some of the philanthropic ventures of Graham's cousin. He seemed to know all the weak points in them, and had already remedied a good deal.

"You are more interested in this part of the work than you were," said Sara, presently.

He looked at her.

"I have had my outlook changed," he said quietly. Then he added—

"I always used to wonder if your happiness was just a habit, if it was cultivated, or whether it was spontaneous, the bubbling up of a spring inside. I know it is the spring overflowing. That anthem explains it, doesn't it? I'd like you to know that the first bit of it has become my experience."

Before Sara could speak, he was holding out his hand. They had come to her brother's house and he was saying good-bye.

"No, thank you, I won't come in, but we'll hope to see each other next Tuesday."

"Mr. Laird, you 'must' let me say how glad I am!"

Sara's shining eyes made Graham's heart throb. He was putting great restraint upon his feelings.

"I knew you would be," he said simply, and then he turned away.

And Sara went indoors with unspeakable joy filling her heart.

She almost counted the moments to Tuesday, and then took herself to task for being so glad.

"Still," she argued to herself, "I am wronging no woman by thinking of him and loving him, even if he has left off loving me. And I shall see him once more, and I shall have the memory of it afterwards."

Tuesday came, and between three and four, Graham came into Sara's drawing-room leading little True by the hand.

The child seemed to make the situation easy at once. She flung her arms round Sara's neck.

"Isn't it lovely what's happening? Me leaving school and always going to live with Dad and Grannie! And we've done some shopping. And I choosed some new gloves for Dad, and we're taking Grannie a beautiful basket to put her knitting in, with cherries hanging over it."

"Shopping is a tremendous undertaking with True," said Graham, his eyes alight with humour: "she thinks that every shopwalker and all the assistants ought to gather round and witness our purchases."

"I made Dad get some new gloves," said True, shaking her curls at him in a motherly fashion. Then she darted to his side, and plunged her hand into one of his coat pockets. Drawing out a stout, well-worn leather pair of gloves, she held them up before Sara to see.

"Now, did you ever see such disgusting, shabby gloves?" she cried. "Grannie and me has to look him all over to see he is tidy when he comes to church with us!"

Sara's laughing eyes met Graham's.

"Yes," he said; "I'm well managed, I can tell you!"

He sat down and took True on his knee. The little girl subsided when her stepfather and Sara began to talk to each other, but at last she said in suppressed excitement—

"Miss Darling, may I see your dear little baby? Dad says he hasn't seen him, but we both know him by his picture. I know you aren't his real mother now. Grannie explained it to me. I thought you know that—"

But Sara had hastily risen, and rung the bell.

"Yes, True darling, you shall see him at once. I will have him brought down. He is getting quite a big boy now."

Little Oliver appeared in his nurse's arm. He struggled to get to Sara, and when in her lap, True advanced to make friends with him. He was quite willing to be friends, and presently he scrambled down to the floor, where he crawled very quickly towards Sara's guitar case.

"Moo, moo, moo!" he called out.

"There, isn't that clever?" cried Sara in delight. "He's beginning to talk already. He loves music, and I play and sing to him when he comes down. Now he quite expects it."

"Don't disappoint him," said Graham. "True and I would like to hear you."

For a moment, Sara hesitated, then she opened her case. The baby sat on the floor looking up expectantly.

And then she broke into one of her pretty gay little songs called "Fairybells."

The tinkles of the bells were so realistic that True laughed and clapped her hands, and the baby joined her, beating his hands on the floor.

Graham looked on. If this visit was enjoyed by Sara, to him it was a dream of delight.

"Ah!" he said. "We must tell Grannie about that song, True."

He asked Sara to sing again, and she did so, and then tea came in.

True hardly wanted to have hers. She was so engrossed in playing with the baby on the floor that she wanted nothing else. And when his nurse came in to take him away, she parted with him with the greatest reluctance.

"I wish you and baby would come and visit us," she said, when at last she was seated up at the table enjoying some jam sandwiches.

"Dad, dear, she'd come if you asked her, I expect."

But Graham shook his head gravely.

"I have asked her already and she has refused me. And I don't like to be refused anything that I set my heart upon, True. Perhaps one day I may ask her again, and then she may say 'Yes.'"

"And when she comes, we'll never let her go again," cried True, gaily.

Sara blushed, and she was conscious that Graham noted her blush.

"Baby's father wants us both," she said in a cheerful tone. "I have my brother to look after, just as you look after Dad, True."

"Have you reely? Is he as untidy as Dad? I'm always tidying his pockets, and his writing-table."

They talked away, and then Graham carried True off with him to his hotel. They were going to start for the North early the next morning.

Good-bye was hard to say, and Sara's voice faltered a little as she sent love and messages to Mrs. Laird and Ina.

Graham held her hand in his as if he could not let it go, but his words were few—

"Good-bye. If ever I am up in town again, may I come and see you?"

"Of course. I am always glad to see old friends."

She could not, and would not, meet his gaze.

When they had gone, she sat wrapt in dreamy meditation. And it was not till her brother came in and claimed her attention that she roused herself.

The next few days found her restless and preoccupied. Then, happily for her, she heard from May, asking her if she could have her for a short visit, and Sara brightened up again, and prepared to welcome her warmly.

May arrived late one afternoon. Arnold did not see her till she came into the drawing-room before dinner. She swept in with her usual proud graceful carriage. She was clad in a thin, black gown, which intensified the whiteness of her neck and arms. Her hair was coiled up on the top of her head. She wore no jewelry of any sort, but she was a girl who could not fail to be noticed anywhere. And her easy grace, and clever, amusing talk, made her always a favourite with men. Sara was not surprised to see her brother fall under her spell.

May had lost the harassed look of gloom that she had after her father's death. She gave Sara an amusing account of her brother's efforts to understand and manage his tenants.

"I came across him one day haranguing a very uppish farmer. They were both red in the face, and were going at it hammer and tongs.

"'I tell you,' Alan was shouting, 'I may not know as much about soil and mangels as you do, but I do know that you've one of the best farms on the property, and are putting by more money than most of us about here. My father knew what a fair rent was, and I'm not going to reduce it by one penny!'

"They stopped when I came up. I asked Alan afterwards if it was nice to show such heat in discussing such matters with a tenant, and he said:

"'Only to hide my ignorance, my dear. I'm not going to let them browbeat me! And as to shouting, we all shout at sea, it's second nature!'

"Oh, he'll get on with them soon. And I feel that you are right, Sara. It is best that I should leave him to weather it out alone."

"Have you made any plans yet?" asked Sara.

"I want to do something in town. Work of some sort."

"What a passion you all have for work nowadays!" said Arnold. "Why have you such abundant energy? Women used not to possess it."

"I suppose we are stronger, physically," said May, thoughtfully. "And our schools train us in a wider way, and give us a broader outlook, and a higher idea of our capabilities. I am not one of those who would leave home to work. But my home has left me. And I can't sit down with folded hands and do nothing. I have led a very active life at home, and I want to be active still."

"So many girls come to London to find work," said Arnold. "I see scores of them going about the city. Typewriting and clerking gives them stooping shoulders and weary-lined faces—old before their time. If I were your brother, Miss Agnew, I would not allow you to do it."

"There speaks a despot," said May, laughing; "how could you prevent me?"

"I have prevented Sara. She had those ideas when we first left home, but I persuaded her that I was going to the bad living alone in town. So she swallowed the bait, and settled down with me as meek as Moses!"

Sara laughed.

"Yes, he is right in what he says, May. But men are very helpless without women to look after them; and I have learnt that filling empty corners and helping those who need help is as much work as anything else."

"Yes," said May, her expressive dark eyes shadowing a little, "but then nobody wants me. I have no empty corner to fill."

Arnold had been standing at the open window as he talked. He now stepped out upon the balcony, and gazed with troubled brooding eyes over the quiet square in front of his house.

"I wonder," he said to himself, "whether I dare to hope that she might fill mine."

May had not been with them a week before her cousin, Captain Talbot, discovered her, and came round to take her out. She was away the best part of one day with him, and came back in very low spirits.

Sara and she were dining alone that evening. Arnold was out.

When they were in the drawing-room together after dinner, May said—

"Aren't men tiresome, Sara? I think I must tell you. My cousin asked me to marry him this afternoon. I have always been very fond of him as a cousin, but nothing more. Now this spoils everything. I hoped to see a good deal of him when I was up here. I have other relations, but they are very gay; I never do care much for incessant amusement, and just now, of course, I should not go anywhere. I had made up my mind that Charlie and I would do several little quiet expeditions together, and now that is all over. I have lost my cousin and my friend."

"Don't you really care for him?" asked Sara, sympathetically. "I only saw him that one evening, but I thought he seemed such a delightful man."

"Not as a husband. I know him too well. I feel very down to-night, Sara. Will you sing to me? It is so desolate to be without a home, isn't it? I feel I can never settle in town. It's far lonelier than the country. I have absolutely no object in life. If only I had, I should be happier."

Sara got up to get her guitar.

Then she sang very sweetly and softly—

"I've been to the familiar places,
The dear old ways;
But there were no familiar faces
That met my gaze.
The green woods were too lonely,
I, there alone,—I only.

"I climbed among the mountain ridges
Beyond the town,
And on its crowded streets and bridges
Looked sadly down.
The mountain was too lonely,
I stood alone,—I only.

"But looking up, not down, Faith traces
A City Fair,
And sees the dear, familiar faces
That gather there;
None stand deserted, lonely,
Yet still my own,—mine only.

"And strange! while gazing on that City
New life is found,—
My heart is filled with yearning pity
For men around.
I must not enter lonely,
Nor bring one,—one only.

"I will go forth, to sinners telling
That Christ has come,—
I will go forth, by love compelling
The wanderers home;
Pointing the lost and lonely
To Christ alone,—Christ only!" *

* S. L. F., _Lyra Christiana._

There was dead silence when the last note died away.

May sat in a dusky corner of the drawing-room, and she was shading her eyes with her hand. At last, she broke the silence.

"I can't think where you get your songs from! You have one suitable for every occasion."

Her words were lightly spoken, but there was a little break in her voice. Then in a gentler tone she added—

"I do like that immensely, Sara; you live the last verse out, and I'd like you to know that you haven't pointed in vain as far as I'm concerned. But I can't imagine myself taking up that role; I know so little, I am so ignorant. I only know that beneath all the loneliness and sorrow, I have real deep peace and assurance that I belong to Christ and that He loves me."

"Dear May, the rest will follow. You need not try to teach before you have learnt, but you will soon realize the compelling force of love. I hoped that you were happier. But I waited till you felt you could tell me about it."

"It's intensely comforting," said May, slowly, "but oh, I have such a longing for father. Sara, do you believe that we can hold no communion with the dead upon this earth?"

"Personally I don't believe God wishes us to do so, but may I tell you what has been a tremendous comfort to me? A few years ago I lost a very dear school friend. She and I were friends for many years, in fact we wrote to each other every day. She married and went to India, but we never stopped writing to each other. She helped me in spiritual things more than any one else on earth. She died suddenly in India from fever, and a blank came into my life. I found myself longing to tell her things. And at last, I seemed to realize that it could not be wrong when I was praying, to ask that God Himself, if He saw fit, would give her a message from me, or let her know what I was so anxious she should know. It is so perfectly easy for Him, is it not? And He loves to have us pour out our hearts before Him. It must be the better way, rather than resort to spiritualism as so many do. That, we know from the Bible, is directly opposed to God's will. If, as we believe, our loved ones are in God's keeping, surely we can ask Him to speak to them about anything that we feel they would like to know. I feel that if it is good for them to know it, they will be told, and if not, we must rest content with God's will in the matter."

"That's very interesting," said May, thoughtfully; then she added—

"You always give me food for thought when we talk together. Now let me give you an idea of mine. I should like to go and live in a settlement in the East End for a short time. I should learn a good deal there—be helped myself, and perhaps be able to help others."

"I think it would be splendid for you, but I should like you to get into the right kind of settlement. Some of them are so much more helpful than others. Don't plunge in anywhere, will you? Let us make inquiries together first."

"Yes. I will not be in a hurry. You see, Sara, I am not like you. I don't think I am sympathetic enough to have any personal influence amongst people in my own class. I'm not very fond of girls, you know. I like visiting the poor. I have always done it, and it comes natural to me."

Sara did not tell her friend that she would find the London poor rather different to her father's country tenants. She knew that she must buy her experience, but as they parted that night for bed, Sara put both her hands on her shoulders, and said tenderly—

"Dear May, I shall go to sleep very happy to-night. Doesn't it make life fuller and deeper to you?"

"Very much," said May, gravely. "You know I'm not a demonstrative person, Sara, but I understand as I never understood before how it is you are such a persistently happy person. And I can never thank you enough for having shared your wonderful secret with me."