Chapter XXIII: A Present Help

“WHAT did you say the other day to make my father ill?”

Joan put the question in abrupt point-blank fashion, with no sort of circumlocution. Mr. Brooke’s hauteur of manner increased, and so also did his aristocratic paleness. He was annoyed at her fearless manner. He would have liked to feel his own power over her, would have liked to suppress and tame her by look and word. Then too Joan’s resemblance to his long-lost son struck a chord within him, and set it vibrating painfully.

“I was not aware that Mr. Rutherford had been ill,” he said coldly.

“Father was taken worse directly you left. Something you said did him harm. It was very wrong of you to force yourself upon him like that—very wrong,” repeated Joan, with troubled eyes and saddened lips. “He was just getting a little better, and now he is all thrown back again. He hasn’t been able to tell me yet what passed: and I want to know, if you please. I might be able to comfort him.”

Mr. Brooke was not accustomed to endure blame from another, and his face grew rigid. “Your opinion of my action can have very little weight,” he observed slowly. “But it would be as well that you should remember to whom you are speaking—if indeed you have yet been informed of the relationship.”

“I know that you call yourself my grandfather,” Joan answered. “I don’t know how you prove it.”

“You are at liberty to disbelieve the fact, if you wish, Joan Brooke.”

A pause; and then—“Was it that which startled father so much? I don’t think it need. I could never leave him to go to anybody else. No relatives could be to me now what he is.”

“I, at least, assert no such claim,” said Mr. Brooke.

Joan did not seem to be making way. She lifted her soft, yet defiant, eyes, and said—“How am I to know?”

“To know that you are my granddaughter?”

A curious smile passed over Mr. Brooke’s face. He felt suddenly that he had Joan in his power. “There could be no possible difficulty in proving the fact. If my word is not sufficient, you have only to go to Marian Brooke, the widow of my unhappy son, and the daughter of old Cairns. She will supply you with all necessary information.”

“Marian—Brooke!” Joan was growing white as ashes.

“Marian Brooke—your mother.”

For a moment he thought Joan would have fainted dead away on the spot; but she did not. Every vestige of color left her lips, and a strong shudder of repulsion passed through her whole frame. But the next moment her dark eyes were looking him again steadily in the face.

“Marian is the name of the person from Cairns farm who nursed my mother in her illness last autumn—Mrs. Rutherford, I mean,” added Joan.

“Indeed—singular, if she did! Marian Brooke!”

“No; she only called herself Marian! She seemed ashamed of her surname, and would not tell it.”

“H’m! A very singular person,” said Mr. Brooke. “However, that woman, Marian Brooke of Cairns farm, is, as I say, the widow of my unhappy son, Hubert Brooke. When my son married into the Cairns family, I gave up all connection with him and his. But for the dying wish of my wife, I should not now be in connection with—with—”

“His daughter—if I really am that,” said Joan. Her eyes flashed, and her cheeks grew crimson, as she stood up, with a sudden haughtiness of manner equal to his own.

“You need not be afraid. I shall never trouble you!” she said briefly. “If I would ever leave my own dear father for anybody in the world, I would rather go to Cairns farm than live with you. But I shall not do either. Good-bye.”

Mr. Brooke had an uncomfortable sense of being worsted. He forced a smile, and said—“If my granddaughter should find herself ever in want of friends—”

“I would never come to you—never!” cried Joan, in her anger and pain. “If your story is true, you ought to have told it long ago, or else never have said anything at all.”

She went so resolutely towards the door that Mr. Brooke had no choice but to hold it open for her. Joan passed straight out, pressing her lips together, and gazing past the old gentleman with a studied indifference.

“Good-bye,” Mr. Brooke said. “Remember, if ever you should be in want—”

But Joan was gone.

Once in the road, she hurried homewards—passionately, vehemently—allowing herself no time for thought. A great blow had fallen upon her; but she crushed aside all recollections of Marian. Only to get back to the Hall, back to her beloved father, this was her one desire. Ah, if he were but still as he once had been, she would have taken her trouble to him, and half the burden would be gone. Now she might not venture to speak; now it must be borne alone, with no human helper.

Everything looked dark and hopeless to Joan, through that long way between Mrs. St. John’s and the Hall. She had never found any distance so great before. Would it ever come to an end? She grew so utterly weary that it became almost impossible to drag one foot before the other. When home was at last in sight, the garden appeared interminable; and when Joan reached the Hall, she stood within the front door, leaning on the balustrade at the foot of the staircase, unable to ascend.

“Joan, is anything wrong?” asked Dulcibel, coming up. “Why—Joan!”

Joan burst into tears. “I am so dreadfully tired, mother.” She spoke the last words with an unwonted tenderness. Who could tell how much longer Dulcibel Rutherford would be “mother” to Joan?

“Tired! You poor child, I should think you were!” said Dulcibel. “Come upstairs to your own room and rest. What made you go so far?”

Joan attempted no explanation, and obeyed with difficulty, dragging herself from step to step, with that same feeling of leaden-weighted hopelessness. Once in the room, she dropped down, not on the bed but on the floor.

“Please let me—please let me lie still, mother dear!” she pleaded, in answer to Dulcibel’s alarmed remonstrance. “I’m not faint—only so very, very tired. Nothing rests like the floor. Please!”

Dulcibel submitted wonderingly. She brought a pillow for Joan’s head, and threw a shawl over her; then stood looking down at the pale cheeks and dark brows.

“I can’t think what is the matter, Joan,” she said. “I hope you are not going to be ill.”

“Oh no!” Joan said, with a long breath. “I shall be rested soon. Please kiss me, mother—one kiss, and then I’ll be alone. Don’t tell father.”

Dulcibel stooped to comply, and afterwards took herself softly off, to enter into a troubled consultation with Nessie as to the probable cause of Joan’s “odd state.”

Joan lay meantime in a kind of crushed silence and languor, not stirring, not even thinking, only conscious of a black cloud over her life. She dared not let herself look the matter fully in the face. She was capable at first of nothing but endurance. For nearly an hour this pause of body and mind lasted, and then the vigor of her young strong nature began to assert itself. Joan slowly sat up, pushed back the hair from her brow, and sighed deeply.

“I shall have to tell mother,” were the first words that passed her lips. “She and Nessie must know—and Leo.” Joan was surprised at the sudden shrinking which assailed her there. “Leo—must Leo be told? Yes, of course; he is one of us. Why not? I can’t deceive any of them. The sooner I speak, the better. And father—oh, dear, dear father!” sobbed Joan—“it would never make any difference to him. Perhaps to others, not to him. But doesn’t he know already?”

Joan stood up and went to the bow-window, where her little writing-table stood. How often she had sat there, looking out on the fair expanse of lawn and flower-beds, trees, and shrubs, and distant meadows! Everything was just the same as always, only Joan’s own condition seemed so changed.

“Cairns farm! Cairns farm, my real mother’s home! And that old man my grandfather!” Joan shivered. “I don’t believe it—I can’t believe it. And Marian— Oh, I never, never could think of her as mother! It can’t be true—it can’t be true!” moaned the poor girl, in a low-voiced anguish. “Father would never turn me away—never, never! But what will mother say? I don’t know how to tell her! And Leo? If only I could hide my head, and never see anybody again, except my own dear, dear father!”

Joan leant her forehead against the windowpane, sighing heavily again.

“If mother should turn against me—mother thinks so much of family and position. And father—now he is weak—if she should persuade him! No, that would be too terrible! I could not leave father. But when mother knows who really is my mother and my grandfather—that old farmer and her nurse—and my other grandfather too proud to have to do with me! I don’t care about him; but this—this; it does seem so strange. Father is not proud; but still—the Cairns living so near; and if mother—oh, if I could be sure they would not mind, I could bear anything—but if mother and Nessie turn against me—and Leo—”

Grief and distress were rising, to an over-powering pitch. Joan left the window, and walked to and fro with hasty, uncertain steps.

“How can I bear it? What can I do? If there were any help for me! If there were any help!”

As the words left Joan’s lips, her eyes fell upon the Bible which always lay on her writing-table, a well bound, handsome volume, one of George Rutherford’s numberless gifts to his adopted child.

And a sudden longing came over Joan. Might not comfort be found here?

She turned over a few pages slowly. Here and there a light pencil-mark drew attention to a particular passage—George’s doing again.

“A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.”

Joan did not see the words, but they came into her mind. She turned at once to the 46th Psalm.

“‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”

Was not that enough?

At all events, Joan went no farther. She sat looking at the words, which seemed to grow in strength and beauty as she gazed, and once more the dark eyes filled and overflowed. Joan closed the book, and knelt down just where she had been standing.

“O God, I am in such trouble; please, please help me, for Jesus Christ’s sake,” she sobbed.

No simpler prayer could well have been uttered; but more was not needed. Again and again she repeated the pleading words; and a strange sweet sense of coming help crept over her.

“Will he help me? I think he will. I do think he will,” murmured Joan, kneeling still, but looking up.

“Joan may I come in?” asked Nessie’s voice at the door, and Joan rose at once, going to meet her.

“Mother didn’t like me to disturb you; but she thought I ought. Father seems so surprised not to see you. We think it worries him. Are you more rested, Joan?”

“Yes, quite,” Joan answered. “I’ll go to father directly. Do I look as if I had been crying, Nessie?”

Nessie made a sound of assent. “But the blinds are half down in the study,” she said; “so father may not see.”

Joan had not much hope. Altered as George Rutherford might be in many respects, he was keenly observant still, and no change of expression in the faces of those he loved ever passed unnoticed by him. Joan had not been five minutes in the study before he was asking—

“What is the matter, my dear?”

Dulcibel, just in the act of quitting the room, turned back to say—

“She went too far, George, and tired herself. It was a great pity. But she looks better now.”

“Was that the case?” asked George, as Dulcibel vanished. “Nothing but that?”

“I was tired, father.”

George Rutherford examined her narrowly, and a look of care came into his own face.

“Tell me all about it, Joan,” he said gravely.

“Another day, please, father. It is over now.”

“My dear, it will worry me more not to know. I can see that you have been unhappy. Perhaps if we both speak openly, each may be some help to the other.”

Joan turned her head away.

“I went to see old Mr. Brooke,” she said. “And he told me what he had said to you—about himself—and about—”

“Marian?” asked George cautiously. If Joan did not yet know this thing, he was in no haste to tell her. There were times still when George, if not flurried or excited, had much of his old presence of mind: and it was so now.

“Yes, father.”

“My poor little girl!” was his response.

“Mother doesn’t know yet,” Joan said, drawing a long breath. “But she must, of course.”

“I should have told her, if I had felt equal to speaking!”

“Father, you must not try. I will tell her and Nessie.”

Then a deep silence, broken at length by Joan.

“Father, you would never give me up—even if others wished it? Mrs. Brooke has no right over me—and I don’t think mother will wish me to go, even when she knows. You would never give me up.”

Not the answer she expected came, but only a clasping hand and continued silence.

“Say you would not,” entreated Joan.

George spoke slowly, as if he had a difficulty in utterance. “If it were right—if it should be our duty—” and Joan looked up, to see the signs of suffering which she too well knew.

“I cannot weigh the matter yet. It is all confusion,” he said.

“No, not a word more. I have been wrong to let you talk,” Joan said calmly. “Lie still, dear father, and try not even to think.”