Chapter IX: “george’s Valley.”

“GEORGIE, I can’t believe it is seventeen years since we were here last. Why, it seems exactly like yesterday,” said Dulcibel.

She did not so often now call him “Georgie” as “George,” which name indeed better befitted his fine presence. But associations of early married life were strong in this place, and Dulcibel reverted to the term naturally; for they were back once more in the old Welsh hotel, close upon the wide Welsh moor, with its grounds and its avenue, and its fair surrounding hilly landscapes. The hotel had made some advances in refinement with advancing years: otherwise things were little changed.

Only people were changed. George and Dulcibel were bridegroom and bride no longer, but middle-aged man and wife; and the infant Joan had become a finished young lady; and Nessie took the place of the absent Leo.

Moreover, of all the faces around the horseshoe table at dinner the evening before, not one could be recognized as identical with a boarder in the hotel at a certain date seventeen years earlier. The tide of life had swept them elsewhere, bringing back only the Rutherfords and Joan.

Morning having come, and everybody feeling refreshed after a goad night, George Rutherford suggested an excursion somewhere. Nessie waited passively for other folk’s opinions. Joan’s face glowed an assent. Dulcibel, standing at the front window of the drawing-room, and gazing out with a pensive air, gave utterance to the remark with which the chapter begins.

“Joan has grown a good deal since yesterday,” George observed rather drily.

“But seventeen years. Can you believe it? Seventeen years! And it all comes back so strongly. I can remember Joan crouching in that corner for almost a whole day, refusing to say a word to anybody. And there was a clergyman, Mr. Meredith, standing just here with me, talking about her—such an odd child she was!”

“Mother, we are wasting our time,” said Joan, disposed to frown.

“You two girls may go and get your boots on,” George said. “Mother and I will settle plans meantime.” And as they vanished he came a step nearer. A few people were at the other end of the room, talking, but none stood within easy earshot. “Well, Dulcie, where shall we go?”

Dulcibel looked up rather defiantly.

“The valley, of course, George; but Nessie and I will not cross the bridge.”

“No?” George uttered the word half-questioningly.

“Certainly not,” Dulcibel answered. Then a pause; and Dulcibel lifted her eyes anew to meet his. “What do you mean?” she asked involuntarily.

“I had you with me, Dulcie, the last time I was there; and I shall want you this time.”

“You’ll have Joan. I don’t mean to cross that bridge.”

“I should like my wife not to be a slave to causeless fears. Failure in such little battles means loss to one’s self.”

“We’ll get ready, George, as soon as you like. But I shall not cross the bridge.”

George smiled, and seemed to yield. Dulcibel thereupon went off to her dressing-room. She kept all the rest waiting for her, as a matter of course. After the lapse of seventeen years, buttons had still to be sewn on her boots at the last moment.

“I wish Leo were here. Well, it will not be long,” was George’s remark on starting.

The walk to the valley was full of recollections for him and Dulcibel. They paced it together most of the way, the two girls keeping in front, except where there was space for four abreast. Then Joan always fell back immediately to her father’s side, and Nessie to her mother’s.

George had a book of poetry in his pocket—Trench’s Poems once more. But he had not brought it this time at Dulcibel’s suggestion. Seventeen years of married life had quite convinced Dulcibel that an unpoetical wife could not become poetical for her husband’s sake. She often asserted decisively now that he must take her as she was; and George most wisely did so, expecting no unreasonable things.

The Shaking Bridge was reached at last; hanging still upon its wires and chains, vibrating at a touch. And the stream flowed below, and the trees hung lovingly over, and the banks were rich with luxuriant, dewy moss.

Dulcibel stood still, and beckoned Nessie to her side.

“We are going to wait here,” she said resolutely.

George was looking at Joan. She seemed to have forgotten her companions, and was stepping on the bridge, with heightened color and intent eyes. He followed her half over, his steady tread making the whole structure heave and swing. There he remained, while Joan walked to the other side, and stood still, looking about dreamily.

“Can you remember it, Joan?” he asked.

She turned her face towards him.

“Not well, father. It is not in the least like what I have fancied—except grass and trees—and people. I have a picture in my mind of a little girl sitting on the ground, and somebody taking her up in his arms. But I don’t know how much is really recollection, and how much is imagination.”

“A difficult question to settle. Can you recall your mother leaving you here?”

“No,” Joan said slowly. “No, father.”

She walked on a few paces, and stood still again, absorbed in thought. George went back to his wife.

“Now Dulcie.”

“I’m not going over, George.”

George smiled and held out his hand. Dulcibel hesitated, unable to refuse an answering smile, and then accepted the offered grasp, with a reiterated, “I don’t mean to go.”

“If you thought there was real danger you would not be content to let me cross.”

Dulcibel found this unanswerable.

“But if I would rather not,” she said, relenting.

“Then you will come to please me, and not yourself.”

“You are the most tiresome, provoking, tyrannical man I ever knew,” Dulcibel answered; after which her eyes fell, and the lashes grew moist, and she clung to his arm. “Georgie, dear, I’m very horrid, I know, but I’ll come. Only Nessie is not to walk over alone.”

“I will go back for her,” said George, marvelling at the illogical nervousness which professed to doubt the strength of the bridge, and yet insisted on a double weight.

Once across, Dulcibel’s spirits rose, even while she was declaring that she should not have a moment’s peace until the return crossing was effected. George smiled again, brought Nessie across, sent her on to Joan, and said softly—

“The old lesson, Dulcie.”

“What old lesson?”

“‘I will fear no evil.’”

“David must have been a very different sort of person from me,” responded Dulcibel rather combatively.

“Peter was not so different.”

“Peter! Why?”

“‘O thou of little faith!’” quoted George; not the first time he had quoted the words in this valley, whether or no he remembered the fact.

“I can’t help being what I am,” said Dulcibel.

“You don’t really mean what that would seem to imply.”

“No,” Dulcibel said at once honestly, “I suppose not. At least if I were talking to somebody else, I should say that one has to trust, and that God can do all for us. But practically I don’t find that I am different from what I used to be. I suppose I don’t trust enough. Of course it is very easy for you, always strong, and always expecting the best, and never afraid. I am afraid of things. It gives me such a dreadful feeling now to think of seventeen years having gone by since we were here last. And one never can tell what will happen next, or how long things will still go on so. Every year makes changes more likely. But don’t talk about changes now—there’s no need. We’ll sit down soon and have some biscuits. Girls, you can hunt out a cosy corner, somewhere near the river.”

Dulcibel had of course brought her luncheon basket, and a waterproof cloak for emergencies. The latter was spread out to form a seat for herself and Nessie, George and Joan being close by. Biscuits were disposed of with relish, and talk flowed merrily. Each item of the former visit was recalled, together with divers reminiscences of Joan in childish days, till the black brows showed her objection to the subject. Then George produced a green volume.

“Do you remember this, Dulcie?”

“Trench’s Poems? Why, I do believe that is the book I brought here last time, when I used to think I ought to like everything that you liked. And you read aloud a doleful poem that made me cry.”

“Father, do read the same again!” begged Joan.

“That you may see mother cry?”

“I should not be so silly now,” said Dulcibel. “It was a thing in short stanzas, three lines to each; I remember that, though I have forgotten all the rest. And you know, George, I detest poetry.”

George said “Yes,” as he turned over the leaves.

“But you would like father to read it again now, wouldn’t you?” asked Joan.

Dulcibel’s “Well, perhaps—yes,” was not very enthusiastic.

“If I can find it,” George said dubiously. “My recollections are rather vague. Ha, here it is, I believe!”

“Do skip a little, if it is very long,” pleaded Dulcibel, peering over at the page. “A few verses will do.”

“Very well, my dear. I’ll skip some, on condition that you hear the rest patiently.”

Dulcibel gave a little gape behind her hand, and assumed an air of resignation, as George began—

“Thou inevitable day,
When a voice to me shall say—
‘Thou must rise and come away;’”

“‘All thine other journeys past:
Gird thee, and make ready fast
For thy longest and thy last.’”

“Day deep hidden from our sight
In impenetrable night,
Who may guess of thee aright?

“Art thou distant, art thou near?
Wilt thou seem more dark or clear?
Day with more of hope or fear?”

“Wilt thou come, unseen before
Thou art standing at the door,
Saying, Light and life are o’er?”

“Or with such a gradual pace,
As shall leave me largest space
To regard thee face to face?”

* * * * * *

“Will there yet be things to leave,
Hearts to which this heart must cleave,
From which parting it must grieve!”

“Or shall life’s best ties be o’er,
And all loved ones gone before
To that other happier shore?”

“Shall I gently fall on sleep—
Death, like slumber, o’er me creep,
Like a slumber sweet and deep?”

“Or the soul long strive in vain
To escape, with toil and pain,
From its half-divided chain?”

“Little skills it where or how,
If thou comest then or now,
With a smooth or angry brow;”

“Come thou must, and we must die
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by
When that last sleep seals our eye.”

The rich, sweet utterance of the last verse was indescribable, and Joan’s face was turned away, while Dulcibel found her own eyes suddenly moist. A short silence followed before she said—

“I don’t believe you left out a single line.”

“Yes, dear; I left out two verses.”

“Well I don’t believe it is the same you read to me last time, though it is dismal enough for that or anything.”

“Not dismal, Dulcie.”

“Dreadfully dismal,” asserted Dulcibel. “What is it called?”

“The Day of Death.”

“And it’s about nothing but dying all through.”

Joan looked round with a quick movement.

“I like it,” she said. “If only one could feel so.”

“Very few people do,” observed Dulcibel.

“Except—” said George.

“No, not ‘except.’ Very few of even really and truly good people do, George. I am sure most of them are afraid, if they would confess it.”

“You must have better means of knowing the condition of ‘most people’ than I have. But no doubt a good many people are ‘all their lifetime subject to bondage’ on this account. One may be absolutely safe, without fully realizing one’s safety.”

“It is not only that,” said Dulcibel. “I think it is the feeling of the ‘must’ that is so dreadful—knowing that things must go on, and we all must grow older, and changes and death must come. That is the worst.”

“‘Thou inevitable day,’” George quoted in answer to this—

“‘Come thou must, and we must die:
Jesus, Saviour, stand thou by
When that last sleep seals our eye.’”

“Dulcie, you speak as if it were a going down into darkness, instead of going up into light. It will be out of night into day.”

“Not for all,” said Dulcibel.

“For all who are the Master’s own.”

“But still—”

“And the very inevitableness of the change is matter for rejoicing, not dread.”

“You may feel so. Other people don’t,” murmured Dulcibel.

“Father, after all it is giving up everything—going from every one,” said Joan.

“No, no, Joan; it is gaining, not losing—going to, not from,” said George.

“But the strangeness,” said Dulcibel.

“The land of light can be no strange country to us, with Jesus our Master there,” George answered.

“If one could feel it all real,” said Dulcibel.

“Father does,” Joan uttered looking up in his face.

Nessie took no part in the discussion.